Health and stafety in photography

Photographic industry is made up of organisations employed  between one and four people and the majority of these are self-employed. The 1974 Health and Safety at Work etc. Act places the responsibilities on employers, employees and the self employed.


Responsibilities

• It is the duty of every employer, so far as is reasonably practicable, to ensure the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees.
• For employees to take reasonable care for their own safety and that of others.
• For self employed people to conduct themselves in such a way that people not in their employ are not exposed to health and safety risks.

Locations
The following health and safety considerations should be taken into account before, during and after assignments. The following relate to assignments on location:

• the photographer should have current employer and public liability insurance, including cover for people engaged by him on an occasional basis. Remember, these certificates should be securely archived for forty years
• the photographer and his assistant should have motor vehicle insurance which covers their vehicles for business use
• the photographer should have a formal agreement with the customer outlining their requirements
• should carry out a visit to the location to discuss arrangements with the customer, requesting where necessary, permission for access and right to take photographs
• should carry out a risk assessment particular to the areas where the photographer may wish to take photographs
• should ensure that where necessary the location has adequate fire precautions and signage in place
• should consult with the customer, where necessary, of the location on any risk assessment they may have carried out and what actions were required and have these been effectively implemented
• should share with the photographic assistant any health and safety concerns and if necessary the location management
• should ensure that all equipment is maintained and safe to use, especially flash equipment
• should ensure that all employees including those self employed are trained to use equipment safely
• should take precautions to minimise any identified potential problems related to safety affecting the assignment and to any other people at the location.

Risk Assesments
Risk assessments are very important to identify any potential hazards that may be encountered either on the photographer's premises or on location. There are several risk assessments the photographer should undertake in relation to his premises. These include:

• fire precautions
• using display screen equipment (DSE)
• manual handling
• control of substances hazardous to health (COSHH).

Fire precautions
These relate to having adequate types of fire extinguishers, which must be regularly serviced; displaying escape and emergency signage and ensuring escape routes are free from obstructions.

With the increased use of computers and digital equipment for manipulating images it is essential to consider the people who use a display screen equipment  for long periods of time. It is very important to ensure that the computer, the workstation and the working environment meet current safety regulations, to lessen the possibility of wrist and eye strain.

Most photographers at sometime have to lift reasonably heavy and bulky equipment, such as flash lighting. A risk assessment will highlight the potential damage to the human torso, which may result in long-term absence from work. Manual handling training can help people to store equipment at correct heights and how to lift objects. Also, a risk assessment can indicate where mechanical aids such as trolleys can be of help.

With the advent of digital imaging in the industry, chemicals for processing and printing (wet processing) are not so widely used. There are however certain products used which are hazardous, for example, batteries and printer ink cartridges, along with industrial cleaning substances.

Electrical safety
 Electrical safety is also very important. All electrical equipment such as flash equipment, kettles, microwaves etc. should be tested (usually referred to as portable appliance testing) at specified intervals. The electrical wiring installation of the photographer's premises also requires testing at specified intervals. A competent person should carry out all testing and records of these tests must be kept.

Location safety
This  mainly resolves around 'trips, slips and hazards'. Each location should be assessed to ascertain hazards and where possible to control these to reduce any injury resulting from an incident, especially to any member of the public. Photographers, their employees and the self employed should work within the framework of the Health and Safety at Work Act, and where reasonably practicable, take steps to ensure the safety of themselves and others around them.

autumn photography

This image reminds me of autumn because of how the leaf on the tree has turned yellow/brown, I thought it was a really nice picture because it was the only yellow leaf. I like the close up and the attention to detail, to the lines on the leaf.

I really like how I have blurred the leaves out at the front and how the further back you go the clearer the leaves get.   

This is an opposite picture to the one above I like how I have focused the camera onto the leaves you can see the lines on the leaves, and how sharp the sticks are. what I like about this image is the fence in the background how it breaks the picture up. 

