Unit 2 - Relationships: Unit 2 Relationships - Shoot 6 - Capturing the Wind, Rain, Sun and Rainbows

'Capturing the Weather' - Extension Shoot from Shoot 2
I really enjoyed shoot 2, where I tired to capture Rain, so I've decided to revisit this topic of Natural Weather in shoot 5. In shoot 6 I will not just be looking at Rain, but will also be looking at Sun, Rainbows and Wind. Although this topic does relate to both David Lloyd and Jelle Martens, I will be concentrating mainly on techniques and experimenting with these techniques, as I feel like showing a range of techniques of for this shoot. I have devided this page into weather conditions and the techniques I've used to capture these weather conditions.

In this shoot, I will be experimenting with colours in Photoshop, for the two photographs below, I decided to see whether they would work as well in Black and White, and see what effect Black and White has on the water droplets.
Capturing the Rain...

Image 1 and Image 2 both show the detail of the water droplets, in order to create water droplets, I used a standard spray bottle, filled it with water, and simply sprayed the plant, I sprayed from a distance to create small droplet, which did not run, like you can see on these images. I used a 50mm Lens to take these two pictures.

Capturing the Rain - Edits

I changed the image from Colour to Black and White using Photoshop, although the coloured version shows nature in a more beautiful light, the Black and White image is more dramatic and feels like it has more meaning behind it.

Capturing a Rainbow...

Capturing a rainbow was on of the hardest things to do throughout this whole unit, I had to experiment a lot, and here are the outcomes below. Although they are not the best in terms of professional photographs, I did reach my goal of capturing a rainbow. Look closely at image three, you may see a hose pipe at the bottom, this is how I created the rainbow, I changed the hose pipes function to spray, and placed it in a small tree. As you can see, I chose a very sunny day for this, as without the sun or a bright light source, I would not have been able to create this. Initially I started off by walking around it, with a 18-55mm lens connected to my camera, I thought it would be better to take these pictures with a fast shutter speed, however, when I tried this, the images came out very similar to those in shoot 2. I then experimented, using slower shutter speeds, but the images came out over exposed because it was so bright outside, so I decided to use a Neutral Density Filter, this darkens the image, so you can take long exposure shots in the daytime.

Image 4 shows my best photograph from the mini Rainbow shoot, In this photograph I changed the lens to a 75-300mm lens, as I found I got better photos by zooming in further, If you look closely into the rainbow, you may see lines, this is because I used long exposure, so the waters movement has left a path, where it has fallen. Overall I think this shoot worked as I was able to reach my aim, of capturing a rainbow.

Capturing the Wind...

5
I have been successful in this shoot at capturing the movement of the wind, all of the images worked well, but the palm trees do appear to of captured the wind more, the only disappointment with these photographs some dust which has collected on either the Lens, ND Filter or Sensor without me realising it, if you look towards the centre of the image, you may see two small dots, this is dust, I could edit these out on Photoshop, this is something I would do if it was one of my Final Pieces, but I've left it in to explain why its happened. If I was to redo this mini shoot, then I would ensure the lenses and sensor is cleaned.

For my 'Capturing the wind' mini shoot I set my Camera up on a tripod, once again I used the Canon 75-300mm Zoom lens for these photos, as I did with the Rainbow, I also used a Neutral Density Filter, this enabled me to take long exposure photographs in day time, I set the camera to have a shutter speed of 2", giving the camera enough time to capture the wind. The inspiration for this was one of David Lloyds safari pictures, (see below), where he captures the movement of Wildebeest, to me, it looks like he has used a technique called panning, where you set your camera to have a slow shutter speed, and follow the movement of an object, so the subject is in focus, but the background is completely blurred, this would explain why the wildebeest are in focus, and the background is not. Like me, he would probably also of used a ND filter for this photo, as to stop it becoming over exposed.