Home to a collection of artworks and photography by David Billingsley
Autumnal Animals: Photography Project
Whilst back at home, I looked out of my window to watch the leaves of a nearby tree fall to the ground. Instinctively I just knew that Autumn was just around the corner. I had to think of a little project which would help to capture the true essence of this special kind of season. This was what I got up to...
Research and Inspirations.
As an idea which sounded exciting and clever, I had a little look around the internet to see if any other Photographers or Artists have done this sort of technique / style before. It turns out that there are loads of people who commonly use this technique which brings new meaning to Nature and Photography. I found on "Pinterest", that there was a collection of works done by a man named "Nikolai Toistyh", a Photographer who takes many photos of landscapes and nature. He has made a few paper cut outs of animals and placed those onto leaves, trees etc. in the background finally, focusing his camera towards the sides of the paper to produce the final shot.
I highly recommend that you take the time to look at Nikolai's incredible works, his Instagram link can be found here -
https://www.instagram.com/n_tolstyh/
Pre - Production and Shooting
For Pre production, I bought some black card from a local store and some pen knifes to help me carve all of the patterns in. I had a look online for some silhouettes of animals to use for reference, marking them out on the pieces of black card I had with me. After many hours and a busted right hand, I managed to get the shapes I needed in order to shoot.
The following day, the weather was looking rather gloom with rays of sunshine coming through from time to time, a perfect day for shooting. Whilst shooting (as seen below) I tried to take some snapshots from different angles and views to attain the perfect shot possible. I had a few problems with the focusing but found focusing on the background (leaves etc.) seemed to work perfectly and it didn't blur the shape infant of it. Whilst walking, I took the scenic route around my house, going down to Langland Beach and the cliffs towards Caswell Beach, managing to even capture a few decent shots.
Editing and Patching
After exporting The Photos I have taken onto Photoshop, closer inspection had shown that some of the markings i had made whilst cutting out the shapes on the black cards has appeared. Alternatively, I could of blended the grey around the edges to get rid of the pencil markings instead, I decided to fill the entire outer layer in black and carefully went around the edges of the shapes. Lastly, I shaded the background into the shape slightly to blend it in with the foreground.
The Final Results
