Evaluation

Visual LanguageThe subject matter in this photo is of a handle on a window with some staining of the window and the colours in the background being made from bushes and a garden. The lines in this photo are mostly horizontal looking as if they are going from left to right. The colours in this photo are rich and full but not too saturated or bright. The shapes in this photo are mainly soft and rounded, there are no harsh and sharp lines. There is some texture from the markings on the glass, because the detail has been focused on and the textures show up. This photo is a natural opportunistic photo as the window was always like that and wasn’t put there on purpose for the picture. The lighting in this photo is natural and ambient there was no lighting other than the grey glow of the outside. The photo isn’t busy because of the clear lines and contrast between the background and focal point .

The subject matter of this photo is of a corner of a room and the light shining through on to the wall and the inside of the room. The light acting like a dim spot light shining on the painting highlighting lighter parts of the painting. The lines in this photo lead the eye to the middle of the photo, the shadows create the lines that lead diagonally across the picture. The colour in this photo is very unsaturated and dark, but the colours that show are deep, like on the wood in the bottom of the photo. The shapes in this photo are mainly square and rectangular because of the windows and the subjects being square. The depth of field is around a normal depth as the foreground is all in focus but through the window the background is all out of focus. The lighting in this photo is ambient, the lighting is not put there on purpose for the photo it is natural. Also the subjects in the photo are naturalistic they were not put there for the purpose of the photo.

The subject matter of this photo is of an antique bowl sat on a counter. The depth of field in the photo is quite small as the focal point of the bowl is in focus but the background is out of focus. The lines in the photo are mainly vertical, running from the top to the bottom or middle or middle to bottom. The set out of the photo is naturalistic as the subject matter hasn’t been put there for the purpose of me taking a picture. The lighting in this is also naturalistic and ambient as no additional lighting was set up for the photo, the only lighting used was what as already available. The colours in this photo are deep and full but the saturation is very restrained and held back so the blue doesn’t become too bright and overpowering. The shapes in this vary as the pattern on the bowl gives the photo more movement and shape.

Visual Language Over all the final set of images all came out in a similar style and quiet

colour so they all match and go together as a whole. The subject matter of the final set are all very similar as well showing manmade subject with organic things being mixed together and seeing how the effects of nature changes the manmade things. The style of the close ups and the contrasting with the landscape shots also gives a good variation of subject matters and perspectives.

The shots are quiet and not very busy, they have a feeling of silence and minimalism that is enhanced by the restrained matching colours of blues, browns, greys and greens and simple subject matters.

Audience The Audience for my set of photos would be very specific, for the class they would be mainly middle class, because the places where the photos would be shown and exhibited you would need to have spare money to be able to view them, and people in a lower class may not have that kind of money. The age would be mainly adults 30+, because they have more money to spare, and also have more knowledge and experience and culture to be aware of the fine art photography, or even just take an interest in the photography and appreciate and understand it, as younger people may not.

This would also only appeal to a small percentage of people because it is a niche activity so only a niche part of the audience would participate in going to look at a exhibition.

The psychographics of the audience will be very similar, they will have similar interests, values, attitude and interests.

Historical and cultural contextIn my work there was a lot of influence from older photographers such as Ansel Adams and more

modern ones like Mark Power. The work from both photographers I researched were both used for fine art purposes, the end result for their photos would be for people to buy them and enjoy looking at them.

This photo I took was part of a set of long exposure river photos. The inspiration for this photo was Ansel Adams and his style of photography. Because he used long exposures and film I wanted to try and get a similar effect on some of my photos as him by editing the photos in black and white and dodging and burning them.

The background behind this photo is showing the movement of the river, how the long exposure can conceal how tough and forceful the environment is. The black and white edit of the photo is to make the ripples on the river contrast more, so your eye is concentrating on detail rather than colour.

This photo was a part of a set of an outside shoot. I was concentrating on capturing finer details in a big area like a tree, so I took close up macro shots. The simpleness and detail with the depth of field in the shot and the restrained colours are inspired by Mark Power.

The background behind this photo is about noticing the smaller finer simple detail, subject matters that are quiet and calm. Its also showing a mix between manmade items and nature and how they can work together or clash.

