I've been really trying to branch out with the types of photography I can do recently. While I love running around and capturing the old streets and trying to tell their stories, there's also an understanding of needing to capture the more commercial market if photography is something I want to do for a living. After all, nobody really pays anything for images of decayed communist buildings and broken down cars, right? Through this push into more commercial photography as well, I have been trying to adapt and figure out various ways to add to and build a portfolio. Some of it has been creating isolated backgrounds and positioning dried tea leaves around on it, thinking of product photography and telling concept stories through them. In other situations I have been getting outside into the natural world and finding the more 'stock' option. Connecting with industry and agriculture which might help certain companies in more natural fields.
Jumping into these more planned shoots without a ton of gear has been an interesting learning experience. After all, a lot of these types of shoots tend to take advantage of many little aspects of gear to make the perfect image: some additional lights, costume design and models, or even just additional lens filters to adapt to harsher lighting scenarios. In my case, I had the old Sony A6000 APS-C with the 35mm lens and a polarising filter over it, which has definitely helped in a more Neutral Density aspect under the stronger light. Though these were planned for a later time of day anyway where the sun wasn't a strong (outside of heat) and the golden hour light was starting to appear. That golden hour feature was essential for me, getting those little lens flare that appear in the image, either in the corners or more central in the image, connecting the strong sunlight with the natural aspect of the agricultural feeling.
A slight problem was that it was a bit hard to focus in this environment, getting either really low to the ground or just not seeing how sharp the image was due to having to use the LCD screen rather than my preferred use of the viewfinder. I had to push and pull some colours in Capture One afterwards, also taking advantage of the Brush tools in the software to smooth certain features out in the image. A few spot/dust removal edits to make some of the fruit look a bit cleaner and more appealing. Not going full pixel peeping, but finding the most major imperfections and delimitating those. I'm quite surprised at how most of these came out, especially given some of the images featured some strong chromatic aberrations around certain objects. I think mostly just where the intense light really hit an object and caused a strong highlight and reflection, these mostly appeared.
I think time will tell how effective this little experiment will be, since I will be uploading them to a few stock agencies and seeing how things go. As well as potentially throwing some of the images into the portfolio for attracting certain potential clients down the road. It was fun, but also a bit of a challenge, making me aware of how important a few new additions to my gear would be: ND filters for various stops of light in these environments where the sun is just so strong. Different focal lengths for capturing more of the environment to tell the story. And generally just brushing up on my editing skills and thinking less of what style I enjoy, but more what might be appealing to a buyer.
