Week 4 Plus Post

Our Mission

For the next two weeks I want you to do what you did in the first part of our mission, create 4 versions of an image (original, enhanced, B&W and creative) except this time 4 times, with 4 images. The 4 images are going to continue on the theme of "series" and need to maintain a cohesive balance.

These assignment I tried to concentrate on focus and light. Mainly I did a pretty decent job of knowing what ISO to go with and what minor adjustments to make.  I have basically just decided that I can't switch between manual and auto focus quickly. I don't know if it's my finger not able to do it or what but it just isn't happening. I can swap pretty fast and know where it is so maybe it'll just come with time.  As for focus, i shot all handheld and used the occassional "prop" for better stability. I will get back to trying the tripod approach but time is so critical for me and my style is handheld anyway. So, basically I decided to "focus" my focus on focus ;)

I found this week a bit difficult because I had to sacrifice "quality" in order to meet the 4 theme.  I made the mistake of only getting out one time to shoot. Yes, I know, not cool but I've got a lot on my plate right now and though I should probably back out of this program I can't give it up.  Sleep will happen later.  So, I got out, got some nice shots but not 4 great shots in the same theme. I am happy with the ones that I chose but they are too similar and lack enough interesting elements. The good: I like my creative treatment of it and can see that being a cool gallery theme with the 4. The bad: I am not a fan of the rest of the treatments and had a few other shots that I feel were more interesting.  

What this did is make Oh so much more aware of the necessity of having some sense of plan when trying for the four.  I did that to a point. But mainly it was the "oh ya that looks cool" and I would take 4 - 6 shots for that "theme". That and the slow down factor will help a lot.  Basically, it's a matter of directing my focus to the task at hand and forgetting the 20 other cool shots that I see along the way. 

For the creative section here I went back and forth on what I wanted to do. I had several version with layers and textures and I kept throwing them out. Essentially, I liked the simplistic look of the enhanced bird with the monochrome background.  I did a little extra photoshop tweaks here and there as well but settled on simplistic.

Here's the results grouped by the four part series and then followed by the shots that I will actually publish.

ORIGINAL, ENHANCED

B/W, CREATIVE

Theme "SNOWY EGRET"