Greenwich & Blackheath Project
Fergus Noone
Fergus Noone is a well known photographer and specialises his work in London. He makes a living by his shop which is located in Blackheath village by selling and displaying calendars, cards and framed photographs which he has taken. Fergus Noone is very knwon for taking pictures for different families. Fergus Noone uses a variety of different cameras, for instance he uses a Nikon D3(Digital) Nikon FM(35mm Film) and Fuji GX617(Film Camera) to take his panoramic landscape pictures. I've decided to base this project on his pictures in Blackheath & Greenwich but using my own technique and composition.
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Questionnaire
During the week I decide to go and visit Fergus Noone in his shop at Blackheath. Before that I set myself a range of questions based on his work which I could then ask him in person. Here are the answers to the questions I set myself.
1. What type of camera do you use?
"I use the Fuji Panoramic GX617(FIlm Camera) 120mm film to take the full width of the landscape in a panoramic format"
2. Why did Greenwich inspire you to take the photographs?
"I like the location of Greenwich and its many Historic features. This provides interesting landscapes and objects to take photographs of. The quality of the light is particularly good in Greenwich which is very important when capturing the perfect image. I also think the views from the top of the park looking down at the docklands are quite spectacular."
3. Are there any artists that you took inspiration from?
" My inspiration comes mainly from artist not photographers. The artists I find most interesting and have been a source of inspiration for my work are Turner, Picasso and Jack Butler Yates."
4. What made you want to become a photographer?
"I became a photographer because I found expressing myself visually through photography was something that I find quite natural."
5. What type of photographer's inspired your work?
"My main source of inspiration came from artists rather than photographers, but a photographer whose work I admire is Alistair Adams."
6. Which photographs sell the most black and white or colour?
"Black and white photographs were more popular and used to outsell colour, but now this trend has changed and the balance is now more even."
7. What target audience do you aim for?
"I don’t really aim at any particular target audience, I don’t have any kind of market strategy I just take photographs of what I think are of interest and are of a good quality."
8. Why did you locate your shop in Blackheath?
"My shop is based in Blackheath and has been for many years. It is my local area and provides me with a great source of interesting objects and landscapes to photograph. Greenwich is very rich in Historic value."
9. Is seasonality a major part of your work?
"I enjoy taking photographs of all the seasons. If I had to choose Christmas and spring are seasons I particularly enjoy. They seem very popular especially the Christmas snow scenes."
10. Which season sells the best?
"Christmas is the best selling season; this may be partly to do with the season of giving or the romantic side of Christmas and the snow scene photographs. "
"I use the Fuji Panoramic GX617(FIlm Camera) 120mm film to take the full width of the landscape in a panoramic format"
2. Why did Greenwich inspire you to take the photographs?
"I like the location of Greenwich and its many Historic features. This provides interesting landscapes and objects to take photographs of. The quality of the light is particularly good in Greenwich which is very important when capturing the perfect image. I also think the views from the top of the park looking down at the docklands are quite spectacular."
3. Are there any artists that you took inspiration from?
" My inspiration comes mainly from artist not photographers. The artists I find most interesting and have been a source of inspiration for my work are Turner, Picasso and Jack Butler Yates."
4. What made you want to become a photographer?
"I became a photographer because I found expressing myself visually through photography was something that I find quite natural."
5. What type of photographer's inspired your work?
"My main source of inspiration came from artists rather than photographers, but a photographer whose work I admire is Alistair Adams."
6. Which photographs sell the most black and white or colour?
"Black and white photographs were more popular and used to outsell colour, but now this trend has changed and the balance is now more even."
7. What target audience do you aim for?
"I don’t really aim at any particular target audience, I don’t have any kind of market strategy I just take photographs of what I think are of interest and are of a good quality."
8. Why did you locate your shop in Blackheath?
"My shop is based in Blackheath and has been for many years. It is my local area and provides me with a great source of interesting objects and landscapes to photograph. Greenwich is very rich in Historic value."
9. Is seasonality a major part of your work?
"I enjoy taking photographs of all the seasons. If I had to choose Christmas and spring are seasons I particularly enjoy. They seem very popular especially the Christmas snow scenes."
10. Which season sells the best?
"Christmas is the best selling season; this may be partly to do with the season of giving or the romantic side of Christmas and the snow scene photographs. "
Examples of Fergus Noone's work
Image Set 1
These are my first set of images of which I took inspiration from Fergus Noone. I decided to focus my pictures on the different landmarks and monument around Greenwich, similarly like Fergus Noone. In particular I captured the nature of Greenwich for example the trees, architecture buildings using my own inspiration to focus on the angles, view points and my perspective. With the camera I used I experimented with the lens by taking some close up photographs of the detail within the images to create interesting outcomes.
