End of Unit Evaluation

Now at the end of the unit I can happily say I am extremely pleased with all the work I have produced over the last five months. From the beginning of the first unit which was Formal Elements I saw the extreme hard work that photography Alevel required, it took a lot of time and effort for both the practical and contextual work. When we started with Lines I really struggled with finding the topic for photographs however now I find it easy to see, I've learnt to acquire a photographers eye.

I am extremely pleased with how I responded to topics such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Multiple Imagery. Despite struggling with multiple imagery at first, after re-shooting when I understood the concept I was able to improve massively on my first attempt and given yet more time I would've shot this again and tried to improve more and more. With regards to Robert Mapplethorpe I just loved shooting in his style, I loved the way he captured so much expression within his photographs and emotion at every moment, I attempted to get close to this by taking photos of people laughing, these were my favourite things to shoot - completely un-posed photographs.

I am now looking forward to Unit 2 where I will have a lot of creative influence from Unit 1, I will put all of my research into action and try and incorporate every one of the photographers I have studied and all the skills I have learnt.

Pre-completion Evaluation

Over this last four months I think I have achieved everything I wanted to achieve including exploring new types of photography such as studio, before now I had never shot in the studio. I am very happy with the topics we covered - formal elements and contrast - and think I performed well, I am up to date and ready to progress onto the next topic at the end of January.

One part of this last few months I have been particularly enjoying is the delve we have taken into portrait photography, I love using people as my models and using all the formats of the studio, for example all the different lighting and backdrop options there are, it is much more creative than shooting outside in my own opinion.

Despite the fact the practical work has been extremely enjoyable, I really enjoyed the contextual work too as it means I - as the photographer got the chance to talk in depth about my own work. I am looking forward to spending my next month improving my work ready for the hand in.

Written on the 18th December - post was deleted.

Multiple Imagery Re-shoot Work Diary

Evaluation
In this photography I re-shot my multiple imagery pieces as first time round I misunderstood the concept of what I was supposed to be doing which is why this time I thought out my ideas before shooting them, last time was a spontaneous shoot where as this time I tried hard to plan my shoots. I did struggle throughout the editing process with getting all my photos centered and cropped to the right size, each one took over an hour and a half to get to the final point.

Progression
If I had the chance to take multiple imagery further I definitely would; and I would continue my re-shoots theme of faces, so I would focus on mouths and eyes again as I did this time and not outside like last time. I would like to tie my next multiple imagery shoots to Robert Mapplethorpe as I think these are both my favourite topic choices.

Multiple Imagery Re-shoot Straight Images

Robert Mapplethorpe Re-shoot Work Diary

Evaluation

In this photography session I chose to re-shoot and expand on my Robert Mapplethorpe shoot; I adored my first shoot for Mapplethorpe which is why I was so keen to shoot again. I used the same models for continuity and think I really mastered some of Mapplethorpes qualities with this shoot. I still had the same difficulty of expressing the same emotion within my photographs as Mapplethorpe did; however I think I got closer to achieving it this time.

Progression:

If I could progress once again with Mapplethorpe I would use different people and treat it as an entirely separate shoot rather than a continuation. For one progression idea I would like to try adding numerous models, so three or four at once, and possibly shooting with people dressed in unusual ways, or with dramatic makeup.

Robert Mapplethorpe Re-shoot Straight Images

Development:

Final Pieces