Proposal

Subjects: Detailed, close-up images of water on objects e.g. plants, brickwork-using macro setting. In a garden area I will look for areas of intense detail to take photographs of, the theme of my project is Discovery and I want to look at the artistic effects water droplets give to objects e.g. dimension and reflection. Perhaps to capture vibrancy and dramatise these images I will experiment with the macro setting to brighten the subject. Objects I will be looking for are leaves, trees, flowers and other outdoor objects. Either focusing on the entire shape or just the inside textures, my initial focus is the artist effects of water such as water droplets or moving water.

Locations: I will be taking images in garden locations or if not, outdoors in the Local Park or riverbank. It will only work to my desired effect if it rains heavily or I pour water lightly over the subjects. To get the best chance of getting successful imagery in the first hours after rainfall, I will either need to go early morning or during rainfall to capture both fast-shutter images and still shots.

Techniques: I will be experimenting with several forms of depth of field using small apertures to do so; this will help the eye to focus initially on the texture, detail and formality of the objects. I am yet to decide how close-up I will capture the objects, whether to make sure the viewer can see distinctively what the object is or to zoom in so close that the initial outline cannot be seen. This is something I will have to play around with and see which works more successfully in relation to the theme; I want to take most inspiration from abstract art inspired by shapes and texture. Experimenting with several exposures, DOF and macro/neutral will give me lots of images to work with and give me a good perspective at how to approach postproduction. Initially, I wanted to photograph in black and white but after looking at previous examples I am more drawn to using colour. If at a later stage in post production I decide black and white would work better, I can easily change the colour range and play with the brightness to give successful black and white shots.

Reasoning: The reason I was particularly drawn to taking photographs of water droplets or moving water is the effects of reflection it can give and bringing a 3D dimension to an image. A popular photographer that I took inspirational ideas from was Steve Walls macro photography of water droplets; by the way the colours and vibrancy of the surrounding background illuminated the water droplet creating the intense reflection. I think in relation to Discovery this approach works well as it takes a closer look at the smaller elements of nature and also the effects of weather. I want to work with bright

colours and vibrant tones, which may require some work in postproduction to bring out the bleak tones that are associated with rainy days.