Experimental PhotographyTask 3

Patrick Gouldsbrough

These are just a few of the experimental photography techniques I can use for this project:

Light Writing High speed Harris shutter

Multimedia Scanography

Multiple exposure

3D

Multiple ExposureDigital

•With a DSLR camera, multiple exposure is carried out by altering the exposure times and shutter speed, which will then allow one image to be overlayed over another. This can be done very quickly. This can also be done by tasking two individual images, before using software such as Photoshop and altering opacities to create a multiple exposure that way.

Advantages

•You can see the image on the screen after you’ve taken it. This will allow you to take and re-take the image until you are happy with the overall result.

• The speed of the DSLR camera makes this a perfect technique, especially with the surreal and effective results you can get with this technique

Disadvantages

•Due to you relying on the camera so much, you are not really gaining any skills, it’s the cameras skill, not the users. If you were to try and transfer your skills to a film camera, you would find it very difficult.

Analogue

•On old film cameras you would have to take one image on a piece of film, before then winding the camera back one slide, which you would then take your second image over the top. This technique was very popular on film photography, but isn’t very commonly used now, due to the digital way been so much more effective.

Advantages

•You could develop the image yourself, which left the overall product in your on hands, not a piece of technologies. In modern photography, the camera is relied upon too much. The film photographers can definitely function a DSLR camera very easily, but it doesn’t work the other way around.

Disadvantage

•It’s not very quick to do, when you take into account the trouble of winding back the film, taking both images and then producing the images in a dark room/outsourcing the development job.

•You can’t see the image you have taken on a screen. So may have to take and re-take the images again after the development of the images. This will add to the cost and time of the whole operation.

Equipment needed:

Digital:

•DSLR camera (with a big span of shutter speeds)

•Tripod – Reduces the risk of out of focus images

•Computer software (optional)

Analogue:

•Film camera

•Film canister

•Chemicals (dark room acquired is already assumed

•Acetate or material to put the image on

Usual subject:

In multiple exposure there are 3 conventional ways of undertaking this technique:

1. A human subject has an image of a city/landscape overlayed over their face. This is usually done on Photoshop, due to an opacity adjustment been required.

2. A human subject has a pattern overlayed over their face. This is usually not overlayed, instead, the outline of the humans face is replaced by a pattern overlay.

3. A human subject is in various positions which are then overlayed over each other. This could signify movement. However, sometimes tow human subjects are used, which sometimes leads to a surreal result.

Usual subject 1

Usual subject 2

Usual subject 3

Post production techniques

• On an analogue technique of multiple exposure, you can’t really do much to the final product, unless a lot of time is spent on it. If you are been commissioned to produce the piece, it maybe worth it, but a normal photographer may not want to spend this long on a piece. On the other had, not many modern photographers use film cameras, unless they are trying to get a certain feel to their work.

• The digital technique is different, dependant on the technique you use

• Straight from the DSLR – The exposure is complete and you might be happy with your final image that you have produced. However, you may decide that a colour overlay background could be more effective and add to the overall piece. If you don’t go for the neutral/colour background and instead keep the initial background, you may risk making the background look blended and ineffective. This is the only post-production technique you would add on this piece.

• If you are uploading two separate images to Photoshop, you may also decide to put a colour overlay background in. This, as well as adding effectiveness, makes sense too. The multiple exposure technique already needs undertaking on Photoshop, so a colour overlay will add a couple of minutes to your piece, but add a lot of effectiveness.

No colour overlay background – It’s difficult to differentiate between the neck of the subject and the background.

Colour overlay background – This technique adds a contrast from the white colouring of the subject, which makes it stand out further, compared to if the original background remained.

Harris ShutterHarris shutter device (Using the DSLR or not)

1.The subjects are captured using the device. The subjects must be moving for this technique, or a still image will be captured and the surreal and effective nature of the image will be lost. This is done by three different colours been exposed in three separate time intervals. This then leads to each of them been added to the image on the element that’s moving. An alternative method can be used. This involves creating a drop through filter which is made up of the primary coloured gels, which is then dropped through a filter holder during the exposure of the camera.

2.This image is now complete and doesn’t need any post-production techniques added to it. If it’s got any blur or imperfections, it will probably be worth capturing the images again, due to Photoshop not been able to do much with the image which already has Harris Shutter added. However, if you capture a still image and don’t manage to get your Harris Shutter effect, Photoshop could add the effect for you. This could save some time, should the effect not initially work.

