A Broad Subject – June’s Assignment from Cat PS

Broad
The month of June brought us the photo assignment of “Tin Of Beans” it was a strange choice of topics but one that was born last year in an attempt to even the playing field. The subject was intended to provide all entrants to the comp with a fixed topic and see how they got on with it. The idea being that it took away the need for the interpretation of the topic and concentrated on the quality, composition and overall vision of the tin of baked beans. I suppose you could compare it to an Andy Warhol pop art image.

Runner

My first thought was to return to my old favourite light painting and drill holes through the empty tin to let the illumination through the label and leak out. Obviously I’d have to open the tin of beans from the bottom so that the top appeared to be sealed. I set out on my quest and bought a tin of Heinz Beanz from the local co op. but I never did get around to opening it and taking the photos that I wanted to. Drilling holes in the tin would have rendered it useless for other images so I’d do that at the end of the month.

Half-Baked

While looking at the topic from another angle I wondered where the nearest Heinz factory was, a place where tins of beans are born. I envisaged a scene not unlike the electricity farm scene from The Matrix movie, beans stacked as high and as far as the eye could see. If there were no scene such as this, maybe a motion blur picture of the tins rattling down the conveyer system ready to receive their best before date stamps. A quick google search later had me excited, a Heinz factory in Telford, not 15 mins away. Whether they had beans there or not I did not know but I tried calling twice, never  getting an answer. I had my doubts that they’d let a member of the public in to take photos in what is a very sensitive area so I drew a blank and left it there.

Stock

The next idea for a photo was going to be inspired by Mr Warhol’s Campbell’s soup tin and I tried to take a stock type image that you might see in an advert.  Nothing could be simpler to do with a small tin and a little box studio. The little foldaway studio thing that I’d bought ages ago for £15ish (top quality obviously) was set up on my desk with some incidental lighting and my flash mounted off camera, slaving off the on-camera flash. I tried it all ways, with different lenses, different views, different lighting but none of the images came out as I’d wanted them too. The background was grey and, I think, prevented the Heinz trademark Blue colour from “Popping” out of the image, with hindsight I think an A3 sheet of white paper would have made for a more pleasing image.

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One day in tesco I stopped by the aisle with he baked beans expecting to see a big pile of tins but there was one layer of tins left on a pallet. Knowing that others were concentrating on a single tin meant that this might be unique. I used my iPhone 5 to take the snap and then changed it to mono when I sat at my PC to edit the images. I also developed one using the Glowing edges filter that was pleasing to me but I felt that the purists in the group might not appreciate the digital alterations to the photo. I left it unused in my stock, until now.

Jumbo Size

It was at this juncture that Jo, my better half, suggested a picture of my son on top of a tin of beans in a “Forced Perspective” photo. We’ve all seen the photo of your mate on holiday in Italy holding up the tower of Pisa or someone seemingly holding the moon in their hand. It’s on the TV too when a Yakkult advert has the bottle in the foreground of the shot, whilst in the background people are  using cranes to drop stuff in. Then a child walks from the background to the foreground and picks up the bottle in his tiny mitt.

Forced perspective was not as easy as it could have been. On an afternoon when I had Ewan from school and some spare time before ironing and washing etc. I took him to the Seven Pitches at Sundorne, a big open green space used for Sunday League matches. I placed the tin of beans on the floor in front of me, lay down on my belly and had my son walk away until he appeared to be the size of a “borrower” perched atop the can. I took various photos of him in mid air leaps and weird ballet poses but alas when I returned home I realised my error.

When taking a shallow depth of field picture I focussed on the foreground and hoped the background would bokeh out. With this set of pictures though I focussed on the tin of beans and closed down the aperture as far as it would go to f/22, Ewan in the background was too blurry. This is caused by the Hyperfocal Distance phenomenon and really speaking I should kick myself for not thinking about it at the time. If I’d focussed on a point between the tin and the boy, the likelihood of them both being in focus would have been greater. Instead I’d focussed on the tin and hoped he’d be in focus too. I should have known really as when I focussed on my son, the tin of beans went completely out of focus, Lesson learnt. I think if I’d aimed two thirds into the shot that both would have been more in focus.

Busy

June was a hugely busy month with two bike fests to demonstrate Unicycling at, Cosford Air Show, Dragon Boat Festival, the Shrewsbury Carnival, my birthday and also loads of poppy fields in bloom. To these ends, I don’t think that I focussed as much time on the task as I perhaps should have.

There were some excellent entries from the rest of the group in the Caterpillar Photographic Society but I think the worthy winner was correctly judged, Michael had gone outside the box on this picture where he’d given it some lateral thought and then executed it perfectly.

Bob’s Beans

My submission was the mono iPhone5 shot of the overhead view of a case of Heinz Beanz. It didn’t do very well in the vote though as it was more than one tin and you couldn’t clearly see that they were beans. Oh well, there’s always July’s competition based around the theme of Water. I’ll write up the story of July and post that soon too, just as soon as I’ve figured out which one I’m entering..

Lessons learnt:

• Using iPhones or other smart phones can get you some interesting photos.
• Adhering to the brief more strictly is beneficial.
• Photoshoppery and digital manipulation of pictures is not appreciated by some.
• Remember hyperfocal distance concepts.
• More time should be spent using studio lighting etc…