Top 5 Images
One of the reasons why I like this photograph is because it shows the contrast of urban and rural. As you can see in the bottom half of the image it's very open and empty, which shows its rural, however as you can see in the middle of the image it shows all of the buildings in London and how compact it is which shows its urban.
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In this photograph particularly, I like how the layout and how the style is landscape because captures the open view of the River Thames in addition to the side walkway on the left. I noticed the lens flare in the top left of the image reflecting from the walkway which comes across quite effective. Looking closely at the Thames I noticed a nice repetition of the textured waves.
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Firstly what caught my eye was the setting of the branches intertwining with each other. The branches make up for the plain blue sky with it's creative textures and its slight layers. I also like the different tones in the background of the image. Overall the image represents a perfect vignette border showing the contrast of the dark edges in comparison to the centre of the image.
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The interesting scene of this image is how the layout is divided into sections in a parallel view point. In the distance focuses on the lighting of the whole image more clearly in contrast to the buildings. At the bottom of the image it is very dark and dull, however as it begins to get to the top of the image it starts to get lighter. I also noticed a mirrored effect of the composition layout separated from block to block.
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This photograph of the bandstand stands out from the background of the park as the structure represents clearly the red lines but also the black patterned borders of the stand itself. Particularly l like how the ground borders a route pathway around the bandstand separating it from the grass. I noticed the background of the trees is quite blurry and not as clear in comparison to the bandstand represented close up.
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Disliked Images
The reason why I don't like this image is because some of the edges of the picture has been cut off at the top and also on the left hand side. I think that next time I take my next Image set, I need to include the whole subject, this would allow me to crop my image if necessary. This current image cannot be improved because what is missing is lost.
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This image didn't come out as I expected because there is no focal point in this image, which makes it quite boring to look at. I also dislike the angle in which I took this image. I think that this picture could be improved if I had taken it at a straight angle.
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The reason I don't like this image is because the building looks like it has been cropped at the top. I also dislike the angle in which this image was taken. Additionally I captured a man walking by which I think ruins this image. If I took this photograph again I would make sure that I have a good angle and that no one walks in front of the picture
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Edited Images Set 1
I decided to crop some of these images and make them black and white. I did this by using an app known as Pixlr. I made these photographs black & white because Fergus Noone's black & white images are his best sellers. I also experimented with the brightness because some of the images bellow were too dark or too light.
Canon 550d Research
I took my second set of images uses a Canon 550D. I had very limited knowledge of using this particular camera. I decided to do some research on how to use this camera in manual mode. I was particularly interested in experimenting with the shutter speed, Aperture and the ISO as I was going to take my second set of images at dusk. I used the training video bellow to achieve this.
Image Set 2
The set of images bellow were taken around Greenwich. I decided to focus on taking similar pictures to Fergus Noone of land marks around Greenwich. However In this second image set most of the pictures were taken in the dark/dusk. Some of the images bellow have been taken more than once. The reason for this is because I experimented with the Shutter speed, ISO, Aperture. Example of this is shown in section 'Experimenting with Shutter Speed, Aperture & ISO.
Experimenting with Shutter Speed, Aperture & ISO
Image 1 and 2 were taken at the same time. Image 1 was taken with low shutter speed, medium aperture. Image 2 was taken with a high shutter speed & a high aperture. As you can see image 1 looks like it has been taking during the day, however image 2 looks like it's been taken at dusk which it was.
Image 3 and 4 were taken at the same time. Image 3 was taken with low shutter speed, low aperture. Image 4 was taken with a normal shutter speed & a higher aperture. As you can see image 3 looks like it has been taking during the day, however image 4 looks like it's been taken at dusk which it was.
Edited Images Set 2
How I edited my Images
When editing these images I imported these images and changed the brightness & contrast in to program Pixlr, I had to test the threshold a lot until I found a reasonable point that I was happy with.
Day & Night
These images were taken in the same location with the same object so you can see the contrast between the day and night, as well as image set one.
Image Set 3
Top 3 Images
I like this image because of the composition, there foreground is taken up with trees while your main focus is within the background and centered in the picture, helping to make it feel distanced.
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The foreground to this image doesn't have any colour in however the background has natural lighting in making the picture look edited. When taking this image I was most focused on getting the sunset, however I changed some of the camera settings such as the ISO and the shutter speed which meant that I was able to get an image that turned out like this.
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The composition to this image is what made it into my top 5. Going left to right the distance in the image gets further away. This image was accidental because the road curves in however it ended up making an effective image.
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