Assignment (Unit 101-105) - WWII Shoot - Day 1

It was a really cold Sunday morning when I finally decided to do some work on my WWII assignment.  With a McDonald's breakfast sitting nicely in my belly I headed out into Baddesley woods with my friend Dave dressed in full military gear.  We must have looked like a right couple of idiots.

To achieve most of my shots I decided I would need to take my trusty tripod as I figured shooting under the cover of the trees would mean I would need a slow shutter speed.  This was necessary as I wanted to use a low ISO to keep my images at a decent quality.

Along with my tripod I took my Sony Alpha 200 DSLR with my Sony DT 18-70mm f3.5-5.6 lens and my Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 APO DG MACRO lens.  I also took my Remote Shutter Release cable for those slow shutter shots.

After being harassed by some dogs and having a bit of a chat to the owners (who seemed interested in what I was doing in a "Please don't kill me," kind of way) I set myself up, fired off some test shots to get the right settings and off I went.

f/5.6 1/8sec ISO-100

These two shots came out OK.  I didn't really have to do much to them in photoshop apart from changing the colours.  Using the 'black & white' option in the adjustments menu I played around with the settings until I was happy with the result.  I also added a slight tint to the pictures just to add some tones.  I added some noise to the top picture but left the bottom one.  I love the look of seriousness on Dave's face.  Brilliant.

f/5.6 1/10 sec ISO-100

I love close up photography and I decided to stick my camera right in Dave's face for this next one.  I was kind of hoping to mirror Don McCullin's photograph of the Shell shocked marine but things didn't seem to fall into place. 
With this picture, after converting it to black and white I used the dodge and burn tools to manipulate the image slightly.


f/5.6 1/8sec ISO-100



The next picture (below) is actually three different shots layered together.  I wanted to give the image that there were a few soldiers wondering about.  I'm not sure I like this picture though.  On a small scale it looks OK but when I look in great detail it doesn't look right. 

f/5.6 1/8sec ISO-100 front soldier
f/5.6 1/10sec ISO-100 main pic
f5.6 1/10sec ISO-100 crouched soldier





f/5.6 1/4sec ISO-100

The woods near Baddesley are full of these remains of buildings which make for great scenery.  For this shot I set my tripod up right next to a fallen branch.  I like how the branch leads us towards the soldier up against the wall.  This was one of my favourite shots from the day and it was one of the first. 

It was at this point that I was interrupted by a family of dog walkers.  They didn't see Dave until the last moment which goes to show, camouflage works.

Once again I edited the colours in the 'black & white' menu and tinted the image slightly.  Apart from slightly adjusting the contrast that's all I really needed to do for this image.
 

f/5.6 1/8sec ISO-100

I then tried to get a picture of Dave breathing out into the cold air.  All my attempts didn't turn out too well.  They were either too blurry or just didn't capture what I was going for.  I decided to see what would happen if I used a filter on one of the blurry pictures.  I then selected the 'poster edges' filter from the filters menu.  This kind of gave the picture a graphic novel feel.  Kind of cool but not really what I'm looking for.

I really enjoyed the day apart from the freezing cold and I have a lot of pictures to look through.  My only main problem was the fact my battery ran out.  Like a fool I left my camera switched on the night before. 

Next Sunday I'm heading back into the woods to do more shooting and hopefully I can do my centerpiece.

I'm looking forward to it.