Nursery Rhyme

Nursery Rhymes was another idea I had as they are usually used for educational purposes to teach children numbers. 
One nursery rhyme I found was 1, 2, buckle my shoe which helps children learn numbers up to 10. I found objects that linked with each line of the rhyme (linking in Sam Kaplan's techniques), and took abstract photos of them to link Chris Jordan into it. I chose to use the traditional version as it was easier to link objects with the verses; I found this from http://www.rhymes.org.uk/one_two_buckle_my_shoe.htm.

The first line of the rhyme is '1, 2, buckle my shoe' so I found a shoe that had buckles on them and focused on photographing the buckles. 
I positioned the composition so the buckles were only in the frame so you are unable to tell where they are at first; this is to make it abstract. 
Your eye leads to the metal buckles as it stands out from the black background so it helps you understand what the image is.  
I used an aperture of F/18 and a shutter speed of 1/125 sec because I was using the studio so I didn't need to allow too much light through, and I also wanted to capture the detail. 
To improve this image, I would straighten up the composition so it looks neater.

The rhyme then goes '3, 4, shut the door' so I took photos of a door, but close up to keep it abstract. However, I feel I should have took a close up of the handle as it is hard to realise this is a door.
I used an aperture of F/10 and a shutter speed of 1/20 sec because I was using natural lighting so I had to allow a long time for it to get through the lens. 
The only colour in this image is dark brown which matches the previous image well as they are both dark colours.
I would improve this image by making it straighter, and by taking photos of the handle instead to show it is a door.

For the line '5, 6, pick up sticks' I took images of sticks. 
I took the photo close up to keep it abstract, and had the composition close up so you can see the rough texture. 
I used an aperture of F/13 and a shutter speed of 1/20 sec as I needed a narrow depth of field to capture the detail, and I also needed to allow a lot of light through as I was using natural lighting.
The colours of this image is dark brown which matches the theme of the other photos.
The problem with this image is that it isn't sticks so it doesn't match the rhyme, therefore I would improve this by taking photos of actual sticks. The top right area is also very distracting, and there are some blurry areas.


'7, 8, lay them straight' refers to the pins lace makers used for the machines, so I found some pins and took photos of them. 
I used an aperture of F/18 and a shutter speed of 1/125 sec because I was in the studio and wanted to capture the detail. 
It was really hard to take close up images of the pins because they were so small meaning the camera didn't focus on them. I cropped the image to try only keep the pins in the frame, but it still didn't look right so I lined up the actual sticks instead.




This image of the sticks was an improvement on the final line of the rhyme as it's actually sticks lined up so it looks much neater.

I used an aperture of F/5.6 and a shutter speed of 1/20 sec because I was using natural lighting so I needed to allow a lot of light through.
The colours are brown which continue the theme of the previous photos, which is much better than the pins photo as it didn't match as well.

The final line of the rhyme is '9, 10, a big fat hen'. To represent this I took photos of an egg as it is more appropriate than finding an actual hen. It also meant I could make it look more abstract as you can't tell its an egg at first.
I used an aperture of F/22 and a shutter speed of 1/125 sec because I was in the studio so I didn't need to allow too much light through, and I wanted a narrow depth of field to capture the detail.
The colours are cream which matches the sticks on the previous photo really well.
I would improve this image by getting closer so it looks more abstract as you would only see the texture so it would take a while to guess what it is.