Showcasing the Best in Photojournalism from Leeds Beckett University
Yesterday I took some more shots for my final project. I’m not really happy with the outcome, I forgot to bring my treats to keep the cats near me and interested so struggled keeping their attention. I also wanted shots of the cat with it’s owner but she was busy during in the free time I had, hopefully I can get down again soon to retake with the owner and get some more still, and exciting shots.
I selected the first picture to practice editing due to the overall darkness of the image and the lack of vibrant colours, I selected the second picture because it appears dull and lifeless.
Before
After – To begin with I altered the brightness using photoshop image adjustments layers then went in and heightened the exposure which made the image lighter. To enhance the colours I heightened the contrast so hat the black would be darker in comparison to the bright green grass and red clothing items.
Before
After – In an attempt to make the image brighter I turned up the exposure and brightness but ended up losing a lot of the detail on Rosie’s face because of the way the original image was.
Looking at the pictures side by side I didn’t like the final edit so went back into photoshop to edit again. When editing again I left the exposure alone and instead played with the vibrancy, hue, and colour balance to achieve the desired effect.
Studies have shown that frequent exposure to nature and plants improves our general health, so why is Leeds city centre littered with fake, plastic trees?
The benefits of being around nature and greenery are endless, firstly plants are natural air filters, with some houseplants absorbing up to 87% of toxins, whilst simultaneously adding moisture and oxygen into the air. Studies have shown that household plants can also relieve mild symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Nature can also contribute to harmonious, community living by reducing noise pollution, improving biodiversity, mitigating general air pollution and helping maintain a lower temperature.
With all of these benefits it begs the question, why are city centres so deprived of natural greenery? On a short walk through the heart of Leeds City Centre, not only is greenery difficult to find but any that you do come across is likely fake.
Yorkshire born Ruby Hudson moved to Leeds for university and said ‘It’s depressing coming from the Yorkshire countryside to the city, it just grey concrete everywhere’ and added that she ‘wouldn’t even notice these plants are fake’.
Leeds city council have attempted to incorporate these ideas into the city, in 2022 they closed off roads outside the Corn Exchange to implement a community green space. However the space is overall disappointing with a couple of metres of grass and two potted plants.
Leeds council announced that they intend to make Leeds a carbon neutral city by 2030 through the use of practices like replacing gas with waste powered district heating and only purchasing energy from renewable sources. Plants and greenery consume carbon from the environment during the process of photosynthesis, meaning adding more natural greenery to Leeds will not only benefit mental and physical health but the global climate emergency too.
Shooting outdoors I set my camera to manual, adjusted the aperture to f/16 and the shutter speed to 160. I was experimenting with different values for the ISO, altering the ISO value controls how much light the camera picks up a lower value equals a darker image and a higher value equals a brighter image.
ISO 400
ISO 400
ISO 800
ISO 1600
These two pictures were taken with a fast shutter speed of 1/80 in order to free the mid-air moment in time.
These two pictures were taken with a slow shutter speed of 1/1200 to capture the movement of the cars in the background.
When photographing a person or object an important thing to consider is the depth of field, you can control this by altering the f-stop. The f stop controls the amount of light that can enter through the lens and thus alters the focus, objects that are in focus will be clear and the out of focus background is slightly blurred. A high value F stop eg. F/32 means that the hole allowing light to enter will be smaller and a lower value e.g. F/2 means the hole letting light in will be very large. There are many different reasons a photographer would want to change the depth of filed, the main one being directing the viewers eye to the most important subject.
F/5.2
F/16
F/32
Photographic Journalism 
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