Assignment 3: Colour

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

Assignment 3 Page 1

All the pictures have been taken in RAW format and processed with camera RAW. All the relevant EXIF data of the pictures has been added below each one, and in some cases even edited and modified, because this data did not reflect the wireless triggering of the flash. It is noted that where the Canon 5D has been used the EXIF data shows the name of the previous owner of the camera (I bought it second hand). The text under the photos are shortly describing part of the things tried and not tried, but for a more detailed comment, to see the process, and some other results visit the blog: http://leopinsocalcos.blogspot.com/

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

Assignment 3 Page 2

PREPARATION OF THE ASSIGNMENT

This assignment was the most difficult one so far. Again I felt lost in the middle of a wide ocean. The assignment brief is simply too vague and general, which is good on one side because I have almost total freedom, but as an student I see no guidelines. I have tried to the best of my abilities to understand the assignment as a whole and not as a sum of parts (of photographs in this case). I have tried to create a story with the whole sequence, a story that makes sense to me. The inspiration for the story comes from a documentary called "Light, Darkness and colours" (see this post). This film uses Goethe's theory of colour as a point for departure. One of the views of Goethe is that colour arises from an interaction of light and darkness (see here). Accordingly I have split the assignment in four parts: 1) 2) 3) 4) Darkness The coming of light Light Colour

And only at the very last minute (I'll explain why below) I decided to add an annex with one more photograph. Trying to follow the tutor's advise all the photographs of the assignment have been made and not taken (following my interpretation of the tutor advise, interpretation that I have expressed in the blog here). For the execution, all the photographs have been taken in RAW format and processed in camera RAW. Further details are provided for every photograph.

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

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Part 1: Darkness
Music: Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb from The delicate sound of Thunder, disc 2, track 7.

Genesis: 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep,........
Introduction
Darkness is a negative concept........the lack of light...and the appearance of black in a colour space (see Wikipedia:Darkness here).........without light, photography as we know it would not exist. Darkness is associated with night.....and it is possible to make photographs at night. Night is also associated with evil and death........ I considered for a long while how to represent that in photographs ...... During my holidays in Spain I spent many afternoons looking for suitable scenarios that could help me to reflect these ideas/concepts. I found, not far from home, some ruins of an impressive house with a black legend behind (of being an haunted place)...it was called A Escusalla by the locals...I scouted it in daylight and considered several possibilities. I took tens of photographs at night from different places and angles of the several rooms/spaces of what it probably had been a magnificent rural house in older times..........it even had a chapel now abandoned, without roof, and covered with moss and ivy.........I liked the scenario, the chapel of the house, but something was still missing.....the place was too empty and it looked empty........so I decided to add a character........a sort of symbol with many possible interpretations. Myself and a friend in turns played the role with the convenient "attrezzo". In that amazing place I also found a special tree. That tree had grown in darkness and between the four walls of what it used to be a sort of room. Trees plunge their roots into darkness and grow vertically to the light. The roots and the lower part of the trunk of the tree are also symbols for darkness, as opposed to the high branches and leafs. The trunks of very old trees are used in many films (starting with Snow-white, but a long list could easily be populated) as representing darkness. There is an expression (at least in spanish) that always impressed me.......when someone is referring to something very old, or vey early in history they say something like "....lost in the darkness (or the night) of time". Megaliths used to be seen by people in the villages, as dark places, associated to dark worships. That's why I though I would be a good idea to add one to this part. In this case the dolmen was called A Casola do Foxo by the locals.

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

Assignment 3 Page 4

Photograph 1 Darkness 1

Camera: Lens: Exposure:

Process

Canon EOS 40D EF-S10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM Shot at 14 mm Manual exposure, 70 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100

The photograph was taken with the camera on tripod from a very low position in a corner of the abandoned chapel. A remote trigger was used, and the camera set in Bulb mode (with several try outs to find the right exposure). A led flashlight (with white colour light) was used to illuminate the place (and to set the focus, which is something rather difficult at night!!!!!). First the walls, then the ground from a very low position to enhance the texture of the soil with all the dead leafs.......and last with a red colour filter and the same flashlight the character was lit from the corner of the chapel to the right of the place where the camera was set. The red colour was chosen for two reasons: first it is strongly contrasting with the other two colour present in the scenario, namely blue and green; and second a red light casts some doubts about the character itself (looks like a monk, but this red halo around doesn't look real,......is it evil???....is it a Satan servant coming from hell???). the fact that the altar is empty also casts doubts about the kind of worship that is taking place. The post-process of the photograph was as follows: levels, lower the colour temperature to enhance the blue tones of the granite stone, and red/orange saturation raised to enhance the red tones around the character. Last, the feet of the character were cloned to make it more enigmatic and to make it look as if he is floating or in levitation.

