Overall Project Evaluation

During my topic, I chose the starting point of Evidence. Initially, I chose to look at weather. The reason I thought of doing weather was because I figured there would be endless possibilities as to what I could do in my project. I thought that I could associate anything with weather. Then, with careful consideration, I figured that actually the weather starting point would not have been the best idea for me. This is because; weather is the only starting point out of the 5 which I was not able to control. Reflecting on the topic as a whole now, I understand that I made the right choice in not doing weather as through most of the project, we were faced with gloomy grey days. Although it can be seen as ironic that on the day of the exam, we had one of the nicest days weather of the year. Next, I looked at starting on creative use of light. I thought that this would have been the best topic for me to start on as I feel like I am a creative person and I could've done a lot with light. As I have my own camera and tripod, I wouldn't have been restricted on doing work at college and I could've shot at home at different times of the day. Again, I rethought about my ideas and felt like I didn't want to do enough with light for it to be my starting point. I did want to include light in my project, along with the weather, and figured the only way I could choose a range of topics was by choosing Evidence. Now, after completing my projects and doing over 10 shoots from the Evidence starting point, I know that this was definitely the right choice for me. I was not ever restricted as to where I could go and I incorporated a lot of different themes in my work. 

Following on from the practice shoots that I did, I had already taken pictures of weather and nature. Therefore, I had the knowledge and the reflection on what I could do. I then had chosen Evidence, and decided to look at evidence of light. This involved me going out to a wooded area on a sunny day and capturing the effect that light had on buildings, reflections and nature. I took several images from the shoot that I like including one in which there are a number of shadows from the trees over a classmate. I like this image as the shadows are clearly from the trees. I already had the knowledge from the first unit and I was able to apply different techniques in Photoshop, which I had learned, from the first topic. I also took another image from that shoot which involved a strong reflection being present on one of the buildings around my college. This brought me on to my next shot where I decided to move on and look at the different buildings and manmade objects. This shoot involved me focusing more on the reflections of different buildings and looked at buildings and architecture. 

In the third shoot, I decided to base my work on the formal element of reflection. I chose to do this as I had looked partly at reflections from the other images that I had previously taken. This was a formal element that I had enjoyed from unit 1 and therefore I wanted to explore it in further detail. Reflection was one of my favourite parts of photography as you can do so much with them. Reflections are found on nearly anything, and can be easily manipulated. In this shoot, I decided to look at natural reflections to widen my understanding before I made my own. This shoot also went well as one of my favourite images from the units was where the reflection showed more than the real version did. In the fourth shoot, I looked at manipulating and distorting my own reflections. I feel as though this was one of my most creative images, as I placed my model in front of the mirror and altered the reflection. For example, in the mirror, we can see her pushing up her hair and posing. However, in the real image she is applying lipstick. I did this with several people, however it did not always go to plan as sometimes the model would cover the mirror and therefore it was near on impossible for me to alter the reflection in it. 

After doing my shoot with Megan, I wanted to adapt reflection to try and get it to fit into light. I looked at the different ways in which I could make this possible, and one was by looking at reflections in a different way, and placing it into a different context. I looked at how reflections could be associated with the reflection in eyes, and researched how other photographers had embarked on eyes in their work. As I also wanted to look at light, I decided to take pictures of glow sticks. Initially, I wasn't sure if it was going to work. Then, I came up with the idea of placing them in the centre of people’s eyes. I took several images of eyes, controlling the light each time to ensure it was visible and there was no shadows. Initially, it was hard as I didn't follow the shape of the eye and just took pictures of glow sticks. Then, I realised that to make it fit it would be best for me to make these glow sticks circular to follow the layout of the eye. Now that I had included light into my topic, I thought that I would have some fun with it. I had already studied a photographer who focused on light writing, and wanted to make my work look like herself. Therefore in the next shoot, it was easy for me to include this into my work. In this shoot, I took images of people and then slowed down the shutter speed so that I could go behind them and write their name. 

During the seventh shoot, I took glow sticks and placed them into bottles of water. The reason I did this was because I wanted to explore more of the light topic and I had seen images on the Internet. One thing that differed for me was the way that I had to use smaller glow sticks as appose to the larger ones, which were commonly used on the Internet. However, to combat this I used a lot smaller ones, which emitted the same amount of light. I like this shoot as I used a black background and I feel like my images came out well. After this, to progress, I looked at other things that I could do with water. One of these was by dropping ink or food colouring into them; I captured these on a high-speed camera in which I held down the shutter to get these images of the impact they had on the water. This shoot was by far my favourite out of the unit because it was the most fun and I feel like the images I got out of it were the best. 

Finally, in my last two shoots I decided to go back to the reflection aspect of my unit and went to two different cities. In the first, I went to London at night and looked at the way that the city lit up. I thought this shoot was successful, and I got some great photographs from it. However, I feel like I didn't explore the architecture as much as I could have and therefore decided to return in my exam. My 5-hour exam was also successful for me, as I took over 200 images and had enough time to edit my favourites. I made a photo joiner with the experience I had from the first unit for the Gherkin, which I also think was successful. I was also lucky enough to go to Paris in the Easter holidays, and therefore used this experience to take a number of different images of iconic landmarks and experience a new culture. Overall, I feel as though my unit was a success as all of my shoots followed on from one another and I learned a lot of new techniques, including how to transform buildings and follow the inspiration of other photographers I have studied.