Mike Pickwell's OCA Learning Log: Exercise 4

For this exercise I approached our neighbour and very good friend John. He is a very keen gardener and I thought that it would work well to photograph him whilst working in the garden. He was more than happy - one of the challenges of this course is either finding people who are easily relaxed in front of the camera (eg John and my son) or helping those who are not keen to be photographed, to relax (eg my wife and daughter). I have given myself a huge challenge by asking my wife to be the subject for the first assignment in this course. The other problem is that, as the subject needs to be photographed sometimes in different lighting and settings, opportunity and access are also a challenge.

I wanted the pictures to show clearly that John was gardening but at the same time I have tried to focus on the look of concentration on his face as he worked. John was an excellent subject because he was able to concentrate on what he was doing although he was aware that he was being photographed.

For all of the pictures I used a 17 -85mm zoom and zoomed in and out as appropriate.

In the first image (above left) John is planting some beans and was putting in the hazel stakes to support them. Here I zoomed out to show the full figure and the context. For the picture (above right) the same activity is going on but I have zoomed in to attempt to show the facial expression.

In the image on the left he is heeling them in and then on the right he begins to plant the beans at the base of the stakes. For each I have chosen pictures that show the concentration on his face.

In the right hand image he is again planting the beans and although some of the face is obscured by the stakes it does show his facial expression well.