A Reel Slice Productions

Photojournalism & Technical Practice

I decided to shoot my photo essay in Portsmouth, my 11 photos are based either in Portsmouth Harbour or the City Centre. Portsmouth was a very interesting place to take photos, it allowed me to interact with the environment and allowed for interesting activity within the photos. Some photos, however, have a stronger effect without people being in them. I chose 11 images out of the ones that I took. The photographs were shot on a Canon 550d using a mixture of lenses; a 50mm and an 18-135mm lens.

I took two opportunities to take photos in Portsmouth, one on the 24th October and the 1st November. Both days had a mixture of grey sky and sunny spells allowing the weather to test my ability with a camera. It also developed my skills in using all the settings on the 550d; such as ISO, aperture, exposure, shutter speed, lens types and white balance.

Henri Cartier-Bresson was my main influence within my Photojournalism project. His "Decisive Moment" style of photography is key within my images (shown in the slideshow to the right), this "Observational Mode" allows the subject of the photo to move freely and uninterrupted by camera equipment. Images are taken without reason for meaning, it gives the photo a more naturalistic approach without the moment captured feeling staged. They supposedly have no agenda. Martin Parr is also a big influence, his photography used everyday situations to create a symbolic meaning. I have also used this technique within some of my photos. The "Poetic Mode" is another inspiration in my work, this concept is more abstract compared to the other forms of documentary. Dramatic framing can influence the viewer to grasp the "inner truth" of the photo, this is more symbolic in style.

As I said before, my photojournalism assignment allowed me to practise with the camera. The changes in weather and different environments allowed this. ISO ranges between 200-800 in all my photos taken. This is normal going from sunny day to cloudy skies, had it of been closer to night time, a higher ISO would have to be used resulting in a grainier image. ISO stands for International Organization of Standardization; the higher the ISO the higher pixel's sensitivity, which is why the image appears to be grainy. RAW editing can resolve this to an extent, but if it can be avoided the image has a higher quality.

Image 1 (to the right) is an example of "Poetic Mode" and influenced by Martin Parr. The everyday situations within the photo are placed to create a sub-context, in this case it's about war. This is also a fairly good example of decisive moment, the hooded figure in the background was a child running around the area. It helps to create emotion within the picture, it also juxta-poses the poster of the army soldier. Technically, the Depth of Field within this photo is key. I feel that the poster needed the focus more than the background, it again reinforces the political focus on the soldier. In Photoshop, I masked the left-hand side of the image to affirm the sub-context to the viewer.

This photo is a bit more experimental in its form. I have experimented with "above and below", this gives more magnitude to the image. The shadows are heavier and more solid due to this and the strength of the light source. It is heavily edited to give it a stronger effect.

 In this shot, I decided to experiment with the shutter speed. 1/4000s is incredibly fast and freezes all motion with the photo. The subjects friendship is captured within the frame, it also uses a small DOF separating the people from the background. The lens used was a 50mm prime, the low aperture requires this lens as opposed to the telescopic lens which only allows a minimum f/5.6.

This image is another example of the the placing of subjects, I took this photo in a "decisive moment". The motion is frozen from the shutter speed and the subjects locked into place. It has a sub-context like image 1, the difference in generations is separated by light and focus.