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Colours

From the point of view of the colours the dominant ones are blue (a cold blue-gray) from the granite stone covered with liquens, and green but there is also the brawn-reddish colour of the dead leafs on the ground and the red-orange of the character's halo. In terms of the assignment the photograph shows colour contrasts (red-green, and red-blue). The green of the plants is complementary to the red of the character's halo and the red tones of the ground...the proportions of red and green would be difficult to estimate. The red looks smaller, but probably not so small as to categorize it as a colour accent, I think. Black is the tone where all the colours sink lately when their lightness and saturation is progressively reduced. Black is darkness. Critic Many things could have been tried.........one of the ones I did try was to photograph the place empty (with no character). The red colour of the monk's halo could be more emphasized. A different framing and camera position, closer to the character and the altar could have been tried, so that the walls (particularly the left one were not so remarkable)..on the other hand the walls provide depth and feeling of being involved in the scene, from my point of view. One of the things that was tried around the same idea was to get the red colour with a flash gel. Basically I did everything the same, but for the red colour halo I walked (in complete darkness) to the other side of the character, and flashed against the wall with an orange gel in the flash.......The best result obtained was shown in the blog (here).

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

Assignment 3 Page 6

Photograph 2 Darkness 4

Camera: Lens: Exposure: Flash: Date: Process

Canon EOS 40D EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Shot at 18 mm Manual exposure, 137 sec, f/8, ISO 100 Off, Did not fire August 22, 2011

The camera on tripod and close to the ground level to give prominence to the columns. I left the camera in B position while I was walking almost in complete darkness to the door............I said almost because I used a small flashlight. The traces of that flashlight can be seen, but I like that........it provides some feeling of movement and mystery at the same time (I also had one without them). I fired this time several times (around 6 more or less) the flash against the wall in front of me. The flash was covered with an orange gel.

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The Art of Photography

Assignment 3 Page 7

Colours

The orange really works as a colour accent and attracts strongly the view of the observer. The original was cropped to excise some irrelevant and distracting parts of the walls on both sides. The light of the scene was applied from two different points to the right of the camera to avoid the presence of distracting shadows as much as possible. Critic As with the previous one and as usual, many other different angles, camera positions, etc... could have been tried. I also thought about other possible colours for the wall in front of the monk, but I had to select one, and I went for orange (which I like a lot combined with blue). The upper part of the frame is really too dark......I thought that may be stars could be seen, but at the time I took the picture, there were no remarkable stars in that part of the sky. On the other hand, from what I know of the Gestalt, the viewer tends to follow the light, which in this case is good because it is where the character, the monk, is allocated, in the place of the

frame with more light.

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

Assignment 3 Page 8

Photograph 3 Darkness 3

Camera: Lens: Exposure: Flash: Date: Process

Canon EOS 40D EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Shot at 22 mm Manual exposure, 145 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 Off, Did not fire August 22, 2011

The process in this case was very tricky and several trials were unsuccessful. The camera was standing in a tripod close to the ground level with a remote trigger and in B mode. First the frame of the door was lit with a flashlight (a led flashlight with close to white colour). Then I walked inside the room and lit the trunk from the (right) side trying no to overexpose. Then also a little bit of light from the other (link) side. Last a couple of flash shots pointing to the wall behind the trunk. The camera was not levelled and that's why a post processing crop was needed. This is something important that I also learnt in the landscape course.....it is important to have a level (in the tripod, or otherwise as a small bubble level that can be placed in the hot shoe of the flash).

