Isle of Dogs
Unit Briefing
For this unit 'To Begin', we were split into 8 individual groups to capture various areas of London, more specifically the areas surrounding North Greenwich. I was assigned to Group 8 with the set location Isle of Dogs, which is a large sub-urban residential estate adjacent to Canary Wharf.
Treatment .1 - 'Cinematic Street'
Treatment .1 -'Atmospheric Energy / Abstract'
Visit .1
How did it go?
Our fist visit to the location was to get a better feel for the atmosphere, while getting ideas to demonstrate our treatment's theme of Cinematic shots. Upon first arrival we soon noticed the many streets of residential houses that dominate the area, but as we walked around, we noticed that amongst the homely neighbourhood there are occasional reminders of its past. Some of these being large chimneys from old industrial buildings, draw bridges that allowed small vessels to pass through or small turning barges at the ends of small canals. I felt it was successful for what we aimed to achieve for a better mind set for a later shoot.
Visit .2
How did it go?
For my second set of shots, I went a bit later in the evening for a more dramatic style of lighting due to the sun being lower and causing contrasted shadows. Also, with these shots I wanted to try portray the idea how Isle of Dogs is constantly overshadowed by Canary Wharf with its high rise buildings and skyscrapers. While some turned out to be more landscape, I tried to get some shots that were more down to street level to capture the environment.
Edits and Why?
As a group we all came to an agreement that we should go with the theme of monochromatic as it serves a better accent to the cinematic feel that we aim to achieve while looking uniform with others from the group. Reasoning behind this was helped by our inspirations from Fan Ho, who captures aesthetic high contrast street scenes with help from sharp contrasting shadows. As a result of our inspirations, I decided that in Adobe Lightroom, I would further emphasise by increasing the contrast meter even if just by a few notches. I feel like my shots and edits work well together in continuity using harsh shadows that cut through the rows of buildings and will work well with it's counterparts of the group.
Online Exhibition
We set about establishing the layout of our exhibit in Kunstmatrix with it's helpful and clean looking pre-sets. After selecting a pre-set layout and all of our selected 2 images compiled together, we started applying them to the walls of the exhibition in a manner that didn't interrupt the flow from picture to picture as you went around the virtual space. As you can see by the images above, we selected a spacious white and metal grey colour pallet to correspond with out monochromatic theme.
Real Life Concept of the Exhibition
Once the online exhibition layout was established we then moved onto recreating it on a real life scale for a better perspective on how the layout affects the audiences experience. To help with our analysis, we got another one of the 8 groups to give a second opinion on how they felt the layout communicates to them. To our relief we received very reassuring comments on how the layout naturally takes you on a spiral around the space leading you from image to image and ending on the centre quadrant. Having this second opinion helped establish that this would be the final layout of the virtual exhibition.
Evaluation
Overall, I think the project was a success at translating the initial goal to create a cinematic feel with our photography. I would like to say how impressed I am at the outcome of not only my contributions, but also my fellow students that put out amazing teamwork for this project to be a success.
This was a great introduction to the course and developing our skills to a higher level, whether that be in teamwork or as aspiring artists. As well as developing my creating skills, I have also developed more confidence in my work as I push myself further and I can not wait for the next project to sink my teeth into.
