Treatment for Photography (Unit 31)

Treatment for Photography – Unit 31

Passage of Time

The Brief:
You have been commissioned by The Workstation to create a photographic collection and promotional poster for an exhibition on the theme 'identity'. Each collection is to contain five final pieces of original photographs. For this unit you will take photographs using a range of photography techniques, manipulate them to create your final five pieces based on the theme.
By completing this unit you will understand the use of professional photographs in media products. You will understand how to plan for a photographic shoot and take and edit a rand of photographs for a specific media product (Promotional poster for the exhibition).

 
Concept Idea:
Landscape Photography - This will be mostly shots with consideration of natural light which will mean I will have to plan out what times I should take the photographs at and during what weather. I will have to consider the placement of the buildings and where to distribute the subject on the rule of thirds. The photos will most likely be in quite a lot of light, which means a small aperture, and an average to fast shutter speed may be used (<f5.6 Aperture and 1/60th Shutter Speed or higher). However, I could also consider a slow shutter speed and take a photograph of the same position where the foreground will have moving element to connote time. Each building will be super-imposed with a double exposure effect, each with different themes/subjects and in different styles. 
Each of the photos will have different uses of depth of field to provide a sense of having a single focus on the photograph. Another photo will also use a slow shutter speed on a static location to capture movement outside of the main subject of focus to create the sense of time. 

Each of the photographs will feature different photography styles. 
- Shallow depth of field to create a main focal point. 


Target Audience:
Considering the photos will be a connotation of time, it will most likely create less interest in the younger audience, however I will still be aiming it an age group which will be 16 and above. The photographic genre will be quite general and it doesn’t have a focus on a certain trend or stereotype, which means both genders are able to understand the photographs. The demographic isn’t as quite important because of the fact that I am taking photos to represent time which means it will have influences from several cultures. More specifically, people who may want to look back into the past can emulate that through the photographs. The majority of people who will be viewing my photographs will most likely be people from the ABC1 demographic as the photographs will be featured in an exhibit.

 
Key Milestones:
1. Planning - 17/4/2015
2. Taking Photographs - 20/4/2015
3. Editing Photographs - 4/5/2015
4. Launch Date - A week in June

 
Equipment:

-          DSLR Camera with a standard lens
-          External Lighting – Artificial Lighting – This is to counter natural lighting, as it cannot be controlled
-          Tripod – To keep the camera steady for static shots
-          Photoshop – This will be the program that I will be using to edit the photographs that I have taken

 
Props and Models:
I will take photographs of buildings, which mean I will be less likely to use props. The subject (the buildings) is technically the given prop in the landscape photography I will be taking. However, if I will be doing my contingency, I will most likely require models that are able to do candid photography. This will mean that I will be required to acquire their permission.

 
Health and Safety Consideration:
Gaining permissions: I will be using a Release form to ask for permission for people who are willing to model for me. The importance of this is to prevent breaching their privacy.
Recce Forms: These are forms that are used to assess a location to see if it provides the necessary and/or relevant subjects to my photographs.

Risk Assessment: This is to assess possible risks and hazards that may happen outside during photo sessions and other activities involving us. These are important because they are going to provide evidence of what we have to be careful of and how we are going to act accordingly if one of the listed risks were to happen. 

Legal and Ethical Consideration

Copyright:
Copyright is the right given to a creator of an original work. They are given exclusive permission to distribute their original work. Breaching copyright will create legal consequences i.e. getting sued. You have to acquire permission to be able to use someone’s intellectual property. This is important because it will mean that we will able to use other assets.

This applies to our photographs because we have to be careful of taking photos with copyrighted work such as logos and branded items. When we take our photographs, we have a technical copyright over that photograph which is the same as saying "We own the visual for this photograph."

The copyright pertaining to my style of photography will mostly concern logos and private property. I will have to ask for permission if I will be planning on using locations, buildings and and form of media not owned by me.

Gaining Permission
Permission must be acquired for any models and locations that will be used for the photography. If the location is on private land, one must gain permission to be able to use the location. If I am going to take photographs of private locations, I will have to contact the people who own said locations and ask for permission to use the location as a part of my project. The same applies may apply to buildings but if I take photographs from a public area, it should be fine for me to use the photograph I have taken as a part of editing my photographs. The reason I would be gaining permission to use these subjects for my photograph would be the fact that I am trying to represent Sheffield and to create the meaning of time.

Permissions and Release Forms
1. Making sure to when taking the picture to frame it, to make sure to only capture the object within the photo, avoiding people in the process.
2. Certain times of day can help prevent people in the image. This is especially true for landmarks as people will be there but are not necessarily there all day.

 !!Avoid using telephoto lens during the daytime!! 

This creates suspicions because of the fact that it can capture close up shots without being known. This means a person is able to take a photo of a person without them being aware.

Try to avoid taking photographs of people generally and AVOID having children in photograph.

Legal and Ethical:
Representations to avoid:
- Offending cultures and religion
- Avoid stereotypes
- To avoid creating an idea/opinion about something/someone - out-of-context photos - Defamatory
- Abide to the wellbeing of the model you are planning to take photographs of. They may not necessarily like the way they are represented on a certain photograph.
- This may link in to the fact that photography should only be done on public places. This is also to prevent wrong contexts of the location you are taking photographs of since it may reflect that section of society.

Contingencies:
My current contingency is to use candid style photography to capture the natural emotions of people. This is to reflect what kind of identity the city has which is shown through the people who there. It will be done in different locations that will make the model almost blend in to the surroundings but will still somehow stand out regardless. This effect can be achieved through the use of Photoshop by creating a blurring the background to simulate an out of focus effect. This can be done naturally on a camera though but it can be used as a fail-safe if the original is out of focus and if does not look natural.