For some weeks I have had the area near to Salford Rugby Stadium earmarked as a potential area to include in my study for the major project. I called by on Sunday as the weather was just right for shooting; hazy sun with intermittent clouds creating depth and texture to areas. I was pleased to see that some work had been carried out on an area of scrubland; clearing the brambles and pruning the trees. Not sure what the area is going to be but it looked like the beginnings of parkland. This would be particularly fitting with my project as the area has the backdrop of Barton Locks on the Manchester Ship Canal, and what I think is a gas works or fuel storage depot across the water. Felt very inspired and fired off 2 rolls of film, so hopefully some keepers in there.
Later in the day I went to the area near Manchester Airport which is being developed as the new freight hub; a large area of former farmland being bulldozed and turned into warehouse space. Again the light lent itself to picking out a lot of the manmade landforms created as part of the development works, though as it was late when I got there I only had time to do a couple of shots before I lost the light. This is another area I shall return to repeatedly to experience a wide gamut of conditions to get a real feel for the area and subject.
I find I am now getting much more selective about my use of depth of field. I had been trying to get everything in the frame sharp by using small apertures, but I am now realizing a greater sense of depth and atmosphere can result from slightly softening the focus on certain elements in the background or foreground. So I have been working on using apertures which give the subject of greatest attention to the sharpest focus, and letting other elements fall slightly off focus, yet retaining enough sharpness to still be included as elements of interest and composition within the frame. This seems to work especially well with medium and large format images where the fall-off of focus has a very distinctive look. It is something I shall continue to experiment with. I am, however, conscious of the need to keep a uniform style and 'look' to the images, so need to study the images side to side to see if the 'sharp front to back' images and the 'selective focus' images sit well together. If not, I have a fair amount of re-shooting to do, though it is something I am prepared to do in order to maintain the integrity of the series of images.
