Work Record Shoot 2

Contact Sheet

AO3: Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress.

My intention in this shoot is to continue the focus of shoot one to capture images of extraordinary sensory experiences. In this shoot I will focus on the touch sensors in animals’ facial whiskers, using cats and rabbit as models. I will also highlight the fantastic ability of dogs to detect scents with their nose. I will highlight the way grazing animals have an almost 360 degree circular vision. Then I will focus on the highly sensitive vision of geckos and their ability to see in infrared. The way I will do this is by taking:

Wide angle close up images of a dog’s nose which distort and exaggerate its size

Infrared landscape images which illustrate the way geckos see the world

Landscape images containing a rabbit which I will adapt to illustrate its visual experience

Close up macro images of Geckos amazing spherical eyes with vertical pupils

Images of animals whiskers (cats/rabbits) to illustrate how they function

Some animals such as cats and rabbits use whiskers to aid them in sensing and experiencing their environment. These can be found on either side of their nose, above their eyes, on their jaw and on their forelegs. They are extremely sensitive tactile hairs that act as touch receptors that connect to motion sensors in the hair follicles and allow the animals to determine the exact location, texture and size of objects they contact. To convey visually the way whiskers function as a sensory organ in revealing aspects of its environment to the animals I will take close up images of the animals face in which the whiskers stand out very prominently in front of it. By having the lines of the thick whiskers hairs directly in front of their faces it will be clear to see how they can act as a touch sensor screen for objects that come near it and also as a detector for changes in wind speed and direction.

Both these images have been taken close up to the rabbit or cats face so that their whiskers are dominant features of the image and fill a large part of the frame. I have also used a narrow depth of field focused on the animals face to keep this in sharp focus and blur the rest of their bodies to avoid it being a distraction. By focusing on the way the whiskers project out from the animals’ face this allows the viewer to see how they act as a screen of long hairs through which everything must pass and touch before coming into contact with the animals face. This provides the animals with detailed sensory information (texture, size, location) about close objects. To further focus attention on this part of the image I have included an image of the cat in the process of licking the side of its nose and the whiskers there. This draws attention to this area of the frame and the way the whisker's touch receptors will be triggered by the cats tongue. These images are an improvement on the ones I took in the preparatory shoots. I have now used two cat models and one rabbit model as I keep finding better subjects with more whiskers. The more visually impactful the whiskers then the more effective they will be as a screen or barrier to touch and go through and the more effective they will be at highlighting the sensory experience the cat feels as something touches its whiskers.

For the images where I want to convey the peripheral eyesight of grazing animals I had originally considered using sheep or donkeys in my images however they proved difficult to work with and take images of, as I have illustrated in shoot 7. I therefore decided to change to using another grazing animal, my pet rabbit, as he was easier to work with. The images and the adaption in Photoshop are shown in AO2 below.

Geckos have highly sensitive eyesight, which is 350 times better than ours, it needs this to be able to see in dim moonlight conditions as it is nocturnal. You can assume that a gecko relies so much on this sense when you look at the size, intricacy and beauty in their eyes. I have used a macro lens and a light box to capture the detail in their unusual spherical eyes. You can see the swirls of brown coloured wavy lines through them which help them blend into their environment. They also have a slit like vertical pupil that travels down the centre of its eye. This type of pupil is common in ambush predators that hunt at night and is effective in shutting out light during the day. During periods of low light however, it expands to a human-like circular pupil. The detail I have captured here would not be visible with the naked eye so this makes the image more interesting to viewers. By focusing the image on the gecko’s eye and by using a narrow depth of field to blur other parts of the field I further draw the viewer’s attention to how amazing its eyes look and how it gives the gecko fantastically sensitive eyesight. I will illustrate in other images how remarkable it is when I capture landscape images in near infrared which is how geckos view their environment.

