Monday 19/03/12

Yesterday i was able to get most things completed that i wrote down to do, except a second A1 sheet which was going to be based on drawings of depth of field portraits and still life. I hope to do this tomorrow. Today i have photographed my second disabled person, and i did things a bit differently this time. Before beginning the photographs i looked at each room in his house, to see what backgrounds would look good. I also spoke to the person about what kind of photographs i wanted to achieve, and whether he had any ideas for photos. I took some photographs of his hands, as he has a condition called lebrosy, which can disfigure certain parts of the body, in his case his hands. I also took some of him balancing a cup and saucer on his hand, as it is different to how a person with five fingers would hold it. We also experimented with him holding kitchen objects such as saucepans, the kettle and wooden spoons. I found it interesting to document the way he washolding things, and i found that the photographs have been my best yet. The atmosphere was calm and i had a better sense of knowledge on how to focus the camera properly, to create depth of field. There was unsuccessful shots as well as successful, but i will be evaluating these photographs and asking friends and tutors for feedback.

I think that this facial expression the man is showing shows his personality, but i could have cropped the photograph better, however i wasn't able to go back any further and i was zoomed out on the camera as much as i could.

I tried taking a photograph landscape, i was able to get more of the background in this way and he looked more in the centre of the image.

He put his hands together in this photograph, as i wasn't getting the whole of his hands in in some of the photographs, however it still cuts off his arm and i had that problem again where i wasn't able to move back any further.

I then moved on to taking photographs which focused on the hands, i thought these were quite successful and i got him to move his hands into different positions, to get different photographs each time.

Again i think this image shows the disorder very well and clearly, and the image is quite simple, where it is just focusing on the hand.

I included his arm in this photograph, just to make it look a bit more natural, so it didn't look as though i had just stuck a hand in the picture.

He then started to use both hands, where he did two different positions with his hands.

This photograph makes the hand look quite awkward, however this is the way he would pick up something.

I then started to get him to experiment with objects in the kitchen, where he balanced a cup and saucer on the top of his hands, which was something i found very interesting to document. My tutors also liked the fact that the cup and saucer had created a shadow, making the image look more effective.

A closer up image, focusing more on the hand and the cup and saucer rather than the background.

I shot which shows the man, showing most of his body. It shows behind him that he is in an atmosphere which is within his home and which he feels comfortable in.

Cooking is something that this man enjoys to do in his spare time, so we started to experiment with pans, where i photographed him holding the pan and pretending to stir. It shows him using his hands in an everyday situation, making the photograph look natural.

This time i photographed his face and body, also showing the expression on his face.

I got him to use a kettle to make himself a cup of tea, again something someone would do on a daily basis.

Over all i think that these are my strongest photographs yet, and i plan for them to improve when i take some more photographs of a different person on thursday. I was able to control the focus more successfully this time and i felt that i was in a relaxed environment when taking these photographs, as well as the man who i was photographing. I was able to get some successful shots, howver some unsuccessful too, which is something which i can learn from and evaluate.