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

Assignment 3 Page 9

Colours

This is a case of colour harmony through similar colours, blue and green. There are also some browns in the ground but I think they go almost unnoticed in view of the green trunk that is without any doubt the most powerful attractor of the image. In terms of design, this is a shot with clear predominance of vertical lines. Critic Many possible light schemas could have been tried, but I didn't have much time and I had to plan one (cause I was on my own) and execute it properly. Some other colours could have been added with gels, but I thought that the subject was already impressive, that the tree was in this case the character needed (so no more monk). I could have tried nevertheless to shoot one or two also with the monk to create a stronger link between the photographs in this part. Also I should't have been necessary to crop the image if I had been able to level the camera properly in the preparation, but I wasn't. One of the gadgets that I see as quite useful is a level (which I didn't have at the time).

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

Assignment 3 Page 10

Photograph 4 Darkness 5

Camera: Lens: Exposure: Flash: Date: Process

Canon EOS 40D EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Shot at 18 mm Manual exposure, 118 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 Off, Did not fire August 17, 2011

This is the first image I took for this part of Darkness in the assignment. I had it clear from the beginning. The idea of the photograph was to have the dolmen as main element against the sky (that's why the camera is on tripod and close to the ground level). The stars can be seen in the sky which has quite a few tonalities from orange-red until violet. The horizon line is clearly noticeable and it is an important element of design in the photograph. It has been placed close to the middle (well it was not placed like that, but in the post processing crop I decided it so). This photography is not about the sky or the ground, it is about the dolmen and its colour contrasting against both of them. The dolmen, the room where the tree is growing and the abandoned house are somehow representing caves...............man inhabited for a long period of his existence in caves, caves are dark, and also a representation of our dark ages. The dolmen is placed out of the centre and it is somehow balanced with the silhouettes of the plants against the sky and the red colours of the sky on top of them. The image provides a sense of timelessness but at the same time suggests something very old. The stones of the dolmen were lit from the right (with an angle of more than 45 degrees with regard to the camera). The flashlight was with a yellow-orange filter. In post processing the image has been cropped a signpost on the left has been cloned and the orange colours have been emphasized.

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

Assignment 3 Page 11

Colours

The photograph shows yellow and orange tones against a blue-violet sky in harmonic way (colour harmony through complementary colours). Proportions are between 1:2 and 1:3 I would estimate. Critic I had quite a few problems setting the focus in this image. At the end I am not completely sure that I did it to the best of my possibilities. The lens used (and old, cheap, plastic made, 18-55mm) is not particularly sharp. For all these night shots I point the flashlight to the focusing point and I use the magnification (x10) in the live view to focus manually, but I still have to improve using this technique. I these last two shots, as I said before for the tree one, I did't feel the need for any extra character.....both the dolmen and the tree are characters on their own, and they can on their own express or suggest or hint many different things and stories.

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

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Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

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Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

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Part 2: The coming of Light

Music: Pink Floyd, Marooned from Echoes: The best of Pink Floyd, disc 1, track 7.

I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Sir Isaac Newton
Introduction
Why is it needed to create an interlude between Darkness and light?.....well....the answer is easy, it is not needed at all.......but, I thought that it was a good idea for many reasons. Both light and darkness are in nature gradated concepts......when the sun rises after a long night it does not make it all of a sudden, but progressively. Also understanding the travel from darkness to light through history or personal development it does not happen in a split second, but gradually. That's why I decided to introduce this part here......as the grey area in between dark and light. My intention was to make light (and colour arising from light) the main character of this part of the assignment. I decided to move from real scenarios (such as A Escusalla or A Casola do Foxo) to still life scenarios which I could built or at least conceive before shooting. Under these conditions I feel free to create my on contraptions to communicate something always in the context of the whole story.....the travel from darkness to light and from there to the last stop of the trip....colour. I considered many possible manners of representing the primary light of the Cosmos........little scenarios with crystal balls (e.g. marbles) and lights or fires, the use of a black light to make said balls to glow in the dark covered with a glowing painting, .....I knew that a sphere had to be involved because this is the primary shape.....the shape of the planets, the stars, the sun and possibly of the universe as well. Suddenly, while reading the book "The electric Universe" (W. Thornhill and D. Talbott, "The Electric Universe", Mikamar Publishing, 2007) I got the idea of using a plasma ball. Fortunately I have a friend with one of this fascinating devices. The first light is the light of fire.......both for the universe, where fire is the result of sophisticated combustions in the heart of the stars such as the sun, and one of the effects of the many huge cataclysms in cosmic scale....... Light is also a symbol for knowledge (the age of enlightenment). One of the classical symbols for light and colour is the prism and the diffraction of light, symbol also associated to Sir Isaac Newton.

