"Surreal & Abstract Norfolk"
Introduction
"Surreal & Abstract Norfolk" is a Project created for part of my A Level Photography coursework "Personal Investigation" where my project theme which I had chosen was based around Motion Photography. This project which you are about to see is a small personal project where I had the College Christmas Holidays to work from home in, in which I set myself a challenge to capture as many "Surreal & Abstract" photos from around Norfolk as I possibly could, and then put them together into a Photo Series, which is what this is. My aim for this project was to visit places which would be ideal for me to photograph moving subjects using a slow shutter speed in order to create surrealism in photographs.
First Shoot - Norwich
The first location which I visited for taking photographs for this project was my hometown city, Norwich. I chose this location because it would give me the opportunity to experiment with taking nightime urban landscapes around the city for my own personal interest and to experiment with trying to capture the scene of "all three traffic lights being displayed at the same time with car light trails" which had been something I wanted to try for a while, and to improve my night time photography because I had recently purchased a remote shutter release and intervalvometer which I wanted to practice getting to grips with using to prevent minor vibrations, resulting in sharper image quality for slow shutter speed shots.
The Forum: Experimenting with zooming whilst shooting on a slow shutter speed - this has created almost a double exposure effect with also light trails caused by the camera movement.
The Bell Hotel: Experimenting with trying to capture all three traffic lights on at the same time, using a shutter speed of 17 seconds. This shot was challenging because I needed to ensure I pressed the shutter button in good timing, which in this case I pressed it whilst the light was on red, and just before the bus was about to move off which resulted in this motion blur and ghostly effect with the light trails. After the bus had moved off, the lights then changed to amber and then back to red.
Red Lion Street: Further experimenting with trying to capture all three traffic lights illuminated with light trails in the foreground and Norwich Castle in the background. This and the previous shot both show what the evening traffic is like in Norwich, where people are getting late night buses home after leaving off work, and people are going out for nights out in the city. I think the effect of all three traffic lights illuminated gives the impression as though they have broke down, causing traffic chaos. This shot was just as challenging as the previous because in order for the lights to change, I needed to be patient for pedestrians to push the buttons on the crossing.
St Stephens Roundabout: Experimenting with capturing car light trails on a roundabout, where I was hoping to capture the traffic flow, merging in and out in different directions from a vantage point (at the top floor of the multi-storey car park next to the Bus Station), which worked, however I think this shot would be more appealing at showing the evening traffic rush hour if I shot it at a more busier time, such as around 5-6pm when most people are leaving off work, instead of at 9pm which was before I was about to leave the city.
Second Shoot - Gingerbread Cottages, Dereham
For the second location shoot, I initially planned on visiting Bintree Mill to shoot star trails with the mill in the foreground, however the sky was too cloudy, which made the shoot not go ahead. On the way to Bintree Mill however, I came across this lit up cottage with it's Christmas lights on, so on the way back I stopped here and experimented further with night photography to capture the cottage itself lit up, and then experimented further with slow shutter speed and camera movement, by tilting the tripod mount to portrait orientation and back, and zooming whilst on a slow shutter speed...
Third Shoot - Cromer, North Norfolk Coast
With light and camera movement 'slow shutter speed' boxes ticked, I then moved onto seascapes, under the theme of natural motion photography, where I aimed to achieve a smooth water and misty effect when capturing the sea using a slow shutter speed and Neutral Density filters which I purchased last year to try out for this, which I had done last year at Hunstanton, however I found them to add a slight tint to the image probably because they were cheap. I wanted to give them another try with different camera settings. Before heading out to the coast, I checked the tide times and weather for Cromer and choose the best day which had the clearest night, as on the same day I planned to carry out a star trails shoot on the Pier in the evening, to tick another box for natural motion subject. I chose Cromer because the tide is mostly known not being too far out, and because the Pier would give me a great vantage point to shoot the star trails with the beach landscape in the foreground.
Cromer Pier from the Beach: Experimenting with capturing the sea on a slow shutter speed, crashing against the groynes. This created an effect turning the sea into almost a foggy layer of mist forming between the groynes and under the pier.
Cromer Pier from the Beach: Another shot with the Pier in the background, this time trying to achieve a smooth water effect using a slow shutter speed, capturing the sea coming in and out. I don't think this is how the sea would normally look on a winter afternoon, this photo almost creates a tropical look. The sea almost looks flat!
Calm Sea: Experimenting with the smooth water effect again, capturing the sea crashing against the groyne on a slow shutter speed. Looking closely at the groyne, I can almost notice a misty effect, and futher out at sea I can see the ripples, which the slow shutter speed has created, which were the points where the waves broke.
Calm Sea Sunset: Experimenting further with trying to achieve the smooth water and misty sea effect, also trying to capture the sunset from the Pier, looking down the beach.
Fourth Shoot - Cromer Beach Star Trails
For the fourth and final photoshoot for this photo series, after it was too dark to shoot any more slow shutter seascapes, I then moved onto getting my equipment setup for shooting star trails on the pier, looking down the beach towards the boat harbour and lighthouse instead of down towards the amusements and funfair which was the side of the pier I used for capturing the sunset as shown earlier. I originally planned on shooting star trails from down on the beach, so I could get the pier in the foregrond, which was where the North Star was located, however the results appeared to be over-exposed because of close up bright lights from the pier nearest to the promenade, so instead I settled on shooting from the pier looking down the beach because of there being lights further away. The camera settings I used were the widest aperture possible (f3.5), a shutter speed of 30 seconds, continous shooting with the buton held down using the shutter release remote, a fairly high ISO (800) due to the small maximum aperture, and shooting for half an hour. Below is the final outcome for shooting for half an hour and below that is the half an hour shoot combined with an extra hour of shooting...
After shooting for half and hour, I then checked my images on the camera to ensure that they were correctly exposed and infocus and then shot for an extended hour as I had more time than I thought left on the car park ticket. After stacking these images in Photoshop, I was pleased with the final result because of how the star trails make the beach landscape more interesting and attention grabbing, the slow shutter speed also managed to pick up the smooth water effect too.
After shooting for an extra hour and stacking my images, I found the final result to be more striking because of the longer star trails and a wider variety of colours. Overall I am pleased with the final result, however I think the plain trails in the background could be a distraction and I would airbrush them out to improve it, which would require going through each invidual image to identify the plain trails.
Overall I am pleased with the final outcomes for this challenge I have set myself, I think the results have captured surreal effects which otherwise cannot be seen with the naked eye, and I hope you have enjoyed reading. Thanks for stopping by, please feel free the check out other Photography and Graphic Design work in my portfolio and my Social Media.
