Assingment 1 – People and the environment

Learning outcome P1, P2, P3, P4, P5

Leasure activities for which Richmond is famous for

P1 – Identify lens-based image making

THE GREAT RIVER RACE AT RICHMOND RIVERSIDE

The Great River Race is London’s 21.6 Miles River Marathon from London Docklands to Ham in Surrey. A spectacular boat race up the River Thames, it attracts over 330 crews from all over the globe.

The River Thames runs for over 10 miles through the borough, linking Hampton Court Palace, Richmond Town Centre and Kew Gardens with London. Richmond rivals anywhere in London with its beautiful Royal Parks and open spaces.

My son’s local school also attends this race with one gig boat every year.

We’ve been living in Richmond upon Thames as a German/Austrian expad family for about three years. As we love nature and enjoy any outdoor activities, Richmond provides the perfect getaway. It is probably London’s most attractive borough to facilitate any type of activities, even when it’s raining :-). 

PEOPLE SIMPLY ENJOYING RICHMOND PARK

Richmond Park is one of London’s eight Royal Parks and covers an area of 2500 acres. The park is a top UK site for ancient trees and supports a range of rare species including fungi, birds, beetles, bats, grasses and wildflowers.

Richmond Park has protected status as an important habitat for wildlife and is a National Nature Reserve, London’s largest Site of Special Scientific Interest and a European Special Area of Conservation. As there are many restrictions to traffic this place makes it unic in terms of enjoying walks, cycling or even horse riding in the middle of deers and other wild life along the Tamsin Trail. It is also the focal point for London Dynamo to practice road biking on a more ambitious way.

P2 – Develop ideas using lens-based technologies

Photos from some rower between Kew and Chiswick

As we currently live in Kew the Thames towpath is very close to our residential area. Posessing a Husky dog in our family, it makes it nearly unimpossible to avoid walks there on a daily basis. I was always worrying not to have a camera handy, when I had a spot on rowers and people being in canoes in the early morning hours. Watching them in silence has something which makes yourself calm. So I took my camera with me and could take some nice shoots.

Some photos of leisure activities taken at Richmond Park

P3 – Final shots for lens based Image Making
P4 – Use lens-based technologies and
techniques within own work

Camera used: Nikon D7100,
at aperture
with a shutter speed of to freeze water splashes.
resizing
proportions
scale
The picture was taken against the sunlight to highlight simply on the silhouette of the rower and catching light reflections on the surface of the boat.

Camera used: Nikon D7100,
at aperture that the background gets slightly less blurry.
with a shutter speed of
resizing
proportions
scale
perspective

Camera used: Nikon D7100,
at aperture
with a shutter speed of
resizing
proportions
scale
perspective

Camera used: Nikon D7100,
at aperture
with a shutter speed of
resizing
proportions
scale
perspective

Camera used: Nikon D7100,
at aperture
with a shutter speed of
resizing
proportions
scale
perspective

P5 – Review own lens-based outcomes

For me personally I’d tried to focus on a real interpretation of people and the invironment in place them for this project into their surrounding area. For that reason it was quite obvious to focus at outdoor leasure activities as my choosen filed as Richmond offers plenty of it. Furthermore outdoor sport activities are also one of my interests.
As I focused on outdoor activities, there are of course some constraints in terms of the quality of ambient light, position to the subject and the sun and time. I took most of the pictures early in the morning. You also have to take into consideration that wet wheather conditions may cause harm to any photo equipment, therefor planning makes it a bit difficult since you may stay for a longer period on site to get the picture you were thinking on. However appropriate clothing would always be a good choice.
In terms of sufficient pasing people it may be an advantage to look at any particular events. That would certainly raise the amount of good shoots.