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

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Photograph 1 Light coming 3

Camera: Lens: Exposure: Flash: Date: Process

Canon EOS 5D EF50mm f/1.8 Manual exposure, 2.5 sec, f/2.8, ISO 100 Off, Did not fire September 23, 2011

The shot was easy, once I found what I was looking for,.....with tripod and in a dark room. I tried several exposure times/ISO combinations (because the rays within the glass sphere are in constant movement). In the processing of this image, the base of the plasma ball was cloned and made disappear.

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

Assignment 3 Page 16

Colour

Nice colour combination with red, orange and yellow in the middle sphere, blue in the inner layer and a colour between red and violet in the outer layer. There is a clear case of complementary colours...........they are in proportions difficult to be evaluated, but the result is attractive. The colours are not very intense but they are diffused providing a sort of softness that I like. Critic The sphere is in the middle of the frame.....which conveys a static feeling.......but the rays have such dynamic shapes that in my view there is an attractive contrast between the dead (negative, dark) space around the centred ball, and the alive, lit, coloured, moving centre........ In the processing of this image, the base of the plasma ball was cloned and made disappear. It might be argued that this is an easy shot......and I can not disagree. But the point here is that it is what I was looking for (and I considered many different possibilities, some of them presented in the introduction section). In other words the value of this photograph has to be considered in terms of the whole assignment and bearing in mind that the difficulty lied in the selection of the subject and not in the execution of the photograph.

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

Assignment 3 Page 17

Photograph 2 Light coming 1

Camera: Lens: Exposure: Flash: Date:

Canon EOS 5D EF50mm f/1.8 Manual exposure, 1/30 sec, f/5, ISO 320 Off, Did not fire September 30, 2011

This is the result of several unsuccessful trials with different set ups around the same idea. I like it because it shows three different fire colours and the candle itself has the fourth one. In nature, and without the addition of chemical compounds (e.g. borax, magnesium, etc....) the fire colours are blue, orange-yellow, red and yellow-almost white. The colour depends on the temperature of the combustion mainly.....the more red the colder, the more blue-white the hotter. The photograph was made with burning alcohol on a glass plate and a glass candle support with the lit candle. The glass support was so hot, that after a few shots it blew into pieces. The only post processing has been a crop. It was taken with the camera on tripod a black cardboard background and in a dark room. Exposure and focus had been prepared before the burning started. With regard to the exposure, both in this photograph and in the ones before there is some under exposure to let the light be the most important thing in contrast with the dark background.

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

Assignment 3 Page 18

Colours

I would be in doubt as to whether the blue here is a colour accent. I would rather say that this is a case of colour harmony by the use of similar colours (orange tones, yellow and red tones). The candle support was green, but its colour can not be seen in the image. Critic This shot was first conceived and prepared carefully, and then executed accordingly following the mental image I had. I didn't have the opportunity to try many different things I also had in mind (for example the use of a flash from different angles-intensities because the break (almost explosion) of the candle support aborted them prematurely.

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

Assignment 3 Page 19

Photograph 3 light coming 5

Camera: Lens: Exposure: Flash: Date: Process

Canon EOS 5D EF28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Shot at 135 mm Manual exposure, 20 sec, f/8, ISO 100 Off, Did not fire September 23, 2011

I borrowed a prism from a physicist colleague and a prism mirror. I used a tetra brick with a hole in the bottom and a powerful flashlight inside as a source for the ray of light. The whole thing was set up on top of a black cardboard. This is a symbol for lots of things.......for science, for example, because of its strong connection to Isaac Newton. Science is light and the end of the mythos and darkness in human history. The colours within the light ray represent our world of light and colour surrounded by darkness......our eyes can not see beyond the red (where the infrared lies) neither beyond the violet (where the ultraviolet lies). Red and blue are the colours next to the chasms of darkness. For the execution of the photograph I set the camera on tripod and tried many different arrangements of the elements. The only post processing has been a crop to leave the diffracted colours in the diagonal.

