Proposal

I am going to photograph at night. I am primarily influenced by pieces of work by Robert Darch. A lot of his work is created in low light with areas of intense light. They are rural landscapes and he uses lots of leading lines to compose his images. This has also made me think about urban landscapes and the amount of colours and light that is created by signs and streetlights. I am going to try and photograph lights and lines in both an urban and rural landscape at night and see what exposures I can achieve in low lighting.

To make these sort of images I will have to use long shutter speeds in order to let light in and use high f numbers in order to get full detail throughout the image.  I think I will use digital photography for ease of use. If I were going to use film I would have to use a high ISO film, which is really expensive and is really hard to develop; however I will experiment with ISO400 colour film from Fujifilm. I will also use colour to make the image vibrant and interesting for the viewer. The long shutter speed means that I will have to use a tripod and a remote shutter in order not to get movement from pressing the shutter.

I will create images that I would expect to be shown in a gallery or a photography book. I would like to entertain people with this photo and give them something to appreciate.

I think it would be easy to gain access to the areas I need to go to because I can use public paths and go in car parks in Birmingham to gain height. However I would like to have someone else with me if I had to be in Birmingham late at night. I will probably find a lot of the images I will take when I am walking around the city because of the lights that shops use.

I own all the equipment I will need for this shoot. I own my camera, several lenses, tripod and a remote shutter. I also own a film camera, several black & white and colour film and remote shutter for it.

In the rural location it might be muddy and rocky underfoot so I will wear walking boots to reduce the chance of slipping and gain more grip. In the urban location a danger may be cars and other motorists because it will be dark and wont be able to see me. Therefore I will have to wear a reflective jacket or reflective badges.

I will have to research other practitioners who have photographed at night or in low light conditions and take influence on angle, positioning, height and exposure. The colours will have to depend on what is available, I wont be able to incorporate practitioners colours unless I use Photoshop to change them.

My time management is very simple. I will do all the research in the first 4 weeks and then I can focus on experimentation, developing and presenting the image.