This is one of my favorite pictures because it sums up autumn, with the leaf and the wet weather on them makes it really come to life and it just explains autumn in a nut shell. I like how the front leaf it really blur and the rest of the image is in focus. I like how all the picture is green with the leaves apart from the brown leaf which stands out from the picture.  

This image which I took really looks like the start of autumn because of how the leaves are just starting to turn yellow and brown. I like how I have done it portrait because of the stem of the plant. As you can see the leaves are in focus, I have done this by putting the camera settings on depth of field, I really like the lighting on this photograph because it brings out the brown.

There are a lot of leaves in this picture because it's really busy and lively. I like this picture because of the colour contrast of the yellow and green on the leaves. It looks really autumn. I like how I have used the rule of thirds in this picture with the yellow leaves in the 2nd third and with he sticks.

This picture is probably one of my favorites because, of how simple the image looks. There is hardly anything in the background because I have blurred it out and also the leaf is really in focus. This image I have took I tried using the rule of thirds by putting it in the center so it stands out.

how to set up a studio setting

First we had to thread a pole through the white paper, then we had to set the stands up by making sure they were straight  and level with each other. This picture is of me and Nicole leveling the stands to make the the right level. 

This is me making sure the stands are level with each other, straightening them out to make sure the paper is level with the other side. We did this to make sure that the paper, was okay and checked if there was any rips in the paper.

This is a picture of me and Nichole undoing the roll of the white paper, after we checked that the roll was okay.

After me and Nichole, undid the roll, we had to put  some weights onto the the paper so that it didn't crinkle up, and to make it more stable.

These two photographs were of me and Nichole doing the stands for the lighting set up. We did this really easily making sure the stand was level. The picture above is a close up of me tightening the lighting stand before putting the light on the top.

This is me putting the light together on the stand the first picture is of me screwing the light into the stand. The second image is me putting the lighting cap onto the lights. This was alright but I put it on the wrong way at first until I realised that the hole was on the top when it was suppose to be on the bottom.

These 3 pictures are of me doing the finishing  the lighting off, what I had to do first was to establish were to put the umbrella, I then poked it through the hole, as you can see in the second picture. I had to tighten the screw so that it stayed in place. I then leveled it to the right height which I thought to do it at eye level.

This is Nichole sorting the other lightening out. what she had to do was put the soft box onto the light by twisting it on in a certain way. this was fairly simple to do.

This is me and Nichole checking the plugs and getting them prepared for the lighting we had to untangle them, and use an extension cord to make it easier to handle with.

This picture is me looking at the voltage of whats in the plug to make sure its the right one if it isn't the right voltage it could blow up the lights which wouldn't be good. We had to change one of the voltages because it was a 10 amp and the other one is only a 5 amp.

With checking the plugs we first put the extension into the lights before we plugged it in, we then checked the plug to see if it was okay and if the fuse was high enough, The last picture is us both putting the plug into the switch. Before I put the wires into the plug socket I checked to make use that the light was switched off and the everything was off before I switched it on, this has to be done so that there was no electric shock.

This is me and Nichole checking the lights testing them to see if they are okay and working together. As you can see the red button that is the test button and the first white button is for the infer red, which triggers off the other lights. We did a couple of test just to be sure they were working.

This is a flash reader. What it does is it picks up the flash from the lights, then when you take a picture on the SLR it lets you what the aperture should be. We did a trail test, before we took the finishing picture of Nichole.

This is the final shot of Nichole after we put all the lighting and the equipment up, I think this is a really good photograph and the lighting is really well lit and I think the flash reader gave out a good reading. Because we got a good end result.

Task 10 - Architecture

Task 10 - Produce a range of architectural photographs

This is a picture of a chapel. I really like how I took the picture because of the size of the building, just how old the building looks. I also really like the reflection that comes from the windows, I think this is an unusual building because of the age of the bricks.  The ISO on this photograph was on 100 because of the brightness and how sunny it were.