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

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Colour (no color sketch for this one) This photograph is clearly about colour (the main character/eye attractor in the frame is not even an object, but just coloured light,....... it is colour!!!!!). However I wouldn't know where to classify it under the assignment headers.......if it belongs to any, it would have to be colour accent in my opinion. Critic The photograph might look simple, but has some work behind........first to create the diffraction (because only with the rays coming in a family of angles it is produced), then to arrange the elements and set the camera to record an attractive view. Well, it wasn't simple at all. Things that I tried are different arrangements of the prism-light-mirror. I also tried to project the colours against a perpendicular background, but I was not able to do it. Days after I also tried an arrangement with two prisms and the mirror.........but the second prosm was not bringing anything new to the image in my opinion, and I decided to keep it simple.

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

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Part 3: Light
Music: Pink Floyd, Learning to fly from Echoes: The best of Pink Floyd, disc 2, track 8.

And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening, and there was morningthe first day.
Genesis,
3

Introduction
Light, the matter of photography. I live in the Netherlands which is a country with a very special light (see here). But coming from Spain my problem is that in fact I miss the light......because I am more used to the light of the shining sun and not to the light of cloudy skies. When I think about light, then, I think about Spain. And in particular I think about landscapes in Spain, the landscapes of my youth and childhood. The more I like photography, the more interested I become in landscape photography.......I see this discipline, however, as far from easy to master..........I think it is because you have to be very careful about the details, and because it is easy to take a photograph of a landscape, but it is far more difficult to make an impressive, different, remarkable photograph of that same landscape. My guess is that this is a discipline where the best photographs are made in places that the photographer knows by heart, and in very special moments (when the light is unique). The following photographs are made in several different places of the north of Spain, including two Unesco heritage sites. One of the things I have learnt about colours in landscapes, is that you have to travel a lot to different places or visit the same place in different seasons/moments of the day in order to get different colours. I took all the photographs below during the months of august and september, and I simply didn't have the time to see the landscape changing with the seasons. I followed a workshop in landscape photography (see here) in a special place (Las Bardenas Reales) that has a remarkable landscape, with a colour palette quite different to the landscapes in my area (with many tones of green everywhere). I chose this place for the course hoping to get some shots with other colours (oranges mainly) for this assignment. It also has the advantage that there are no villages or human settlements within the park (no electric lines, no roads but only trails, .....). Having more time it would have been fantastic to get some autumn colors in the forests of the pyrenees, or may be even here in the Netherlands, and certainly some winter landscapes with snow.

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

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Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

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Photograph 1 light 3

Camera: Lens: Exposure: Flash: Date: Process

Canon EOS 5D EF17-40mm f/4L USM Shot at 17 mm Manual exposure, 1/15 sec, f/8, ISO 800 Off, Did not fire September 17, 2011

This geological structure is called Castillo de Arena (sand castle) and it looks like a finger coming from the sandy ground and pointing to the sky. Not an easy shot because it is against the light, early in the morning. Unfortunately the colours of the morning where not as spectacular as usual during this time of the year (when it is quite usual to have lots of reds and magentas in the morning clouds). The camera was standing on the tripod, a cable trigger was used and the mirror lift was previously configured. I like the cold atmosphere (in post processing levels were adjusted, colour temperature slightly lowered to enhance these cold tones, and some fill light was provided for the foreground)......with some warmer tonalities in the right.

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

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Colour

Different tones of blues, some oranges and the yellowish colour of the sands. ... I would say that the situation is of harmony with complementary colour (blue contrasting with oranges-yellows, and blue being present in a bigger proportion). Critic In this shot the clouds provide some movement feeling. I tried some other shots with the horizon line higher, giving more prominence to the sky....but I like this one much more, because in my view, the "sand corridor" in the lower part of the frame, which ends abruptly, helps the viewer to "enter" the photograph, as if he was there (provides the feeling of being in the place itself). Technically, I have to confess that I made a mistake been sloppy with the camera controls and I set somehow an ISO too (far too) high. On the other hand I think the result is not so noisy (the good signal/noise relation was one of the reasons to buy this camera).....

