After my first attempt to photograph a product featuring one of my photographs in an interior setting, I thought I might have more of a narrative in an exterior setting. This is an assessed series of photographs for a course in Photography and Social Media which I am completing.
To achieve ten interesting photographs which are themed and together create a narrative, I thought ‘taking my products for a walk’ might be a good theme. This meant I could use a few different items and place them in a range of settings to represent a day meandering around in the bushland. As most of my photographs were originally taken in this same bushland, it would represent both the origin and the culmination of each product.
Conceptually, I liked the idea a great deal. However, to submit photographs taken while I am completing the course, means photographing the items in dry, Summer bushland, rather than lush Spring bushland when the original photographs were taken. Even submitting a collage or mood board with the original Spring photography is not permitted in the assessment criteria.
In Spring a variety of flowers are in bloom, the mosses and lichens are a rich green, wet bark can range from a pale grey, through yellow, pink, salmon, ochre, rust and into deep burgundy and browns. Often colourful fungi and bright new growth on bracken, heath and trees adds bright green to the mix. Dotted among this are white, pink, yellow, mauve, purple and blue wild flowers. So, not being able to include the original photographs means the palette of background colours for a Summer shoot is limited to the yellow of dried native grass, brown and grey bracken, as it dies off, and dry, brown, bark.
Given this limitation, I felt the background was too uniformly drab to create an interesting narrative over ten photographs. I think I will come back to this idea in Spring 2016 and try it again. For now, here are some of the photographs with a Summer bushland background.
Working out how to arrange the handles is the tricky thing with the tote bag.
Guinea Flowers often grow under trees, spilling over fallen branches, so I liked the idea of placing the bag on a pile of branches.
This close-up allowed me to place key elements of the design in the intersection of lines using the rule of thirds.
I also have Guinea Flowers on my phone cover. Again, I was placing the phone on bark, where Guinea Flowers would be seen in Spring.
I liked the colour of this bark, along with the curved shapes.
In an attempt to incorporate some green into the background, I have picked up some fallen gumleaves and placed them underneath the phone cover.
Slender Mint is a native Australian mint which grows wild. I have found some grwoing in the grassland adjoining the bush. This shot of the Slender-Mint mug is photographed on a Jetty ladder.
In an attempt to put some colour into the background, I have used a yabbie net which is resting against the jetty rails.
Placed on the seat, I like the angles of the seat slats as well as the angles created by the edges of the studio pouch.
In addition to the interesting angles, I like the way the fallen bark and leaves make an abstract pattern in the background.
I tried to construct a setting suggesting the walkers were about to return. However, I think I do need a model to make it look complete.
