Fabiola Mann : 2014

This is a Journal for my AS level

Photography 2014: Fabiola Mann

In this blog is my journey of discovery into the art of photography.

fig 1
I took this photograph on 30th April 2014
(One of the Final Shots of Project)

This shot was inspired by the famous photographer Steve McCurry, most noted for "Afghan Girl". The picture is of my schoolfriend Laure, who appears again in later pages of the blog.

I used fairly complex but subtle photoshopping tools to bring out the tones and colours within her eyes. I am extremely pleased with the lighting and level of focus in this picture, achieved through a low aperture and natural lighting. I feel that this picture truly summarises the progress that I have made since my first few pictures, I now have a greater understanding of how to take clear, emotive pictures and alter them on photoshop.

fig 2

fig 2 was taken near the beginning of my photographic project (December 2013). At the time, I felt that it was quite a good photograph, but looking back in hindsight, I can see a lot of improvements that I could have made. One of the main changes in my technique is the fact that I used to take pictures solely in "Auto Focus" and did not attempt to adjust the other camera settings such as shutter speed or aperture. Now, as you can see in picture A, the quality of the photographs which I take has improved vastly as I pay attention to image composition, lighting, and most importantly my skills at focussing (using digital zoom around the eye of the subject) have improved. I now almost always use manual focus and choose my aperture very carefully when taking each picture.

fig 3, April 10th 2014
Model: Faith Lovecraft

fig 3 is one of the shots taken from one of my last photoshoots, for which I hired a professional model. Unlike at the beginning of the project, I had begun to draft images and look at other pictures for inspiration, so going into this shoot I had a clear idea in mind of what I wanted to achieve.