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I've really enjoyed this course - what we've done; what I've learnt; and my time on Tuesday nights with Simon and my course mates.

I think it's helped me move on from the basics to a more advanced appreciation of the art of photography and how I can compose, create and edit images.

I have pulled this together as my final portfolio submission to cover units one and six of the syllabus, but there's lots more in my personal journal for the course:

https://padlet.com/kevin_edworthy/vzgnykokjpl8cca

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Unit one - photography choice: portraiture

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Unit one - photography choice: portraiture

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We spent two weeks studying and experimenting with portrait photography, which I went on to use to take portraits of my family and friends as well as candid 'street' images.

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I did a portrait shoot of my wife Linda in our garden, picking blueberries.  I used my 25mm prime lens to give me the shallowest depth of field I could muster to focus on Linda's hands showing off her crop.  There was a bit of garden mesh in the frame which I removed with the ‘remove’ healing tool in Lightroom.

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My daughter Evie,  asked me to take a 'profile pic' for her work social media, as most recent images she has are in social settings - at parties, festivals or out with the girls.

I got one 'professional' shot which she was happy with, but I also took this one, which I really like because it captures her as a happy and beautiful young woman, on her 21st birthday.  Editing it as black and white, mutes the colour contrasts and puts the focus on her laughing smile.

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The first of my 'street' images.

I asked two young men sat up against Grey's Monument in Newcastle whether I could take their picture and they obliged.  They maintained their relaxed pose and smiled quietly, which makes for a comfortable looking shot.

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I edited this in black and white because there was a bright, blue neon sign above the busker's head.  The face of the girl on the left was also visible so I had to crop behind her ear. I used a relatively slow shutter speed to create differential motion blur between the busker and the passers-by to reflect what I saw - him playing away and nobody paying attention.

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A deliveroo rider taking a break between jobs.  The bloke was pretty still so I used a slower than usual shutter speed to 'blur' the people passing by.  I tried to frame him between two passers-by, while including a bit of his bike and bag in the composition to show his work.

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A 'street' shot of two tourists trying to work out where they are, stood in front of a poster for the Lucca Summer Festival.  The colour of the man's jumper ties in with the yellow in the poster and the woman is looking in the opposite direction to Kasbian's drummer, right above her.  The man is looking towards me, as is Liam Gallagher in the poster above. I used a mask to brighten the exposure of the tourists to make them stand out slightly more in the image.

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A man sitting in a doorway in a street in Florence, Italy. The stone doorframe and the side of white van are roughly on vertical thirds, which 'frame' him in the composition. It is a sort of 'minimalist' portrait in that you don't need to see that much of him, to know what he is doing, but at the same time, are left wondering what it might be he is writing about.

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A woman asleep on a stone bench in Lucca.  Initially, I placed her in the centre of the frame, but then included the portion of the gallery poster on the right, as it looks as if the boy in the poster is peering around the corner.

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Someone hanging out their washing to dry on window washing lines in Livorno.  Another minimalist shot, where you only see the person's arms, so know what they're doing but are left wondering who they are.  I had to be careful taking this shot as I was leaning over the side of a balcony, three floors up.

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Unit six - location work: floristry and Seth's graduation

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Unit six - location work: floristry and Seth's graduation

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During the course, I did two location shoots.  The first in the floristry studio at Houghall College and the second at the University of Bristol for my godson Seth's graduation.

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Simon organised for us to do a location shoot in the floristry studios.  We were given a week's notice and encouraged to think about what we would do, what equipment we would use and how we might go about the shoot.

It was pretty challenging as we went into a setting where we had never been before, so quickly had to assess the situation to identify what we could shoot.

Prior to going into the floristry studio, I had an idea around trying to focus on the craft of floristry and 'what happens' as well as the floral arrangements.

I used a 25mm f/1.7 prime lens to give me the shallowest depth of field possible from my kit. The wide angle and fixed focal length meant that I had to crop some images quite a bit.

I struggled a bit with focus and getting the exposure right on some images.

I spoke with a very nice lady who showed me how she would use her secateurs, so I focused on her use of tools to create her display.

I asked if there were any specific shots she would like, so took a number of her finished arrangement, within the setting of the classroom.

There were lots of pieces of interesting kit and off-cuts around the place so I tried to capture those as well to give a sense of the classroom as a space where things are fashioned and shaped.

All of the women seemed to be enjoying themselves and thoroughly engaged with the lecturers running the course, so I also tried to take a number of images of the women in that classroom setting.

When I came to present the final selection of five images to the students, I explained that I was trying to capture the craft of floristry and drew a comparison between floristry and the step-by-step process in cookery.  Admittedly, the reference to Mrs Beeton's rabbit pie threw them a bit, but when I showed them the images, I think the students understood what I meant by  'First, catch your rabbit.'

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This was an image I took while waiting my turn to go into the studio. The bright colours and light were appealing and I deliberately used the window panels to frame different parts of the image.

