About Embark
In 2024 I chose to participate in the Unleashed Education Embark Challenge to get some feedback on my photography and editing skills. This Challenge is a 6 month Challenge with very set briefs that need to be met with a Top 20 and Top 10. To rank in the Top 20, your photo needs to meet the specific brief, be well edited and be compositionally appropriate. To make the Top 10 you need to do all of this, and add a little something special to make it stand out from the crowd.
The Brief
This one is very straightforward – we want you to shoot from a low angle. A VERY low angle! Images shot with the camera touching or nearly touching the ground will meet this challenge best.
I was pretty confident that I could capture a nice photo for this one and chose to head into Melbourne CBD to create an urban feel. To add to the urban feel, I chose to request small dog models who would be comfortable in the city so I could create an image that conveyed the size and scope of the city landscape in stark contrast to a small dog.
My model Bruno was a superstar posing in a range of places and in different poses to give me heaps of options to choose from. While I initially chose the below photo to submit, when I started editing another image I found myself becoming more and more invested in creating something special as it spoke to me more and more the longer I was working on it.
While Bruno with his head down with the gap between pavers lining up with his nose perfectly, it just didn’t give me the same magical feelings as my final choice.
My final choice (pictured below) became more and more magical as I worked on it. On the day I was disappointed that I couldn’t get the look I was hoping for in this spot because of a parked car – I’m now glad that I swapped to a smaller lens than I’d first anticipated as it created the exact feeling I was aiming to create in this spot hidden behind Flinders Street Station. To get this photo, I was laying on my ground, almost wedged under the edge of the car to aim my camera onto the building a the right angle to get the doorway behind Bruno while still having him almost peeking around the doorframe.
When working on this photo, I cleaned up small clumps of grass between the pavers near Bruno and some larger leaves and sticks to make sure nothing could draw your eye away from him. Once I knew the focus wouldn’t be easily drawn away from him, I played with painting with light to highlight the bit of side lighting to create a small “spotlight” effect on Bruno, while also darkening the areas around him to further enhance the spotlight effect and really focus on him as the hero of this photo.
The Result
On the day the feedback for Get Down was released I was out scouting a location for Dogscapes with practically no reception. As I got back to my car my phone started going crazy with notifications and I happened to see the Top 20 post up in the Facebook group where I got a surprise to find that Bruno had made the Top 20!
When I got home and I was logging in to the system on the TV to watch the almost 3 hour long feedback video I got another surprise to find out he’d made the Top 10!
While I was supremely proud of this photo, the quality of work submitted meant you never quite know what Charlotte and Craig will end up choosing as the Top 10. The feedback they provided for this one was:
A lovely low down wide angle portrait with some great colour harmony and a fantastic expression.