First Shoot - 12/02/21

Starting my borders project, and with everything thats going on with Covid 19 currently, I knew I wanted to start in the landscape. As discussed previously I have been exploring maps and marking points of interest in the landscape where the border meets. I went firstly to Trigate Bridge. 

I spent time shooting from both the English and Welsh side - I don’t know if this is a theme I want to look into. From looking out of Wales or looking in? Depending on where I want to take this project, which ever perspective I take may be very important. 

The bridge itself is very picturesque placed within a beautiful landscape so it was enjoyable shooting and making these images. It was a beautiful sunny day, but freezing cold and fresh. 

Due to the time of year and this cold spell we are having the colours of the landscape are quite muted, with browns and oranges and just a slight of green. Alongside the grey brown brick of the bridge and road it makes for quite a dark scene, so the blue sky and the soft light brings a lovely balance. I also enjoyed picking out the contrast of the reflective road signs and sign on the gate, I brightened these and brought out the colours, especially the reflective red, in order to bring focus in and contrast to the calmer tones in the landscape. 

In post production, I tried to edit these as if I was shooting on film. I brought the exposure and saturation down, and enhanced the vibrance and saturation of just certain colours. Alongside the natural light of the day, this really enhanced the feeling of calm and serene. 

After initial editing, I decided I wanted to crop the images to 5:4 ratio, mimicking an old medium format style. This adds to the effect of shooting traditionally, but also really enhanced the composition of the images, especially of the two above which I feel are the two most successful from this shoot.

This feels like a really positive start to the shooting of my research project, and I feel really pleased with the outcome of these shots as landscape work is not my usual style and a little out of my comfort zone. I am excited to continue with this and visit other spots on the map.