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Photograph 2 light 4

Camera: Lens: Exposure: Flash: Date: Process

Canon EOS 5D EF70-200mm f/4L USM Shot at 176 mm Manual exposure, 1/500 sec, f/11, ISO 800 Off, Did not fire September 17, 2011

Same as the previous one. It was taken in fact just a few kilometres away from it.

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The Art of Photography

Assignment 3 Page 26

Colours

In this case the colours can be split in only two tonalities: oranges against blue, as it can be easily seen in the colour sketch. This is a clear situation of complementary colours, Each one of the tonalities fills half of the frame creating a strong contrast which is not completely harmonious in the sense that the orange tones call for the attention of the viewer much more. This feeling is stressed by the volumes created by the shadows with the result that it seems that the mountains are popping out of the frame. This is also an interesting example in my opinion of the contrast warm (mountains)-cold (sky). Critic Same ISO configuration mistake as the previous one. In this situation there was not possibility to try much because the light stays like that for a very short time late in the evening before the sun goes down. My idea was to record the shadows and textured revealed by the side light and to create an image without the line of the horizon and without any scale reference.

Leopoldo de Castro

The Art of Photography

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Photograph 3 light 5

Camera: Lens: Exposure: Flash: Date:

Canon EOS 40D EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Shot at 18 mm Manual exposure, 1/400 sec, f/5.6, ISO 125 Off, Did not fire August 26, 2011

Process This one was made close to Xinzo de Limia in the region of Galicia (northwest of Spain). It is a flat area surrounded by mountains, and it was a lagoon in the 60's but it was drained to obtain agriculture land. I was with a friend in a 4WD following the trail when I saw that self standing tree that caught my attention. I didn't have the tripod with me (in fact we were only scouting for nice places to photograph the river Limia) and I made this photography from one of the limits of the field where the tree was growing. I tried the better combination of ISO/aperture to get a very fast shutter speed, to be sure that the image would not be moved (I tried to hold the camera as steadily as possible)....I didn't want to lose the wonderful light of the moment. I like a lot the tree against the cloudy sky where the blue can nevertheless be clearly seen, and the yellow vegetation in the lower part of the frame illuminated by the sun light and strongly contrasting with the sky.

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Colour

Yellow, green and blue are the three colours in the scene. This is in my opinion an example of colour harmony through the use of similar colours (yellow+blue=green). This photograph reminds me the impressionist pictorial style (it is in fact one of the few ones where I almost like the sketch even more than the photograph itself). This combination of colours (blue+yellow+green) is linked to my memories as a child, and one of the predominant colour combinations in my region. Critic The photograph was made not in the best possible circumstances (no tripod and some time limitations), but I tried to find the best camera position to the best of my possibilities. The tree is far off centre and it is balanced with the blue sky in the opposite side of the frame. I would have tried a polarizing filter to further enhance the contrast in the sky, had I had it with me.

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Photograph 4 light 9

Camera: Lens: Exposure: Flash: Date:

Canon EOS 40D EF75-300mm f/4-5.6 USM Shot at 160 mm Manual exposure, 1/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 Off, Did not fire August 26, 2011

Process This photography was made next to the natural park of Invernadeiro in the province of Ourense (northwest of Spain, Galicia). The original has been cropped to avoid a little strip of land that could be seen on the upper part of the frame. The camera was on tripod and a cable release trigger was used.

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Colour

It comprises only two colours (two neighbours in the colour wheel), but there are many different tonalities of each one of them. The combination blue-green I find particularly pleasant, and it conveys to me a feeling of rest, harmony and peace. The photography was made from one of the surrounding mountains with a telelens set on a tripod, and framed to emphasize the diagonal that is the limit between the two colour areas. The different tonalities of blue in the water arise in fact from the reflection of the sky with clouds in the water surface. Critic The light is probably not ideal, but the place is far from home and I didn't have the chance to come back. I tried to make the best of it by leaving the sun to my left to have a side light that gives some volume. The symmetry could have probably been enhanced by getting closer to the side of the little lagoon, and then may be the use of a polarizing filter would enhance the contrast and colours of the water surface,

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Photograph 5 light 1

Camera: Lens: Exposure: Flash: Date: Process

Canon EOS 40D EF75-300mm f/4-5.6 USM Shot at 105 mm Manual exposure, 25 sec, f/8, ISO 100 Off, Did not fire August 25, 2011

