Second Contact Sheet
I have put into my second contact sheet the best photographs from the safari park, I had taken over 1,500 images throughout the day as we went round the park twice. I found there were multiple animals I found probably weren’t best suited for the letterbox crop due to their height or shape disabling it to look natural in the cropped image.
Editing within lightroom, these are the final images cropped down to letterbox formatting. The deers were best suited for this type of crop as they’re the appropriate height and were often in small groups with others of their species. Smaller mammals seemed to work better within this crop by far.
iStock Research
A photograph by a photographer under the name of ‘DamianKuzdak’ on iStock shows a deer in the mist with the letterbox crop. The deer is almost a silhouette and is slightly centre of the image. I find this inspirational to my own wildlife images. They’ve done several other wildlife images however not always in the same crop. These were the keywords he used:
They are kept simple and mostly relative, covering all wildlife and animal words that are related. Some that I’d say aren’t as necessary would be ‘Tree’, ‘Leaf’, and ‘England’ perhaps, as none of them are seen or obvious to the content in the photograph.
Another deer image he took did use the same crop with a group of deers with the same lighting, using depth of field in the process.
This is a brief overview of other photographs in his portfolio, consisting of multiple wildlife photographs.
He uses a good amount of depth of field in all of his wildlife images, blurring out the backgrounds entirely to get the focus directed entirely onto the animals. Within some of them, usage of bokeh is shown too, enhancing the images to be more engaging to view, showing beauty by mixing the animals with calming backgrounds.
I have applied to be a contributor uploading three images and it is pending approval. I had to take a short quiz, providing identification and three sample images.
iStock research
A photographer under the name of ‘FotoVoyager’ on iStock has many letterbox cropped images of landscapes and cityscapes
The images are fully filled without overcrowding it and work well with the crop. His nature and reflection photographs are my favourite from this photographer’s portfolio. His images are likely successful for their beautiful scenery and appeal to the eye. The main reason his images are successful are for their high visual quality with bold, vibrant colouring. The skies are always clear and not too bright to the point it’s white, showing good exposure and knowledge in general to photography.
I’ve chosen one of his photographs to see what key wording he used.
He’s chosen many relative and appropriate keywords describing the entire photograph and it’s surroundings; whilst also describing the type of photograph being panoramic and an aerial view.
First Contact Sheet
I went on a road trip taking photographs of some nearby mountains close to Snowdonia park, I used my 300mm lens and as the day was bright yet cloudy I only needed a 200 ISO and f/4. These are a select few that I considered to work the best for this project. Keywords: Nature, Landscape, Mountains
Editing with lightroom, I cropped the images down to letterbox formatting and these were the results I received.
Visual Trends & Markets.
I have chosen the trend and theme which is the ‘Letterbox’ approach. Instead of square formatting, the crop becomes rectangular to draw in your focus point and bringing a sense of the personal to the image. For this trend, anything can be photographed and I’ve decided to follow my wildlife and nature photography path.
I have planned a visit to the Knowsley Safari Park, where I will spend an entire day photographing wild animals and then proceed to give the photographs the letterbox crop. Keywording can include ‘Wildlife’, ‘Nature’, ‘Safari’, ‘Animals’ and the name of the animal shown within the photograph.
Evaluation
As a final project where we were able to choose our own theme, I instantly intended to do wildlife as it’s something I’ve not been able to do since I started this year. One of the main things I should have done was take my tripod with me to the zoo trips, as steady as I was and with the correct settings, at times many of the photographs weren’t focused properly. The reason I didn’t or intend to take my tripod with me is due to how busy the locations were and it would have been more difficult to commute around the area with it.
For the macro photographs I already had a macro lens which I used for them. I had to go out multiple times as often it was too windy or I was unable to locate any insects due to the time of year. This is why I wasn’t able to gain as many photographs in comparison but was happy with the photographs I gained.
Due to the fact I hadn’t brought my tripod along with me, many of the photographs weren’t good enough to be made into an A1 print, making the selecting harder than expected.
With a lot less time within this project, I gathered less artist research than my past projects and I would’ve managed more otherwise.
Final Photos
My final two photos are printed in A1 and 6×4 as follows, the wildlife photo in A1 and the small print being macro.
The wildlife one seemed appropriate in a huge format as you’re able to appreciate another species in photographs other than people, commonly done due to styles like street photography. Whereas the macro photo is not something personal such as your childrens school photographs or other family memories but it works well for being classed as an ‘object’; as the size of the fly is realistic in proportion to it’s actual size, making it have less of an appeal and reaction to you. This effect works in that sense as it almost makes it appear you’re viewing the fly itself.
Second Macro Photoshoot
I really enjoyed this second take experimenting with macro, the small flies look much more detailed this close up, showing an entirely new view to the human eye. The depth of field with the aperture around 2-5 f/stop made the focus on the fly stand out.
W Bentley’s Ice Crystals
W Bently took macro photographs of snowflakes and is famous for being one of the first known photographers to capture snowflakes. He photographed his first snowflake in 1885, January 15th.
He made a monograph illustrated with over 2,500 pictures of snowflakes called ‘Snow Flakes’; it was published shortly before his death which was caused by pneumonia in a snow blizzard.
In rapid movements, each snowflake was captured on a blackboard then moved over to a microscope to capture these photos. Snowflakes are known to be ‘Ephemeral’, a greek term to describe things lasting a short time, even at subzero temperature.
He described the snow crystals and snowflakes as “Tiny miracles of beauty” & “Ice crystals”, publishing an article claiming no two snowflakes are alike.
The snowflake on the slate makes it look like it’s been imprinted onto the slate and stands out clearly in contrast to each other. The edges of the snowflakes are slowly melting away, impact from the fact they deteriorate easily. It’s mesmerising from how symmetrical it is as a simple form of nature, the photographs make the viewer understand Bentley’s curiosity and awe from them.
Jade Coxon Photography 