Critical Report - Developing photography practice

Jordan Bennett 2103309

For this project, we were asked to focus on photographing a species of our choice. I chose to explore
little egrets as they are one of my favourite birds and I can access them easily whilst at home (on the Isle
of Wight). Although they are easy to access there it did mean that my time constraint for this project was
heavily shortened from approximately six months down to one. The time I was able to photograph them
was then shortened even more due to catching covid, which made it difficult to ensure I could go out in
the right weather conditions and be able to find the birds.

Although I went out and photographed the birds on several different days my final photos ended up
being all from the same day which was a chance encounter with the bird. Most days I was able to go out
it was gloomy weather. Therefore on a sunny day, I took a detour on my way to see my family on the off
chance I could spot an egret and there was one fishing, glowing in the sun. I didn’t have long to sit and
watch them but I was able to get a variety of compositions. This unfortunately meant that I wasn't able to
experiment with my camera settings as much as I would have liked to.

Here is an example of an image taken on a foggy day that I edited using lightroom to try and bring out
the detail in the imaging. However, even with the editing, I still feel as though the image isn’t great in
terms of quality. In this case, I also found it difficult to get the correct focus through the fog. As well as
this, during days of gloomy weather, it was quite dark which meant I had to increase my ISO to be able to
keep a high shutter speed. This added to the noisiness of my images, particularly as the camera I was
using (Panasonic DC-FZ10002) had a low tolerance for this. Here my ISO was only at 500 and I had a
shutter speed of 1/125s as well as my aperture set to f/4.

Jordan Bennett Critical Report

 I chose this image as one of my final pictures as I liked how you
could still see the water droplets flying through the air after the
egret had just tried to catch something. Originally the image
was landscape, however, I chose to crop it to love away from the
rule of three in my composition and focus more on the
symmetry of the reflection. This resulted in a decrease in the
quality of the image as the crop was rather significant. Egrets,
when stood up, are tall birds which makes portrait
compositions work quite well. Therefore, if I was to retake an
image similar to this I would take a mixture of portrait and
landscape images so that I wouldn’t have to compromise some
of the image quality.

As well as this, another aspect I would ideally improve in this

image concerns the lighting. Although the natural lighting
itself was rather ideal for photography, some of my images, such as this one, were taken with the egret
facing away from the sun. This worked for some of my images however for this one it meant that the
egret's face was covered with shadow. This blocks out their eye which is often an important feature in
photographs as people are naturally drawn to the eye.

The second image of my little egret that I chose shows them looking for movement under the water. Here
the light illuminates their face which highlights their concentration. By doing this it also lights up the
bird’s eye which gives a focal point to the image. It also allows the viewer to connect with the bird shown
in the image. The lighting in this image also allows more detail to be shown on its bill and the front
feathers on the bird.

Although the lighting is better in this

image, the composition could be
improved on a few accounts. This
incudes the direction that the bird is
facing and the position of the egret
within the frame. The refection adds
An element of symmetry to the photo
however the bird would have more
looking room if it was closer to the
bottom right-hand corner.

Jordan Bennett Critical Report

 My next image also follows the pattern
of the bird facing away from the light,
however, it works much better in this
image as their face is submerged
beneath the water. Instead, the light
helps to illuminate the motion of the
bird as well as the water splashing.
The light in this image hits a larger
portion of the egret which helped with
making it contrast against the watery
background as both the water and the
shadows appeared blue whereas the light from the sun gave a golden glow.

I chose this one to add to my final selection as it added a variety to the natural behaviour shown. All of
my images show the little egret hunting but this is the only one I chose that shows the egret going in for
the catch. I think this makes an interesting composition on the page however it is not framed very well
as the egret is in the centre of the frame rather than to the left-hand side where it would have fit better
with the rule of three. This would have made it more pleasing to look at as well as given the egret more
looking room.

My final image is my best example of

the use of lighting as it illuminates
alot of the bird showing off all the
detail within their feathers. It also
lights up their eye very well. This
along with how close the egret is
shows off their bright yellow iris
giving a clear focal point to the image.
This also helps to add an interaction
between the subject and the viewer.

The water in the photograph was very

still and because of this I missed a good opportunity to have an almost perfectly symmetrical image
through the reflections. However the birds body and legs fit well with the compositional rule of thirds.
Because of the importance of the eye in this shot, it may have worked out better if the eye was in a
intersection point of the rule of thirds grid instead of being central.

Jordan Bennett Critical Report

For my exhibition I decided to only put up my three landscape images as the portrait image would have
looked awkward sat with the others in a group. My images were framed and hung in a line. I chose for
my frames to have a white border around the edge to give them a more professional look. To improve
upon this set of images, as well as the adjustments to the images themselves, I would have changed the
centre image to a different pose to add in more variety. For example a close up of the egrets head or the
egret standing and facing the camera.

In my artists statement I spoke about how was inspired to take pictures of the little egrets in the golden
sunlight to signify their work. This is because, like many other animals, they have been hunted and killed
for parts of their body. In this particular case it is their long neck plumes. I was also inspired to take
images with the subject standing out against a rapher plain a dark background by the work of Dale
Sutton. I like how his style of photography
captures amazing amounts of detail in the
subject whilst leaving the background dull
as it makes the subject stand out. To the
left is an example of his work with little
egrets.

“I am a Wildlife photographer and

specialise in High Speed Flash
photography, capturing moments in the
natural world that's too fast to see with
the human eye.” - Dale Sutton

Jordan Bennett Critical Report

The main issue I have come across in this project, other than the time constraints due to the unforeseen
circumstances, is within my compositions. When I’m out in the field, particularly when I don’t have
much time in a certain place, I have a bad habit of not thinking of the composition as im taking each of
the photographs. Instead I focus on getting correctly exposed and sharp images of my subject.
Composition is always in my mind to begin with but as I get distracted by my subject it slips to the back
of my mind which causes my to take some poorly composed images. This is something I can easily
improve upon by practicing and being more mindful.

Another area in which I could improve is with the equipment I use. For these photographs I used my
Panasonic DC-FZ10002 which is light weight and capable of a decent zoom (400mm optical and 800mm
digital) however this comes at the cost of some quality particularly when hightening the ISO. I do have
another camera which is the Canon EOS M6 mark ii which can within stand a much higher ISO as well
as taking better quality photos in general. However this gets heavy to carry around during everyday
things when you start to add on big telephoto lenses. As well as this I struggle to stabalise my camera
when it has the heavier lenses on and I’m using it hand held, due to a lack of strength. A tripod greatly
helps with this and I would like to have more practice being able to use this equipment to improve the
quality of my images.

References

www.hsfnature.co.uk. (n.d.). Home - HSF Nature Photography. [online] Available at:

http://www.hsfnature.co.uk/

www.wildlifetrusts.org. (n.d.). Little egret | The Wildlife Trusts. [online] Available at:
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/birds/herons-egrets-spoonbill-and-crane/little-egret

Opening Class. (2019). Looking Room and Head Room. [online] Available at:
https://openingclass.com/2019/05/08/looking-room-and-head-room/

Jordan Bennett Critical Report