Photo shoots

The first photo shoot I did I've done taking photos of a cigarette in the process of burning, I did this as it links in nicely to my theme of chemical addiction, and how addictive smoking can be.

Contact sheet of the photos I took

I just used my phone camera and a blank sheet of white paper as the background, representing the purity, and how to ash and burning has discoloured the paper below it, reflecting how addiction can ruin someones life, and in some cases is its irreversible damage.

I took these photos and looking at them, some weren't in focus. I think this is due to the quality of the iPhone camera and using the zoom, instead of taking the photos and cropping them afterwards.

The first photo I edited was this one:

I increased the saturation and lowered the vibrancy, so the colours still look rich, but it has a cold overtone to it, giving it an almost lonely or negative feel. Also, I found that this photo I took at a different angle to the others, with the light coming from the same direction as the camera, so theres less shadow so the contract between the purity and lightness of the paper and the darkness and rawness of the ash is greater.

The second photo I edited was this one:

This one was taken the same time as the previous, but from a different angle. This angle gives more emphasis on the shadows, and the position of the object is more central and looks more unnatural. Whereas the previous photo looks more natural, like the objects just been placed down randomly. In both the photos, I find that the texture of the ash has been captured well, and the shadows cast give some contrast between the dark and the lighter ash.

Out of these two, I prefer the first one, in my opinion it looks more raw and organic.

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The next photoshoot I did I looked at flowers, the flowers I shot were dead but dried, so the still had structure to them and still had form, as opposed to wilted and not as appealing to look at. Below are the contact sheets from the photos I took.

I used a canon 700d with a 50mm lens, I shot these photos outside when it was sunny so I had strong natural light, which cast some interesting shadows, and gave a greater contrast between the flowers and the background, as the flowers stand out again it better. I chose to photograph flowers as the represent life and death, and through addiction you can loose control of your life and loose control of yourself, and become someone you might not have intended to become. The dried flowers represent how something so pretty can die, and lose all life, but alive flowers are just as pretty but full of life and nutrients and health. I chose to use a close-up lens to really focus on the details of the flowers and the petals and to really show their transformation into decaying. 

After looking over the photos I chose the ones below as my favourite and edited them using Aperture.

I'm still new to editing photos, but I tried to go for a hazy look. I lowered the exposure and the black point and upper the contrast and vibrancy in all the above photos to achieve these final outcomes. I find these photos