Intentions and fitness for purpose

When I first set out to do this project I always had the intention of using the final product as a fine art, to be exhibited. I had two plans to if one didn’t work out I would have a plan b. The first plan was to concentrate on natural landscapes, simple landscape photos of the fields and environment in which I was surrounded in, I also had planned to do some long exposure experimental shots of moving water and rivers. I did fulfill this plan and I took a lot of landscapes and long exposure photos, but I felt they weren’t as successful as they could have been because of the surrounding and the weather conditions being quite dull. So my second plan was to take some photos of the inside of the house, close ups of historical items, using the lighting from windows to my advantage to give a quite simple feel. I think this plan worked better as there was more opportunity and interesting things to photograph, the lighting opportunity was also a lot more dynamic and gave me a lot more options on what to take a picture of and what mood the photo gave off, it also made colours look deeper and more interesting.

My images have been made for a fine art exhibition. I think because of how they have been edited and the style and feeling they give off and how they all match, they go together and when people look at them collectively they can find their own meaning and reasoning behind the photos.

‘There is a certain feel to your images and it really does show in your images. Like a hidden depth and a meaning behind them and I can feel it in all your images.’ (external comment of final images)

Next time to improve on my work I could have a more directed vision of what I want to create, instead of taking the pictures and then deciding what feeling I want to create and what I want people to feel, I would plan that all out and be clear about what I wanted to do.

Final ImagesTechnical qualities in my work that I have shown in my work that are skills that I have

gained are mainly to do with lighting, aperture, depth of field and shutter speed. I have learnt which aperture is suitable for certain kind of lighting conditions and also how much ISO is appropriate. Exposure was really important for me to be able to understand and control and after a bit of practice I got the hang of it and the lighting in my photos was successful. Like in this photo the exposure was important to get just right so the detail and colour of the flowers was shown but the light didn’t overpower the picture.

Another major skill I learnt was controlling shutter-speed and working out how long the shutter needed to be open for to be able to capture the movement and keep the rest of the image in focus, after many attempts my skills improved and I managed to create successful images of the moving river, making the river water look soft instead of sharp. Getting exposure just right in these photos it difficult and it has to be exact, getting the ISO to shutter speed ratio right so there is enough light in the photo whilst still getting the soft movement of the river, with getting camera shake. I believe in this final image, with some post production it came out successful and effective.

Over-all my final set of images are aesthetically pleasing and they are interesting to look at. The subject matters have be varied and different for each photo, no photo looks identical. The editing has been similar but this is on purpose so the set of photos match and go together and don’t look out of place with each other.

Technical competenceI have gained some technical skills throughout this project, mainly to do with

developing and polishing off the skills I already had a vague idea about. But with this project the lighting situation required a lot of control with the shutter speed, aperture and ISO. The dark lighting meant having a large aperture but not so big that the shutter speed was too slow and made the photos blurry and unusable. I also used the technique of controlling the depth of field and what I wanted the picture to be focused on and what was in detail, I used a macro setting for some of the close up photos, this meant the depth of field was smaller but the camera captures a lot more detail, the contrast between the detail and the bokeh makes the photo look more effective and gives the photo more detail.

Creative ability During this project I have become more creative in this project, because I have gain more skills and been able to

be flexible with my ideas in a limited environment and limited equipment, so I had to be creative with my perspective and lighting. An example of this creativity would be this photo of the window, the creatively shows in the lighting and aperture control so gaining more control has helped me become more creative. Also the focus and depth of field control has helped me to pick out things people don’t notice, which could give the picture different meanings. A very coherent theme runs throughout the photographs. The editing adds to the theme running through the photograph.

‘Interesting angles have been used in some of the photographs, as well as different focal lengths to focus on certain aspects in the photographs’

Inspiration from looking at different photographers and their ideas on how a photo should be taken and what makes a photo interesting. Their photos and their views and techniques all helped me to create my own idea in my head, and you can see the flare of the researched photographers style in my own work, especially Mark Powers work.

Time management Time management is important and the way to keep good time

management is to stick to a schedule. I planned out a flexible schedule before doing the photo shoot. The schedule just told me approximately when to do what and how much time I would have to do each thing in. With the photo shoot part of the schedule I did did exactly to this as we had a whole day dedicated to going out and taking photographs. The second part of my schedule or the post production part and I had scheduled 5 days to complete all of the editing of the 600 photos I had taken, (this includes sorting them out and filtering through the best photos). I soon found out because I have done a lot of editing in the past and have a lot of experience with Photoshop, that I actually completed editing my best 8 images in the first 2 lessons. So with my spare time I went about experimenting with some tools and filters on Photoshop, trying to improve the images I didn’t like using tools I hadn’t really used before. But this meant I met my deadlines and finished with plenty of time. This spare amount of time also meant I could do another task where I put photos into a context, where I made a leaflet advertising and telling people about the exhibition my photos would be in. I made the leaflet by using photos I had taken on the same shoot and editing them into a information leaflet about the exhibition my photos would be presented in.