Photography Challenge - Week 1

Introduction to Photo Challenges

Last week I picked up Darren, my longest friend who is also a keen photographer - whose Instagram and Facebook I shall link below. He suggested doing photography challenges as an assignment, in order to try either different types of photography, or to encourage us to get creative with themes.

Darren put together a list of 7 ideas, and I did the same, leaving us with a 14 week challenge.

From here, we decided to use a random number generator - I would choose a random number for Darren, and vice versa.

My challenge - Into the Blue

My week one challenge was - Into the Blue. Instantly my mind turned to blue hour, and the idea of trying to get a good kingfisher shot. I wanted to only get one picture. My aim was to simply shoot one and post it, no matter how it turned out - but I came to the conclusion that if I did that I would not be treating it seriously enough.

Hampered by feeling ill and having to await PCR test results (as a precaution), I managed to get a shot last night - 24 hours before the deadline we’d set ourselves.

Into the Blue - a shot of the Tamar Bridge at blue hour.

I had been desperately trying to get a blue boat to stay still, but the movement of the waves was making the boat move - making a long exposure impossible. Darren pointed out these stakes in the water, so I went for a low shot at 24mm, to get in the edge of the Tamar bridge.

The challenge itself proved to be exactly that. I did not enjoy it one bit, as suddenly everything blue decided to be a nightmare to shoot. Had it not been for Daz I would still have been there trying to steady the boat - so I really owe him for his help!

What did I enjoy?

After a few days of isolating as a precaution, I enjoyed simply getting out and about. The challenge itself I felt quite… well… challenging, and quite restrictive. Everything I wanted to shoot suddenly didn’t feel right, so I didn’t take the shot and left it until the last minute.

Lessons to learn

The lessons for me to take from this was not to pressure myself to only take on shot. For me, photography is taking the shots that feel right. You have to feel a shot for the audience to connect to it. Shooting at blue hour greatly helped to get a shot that met the criteria.

Darren’s challenge - Shoot Buildings

Darren drew the number 12 - Shoot Buildings. We’ve been to many locations for architecture photography, everything from bridges, to university buildings and shopping centres. Daz took a different approach, and one that I am very envious of. He started incredibly strong, getting some stunning shots of some of the architectural beauties in our city of Plymouth.

Shooting up at these stunning buildings gave Daz some really interesting perspectives, with stunning geometric shapes. This shows the buildings in all their glory, I imagine exactly how the architects envisioned them.

The clouds make the images really pop, and the sharp angles and leading lines offer a really unique view of something most people would not notice.

Beckley Point, Plymouth’s tallest building.

Looking up at the clouds gave great colour and contrast.

The famous ‘point’ at the top of Beckley Point.

The point to the blue skies.

The rails added a great leading line heading toward the building.

The white clouds bouncing off the windows create a well balanced shot.

A mix of old and new - the older style brickwork really helps the unique colours of Beckley stand out.

Standing tall.

Daz also captured some older style architecture.

This angle shows the ‘steps’ of Beckley, each reflecting additional storeys.

In Daz’s words

The theme I was given for my photography assignment week 1 was Shoot Buildings. Now this was pretty much exactly how the theme says - however I decided from the get go of this theme that I was going to make the photos I captured different from the usual "OK there's a building..SNAP!..there's my shot of a building".

I decided I would take a few hours to take a good walk around my location and look at different compositions and even what the weather was doing as well, and whether I could incorporate any clouds in my shot, or even people as well. Eventually I settled on just getting the first capture and went from there.

Most of my captures I did for this theme I focused on the idea of shooting from a lower level to show off the size of the buildings. On some others I simply zoomed in and only captured part of the building.

Lessons to learn

My advice for a theme like this is quite simply take the extra few hours or so and really take in as much as you possibly can. Walk the area in your location, consider compositions and consider the small details. In the 6 years I've been doing photography I learnt very early on that when it comes to photography its all about your style! It's about what made you decide to capture the image.

What's absolutely amazing about photography is actually seeing those different styles from people, what they were perhaps thinking at the time they may have taken a certain photo, and why did they choose that certain composition? I look at photography as an artist with a paintbrush. They also need to think about how to make the painting they do interesting - and they need to take into account there subject they are going to paint. All these things can be taken into account with a camera.

This theme really did help me explore architectural photography in a different way and the many possible ways you can make a simple building capture look that bit more interesting.

More of Daz’s shots can be found on his Facebook and on his Instagram.

Next week…

We have our themes for next week, and shall be revealing the themes when we post our photos. Keep an eye out, and we can’t wait to see what the next week will bring.