Birmingham Shoot (09/04/14)

Today I got the train to Birmingham as I wanted to go and take photographs in a large urban area and obviously I couldn't take photographs in Manchester so I went there. I was hoping to focus on step and stair sets as my main subject matter as that is the direction I want my work to go in. I found some interesting stairs but still photographed other geometric structures that I found interesting. I spent a couple of hours walking round and because it was sunny found that the steps that had shadows projected onto them made for interesting subject matter. I also wanted to focus in on geometric shapes within the steps and not just go for the wide shot, I found a small steel assembly that held the rail to the stairs that had an interesting shape, the contrasting grays of the steel looked very photogenic so I shot the piece straight on as it was a symmetrical shape. Another interesting thing I found was a repeating structure that was part of a water fountain, it was hard to frame as the structure isn't straight and snakes its way through the composition. The third photograph I made contained a pattern of different coloured bricks and a metal drain, the composition had interesting lies that crossed between each other like the pattern on Eddie Van Halens guitar. I waited for the sun to come out before taking the exposure as there was a tree that's branches go projected onto the composition so I just waited for a few minutes for the sun to come out. The last photograph of the day is a stair set I found, the rail of the stairs was projected by the sun and created a geometric silhouette on the steps that created a dark contrast, this is my favorite photograph of the day. When cropping the photograph I made sure that the corners of the steps were in contact with the top and bottom corners of the frame so the composition had no excess empty space. I think I will go back to Birmingham and explore the city more especially the areas containing more modern architecture as I didn't spend as much time there as I should have.

 I think I will stick to shooting digital for the rest of this project as I want to shoot colour and prefer shooting digital rather than 35mm when it comes to colour, if I do chose to shoot film I will probably use medium format so I can get more detailed photographs. I want the photographs to be detailed and sharp like the subject matter and heighten the everyday subject matter by presenting the photographs very well.