Assignment 5: The Normandy Landings

Grandcamp-Maisy, Lower Normandy, France

HDR Study of propeller, outside one of the displays at "musée Airborne"

"Uxbridge Remembers" silk flowers and pebbles on Juno Beach

Mulberry harbours along the coastline

Mulberry harbours along the coastline

Mulberry harbours along the coastline

Poppies

Detail of  ships at one of the pathways to Juno Beach



Hanger display at "musée Airborne"

Juno Beach Centre

Detail inside hanger at "musée Airborne"

Juno Beach Centre, commemorating the fallen Canadian soldiers

Model Spitfire WWII, Juno Beach centre

Normandy American Cemetery, view from the visitor's centre looking out to sea

"The Spirit of American Youth" memorial at the Normandy American Cemetery, overlooking the graves of those fallen in battle.

Detail of the D-Day landings at the American Cemetery

Mosaic on the ceiling of the memorial chapel at the Normandy American Cemetery depicting America blessing her sons as they go into battle 

Detail of the ceiling of the memorial chapel

Normandy American Cemetery

Tribute to the unknown fallen soldier

 Normandy American Cemetery

Normandy American Cemetery

Visitor's Centre, American Cemetery, east of St. Laurent-sur-Mer.

Beach, Normandy

Mannequin representing Private John M Steele, who famously survived the assault on Sainte-Mère-Église by pretending to be dead while hanging from his parachute trapped in one of the church's spires.

WW2 reenactors. I found them quite distasteful, however the did create a photo opportunity!

Mulberry Harbours along the Normandy coastline used to offload cargo on to the beaches

One of the displays at the Airborne museum, evoking some of the scenes the villager of Sainte-Mère-Église would have witnessed on D-Day, many US paratroopers attempting to land were caught in trees and were shot dead by the German forces before being able to cut themselves loose.



Entrance to "musée Airborne" in the village of Sainte-Mère-Église, showing the Church of St Mary in the background.

Omaha Beach, view from the beach

Stained glass windows in the Church of St Mary, Sainte-Mère-Église honouring the paratroopers, many of whom lost their lives in freeing the village on the night before D-Day

Omaha Beach memorial, details of engravings on the masonry.

Omaha Beach memorial, taken on the move

Details of National Guard Association of the United States memorial at Vierville-sur-Mer

Details of the National Guard Association of the United States memorial at Vierville-sur-Mer



National Guard Association of the United States memorial at Vierville-sur-Mer

"They have come back" One of the stained glass windows in the Church of St Mary, Sainte-Mère-Église commemorating the 25th anniversary of D-Day.  

Exercise: tungsten and Fluorescent lighting and digital cameras

It seems that the aim of this exercise is to get us to start appreciating the colour of light and learning how to tackle difficult lighting environments where one is faced with different coloured light sources, like daylight and tungsten, for instance.

Before starting this exercise I would like to point out that since 2009 incandescent tungsten lamps have been undergoing a phasing out period and are  now exceptionally rare... you will still find them in homes but less so as more and more homeowners are obliged to use energy saver fluorescent bulbs as substitutes. The photos I took where with fluorescents bulbs but the same principles apply. I have also taken a photo where both light bulbs were being used and it's interesting to see the difference in colour between fluorescent and tungsten bulbs. the fluorescent, as you can see are more turquoise, or blue green biased.

f 7.1; 1/250 ISO800

I did originally compose a still life as suggested making use of internal and external lighting and was going to use a set of 3 images as suggested, but yesterday I was photographing my cousin's sons 3rd birthday party and by chance took a photograph of the entertainer against a window (almost contre jour, but not quite) and because of the heavy snow, it accentuated the different colours between indoor and outside lighting. I have used the same photo here and altered the white balance setting in Lightroom instead. The photo was shot in RAW so effectively it allows me to create 3 different images as though they were taken 3 times at different WB  settings, but this is the same image with the WB changes made Lightroom.

Image 1: WB set manually in camera using a custom setting by taking a photo of a white card:

You can see from the photo that while the camera has adjusted the colour setting of the internal light to give a white light effect, outside everything appears blue, despite the eye registering it as white

Image 2: WB set in LR4 to daylight:

This time round you will notice that while outside appears natural, everything inside has taken on a golden hue

Image 3: WB set to Fluorescent:

This WB setting almost fixes the colour issues but doesn't remove the blue outside.

Image 4:  WB set to Auto

This setting, strangely enough, is no worse than the fluorescent setting and there is little difference between auto and fluorescent! Although I tend to avoid automatic WB  settings clearly in this instance it has worked satisfactorily.

What I chose to do, in this instance was use the custom setting and then in LR4 desaturate the blues to remove the blue from outside, as you can see below. It has left the outside looking desaturated of colour but that's not necessarily bad and avoids what's going on outside competing with the subject for the viewer's attention

In conclusion, relying on the camera's built in WB settings may not always be a bad thing especially in tricky lighting situations where you won't necessarily be able to accurately capture the colour range because the dynamics are too wide for the camera. In these instances, it is still best to use a custom setting but if you have to, using auto WB can still be useful and no worse than one of the other camera settings.