This image is of a picture I took which was above, Hyde shopping center. It's a block of flats which you wouldn't of expected What I tried to do on this picture was I to change the different ISO and the shutter speed. I really like this picture because there is nothing in the shot I like how plain the background is. Because of the weather and how clear the sky was it really brought the picture out.

This picture was on taken on the way back from, Hyde. I really like how this picture is really closed up, I like how the sky is clear blue and how the  windows stands out. I put this on Photoshop, and used the curve tool to get the right colour of the photograph. I really like the angle on this photograph and how the building takes up most of the frame.

I love how simple this building is. This was from the bus station in Hyde, I really like how the angle is right in the middle of the picture. I really like how simple and how little colour there is in the image as well. I haven't done anything to this image because I liked it as it is the sky is really bright. It was on an ISO of 100 and the aperture was F10, because of how sunny it was outside.

This is of a really old building at the back of the shops in Hyde. I really like how old and grotty the photograph. The shutter speed was 1/100 this is why it done natural lighting, The ISO was done on a 200. As you can see because of the contrast in the shutter speed and the aperture it looks really natural.

I really light the monument on this building in Hyde. I never noticed it before but it looked really unusual. I also like how the angle of the shot I have done on the building making the edge of the building in the center. I used F12 on the aperture, and the ISO was 100. 

Activity 5- ISO

 Most digital cameras offer a range of ISO values, such as 100, 200, and 400. Some go much higher--all the way to 3200.

As you can see this is a picture I have used the ISO100, you can tell I have used this because of the brightness and of the photograph. This image was taken inside so you can't really see the ISO on the picture as well. when you bumped your ISO up from 100 to 400 you’ll notice that you can shoot at higher shutter speeds and/or smaller apertures.

This was the ISO of 400. As you can see the image is darker and you cant really see the image because of the lighting. If i were to do this outside, it would look really natural. You would normally use a ISO of 400  film for lower-light photography.

This is ISO 800 when I used the camera for this. It's really dark as you can tell, there is not really vividness of the image because it's so dark. Also as you can tell this is an ISO 800 on a camera, because of how dark the image is, this has happened because I didn't use the triangle with the aperture and shutter speed.

  

Activity 9 - depth of field

Activity 9 - using a model and a scene with a background, elements  produce a sequence of images that have a varying depth of field.

 

This is a close up of depth of field, as you can see the image is really blurry and hasn't got a lot of focus. This is because the camera can only focus on on point at a time and makes everything else blurry.

This is a zoomed out photograph of a dinosaur I took. you can tell that I have zoomed fully out because of how sharp the image is.

As you can see the closer you get to the picture it starts to go less sharp.

The camera that I used was a Eos600D I really like these types of cameras because they capture the depth really well I have zoomed out I bit more and as you can see its getting a little bit more sharper.

As you can see now I have come more you can see the image is starting to come more into focus I didn't change the aperture or the shutter speed when I was taking the photos.

As you can see the closer I get to the image the less sharp it it gets this is a really good example because from the previous image and this image you can tell the difference.

From this image you can tell how close I was to this image by zooming in because of the body on the dinosaur and the only thing that is close to sharp is the head on the dinosaur.

As you can see the image is really sharp this is because the depth of field was focused at this point. The image is really clear and sharp and as you can see from the other images the closer you get to the image the less sharp it gets.

Activity 8 - Focus

Activity 8 - Focus

As you can see from this image of the car that the focus of it is really sharp, How I did this was I turned the focus on the SLR so it was really sharp, then I turned the brightness down a little bit but the main focus was on the car.

When I zoomed in onto the car, a tiny bit you can see it has started, to go a little bit blur, as you can see the houses in the background are going out of focus and the brightness has soothed a little bit as well.

With this image you can tell that the image has gone really distorted and blur. I zoomed in a bit more using the SLR camera, as you can tell, with the images there is no real focus in the image.

As you can tell this is the most distorted picture out of them all, it's really blurry because of how close up it is, the image has no focus what so ever, how I did this was I twisted the lens  so it zoomed in all the way, as you can see you can hardly tell what the image is.