I have made use of the wide angle close up technique to take images of my dog Hades. I have positioned my camera close to his nose so that I create an extreme rendition of perspective. This makes the foreground gets bigger and the background gets smaller and extends the depth of field making the image look distorted as it dramatically emphasises the size of the dog’s nose. This makes the nose a focal point of the image and its massive size conveys to the viewers the highly sensitive sense of smell a dog has. Dogs’ sense of smell is about 10,000 times better than ours and as such, is an important sensory organ for them which they use to interpret their environment. With the huge size of the nostrils and with them being so close to the camera they appear like massive entrance holes and you can imagine vast amounts of air being sucked into them. The image also captures the moist texture and pattern of his nose and in the really close up image the viewer may be able to relate this to memories of having a dog shoving its wet nose in their face.

By making the dogs nose so out of proportion to the rest of its face and body this will focus attention on it and its function as its size will parallel its importance in providing the sensory information a dog receives by scenting the air. I have tried many times to improve these images and get the perfect camera position right in front of the dogs nose and in clear focus on it. Each time I try I feel the images do improve slightly, as my dog is getting less spooked by the camera, but he still turns quickly away and blurs most images, but I have managed to get some, which I think are close enough to what I intended but not as good as I wanted.

 Images to Improve

The wide angle close up images of a dog’s nose were a lot harder to take than I anticipated this was because my dog did not like the camera being near his nose. As soon as I placed it close to his nose he would turn his head away as he has done in this image. When I look at Elke Voselsang images I have even more admiration for her and her dogs. She must have trained them well or be very patience to capture the images as she has done.

AO2: Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.

The camera I used is my Nikon D5300 DSLR, and I have set it up on my tripod to take the shots in as many images as was possible. For the camera settings I set the ISO as low as possible in order to prevent noise and in order to capture specific details in sharp focus I chose a smaller f stop. In this shoot many of the images I took were close up and I also used a macro lens.
For the infrared images I have used a filter fitted to my camera and used a long exposure time of 30 seconds. For this image it was vital to set the camera on a tripod to avoid movement.

I have used a number of photographic techniques in this shoot, including:

1) Wide angle close up - to exaggerate the size of a dog’s nose

2) Infrared photography – to illustrate how gecko’s visual experience of the world is

3) Macro lens – to capture detail not easily visible with normal eyesight

4) A narrow depth of field – to focus attention on a specific part of the frame and remove distraction by blurring other parts.

I used a number of animals as models in my images these included, a cat, dogs, a rabbit and a gecko. The locations of the shoot were my garden and home as well as the home of the owner of the cat. I also used a location near Hatfield Heath where there was a small lake with trees and bushes growing around it, this was for the infrared landscape images. I also made use of controlled lighting set-up, a light box, in order to improve the quality of the images.

I have used the technique of infrared photography to illustrate to viewers the visual experience of animals such as geckos that can see in near infrared. The images I have taken in this shoot are a considerable improvement on my initial attempts which I took in preparatory shoot 7. The way I improved these images was firstly to research more about the technique and how to achieve the best quality images. The information I read indicated that it was important to take the images on a really bright sunny day to ensure there was sufficient near infrared radiation reflecting off surfaces. I therefore waited for a suitable bright day and then captured more images, trying various exposure times until I found one that worked best, which was 30 seconds. Another way I improved the images was to choose a more interesting and attractive landscape location. I found a small lake a few miles from my home that had long grasses and foliage surrounding it and using this location I was able to make the images more captivating.

I have adapted these images in photoshop to remove the red tint and made them black and white. This is more suitable for illustrating that most of geckos visual experiences would be at night as they are nocturnal. These images capture a view of the small lake which is surrounded by tall trees, bushes and grasses, and they are reflected to some degree on the surface of the water.  The images illustrate how infrared light reflects off surfaces in unique and interesting ways. The leaves and grasses in the images appear white, and the sky and water are dark. The trunks of trees and their branches are also very dark and their position next to the white foliage creates a dramatic and sharp contrast. This all creates a landscape with a spooky haunted quality with its unusual stark distinctions and with clear skies appearing dark and foliage and grasses appearing white. This makes the image more dramatic and has a greater visual impact. The higher degree of contrast in the image would also allow the gecko to see predators more clearly as they would appear dark against the light colour of the vegetation.

