After doing my shoot in the green screen yesterday I decided today would be the day to shoot on location as I didn't want to wait any longer in order to start editing my images as I know I will have to re shoot again. Before the shoot I had to prepare quite a lot in order to make the image in my head a reality. After reflecting back on my second shoot I knew that I wanted to shoot on location and have objects hanging from the trees. I already had some things but I had to buy a couple of things. I wanted to be able to use a different camera and lens but because I didn't get on well with the camera that I borrowed yesterday I decided against it, however on my next shoot I will definitely try and use a different camera and lens.
Setting up the shoot:
I had to find the best spot for me to take my images to start of with so I originally tried in the orchard as there are normally shorter trees that I could reach to hang things on but then also trees with lots of leaves but all of the leaves had fallen off leaving the trees and the surrounding area really sparse. Eventually I found a space that looked really good it was sheltered and had a lot of leaves and trees around and even an arch way which is pretty much exactly what I had in mind. Once I found my spot it was time to set up. Setting up was my favourite part of the whole shoot because I could just see my vision coming to life. To make setting up on location that bit easier I had attached all of the string to the items that were going to hang from the trees. I wanted to spread everything out across the landscape so that the background wouldn't look too clustered. As soon as I started to hang things I realised it was going to be harder to shoot than I first thought because the items that weren't so heavy were being blown around in a circle by the wind, the heavier objects were but not so much. I decided not to put all of the playing cards out along with the foam objects because I didn't want it to be too repetitive. I kept stepping back to where I was going to shoot to see what it looked like and then thought that I might not be able to fit the whole landscape in one frame and I might have to take the landscape in two parts but both parts of the landscape looked nice so I didn't mind. I was then ready to shoot.
During the shoot:
To start off with I struggled to level my tripod as the ground was very uneven and a little hilly but in the end I managed to get it as level as I could, the background was also a lot darker than I first thought so it took me a few minutes to sort my camera settings out but I eventually got there. I tried shooting some with the flash and some without. One thing I struggled with was knowing when to press the shutter as the objects were moving around in the air and sometimes if the wind was a little heavier they would be spinning for ages. I couldn't fit the whole landscape into the frame so I took them separately but they have turned out really nice so I'm happy that I did it this way. Attached below are my contact sheets:
Looking at the contact sheet I prefer the images that are lighter in brightness on the contact sheet as they are the images that have been taken without the flash but I also like the dark and mystical effect the images taken with the flash give because the objects are made a lot more prominent in the air. I feel that the lighter images the objects could be getting slightly lost into the background but I will see what they look like when I get round to editing. Most of the images were taken with the same settings but I did change the settings a couple of times throughout the shoot.
This shoot was successful because:
I was on location
I had lots of objects to hang from the trees
I need to improve on my next shoot:
Put weights on the objects that kept moving or find a way to make them stay still
Use a different camera
Try a different location
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