The last photograph of this light series was taken in a river close to my home in the natural park of Baixa Limia-Xures (Ourense, northwest of Spain) a gorgeous natural park (Unesco heritage) which has the privilege of being the biggest natural reserve in Europe shared between two countries (Portugal and Spain). I know these river since my early childhood. The place is not easy to access but it is beautiful, and the fresh waters come from the top of the mountains and they are absolutely clean. I visited the place three times in three different moments of the day, spending quite a long time in each of the visits. To make the photograph several different vantage points were tried. One of the problems was the accessibility and grip for the tripod. For this one it was placed next to the water (I also tried in a couple of them the tripod placed into the water) in a very slippery and leaning rock surface. This photograph was made with the camera on tripod and an ND graduated filter set to provide a Leopoldo de Castro The Art of Photography Assignment 3 Page 32

longer exposure time in order to get the silky texture of the water. This is a place where the sun strikes strongly, and I decided to take the photograph late in the evening when the light is softer. Post processing includes level (also for all of the other photographs of the assignment) and a little bit of colour enhancement.

Colour

The granite stones present in the area change from a grey colour to an intense orange when they are under water. Water is a surprising element when talking about colour because it doesn't have any colour itself, but it reflects the surrounding colours and the sky, and it changes the colour characteristics of other objects when combined with it (call it sprayed, wet, submerged, etc.....). The dominant colours are orange and green which are contrasting colours (separated about one third of the way around colour wheel). This is therefore, an example of colour contrast through contrasting colours. The colours are very important (notice the amount of different green tonalities). I am looking forward to come back to some of these places in autumn or winter when the light is quite different, and the colours are according to the season and the bigger amount of water (rain, dew and fog). Critic I like this photograph a lot. Not only for the emotions and souvenirs that it triggers, but also because it conveys to me a sense of rest and peace which I love. I visited the place three times in three different moments of the day, spending quite a long time in each of the visits.

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Part 4: Colour
Music: Pink Floyd, Any colour you like from Dark side of the moon, track 8.

Color... thinks by itself, independently of the object it clothes. C. Baudelaire

Introduction I didn't really know what I could do for this part.......in the beginning I thought about flower photos completely out of focus, with nice colour combinations, so that only colour blurred shapes could be seen. I tried it and I posted some results that can be seen here. I also considered (I never get to try it, though) to cover the lens of the camera with coloured gels or plastics and shoot shadows or objects out of focus........... In any case I had clear that I wanted some kind of photographs where colour was the one and only feature.......where nothing else was detracting from it.......... Coming from spain I saw through the window of the plane the colours of the sky and I took some photographs that reminded me the pictures of Mark Rothko. See the post here. After trying several things such as different shutter speeds, and then to move the camera during a long exposure, I began to consider whether I could reach some similar results at home with the limitations I have. After contemplating some possibilities, what I did was to set the camera on a tripod, point it to a white wall, switch off the lights and "paint" with a flashlight the wall using different shapes and colour gels....... The results were not easy to anticipate, particularly because in the dark the possible references of the frame limits do not exist anymore. An extra problem was the exposure time and flashlight intensity, because it is easy (at least with the means I had) to overexpose and see as a result only a burnt white covering the whole frame.

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Photograph 1 colours 8

Process This one was shot from the window of a plane with a long exposure time and moving the camera during the exposure. Not much post processing but some colour enhancement. Colours The dominant colours are orange and blue (both in different tonalities). It seems that also some green is popping up. Blue and Orange are complementary colours. The proportions are in this case difficult to estimate, but they are not certainly the alleged harmonious proportions (1orange:2blue). Critic The image has a strong vigneting that I didn't correct. I could provide lots of weird explanations for why I didn't, but as a matter of fact I just like it like that.

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Photograph 2 colours 1

Process This one and the following ones were all taken with the camera on tripod, in a dark room. The camera in B mode and pointing to a white wall where I tried many different designs and colour combinations. Colour Two colours with different tonalities blue and red.......... red-violet are similar colours, and red blue are contrasting colours.............. The colour combination in this photograph is relaxing to me. After looking for a long while I even have the feeling that the dark region in the middle is inviting me to dive within as in a tunnel......it also reminds me the sea under the sunset......

