Swadlincote Dry Slopes October 2015

 This was the first of 3 dry slope sessions with Trent Snowsports. Having been to the slope last year, I was already aware of what the area looked like, and the best places to be to get shots. The slope itself does not look fantastic for photographs, there are lots of large patches of mud and moss on the slope, and the surrounding area is fairly industrial looking and dull. To avoid catching most of the background and the muddy slopes, I decided to take very low angle shots, as the sky was mostly clear, and made a much more interesting back drop for these images. 

These two images are my two most successful from the shoot. in the image above I like how the pose/position of the snowboarder is not a typical representation of snowboard photography. My main aim within this project is not to only photograph when people perform perfectly, I want to record every aspect, including the things that go wrong, and the lifestyle surrounding the sports. 

In this image I like the height of the snowboarder, as he is directly against the blue sky and stands out very well. However I don't like the grass in the foreground as I think this makes the image look slightly messy.

At first I was generally happy with the composure and the colour of these images. However after presenting them in a Visual Practice seminar, I was advised to crop the images closer around the snowboarders to make them more visually interesting and to make the composure better.

After cropping these two images I agree that they are more interesting, as the snowboarders are much clearer and most of the unattractive background is no longer visible. I also decided to change the images into black and white, as I believe that the details in the images stand out much more in black and white, and they have much more of a documentary feel to them.

In the image below, after being advised to crop it, is my favorite image of the shoot, I like how the snowboard splits the image in half and is the dominating feature in the image now, as before the dominating feature was the sky, which was plain and uninteresting.