Your Book- Shoot 13- Daily Activities- 16th April 2022
Looking through the photos I have taken so far, whilst comparing the ones I have cropped in to only show the hands to the full length portraits. I wanted to see which ones would look more effective. The photos of just the hands are more dominant in the shots and it sends a clearer message to the viewer that the project is about peoples hands, whereas the full length portrait doesn't have the same effect. So for my next shoots I will only focus on just the models hands instead of capturing a full length portrait.
Now that I have a great selection of people using their hands within their work, I thought it would be interesting to have some more basic shots that show the essential things we do in our lives which we often take for granted. As I had some friends round I thought this would be a great opportunity to photograph some of them.
During the shoot I had an issue with my camera as it had my ISO on a high setting, this made me quite stressed as I tried to turn it down but my camera wouldn't allow me to do this. As I had already wasted time trying to figure it out, I decided to shoot anyway even though I knew my photos would be too overexposed.
After my first shoot I did some research and managed to resolve this issue, since a couple didn't come out well, I reshot them with some of my family members.
I don't like this picture as his hands are quite out of focus, as a result doesn't they don't show any detail on the hands. Also the way the model has positioned his hands makes the shot look posed as you can see he isn't actually doing up a button. To resolve this I will redo this picture, but next time I will make sure to give my model more direction to actually do up a button so that the photo looks genuine instead of staged.
I like this picture as I've corrected the ISO it has meant that the lighting is a better exposure which makes the hands less overexposed. As a result it makes it easier to capture the hands in focus which helps to show the details of the hands better. As he's actually doing a button up compared to the previous shot, this makes it feel more genuine.
This shot doesn't work well, the main reason is the way he is tying his shoe lace means his hands are blocking the laces which makes it difficult to see that he's tying a shoe lace.
As the photo is taken quite far away, it makes the hands appear to be quite small. As a result has made them out of focus, which makes it difficult for the viewer to see the details on the hands. To resolve both of these issues I will position him slightly higher and nearer to see if that makes a difference.
This picture works better compared to the one above. As I have his foot positioned on a stool this instantly makes it bigger and more dominate which along with his hands, makes it more eye catching to the viewer. With this being taken at a side angle compared to the previous photo which was taken as a high angle, it gives the viewer a clearer view of what he is doing which is tying his shoe lace.
This picture doesn't work well, this is due to the way he has positioned his hands. Using his right hand to hold the scissors this instantly blocks part of his hand, whilst leaving only a small part of it visible which appears to be blurred. Despite this the left hand is in sharp focus, which does show the viewer some details of his hands. Since I want both of his hands to be in focus, I will ask if he can swap hands and also turn towards me slightly so that you can see the scissors and hands more clearly.
Since I managed to get some decent photos despite my lighting issue, I wanted to convert one of the pictures into black and white. By doing this I wanted to see how well the lighting worked on the hands and whether I needed to adjust it. The lighting works well in the image, despite having the left one quite dark which is due to the way he was positioned. As that part of the body is in the shadow, I don't want to adjust it too much as this would affect the balance of the image.
Overall despite having a few issues at the start, I am now happy with the results and think that these three images will make a good contribution to my series.
