When taking images I tend to like to take my time and go about it my own way. I don't like having a deadline or a time period, as in my free time I will take an afternoon out, or sometimes even a day, and just walk and shoot when I see something interesting. I feel that these images give out the overall impression of the style and genre of the photography I like to work in. I tend to prefer to shoot landscapes and nature, as I get impatient shooting subjects that can move of their own accord, as it means that I can't do it in my own time, again, I have to be relying on the subject to give me the shot I am looking for.
Most of these images are shot with a smaller aperature, and a fast shutter speed. I like to play around with the focus of images, and focus on things that you wouldn't always pay attention to; for example, in the image of the pink flower, you would normally focus on the centre of the flower, but I wanted to give the impression of depth and movement, so I focused instead on a petal closer to the camera to try and give a feeling that the flower is 3D and in fact, round.
My favourite of the images is the one where there is a lone man standing in a field. This was in fact taken on a fairly sunny day, with a high shutter speed and a smaller aperature to try and get everythign in focus. I feel that this image is a strong one as everything is in focus, and to me it gives a feeling of loneliness, which at the time of shooting was a very strong feeling I was experiencing, so this picture means a lot to me as it symbolises how I was feeling at this period in my life. I did edit it slightly, where I made the clouds darker and more 'dingy', and the grass greener and the trees more vibrant. I did this because to me it is saying that the grass is greener on the other side, and to hold on. I really like this image as I like how it gives a wide view of the meadow I was shooting in, sort of like a panorama effect, when in fact I acheived this by some clever cropping.
I tend to not use a tripod, as it makes me feel tied down, whereas when the camera is hand-held I have much more freedom to move around and shoot at different angles and levels than I would with a tripod. Another reason I tend to not use a tripod is because I'm so small, its a nuisance for me to have to carry too much equipment.
With my images, they tend to be darker, with the main focus being more colourful than anything else. I do this by fiddling around with the levels in PhotoShop to get the colours I want, and the shadows and highlights how I want them to appear on the image. This is generally the only editing I do, as I don't really like heavily edited images as I like them to look more natural and realistic.
I think that landscapes and nature is a strength of mine, as I know how to use the camera on the right settings to get the image I want; I can picture what I want the final image to look like, and know how to achieve this. I also feel that lighting is a strong point of mine, as in my images the lighting is in the right areas without me having to do a lot in PhotoShop; I think about this before shooting the image, and try to get the best angle to get my image how I want them, and how I am going to highlight the main focus of my image by using natural light.
I would say my weakness is that I am narrow-minded and feel I am better at this genre of image, thus not really straying from this and trying to improve with other genres of photography. My editing skills are also a weakness, as I don't really feel confident enough to go out of ordinary and attempt to do something a bit different with it, as I don't feel I know enough about PhotoShop and how to use the tools to do something like that. I could improve that simply by playing around with the tools and finding out exactly what tool does what, and what I can do with them to make my work stand out more. I could buy one of the many books that are around these days that aid the use of such programmes to improve my editing skills.
