Landmarks
Exam Question
Landmarks are often the most recognisable or well known feature of a place or landscape. In her 'London Classic' collection Niki Gorick uses photography to show something different about familiar landmarks. Richard Long, Robert Smithson and Alan Sonfist create landmarks in the environment using a variety of materials which they record photographically
Research appropriate sources and produce your own work that explores Landmarks.
Research appropriate sources and produce your own work that explores Landmarks.
Work of Other Photographers
Another Place Research
Ideas Mind Map
The Liver Building Research
These images of the Liver Building take advantage of the time of day and the sky. Some of the images use dark sky to make dramatic black and white images while others use a brighter sky for a more vibrant and colourful look. Unusual angles as seen in the second photo from the left on the bottom row as well as rule of thirds are techniques to bear in mind as they are very effective in the images above. The contrast of the building against the sky and patterns of the clouds in it are also used to make interesting images. I will aim to take my photos when the sky won't be murky as the sky seems to be a key component of making these images.
My Own Work
Another Place
Another Place by Antony Gormley is a piece of modern sculpture which consists of 100 cast iron sculptures of the artist's own body, facing towards the sea on Crosby Beach. It is ideal for the landmarks topic as it is a piece of iconic modern art which has given the local area fame through the countless tourists which have came to visit the sculptures. Their surreal appearance and how well they fit into the beach environment make one of the best Liverpool Landmarks to photograph.
Crosby beach is not too close to Liverpool city centre but is in the Merseyside area so could still count as a Liverpool landmark. By taking the train from the city centre, it was fairly quick and easy to get to the beach. The tide was in so created a different perspective on the statues. It made them more surreal as the figure of a person standing in the sea is quite a strange sight. They also stand out in the midst of the strong blue sea surrounding them which works well as it makes them the strong focus of the photo. Later on in the day, we managed to take the images of the sculptures against a colourful sunset. This made for even better photos as it gave the silhouette figures strong colours to be cast against. |
Initial Images
With these initial images, I intend to turn some images to black and white and turn up the vibrance and saturation for most images. With my newly bought DSLR (Nikon D3300), I am now able to shoot images in RAW format unlike before where I could only take JPEG images. This has now allowed me to use more advanced editing and be able to use features such as clarity and shadows due to the larger file size and the information stored in these files. Some of the images are either too bright, too dark or its colours are too pale. With Photoshop, I can remove some of the less appealing grey skies and add more vibrance to them which is mainly what I will do to the images with sunsets.
Edited Work
Exploration of Photoshop
Here, I have demonstrated my ability to use photoshop to edit my images in a variety of ways and explore multiple takes on my photos. I have used photoshop to add vibrance, exposure, a black and white filter and a vignette to make them more impressive than they originally were.
Midpoint Evaluation
New Brighton Lighthouse & Liverpool City Centre
On top of the Liver Building, I also took photos of the New Brighton lighthouse and the Wheel of Liverpool. The lighthouse was easy to travel to by train and the wheel wasn't too far from the Liver Building so they were a good opportunity to explore the subject of landmarks further. The lighthouse was taken on a gloomy and grey day so unfortunately the images don't look as bright and colourful as they could have been. I intend to use photoshop to create panoramas and make the images more vibrant than they were initially. By the time I got back to Liverpool City Centre, it was night which I used to my advantage. I created some long exposure shots with the wheel and the Liver Building which produced great effects for both. The long exposure on the wheel gave it a motion blur which worked well for the bright lighting in the image. The long exposure on the Liver Building created a great effect with the sky by making it a strong orange colour and also adding motion blur to the clouds.
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Location of the lighthouse
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Initial Images
Edited Work
Liver Building (Part 2)
After not being able to take as many photos as I would have liked to on the last visit to the Liver Building, I returned and took more images from different angles and times of day. I did this on two seperate occasions. The first time the sky was quite dull so this made certain images look quite poor. However by waiting for it to go dark, some great night time images were formed. The second time the sky was bright and clear which produced photos I ideally wanted to make. Below I have shown the location of the building.
Initial Images
In some of the above images, I have incorporated the statue of The Beatles into the photos of the Liver Building. I feel this adds more to the images of what represents Liverpool. This fits into the theme of landmarks and how they are iconic of a particular place, similar to The Beatles.
Edited Work
With some images, I've considered and decided between different styles and particular looks for images. For example, both variations of the image above are powerful images but in different ways. Both colourful and B&W images work and I will use both looks to bring out the best in my work.
My Timed Examination Work
New Brighton
Using photoshop greatly increases the potential of any photograph to look much better. Improving an image can be done in a variety of ways but below I have shown the step by step process to making an image with just a few effects.
Firstly, I opened the DNG image in the RAW editor to have access to more advanced features such as clarity.
Firstly, I opened the DNG image in the RAW editor to have access to more advanced features such as clarity.
After changing the sliders, the image then looked like this:
I then opened up a new canvas to place the three images on,
dropped the newly edited image onto it
and duplicated the layer twice.
To break up the images, I used the paint bucket tool to make the background completely black
I then used the black and white filter in the adjustments menu to make the left and right images black and white.
After all editing is done, this is the final outcome.