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Mrs Beeton’s recipe for rabbit pie begins ‘first catch your rabbit.’

Floristry starts with flowers so I wanted to take that step-by-step approach to the photoshoot.

The lens I was using - a wide aperture, 25mm prime - could achieve a very narrow depth of field, which suits picking out particular elements through selective focusing.

I used that to focus on the flower, the tools and the arrangement.

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The lady I spoke with was really helpful but a bit self conscious of having her photograph taken so I tried to focus more on 'flowers and tools'.

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In this one, the lady is included but out of focus in the background.

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This was the shot that the lady asked me to take. I used a shallow depth of field to focus in on her arrangement, emphasised by vignetting in 'post', whilst still showing that it was in the floristry studio setting.

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My godson, Seth was graduating from the University of Bristol and I was invited to take some images to record his day.  It was a poignant day for him because he lost his dad to cancer in the final year of his degree and it was the first big family occasion without his dad.  So it was extra special for me to be asked to take images.

I wanted to capture the university setting, Seth receiving his degree and the fun when he graduated.  I had a look at the venue on Google Earth the day before, as I didn't have a ticket for the actual graduation congregation, so knew I would largely be shooting outside.

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A corporate identity banner next to the assembly area.  I took this to provide context for the images - it was one of the few instances where the words 'University of Bristol' were displayed.  The image required minor cropping and adjustment of shadows and highlights in Lightroom.  The colour of the banner complemented the autumnal leaves behind.

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A 'sense of place' image to show the setting for the congregation - the Wills Memorial Building in Bristol.   I crossed the road and stood down the hill to capture the height of the tower.  It was a busy road - pedestrians and traffic - so I needed to be very aware of what was going on around me; not only for my safety but also for other pedestrians so that I didn't cause an obstruction and cause people to step into the road.  I took several images from this spot but settled on this one because the red colour of the Honda Jazz car matched the red autumn leaves.

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The university armorial bearings on the Wills Memorial Building where the graduation congregation took place. I took this image again to provide a sense of place and to capture the sense of history and prestige of the university. The shields were up a height on the side of the building's tower so I used the geometry tools in Lightroom to adjust the image so that they appeared more 'face-on'.

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I used a large aperture and relatively high ISO to enable a fast shutter speed to 'freeze' everyone in this family group shot.  Although only Cissy, Seth's big sister is looking directly at the lens, Donna, Seth's mum is looking up at him with pride.

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I encouraged Seth to throw his mortarboard into the air.  I opened the aperture as far as I could and used what I thought was a fast enough shutter speed, but the hat still had a lot of motion blur.

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The same settings as before with the toss, but the mortarboard was moving more slowly as it floated down so had far less motion blur.  Seth is a keen footballer and I was lucky enough to capture the concentration in his eyes as he tried to catch it on his head.

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I used the the arch of the doorway to frame Seth and the height of the steps so that he had an elevated position in relation to me, which gave him a more commanding stance.  I also stuck him up on top of the steps because it was mayhem down on the level where I was, with hundreds of people milling about.  Up on the steps was the only place I could take a picture of him without other people in the background. It was standing room only where I was, so I had to be aware of other people moving around me a) so that I didn't bump into them or obstruct them; and b) to keep them out of the foreground of the shot.

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A jokey crop focusing in on Seth's boots.  He was working on a farm in Germany the day before his  graduation and when he turned up, everything was smart, other than his boots. His mum insisted he tried to clean them for the ceremony.  The image may not make sense to other people, but it will to Seth and his mum.

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A portrait of Seth holding a photograph of his late father, Alan.  Seth and his mum wanted Alan to 'be there' so brought an old photograph of him into the ceremony. Seth is proudly holding up the picture of his dad.  I squatted down a bit so that he was  very slightly looking down at me, which gave him a more commanding pose.  He is as proud in this image as he is in the earlier one where he is holding his degree at the top of the steps.

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A crop of an image from up on the steps, with Seth side on, looking down at me.  I used the dark and plain background of the wooden doors to keep the focus on Seth.  There was quite a lot of noise in the image which I tried to disguise by increasing the 'grain'.  I converted it to black and white and used a radial mask to darken the background so that the main areas of light in the image is Seth's face.

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Seth's mum was really pleased with the black and white image, but his grandmother asked for one in colour to sit alongside colour photographs of her other grandchildren. I think the editing I did when the image was in black and white made for a better image when I converted it back to colour.

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Experimenting with studio lighting kit, I took a number of portrait images of my course mate, Felicity.

In Lightroom, I added an inverted offset radial gradient mask to add some 'backlight' interest and to create the impression that Felicity was turning away from the dark.  I used another mask to desaturate the colours in her lanyard so that it wasn't so distracting.

The aspect ratio on my camera was set to 1:1, which I think worked well with Felicity's orientation, particularly in the cropped final image.