These are some of my favorite images that I have taken for this section of work (some of the images are shot twice as they were shot at different apertures; I did this in order to determine the lighting):
These are my final images:
These images were taken on an Olympus OM2 camera using Black and White film. I used both natural daylight AND artificial lighting.
I decided to focus on smaller objects rather than larger things like buildings, churches etc. I decided to do this as it gave viewers the opportunity to look at all of the finer details within specific objects and I think that this would be more interesting than looking at a building.
So, the objects that I focused on were religious headstones, rosary beads, hands, bibles and crosses.
The headstones in my images are considered 'religious' because they portray religious-related things like crosses, angels and 'mary-lookalike' figures.
The rosary beads, bible and cross are considered religious for obvious reasons. Catholics are taught that Jesus died on the cross and that is what one of the objects are portraying. Catholics are also taught religious stories which are told through the bible; this is another object featured in my images. And rosary beads are the items in which Catholics hold whilst in prayer; this is my reason for using this item.
Overall, I feel like I have portrayed 'religious icons' successfully because of the items I have used and how I have used them (positioning).
I also think that I have shot these images well as I have considered the 'rule of thirds' whilst shooting and I have also considered how certain lighting would look shot at certain angles etc.
If I had the opportunity to shoot these images again, I would explore more into what type of other items are considered 'religious icons' and how I could use them in my photographs to portray the subject.
