Mark Power is a British photographer, who has created many books. His book which shows life in the Black Country was a commission from Multistory. I like the composition of his images and how there are many geometric shapes in the subjects of the images. The images above show creative use of balanced exposure.

This image shows a creative use of overexposure by Mark Power. I really like this image because it seems that the snow and sky are blending together. It almost seems as if the subjects are floating, which is a difficult effect to achieve and wouldn't be achieved without the snow. If this image wasn't overexposed, the sky would be a lot darker and it would be more visible where the skyline is, which means that this result is successful. 

In these screenshots, I messed around with the aperture on Canon Play, which resulted in very overexposed, underexposed and good exposed images. 

In this screenshot, the aperture was set to 2.8, which meant that the image turned out very overexposed. This means that the image was very white and the subjects were not visible.

In this screenshot, the aperture was set to 8, which meant that the image had good exposure. This means that for this particular environment with that lighting and highlights etc, the aperture was just right.

In this screenshot, the aperture was set to 22, which meant that the image turned out very underexposed. This means that the image turned out dark and the subjects were not as visible as the good exposure image, similar to the overexposed image. However, in some cases photographers intentionally underexpose images in certain environments to create darker images. 

These images were taken using a professional camera to experiment with mainly highlights and shadows through aperture. I also tried to make the composition interesting by including the paper towels in the background, and the mannequin in the foreground  The information was accessed through Photoshop, after selecting file, file info, then camera data. The one on the left has good/balanced exposure, and the other two are classed as underexposed. The smaller the number, the larger the hole, which means that the lens lets more light in (as seen in the first image).

In these images, I took 5 pictures of the same shot, with all different apertures. I changed the aperture by increasing and decreasing the aperture until the arrow on the light meter was on the following values; -2, -1, 0, 1, and 2. For the camera that I used, these were the aperture values, from the image on the left through to the right; f22, f20, f14, f11, f8.0. These values were the same for both the monochrome and colour images.

This portrait had a narrow aperture, with a value of f14, which resulted in an overexposed image. This image turned out blurry due to high shutter speed, which means that the higher the aperture, the more you get camera shake (which is the blurry images). To prevent this, the ISO and aperture values need adjusting accordingly or use Tv mode, which automatically changes the other settings according to the shutter speed. As well as that, after a certain setting, a tripod is needed to prevent camera shake.

In this portrait, the aperture was set in the middle to f11, which resulted in an image with good exposure.

This portrait had a wide aperture, with a value of f4, which resulted in an underexposed image.

In these screenshots, I messed around in Canon Play again, but this time with shutter speed, which resulted in underexposed, balanced exposed, and overexposed images, in which the subject was blurry or focused in some. 

In this screenshot, I turned the shutter speed to the highest it could go and realised that it turned the image really dark (underexposed), so I turned the shutter speed down slightly and adjusted the aperture by decreasing it, which resulted in an image which has good exposure. In this image, you can also see the propellor, however it still is slightly blurry.

In this screenshot, the shutter speed was in the middle and the image already had good exposure, however it wasn't on zero so I increased the aperture to 9.5 which resulted in a balanced exposure. You can see the movement of the propeller with these settings, but it's almost invisible. This screenshot appears a lot lighter than the one above.

In this screenshot, I turned the shutter speed to the lowest possible, which resulted in a lot of movement like the image above. To get this result, I needed to increase the aperture and reduce the ISO. Without changing the settings, the image turned out very overexposed.

Subject blur

Freezing

Panning

All blur

The first image shows object blur, whereas the last two show motion blur. To create the motion blur, the camera has to be slightly shaken with the same settings to create all blur.

The settings for these images were; ISO 100, shutter speed 2, and aperture 29. I experimented with the speed that I got my friend to walk at, which resulted in a variety of images, in which some captured her very slightly and others you can see her fully.

These are all the images taken for the shutter speed task, which was shot in Stafford Town and Victoria Park. I enjoyed taking freeze hold images the most because, in my opinion, it was the easiest to do. On the other hand, I enjoyed taking the subject blur images because there wasn't much effort required to take the images, compared to panning and all blur, in which you have to move the camera as well as adjust the settings. Some of these images weren't successful and didn't turn out how I expected them to but I think they still manage to capture subject blur, all blur, panning, and freezing quite effectively.

Panning 

Freezing

Subject blur

All blur

Moriyama is a Japanese photographer whose way of working is very fast and energetic, which is seen in the monochromatic street photography above. He uses ISO creatively to add noise to images, as well as the blurred effect which is caused by having to be quick to capture fast-moving subjects, resulting in blurred images. This effect is also caused by higher ISO values, which increases the camera lens' sensitivity to light. Moriyama says he doesn't overthink about what he is taking images of and tries to capture images of things that people don't notice. Many claim that Moriyama is not a 'real' photographer because he doesn't take images which are in focus, however the awards he has achieved say differently. I really admire Moriyama's unique way of working and enjoy street photography so in my next shoot, I will take inspiration from him.

In these twelve images, I increased the ISO values while adjusting the other settings to try and achieve a balanced exposure. I found it difficult to achieve this as it was getting darker and I had to keep changing the settings to make the image less underexposed.

In the screenshots above, I adjusted the aperture which changed the depth of field as well as the aperture at the same time. The higher the aperture, the wider the depth of field - which means that both the subject and background are in focus, whereas a shallow depth of field means only the subject is in focus and the background is not.

This image shows deep depth of field creatively, which shows the subject in focus as well as the background.

This image shows shallow depth of field used creatively, in which the subject is in focus and the background is less focused. 

These images show three different images with different apertures, from lowest to highest, which shows the change of depth of field. In the first image, the chocolates are more in focus than the background. In the second image, both the background and chocolates are in focus. The third image is very similar to the second but the last image is slightly noisy.

Overall, I enjoyed this project because I learnt so many skills which I was never aware of. My favourite parts of this project were experimenting with shutter speed to create blur on subject movement. I definitely found this quite confusing at the start but once I started taking images and messing around with the settings, my understanding developed. I think that aperture and ISO were the easiest to understand and create responses to. I struggled with the shutter speed initially but I now understand that I shouldn't lower the shutter speed too much past a certain point otherwise the images end up really blurry as you need a tripod or stable surface. I would definitely like to experiment with everything more to further deepen and develop my knowledge and create better images with interesting subjects and composition.