This is another infrared image that I have taken of the trees and bushes in my garden and a wooden fence to the left of the frame in the background. The image is unusual and has sharp contrasts between the light coloured foliage of the trees and shrubs against the trees dark branches on the right of the frame, also the different shapes and intensities of the various leaves can be seen.  These images should be unique and interesting for viewers as our eyes are not able to see infrared light, so would not be possible for us to see. However with the camera and an infrared filter this normally invisible part of the world has been turned visible allowing us to visually experience how the world looks to a gecko and other animals that can see in infrared.

I wanted to capture an image that conveys that grazing animals have a wide peripheral vision. This is achieved through the lateral position of their eyes on either side of their head and gives the animal a maximum field of view with a wide circular outlook with good peripheral vision to see predators approaching. This aids them in evading capture from predators as they can see them approaching while they are grazing. In the image I have captured my rabbit in a straight position and have then adapted this in Photoshop to illustrate what his visual experience is like. 

From the image it can be seen that having eyes positioned on the side of his head allows him to see almost completely 360 degrees around his body and above him. There are only two blind spots in his vision, which I have shaded these areas in the landscape black. These are a small triangular region directly in front of his nose and beneath his chin, and a narrow region behind him. I have also labelled the area where its vision is only monocular as only one eye can view it and it has no depth perception and can only see in 2D. I have left the area where it has binocular sight unaltered.  This image illustrates the way that eye positioning on the head can have such an effects on the visual sensory experience you receive. Grazing animals’ eye sight is very different to our vision, where our front facing eyes give us forward viewing binocular vision which enables us to judge depth and distance. This is the vision we are used to so my adapted image of the rabbits vision will make people consider the large differences there are in the way different animals visually experience the world depending on whether they are a prey or a predator. 

AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.

There are a number of photographers who I have researched that have influenced me for this shoot. The first is Elke Vogelsang who is a photographer who specialises in dog portraiture. She has taken fascinating images of her own three rescue dogs in her studio but she has done this using unusual perspective very close up to the subjects nose using a wide angle lens. This creates the appearance of distorting the dog’s features way out of proportion to the rest of its body. As can be seen in Voselsang’s image below the unusual perspective exaggerates the size of the dog’s nose, and makes it the dominant focus of the image.  Its size parallels the importance of scent to a dog in revealing and experiencing the world around it. Dogs have a 10,000 times better olfactory ability than humans and can detect chemicals diluted to 1 or 2 parts per trillion. When I first saw these images I thought using this approach would be an effective way for me to use to illustrate the extraordinary sense of smell a dog has.  I therefore decided to use the approach to take images of my own dog Hades nose to highlight dogs’ extraordinary sensory ability to sense smells.

Another photographer I researched who influenced my thinking was Sir Simon Marsden. I discovered his work through my research into infrared photography. He was fascinated by places of supernatural significance and spent a large part of his career photographing them using infrared film. His infrared images have a haunted spooky atmosphere and other worldly quality, as can be seen in his image below of the Topiary, at Burton Agnes Hall in Yorkshire. While we cannot see near infrared light as it is beyond the visible spectrum, cameras can detect it and so can reveal this invisible part of the light spectrum to us. Landscapes captured in infrared are stunning with unique stark distinctions as surfaces reflect infrared light in unique and interesting ways for example foliage and grasses appear white. The sharp contrast between animals and vegetation reflection of infrared light can be seen in the image below where the geese stand out as being black in a white landscape of foliage. This is relevant for my project because certain animals such as geckos have the ability to see in near-infrared. This enables them to see their prey or their predators more easily particularly as they are nocturnal and there is little light. They have remarkable eyesight that is up to 350 times more sensitive than humans.

Another photographer who has influenced my thinking with her use of infrared photography is Piper MacKay who I have discussed in the Research Log. She has captured images of African animals and the landscape such as her image below of elephants as they wander in the Savana grasses. It can also be seen how distinct the elephants appear against the white grass and the dark sky and how this makes them more easy to be seen. 