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Photograph 3 colours 3

Colour Contrasting colours blue and yellow where the yellow is working as an accent. The photography has reminiscences of an astronomic object (a planetary nebula or similar), and also of an eye. The colour combination suggests to me activity and happiness.

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Photograph 4 colours 5

Colour Again the same colour combination (with some green appearing where the yellow vanishes). This image is complementary to the previous one, with blue working as an accent. Also with the same astronomic reminiscences. The white in the middle is in fact burnt (overexposed) white. Critic These kind of photographs I would have never tried if it was not because of the assignment. They could be probably considered by some people like more 'arty' than any of the other ones, however I guess they have a level of abstraction that is beyond my own taste. That doesn't mean that I dislike them, it is only that I prefer some other kind of photographs. They are probably not very challenging technically, but again they are the final stop of a relatively Leopoldo de Castro The Art of Photography Assignment 3 Page 38

long trip, and they have to be seen in that context.

Annex: Implied Colour

I didn't have originally the intention to add an annex to the Assignment. However, while reading the book by Harold Davis, Creative Black & White I came to the following ....Our expectation is that scenes and objects in our world are coloured. [] The fact that one is viewing an object in black and white doesn't negate the fact that we know the object has color. We tend to visually impute colour to the subjects of photos.... This is exactly the complementary idea of the previous part of the assignment where colour was dissociated of any object. In the following photograph

the viewer recognises the vine leafs and their colour is somehow added in his brain (although may be not the same colour for any two different viewers). The colour is not only implied, beyond that the recognition of the object triggers in our brain the colour associated.

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FINAL NOTES ON THE ASSIGNMENT

All in all it was worth it, both in terms of learning and enjoyment......but very intense. It is the first time where I conceive the assignment as a whole. I had clear ideas of what I was looking for and I pursued them......I also think that all the photographs of the assignment are made and not taken (according to my interpretation of taken and made, which I expressed here). Now the questions are many........ "Could it have been done better?".....well, it can always be better.....both in terms of execution and concept......but if I reformulate the question in "Am I satisfied with the result, given the amount of time and energy spent????", the answer will be a clear and loud "yes". I did not only conceived and worked the assignment as a whole, I also tried to get rid (following one of the tutors advise) of any labels for the pictures.......and this works in both senses, no label after being obtained, and no "filling the boxes" way of working........ Another question is (and this is very important) ...."do the photographs of the assignment seen together make any sense?????......because there are many different kinds of them....with "different kinds" understood in a broad sense". Well the answer is .....yes.....they make sense to me together with the con-text (which in this case is enhanced with the music, something that is innovative to me)...........they tell a story together that would not be told by a subset of them, the story of a travel from darkness to colour. "Did you try any possible thing???" There are many things (particularly in the last part, colour) that I didn't have time to try......... but it is impossible to try everything.....and at the end one has to follow a path....dictated by instinct, following an idea, imitating someone,...........and there is the limit of time......... I feel quite proud of the assignment result. I had never engaged on a similar kind of project. I understand now that colour has a relevant role in photography on its own and that it can not be treated as an afterthought (and I understand some of the comments of the tutor in the first assignment). I also understand that colour is able to trigger strong emotions and evoke intense feelings. I will finish with a nice quote I have found in one of the books I am reading now....... "A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in Leopoldo de Castro The Art of Photography Assignment 3 Page 40

the deepest sense and is a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety" Ansel Adams

Books relevant for the assignment Harold Davis, Creative Black & White, Wiley, 2010 Ruben Smit, Nederlandse landschappen fotograferen, Tirion natuur, Baarn, 2009 Tony Sweet, Fine Art Flower photography. Creative Techniques and the Art of Observation, Stackpole books, 2005. W. Thornhill and D. Talbott, "The Electric Universe", Mikamar Publishing, 2007 Jose B. Ruiz, "El fotografo en la naturaleza. Guia completa para la era digital", JdeJ Editores, 2010 (3 Edicin) Marjorie B. Cohn and others, Mark Rothko, Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2001. Mitchell Kanshkevich, Captivating color, DPS, 2011.

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