Advantage- This method of carrying out Harris shutter is quick and easy to do. However, you can’t just point and capture the image, you need to alter some settings manually before you can do this, which requires some skill to do.

Disadvantage - Not everyone has the availability of this sort of device, which costs a reasonable amount of money. If you don’t, perhaps a cheaper and easily achievable method should be selected for this technique.

Photoshop

1.A series of image are captured using a standard DSLR camera. This can be of a moving or a still subject. Unlike the previous technique, Photoshop will colour parts that aren’t moving, due to you having control of which parts you colour and leave original.

2.Upload the images to Photoshop

3.Label all your images Red, Green and Blue, these are going to be your different filter colours for your image. First, start by selecting the first image/layer and change it to Red in the channel selector. After you have done this, you will need to copy and paste it into another document, while keeping the channel filter on Red. After you have done this, you will need to do this for the other two primary colours. Once complete, you can now switch the channel colour to RGB, which will then allow the image to take the form of a conventional Harris Shutter image.

Advantage – Due to Photoshop doing most of the work for you, you don’t need to have that much prior skill or knowledge to carry out the Photoshop method. As for the capturing of the images, it can be a standard image that’s edited so can be done quickly and without a lot of hassle.

Disadvantage – Photoshop adds the Harris Shutter effect to all of the image, not just the parts of the subject which are moving. This can lead to the image looking similar to the 3D effect, while some of the surreal nature and effectiveness s lost from the photograph.

Equipment needed:

Camera•DSLR Camera•Tripod•Photoshop (Needed if a Harris shutter device isn’t available)•Filters (optional)

Iphone•Phone device•Harris Shutter app

Usual subjectsUnlike multiple exposure, this technique requires the subject to be moving in the frame, otherwise the technique doesn’t work and a conventional still image is taken instead. This then cuts down the field of subjects for this technique. To name a few, statues and building cannot be the subject of the Harris Shutter technique. However, humans that are moving, along with waterfalls and modes of transport are very popular subjects for the Harris shutter technique. Sometimes in a movement image, you get a little bit of blur around the central focus, however, with the Harris shutter technique, the filter turns this area into a coloured section, which shows movement lines. Therefore, the blur is cut down and a surreal image is created. Due to this been an experimental technique, it doesn’t have to be a perfectly captured image. Just like the shutter speed images have movement lines on them, these images also have movement lines, but instead of been blurred, the lines are now coloured using the filters on the device or through Photoshop editing. If the subject is very fast moving, the movement lines may continue onto the majority of the image, which you assume would ruin the image, however, it makes it look more surreal and in some cases, see-through (like the image in the right hand corner).

This Harris Shutter image is taken using the Iphone app. As you can see, using the Iphone app, it doesn’t use the conventional technique of filtering out the moving elements in the frame. Instead, it colours the whole image.

Using the actual Harris shutter device, only the subjects that are moving in the frame get coloured, which leads to a surreal feel to the image, as well as a previously mentioned see-through element to the image.

Post production techniques

Harris Shutter Filter method:

• If you choose to use this method, you will not need to alter or adjust any elements using Photoshop or other editing software. This is due to the effect already been carried out by the device or a filter holder in front of the camera. Even though there may be imperfections on the image, it would be worth re-taking the image, rather than trying to edit it, due to it been more efficient to do it this way.

Photoshop method:

• Using this method, the initial Harris Shutter effect counts as the actual post-production technique. By performing the different channel alterations through Photoshop, you are able to create a Harris Shutter technique, which adds the primary colours to the whole image, not just the parts moving within the frame. Apart from the initial technique, it is unlikely that you will need to alter or edit the image, even if there are imperfections on the image. This is due to the image not needing to be perfect, due to it been an experimental image. Therefore, if there is an imperfection, you can blend it with the effect or try turn it into a movement line. Alternatively, dependant on how many images you have taken, you could try this effect with another image, due to it been easy and quick to do, so you won't lose much time and effort re-doing the effect on another image.

Taken by a DSLR camera, the image is a still, but due to the Harris shutter device not been used, it doesn’t have to involve movement within the frame.

Using Photoshop, the Harris Shutter technique is added, which adds the filter to each subject and gives a surreal image. In my opinion, the Harris Shutter technique looks better if it’s done using the initial device, due to only parts of the image been coloured this way, instead of the whole thing.