Landscape - Project 9 - colour themes

The first of two projects using colour in the landscape. Bright colour in the British landscape is quite rare, even in the built environment, so we are left looking for blues, greens and browns. In 1 and 3 the daylight (5500k) light is producing natural colour. In 2 the late evening light (3500k) is saturating the colour and in that instance helps the image.

This project calls for three photographs.

• The largest range of colour contrast
• One isolated colour set against a contrasting background
• The largest range of greens you can find in one view

Photograph 1 (The largest range of colour contrast) incorporates blue and orange, which are broadly speaking contrasting colours. As can be seen from the colour wheel below there are a number of options for opposite contrasting colours. Many of these are difficult to find within the context of a landscape and my subject shows an Amaryllis set against a diffuse background. The shot was made with a telephoto lens using a large aperture to isolate the main flower using a shallow depth of field and and push the background bokeh to the limit. The blue could in fact be more towards violet to be completely opposite. 

Nikon D3 300mm f2.8 20mm extension tube 1/1000 sec f3.5

Photograph 2 (One isolated colour set against a contrasting background) is a beach groyne on the coast at Wells next the sea in Norfolk. The green marker against the blue sky does not fulfill the brief in its entirety due to the competing orange/red wood in the foreground. The light here is at late evening and very warm and a polarising filter was used. The image was shot using a 24mm tilt/shift lens with the tilt at maximum to produce the out of focus areas to the left and right. In some ways the Red, Green, Blue colours are all isolated, so maybe it works in a number of ways, however I will look for a new image at some time in the future.

Nikon D3 24mm PC-E f3.5  1/1600 sec f4.5

Photograph 3 (The largest range of greens you can find in one view). The late evening light across the field has produced long shadows from trees to the left of the frame. The general composition of the photograph is horizontal and parallel strips, with receding green tones towards the distance.The lighter greens in the Rape Seed crop and the trees offer the lighter values against the deep shadow green. I have no knowledge of how to measure the greens to determine if the whole range is captured, but to the eye they seem numerous. Once again a panoramic crop suits the photograph, by way of reducing the sky to a minimum.

Nikon D3 80-200mm f2.8  1/250 sec  f10 

Projects - Thoughts on work planning

Two months ago when the course folder arrived I did a read through and got the general feel for what was coming up and looked for anything unusual. Projects were started (at No 1) Assignment 1 started and the general view would be work through in chronological order. This worked well for a while but I now find that some of the images are going to be harder to find and to save time I will open up many more of the Projects and fill in the gaps of missing images from time to time. My field book will be my aide memoire and during a shoot I may well find images for a number of Projects. This should save some time. Today for instance I spent 4 hrs looking for an image in Project 9, without any real success. Plenty of new images for who knows what were taken, but had I had the whole list of Projects with me I would have been able to work on a broader scope and with a detailed purpose.

Projects upate

The progress on keeping up to date with the projects has suffered a bit recently due to the work on Assignment 1 becoming too intensive. Although nothing recorded here for projects there has been some background activity. Frustrated with Norfolk and Lincolnshire I have just returned from 3 days in Cumbria. I always return to The Lakes when everything else fails, although there is no guarantee that my photography will become enriched by traveling 5hrs up the A1. The course folder traveled with me and was an aide memoir for project related work. What is for sure is that the food is good and the beer even better, so nothing is ever lost.

Project 6 - framing the view differently. I have some ideas for this but nothing worked out that well so this one is on the back burner for a while. When I find my location to shoot this it will be quick and simple, but for now , no location.

Project 7 - figures in a landscape. Shot some for this in Cumbria, so images are available, just PP needed to complete.

Project 8 - using perspective to help composition. Many of my images from the last 3 months have been shot with many of the techniques being looked for here, so I don't propose to shoot anything special for this and will rely on some from previous shoots. Unless we get some fog which would be nice.

Project 9 - colour themes. Once again I think my recent Lake District shoot has some for this. Certainly plenty of green.

Project 10 - soft colours. I had The lakes in mind for this when I booked the trip. Soft greens and browns in abundance.