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Your evaluation should be at least 600 words or approx. 2 minutes long and include the following:

Part One (Step by Step)1. How did you decide what area to do your exhibition on? (think about your research and practice photos)2. Where did you get inspiration from? (websites, photographers?)3. What equipment did you use to create your project (camera and settings etc)4. Did you edit any of your photos? If so how?5. Have you learnt any new skills or used any tools you haven’t before?6. Include pictures (step by step) to get a higher grade

Part Two (Evaluation)7. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your photographs?8. Are you pleased with them?9. Has it turned out the way you planned?10. How you improved as a photographer?11. What would you change or do differently if you did this project again?

Task Overview:

Unit 9 was based around the various types of photography techniques and topics. We explored the different forms and styles of photography. The four main types we looked at were abstract, portrait, architectural and macro. After taking examples of each, I was naturally drawn to….

Introduction:

M A C R O P H O T O G R A P H Y

How did you decided what area to do your exhibition on? (think about your research and practice photos)

Where did you get inspiration from? (websites, photographers?)

What equipment did you use to create your project (camera and settings etc)

Did you edit any of your photos? If so how?

Have you learnt any new skills or used any tools you haven’t before?

I was naturally drawn to macro photography for many reasons. Firstly, I love how it shows the subject matter in brilliant HD quality meaning that it allows the human eye to experience/perceive beautiful images close-up. I also like the fact that it gives us an insight into the world of very small subjects, which would otherwise remain unnoticed. Furthermore, I just felt that it stood out to me the most when compared to the other types because of it’s beautifully simple nature.

How did you decide what topic to do your exhibition on?

My inspiration doesn’t come from an individual photographer or a particular website, it comes from various sections of the internet when I see different images of macro photography. I have always been fascinated by macro photography and I like the fact that you can see the creativity through other's eyes and develop a style of your own.

Also, I love how much dedication some photographers demonstrate to the art of macro photography, in some cases they even risk their lives to get a good picture. For example, whilst browsing through macro photography examples online I saw a story of how a wildlife photographer almost died by entering the territory of a wild pack of wolves, simply to get a close up image of a curious wolf.

(Photo shown in next slide)

Where did you get inspiration from? (websites, photographers?)

Production Schedule:

This was my original production schedule.

These are the pieces of equipment that I used:

-Canon 7D

-SD Card

-Adobe Photoshop CS5.1

What equipment did you use to create your project?

I was originally considering making some minor adjustments to my images in Adobe Photoshop, all whilst sticking to what I know so that I didn’t get confused and end up making it into a difficult process.

However, I shot all of my images (except one) in black and white so I felt like that I didn’t need to make any adjustments. But, I took one natural photo that wasn’t in black and white of Andrew’s eye. I thought that it would be very cool to edit this image of his eye in Photoshop and add some cool effects to it. To edit it, I simply played around with effects and added contrast/sharpness to the colour difference between the iris and surrounding skin and eyelashes. Furthermore, I also added a grainy filter and liked how it aged the photograph. Here is the final product:

(See next slide)

Did you edit any of your photos? If so how?

I have learnt how to use some tools on Photoshop and how to sharpen the contrast and saturation of an image.Furthermore, I have gained a much better understanding of photography itself and I can now see the meaning and depth of photos. I feel like I have improved a lot as a photographer and also I can now start to pick out and consider what effect would look good on an image such as the tone, filter, saturation, density, lighting, etc. I feel like Unit 9 has developed my knowledge of photography a lot and I feel like my editing skills have also greatly improved since the start of Unit 9.

Have you learnt any new skills or used any tools you haven’t before? Have you improved as a photographer?

Part Two (Evaluation)

What are the strengths and weaknesses of your photographs?

Are you pleased with them?

Has it turned out the way you planned?

How you improved as a photographer?

What would you change or do differently if you did this project again?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of your photographs?

Strengths:

I think the strengths of my photographs are the detail of the subjects. For example, in my picture of the grey lock, you can see the cold metal tone and dust, watermarks, on it and I think this was definitely a strength because it had a maximum impact upon the viewer. Furthermore, I think that another strength was my editing of the eye photograph. Although I only made some minor adjustments, which I would improve next time, this is a huge leap for my general Photoshop knowledge and confidence. From editing this photo, I feel less restricted and more free to play around with effects on Photoshop.

Weaknesses:

In my opinion, I think that the only weaknesses were the editing on Andrew’s eye, which is explained in the next slide, and also I didn’t stick to my plan which could be seen as a weakness but I felt like it enabled me to have more freedom when taking photographs which was helpful because it gave me more ideas of what to take pictures of, rather than just simply sticking to the planning sheet.

The majority of my photographs were simply taken with the black and white setting. Overall, I am pleased with these photographs as I think that they add a unique and thought-provoking tone to the images. Furthermore, I also like how the whole tone allows the viewer to form a varied opinion as they can be affected by the dreary darkness or the bright white in the image. I was just really happy with the ways that these photos turned out.

However, the image of Andrew’s eye could have been better in my opinion as I feel like I could have edited it slightly better in Adobe Photoshop. For example, instead of having a grainy bright contrast with the golden iris in the middle, I would darken the surrounding skin to maximise the effect of the gold in the eye. I personally believe that this would have made the whole photograph a lot more effective.

(View next slide to see how I would improve it.)

Are you pleased with them? What would you change or do differently if you did this project again?

How would I improve it?

I would heavily darken the bright saturation here to add a maximised contrast.

I would maximise the brightness of the gold iris to create a full impact on the viewer.

I would brighten the red here to emphasise the colour difference between the blood and skin. I think this would look particularly effective.

In conclusion, the project has mainly turned out the way I expected it to. However, there were a couple of things that weren’t planned such as the Adobe Photoshop editing of one of my macro photographs. Furthermore, I didn’t actually stick to my plan entirely as I used it as a structure with some examples of macro photography ideas. But I am certainly happy with the way the project has turned out as it has given me a deeper understanding and greater knowledge of photography as a whole. It also gave me an insight into the beautiful world of macro photography in particular which I found to be incredibly interesting and thought provoking for many reasons such as the detail of the photo subject and what other pictures you could take that fall under the macro category. I really enjoyed this unit for these reasons.

Has it turned out the way you planned?/Conclusion:

November 2014