Health and Safety 1.9

Since I have been concentrating on landscape photography I have looked at the Government website with regard to the Wildlife and Countryside Act which can be viewed by clicking here.

This Act covers all aspects of access to the countryside, habitat conservation, damage too, or removal of protected flora and fauna, and even the introduction of none native species into the countryside.

It also incorporates the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 1980 which gives the access rights of the general public with regard to open country and registered common land.

In addition to this I have also looked at the Health & Safety at Work Act since I have also worked within the college with regard to this course.  This is the primary piece of legislation covering occupational health and safety in the UK and can be viewed by clicking here.

Briefly, it is the duty of every employer, to ensure the health safety and welfare at  work of all his employees and visitors.  It is also the responsibility of all employees and visitors to take reasonable care of their own and others safety.

The following considerations should be made whilst carrying out any assignment on location.

- the photographer should have current employer and public liability insurance, including cover for people
engaged by him on an occasional basis.

- the photographer and his assistant should have motor vehicle insurance which covers their vehicles for business use.

- the photographer should have a formal agreement with the customer outlining their requirements.

- should carry out a site visit to discuss arrangements with the customer, requesting where necessary permission for access and right to take photographs.

- should ensure where necessary the location has adequate fire precautions and signage in place.

- should consult with the customer, where necessary, of the location on any risk assessment and what actions are required and have these been carried out.

- share with any assistant any concerns and if necessary any location management.

- should ensure all equipment is maintained and safe to use.

- should ensure all employees including those self employed are trained to use equipment safely.

- should take precautions to minimise any identified potential problems related to safety affecting the assignment and to any other people at the location.

Location safety mainly revolves around trips slips and hazards.

Risk assessments should also be undertaken in relation to a photographers premises, these include;

- fire precautions
- using display screen equipment (DSE)
- manual handling
- control of substances hazardous to health (COSHH)

Final 12 and Photoshop editing

I have now decided on my final twelve images for portfolio and have begun to put them through photoshop.  

The first task was to copy the 'raw' file to psd in order to work on them and also  copy to 'jpeg' for my blog.

The main adjustments required are cropping, and since it was raining when I took some of the pictures in the Lake District,  removal of rain spots which got on to the lens between shots.

I practiced on the picture above which was taken in the Langdales as a panorama, I took three quick shots of the valley and put these together in photoshop, although I now realise I should have taken them in portrait not landscape since some of the detail has been lost in cropping.  It worked out pretty well but have not been able to add this to my blog since the upload picture command seems unable to cope with the size of the file.

I have also to think about naming each picture.  Steve talked to us about the implications of the names we choose,  either being a connotation, and having cultural and/or emotional associations, or being a denotation, which has a dictionary definition of a word devoid of emotion, attitude, or colour.

For example calling a picture of a harbour, 'harbour' would be a denotation since it is merely descriptive, but if it was called  'pastel harbour' this implies soft light and pale colours, perhaps something more romantic. 

Planned Photo-shoot for Portfolio

(Above, some example photographes from member of the Light & Land organisation)

Location              Lake District, Cumbria

Equipment           Panasonic Lumix G1, 14-45mm and 45-200mm lenses, tripod and Cokin Filters

We had planned a weekend break in the Lake District to get some pictures to add to my portfolio, after checking the weather forcast, which was clear skies and sunny, we set off early on Saturday morning in the hope that we would arrive about 7.30ish to take advantage of the morning light.

We have visited the Lakes on many occasions and had planned our first walk around Grasmere and Rydal Water and had our ordinance survey maps with us together with our walking gear, boots, suitable clothing and refreshments, so that we could stay out most of the day.

We arrived about 8am and walked to Grasmere, the sky was clear and the air still, the water was flat with good reflections from the hillside which I was eager to capture, as shown in the first picture above.  I used a tripod and polarising filter with my standard lens and remembered Steve's advise about getting down low to the subject and getting lots of foreground interest.  

I am pleased with the result, the patch of clear water near the foreground balances the sky, which was a bit flat, with the bank of grass, tall stems and overhanging branches framing the main subject, the hillside and reflection.  Ideally I would have liked the line of boulders and stones leading vertically up into the reflection, to lead the eye into the landscape, instead of horizontal but I could not position myself any better on the bank because of the undergrowth.

The next shot is taken further up the hillside looking south, with Rydal Water below, there were some interesting rock formations and I wanted to get these in the forground with hills in the distance.  The conditions were quite bright by now with sun overhead, I used a polarising filter to try to get some definition in the sky which was very hazy.  I took several shots in an around these rocks with a couple of possibles for my portfolio.  I think they are successful but would have preferred clearer conditions for more definition in the distant hills.

This shot was taken in the late afternoon, I was interested in the colour and texture of the moss, with contrasting dry crinckly leaf litter around trees.  It hasn't transferred well to my blog, the raw file on pc looks much better with improved colours and detail in the moss.  It was bright even though we were under tree cover and I did not use a tripod.  On reflection I could have gotten down much closer to the moss to pick out more detail.

This one was taken next morning about one hour after sunrise, I was hoping for a brighter morning with light reflected on to the hillside but as you can see it was a very grey morning with lots of low cloud which changed to rain later in the morning.  This has given me an atmospheric shot with distant hills disappearing into cloud.  The bank fell away steeply so I was quite low to the ground and boulders lining the shorline break up this uninteresting area.  Reeds in the middle ground add a different texture with distant shore lined with shrubbery and trees defining this area.  I used a tripod for this shot since a slower shutter speed was needed because of the dim light, however since the ducks appeared swimming across the scene I quickly increased iso so I could increase shutter speed a little so they were not blurred.  I think they are still slightly blurred on the raw image but I took lots of shots as the light changed and will use one in my portfolio.

I had also visited this spot at sunset on the previous evening with the sun setting behind the hills, however the colour was not great but I do have a refection on the water which improves the shot.

I had decided I wanted to get some shots of flowing water and when the weather improved later the same day we drove up the the Langdales with the intention of climbing up to Dudgeon Gill which is a very impressive force high in hills.  However, we got about three quarters of the way up and decided to turn back since the weather closed in and became very wet and windy.  The path was made up of rock which became quite slippy and we were carrying alot of equipment.

Part way down I found this small waterfall and rested my camera on a rock.  I had a slow shutter speed anyway because of the grey conditions and I think this has improved the look of the water.  I took lots of shots from different angles and used my polarsing filter on some to cut out any reflection, which has given me a good view of rock detail under the water in a pool beneath the fall.

This picture is taken looking over Loughrigg Tarn in the evening of the same day.  We got a glimmer of sunshine which lit up the opposite fell and gave some shaddow detail.  I would have liked to get closer to the tarn since it was very still by now which gave good reflection on the water but the nearside of the tarn is on private land with no public access.  I took this using my tripod and standard lens with no filters and wanted to capture the bright green of the grass echoed in the opposite hillside with the bracken on the hillside above.  I avoided including sky since this was a uniform grey colour after the rain.

I have added more photos on my picasa site, click here to view.  None of my photos used have had any post production editing.