This exercises calls for a portrait of the subject carrying out an activity. The instructions say to discuss with the subject about the activity that they would be interested in, whether outside or indoors.
We have been having some work carried out on the garden and I was taking a series of photos showing the work progressing. The contractor doing the work asked if I could let him have some of the photos for his own website. I agreed but asked if I could take some photos of him in return. Again he asked if he could use these photos on his website too. We discussed the type of activities he wanted to show on his site. He said that he wanted a variety of photos showing him carrying out various activities which would illustrate what he did when working.
The area where he was working was quite restricted and meant there was not a lot of positions I could get into to take the photos. This meant that the background was not as “clean” as I would have liked but added to the photos by showing some of his tools, especially the cement mixer in the background.
The day we chose was a very sunny day which produced hard shadows and lots of ranges in lighting conditions in the garden. There was no opportunity to wait for better lighting as the job would not wait; another day would have meant these activities were not being carried out.
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I selected this photo as it shows Glen in an active pose and the effort required in holding the disc cutter. Leaving aside any health and safety issues (no hearing protection, face mask etc) Glen’s face shows a look of concentration on his face as he tries to see the through the dust.
The problem with taking photos like this one is the dust! It quickly obscured the scene and got onto the lens.
This close cropped photo does not give much context to what is being done. It looks like he holding a hammer on the edge of the stone. He is actually chipping the edge of the stone to make it appear less like a cut edge. Without the explanation though, this is not apparent.
Where as with this photo, it is clearer what is happening as there is more of the scene to give context. Being in the shade, the longer exposure allows for a slight movement in the hammer to be captured.
John Belcher 