DawnToDark: Online Art Sketchbook

Vilas Patil
This photograph works well because it is made up of only a small range of strong and intense colours. The effect of seeing the sun reflected off the clouds and the water is very impressive especially when combined with having the mountain range in between separating the two from each other.

Alonzo T. Howe
I like this picture because the cold blue of the sea and the bright orange of the sky balance each other out nicely. I also like the way the photograph is broken up into three rectangles with the sea along the bottom, the sky in the top right and the interestingly shaped silhouette of the lighthouse and cliffs in the top left. This composition draws the eye in towards the cluster of rocks in the bottom centre of the photograph.

Kerry Drager
I like this picture because of the mixture of warm and cold colours. I also like the sharply defined reflections in the water which link the bottom part of the picture to the top. I also like the mixture of bright colours and dark silhouettes which give the photograph a mottled effect.

Corin Mulliss
This is a photograph I took of Brent Knoll, a hill close to where I live. I'm not very keen on it because it is quite dark and dull. This is because there is too much of the dark ground in the photograph. If I were to crop the photograph so there was only a thin strip of ground at the bottom then I think this would greatly improve the photograph as it would reduce the murkiness. Also, I think it would have improved photograph to have held the camera closer to the ground. This would have included more of the sky in the photograph and silhouetted more of the plants against the sunset making it a more interesting photograph.

Corin Mulliss
I think this is a great improvement on the first version. I have used Adobe Photograph to crop the original, taking off a lot of the lower part of the picture. I have also increased the contrast which has darkened the dark and murky greens of the grass to blacks and has made the colours in the sky brighter. These colours work well together, particularly with the black silhouettes of the branches in front, framing the hill. Although I cropped a lot of it, I left a lot of the black ground to balance out the bright colours of the sky. I think this has worked and I am now really pleased with this photograph.

Corin Mulliss
I took this photograph at the Lyme Regis just after sunrise. Again this is another photograph I am not so keen on, but this time it is because the colours are very dull. I think if I were to make this photograph black and white and increase the contrast it would greatly improve it. This is because it contains a lot of textures which would be brought out if it was black and white. I am however particularly at the composition of this photograph and if I were to be able to digitally alter the colours to make the most than I think I could make this a more successful photograph.

Corin Mulliss
I have used Adobe Photoshop to digitally desaturate and increase the contrast of this photograph. I think that doing this has greatly improved it as it has reduced the dull blue-grey of the colours with crisper blacks and greys. I am now quite pleases with this photograph.

Corin Mulliss
This is another photograph I took at Lyme Regis. I think it works particularly well as a photograph because the sun is in the centre of the photograph with the black rocks and seabirds leading the eye in towards it.

Corin Mulliss
To produce this image I used Adobe Photoshop to increase the contrast and alter the mid-tones of this photograph. Although the colours are now much more vivid I still prefer the original as the softer colours work well in the photograph. Also I think the colours have become too vivid and look almost sickly now as opposed to the peaceful oranges and blues as before.

Corin Mulliss
I like this photograph because of the pleasing colours, and shapes formed by the waves. There is also quite a lot going on in the picture with several birds and a patch of rocks and shingle creating interesting shapes. I also like the textures created by the sun reflecting off the wet sand.

Corin Mulliss
I am particularly pleased with this photograph. I think that it is successful because of the way it is composed. There is quite a lot going on in the right of the photograph but this is balanced out by the more calm left side. This also creates some contrast between the two sides. The colours of this photograph are also very pleasing as they are a mixture of cold light blues and warm yellows which, while contrasting between warm and cold, seem to go particularly well together, creating a calm atmosphere in the photograph.

Conclusion

(Silver Sea: Corin Mulliss)

In this investigation I have looked at how photographers and painters deal with sunsets.

I started by thinking that photographers are much more limited than painters with what they can do with a particular scene. However, I have realised that there is a huge amount a photographer can do with a photograph to change and improve it.

cropping

Before this project I had never really considered cropping to be a particularly useful tool; however after experimenting with cropping one of my not so good photographs (River Reflection I) I found that I had been able to quite greatly improve it. This has actually proven to be very useful and I have used it a number of times since with photographs for both this and also other projects.

filters

In this project I have also found that some photographers use filters to enhance their photographs. For example John Mackie used a sunset filter to bring out the oranges of the sunset in his photo ‘Giant’s Causeway’. Alternately Theo Allofs used a filter to darken the scene in his photograph “Waves on Rocky Shore”. In both cases the photographs clearly benefited from the effects of the filters and are both exceptionally good photographs.

exposure

Another method which has been used in a lot of the photographs I have looked at is a long exposure. This gives any moving clouds or running water in the photograph the appearance of movement. Artists such as Theo Allofs and Tony Sweet have used this effect to soften their photographs as the water takes on a soft and fluffy look.

Tom Mackie also used a long exposure in his photograph ‘Corbiere Lighthouse’. The water in the picture has taken on a soft and flat appearance which is beneficial to the picture.

planning

I have also discovered that a lot of photographers plan their photographs and wait for anything up to several hours to take their photograph. This is something I have never considered doing since all the photographs I have previously ever taken were on the basis that I saw something I liked and thought it could make a good photograph.

digital manipulation

Another technique I looked at was digital manipulation. This is something I have always found exceptionally useful. I do prefer to use it only subtly, however, as I have found that it can be used too much which can sometimes be a bit distasteful. An example of this is the photograph ‘Solar Disk South Atlantic’ by Arthur Rosch in which the colours are so bright and unreal that I don’t like the photograph.

Another aspect of my investigation was ‘What makes a good sunset photograph?’

themed colours

I have thought about this and have realised that there is no specific formula that makes a photograph good, but I have decided that themed colours work particularly well together to produce a more pleasing photograph. An example of this is the light blues, dark blues, purple and the small amount of red in ‘Blood Red Black’ by Christian Hardouin. Similarly, in the photograph titled ‘Olympic National Park’ taken by Pat O’Hara the black silhouettes of rocks and landmass against a bright orange sky work particularly well.

Also I have noticed that black against bright and vivid colours tend to be particularly effective. However, this clearly isn’t always the case since the photograph ‘Waves on rocky shore by’ by Theo Allofs has black with dark and dull purples, and yet it is this dullness that makes the photograph what it is.

interest

Another thing that seems to be important in a good sunset photograph is finding an interesting and/or unusual landscape. An example of this is in the photograph ‘The Mittens, Monument Valley, Arizona’ by Macduff Everton where the amazing shapes of the rock formations is what brings the photograph together.

finally

I have really enjoyed this project and have learned a lot about photography, in particular how to produce better photographs using a variety of techniques.