I have been inspired by both Marsden’s and MacKay's images to similarly use the technique of infrared photography. I will take landscape images on my camera using an infrared filter and in this way use this technique to illustrate the visual sensory experience geckos have. However as the exposure time will be 30 seconds or more I probably not be able to include animals in the image as they will not stay still for such a time period. Marsden and MacKay used converted cameras rather than filters as I will use. I will however capture skies, foliage and a lake in my landscape images and so reveal to viewers the other worldly landscape that geckos see. 

This is the image I found through my research that illustrates the eyesight of rabbits. I used the information on this diagram to adapt my image in Photoshop to visually convey their sensory experience.

Image taken from http://www.vgr1.com/vision/

AO4: Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and, where appropriate, makes connections between visual and other elements.

In this shoot I continued with my aim of capturing images that convey the extraordinary sensory experiences that some animals have. I selected a number of sensory experiences to focus on including those involving the sense of touch, smell and vision.

I used a number of different approaches and techniques to do this. These include using the technique of wide angle close up to take images of dog’s noses so that the size of their nose is distorted through the perspective the image is taken at. In this way the sensitivity of their sense of smell will be emphasised to the viewer. In these images I used a narrow depth of field to focus further attention on the dog’s massive nose. It was my research of the work of Elke Vogelsang that influenced me to use this technique as I felt when I looked at her images they highlighted to me her dogs extraordinary  ability to sense smells.

I have also taken images to convey to viewers the highly sensitive and unusual visual experiences that geckos have. I have gone about this is two ways. Firstly I have captured macro images of a gecko’s eyes using a light box to ensure that the fine details are maintained. In this way I can illustrate to viewers what the eye looks like in greater detail than they can see with their naked eye. Geckos unusual spherical eyes with their slit like vertical pupils traveling down them and the swirls of colour running through them are amazing to look at. Their relatively large eyes in comparison to their head and body and the vertical slits of their pupils highlight that they are nocturnal animals and so must have sensitive eyesight to see in the dark.

I have then linked this with the fact that geckos have unusual vision in that they can see infrared light. Using a filter for my camera I have used this new technique to capture landscapes images in near infrared, and so reveal to viewers how geckos view their world. The novelty of this should interest viewers as they cannot see infrared light so will not be familiar with how this changes the landscape. They have a spooky other worldly feel to them with sharp contrast that can create a dramatic mood. Using this new technique to me I have shown viewers a view that is right in front of them but invisible to them and it is how many animals that can see near infrared light experience the world. Before I started this project I knew little about infrared photography but my research and analysis of image by Sir Simon Marsden and Piper McKay encouraged me to try this new technique as I felt the landscape images were amazing and I wanted to see how this invisible world looked for myself.

I have also adapted a landscape image using photoshop to illustrate the wide circular view of grazing animals by dividing the image into regions based on the type of vision a rabbit has of it. This is based on the lateral position of its eyes and whether the viewpoints overlap, or they can only be viewed by one eye or none at all. This is very different to the way we see the world with the forward facing position of our eyes which provides us with great perception of depth but restricts our view to that in front of us. I hope the adapted image will highlight to viewers and get them thinking about how different some animals’ visual sensory experience is from ours.   

Some of the extraordinary experiences I have captured images of will be less familiar to people such as the ability of geckos to see in infrared or for snakes to taste and smell the air in 3 dimensions with its tongue. However it is well known that cats have whiskers on their face that act as sensors that it can feel when touched. I therefore felt that to capture an image of this I would just need to focus closely in on its face from the front and capture the whiskers acting as a barrier in front of its face. In this way I could visually demonstrate them acting as a screen or barrier that had to be brushed against to contact its face. Although I felt the images of two different cats I used as models were effective in my preparatory shoots I noticed that one of my rabbit has a much larger number and also longer whiskers than the cat. I therefore also used him as a model as his whiskers more effectively conveyed a barrier that had to be brushed against. I also felt I improved the cat’s whisker image from the preparatory shoot by capturing his tongue wiping over his whiskers as this focuses on something touching them.