Photography Evaluation

Photography Evaluation 

For my first final piece i was clear about the brief and what i was asked to do , my first taught on receiving the brief was that i did not know how i was going to go about the processes of taking the photographs as i have not done any type of photography before, on this course i was enlightened and educated on how to use a DLSR camera which i used through the progression of this course ,i got my research from the internet and also interaction with my fellow students , i did my research on various photographers and studied styles in which photographs are taken i learnt about aperture and controlling the shutter speed on the camera If you are photographing fast moving objects such as cars or people running you need to select fast shutter speeds to capture the sharpest picture you can As well as letting more or less light into the camera the size of the aperture you choose governs the 'Depth of Field'. Depth of field means the amount of the picture, from foreground to background, that is in sharp focus. A smaller aperture will give you a greater depth of field and a larger aperture will give you a more restricted depth of field. This characteristic can be used to good effect in many ways. If you are photographing vast landscapes on a sunny day, the chances are that everything will be in focus and you will not notice this at all, these are part of the things that i learnt ,we did practice experiments and these aided my processes into what i may want to do for my final piece on ‘Still life’ i was also briefed on using a computer software called Photoshop , this helps in editing the photos , i did a few test shots and then photoshoped them as practice and the results were actually quieted satisfactory , i experienced a little bit of difficulty while using this but i got assistance from my tutor and i was guided carefully through it and taught on how to use it even more ,for the first photographs i took, i took photos on the way from college and this was just to kind of prep us for what was to be expected of us , i got inspiration from photographers such as Martin Parr who is well known for his retro sepia themed images and photographs of colorful food for the development of my final piece i also took pictures of food i had eaten in a week and then for the finals i took photos in his style and edited them these were specifically desserts and also William Eggleston , i also did abit of annotation on his work although his techniques are not my favorite i really like his composition and in his style i took sample photos of the content of my bag as i began to take these photos they all looked the same to me so i decided to change my style and composition ,so i fiddled with the aperture and took a few photos and also i zoomed into the photo and those photos i took at the end were the more successful one , to improve the quality of these i went onto Photoshop and then improved the saturation of the ones wif a less quality , cropped some and blurred out the background to make the picture stand out more , these processes were very successful , and i was really pleased with the results as this was like the first step in the development to a beautiful final piece , for my final piece i made a mind map of this that define me as a person , i began to brainstorm and made a good composition , i began to think of the things in my mind map more literally and began to pull together a composition , when i came to my decision i arranged my final piece properly and began taking the photos , i re arranged it and also even used a lamp to create florescent light to give a better effect as i do not have any advance lightening , at some parts after moving my objects about with the light still in place it didn’t really come out as required so i continued to play around it until i got my desired composition, after countless photographs and experiments, all these processes were new to me as at this point i was left to do work , composing, planning of my work independently but as i got on with it , it was a really fun enjoyable learning experience  , i was able to narrow down all the test experiments to one and then i began using the skills i had acquired from my teacher on Photoshop and began to develop and work on the final piece , i brightened the background and also cropped it ...i watched a few tutorials on youtube and this way i said another editing software known as “pixl-ro-mantic” and they have many beautiful effect so i decided as the whole idea of a photography final piece is to be creative and expand my imagination , so i taught why not incorporate this new discover into the aesthetics of my final piece , i added an effect called bubbles to create the circles and also the effect called Adam , these were the things i used to improve the quality of my photo and i believe this made it look more dramatic and attractive , i am so pleased with the way these turned out , although i experienced a few hiccups i was able to overcome them and produce a piece at the end , i organized my work quiet well , as task that were set i always saved them to my usb and also i took print screens as evidence of our work when i remembered to .to be honest there were parts of the assignment that were rushed but i believe i was able to get them done and i did it to the best of my ability , the most unsuccessful part of my project was probably the print screening of my work , i don’t think i did enough proof of evidence, however hopefully next time ill be able to do this , whereas the most successful part of the project was the way my final piece came out , the result was beautiful in my opinion, i work really hard on editing the piece and i was pleased with the result, if i could improve on it i maybe would have tried harder using Photoshop in editing.

For My second final piece i was really lost at the brief, i was clueless on the task but was later explained to in more detail even though the brief was self-explanatory, my confusion was , what the portrait had to entail and who the portrait was meant to be of , but them Sally Gunnett briefed me again , after this i was clear on it, most information was handed to us in lectures and guidance was given however the lecturer made us do independent work as well , i then went on the internet to do my research, i also looked at a few photographs. my research began by looking at an artist called Mario Testing , Who is a Peruvian fashion photographer Testino has become one of the world's most well-known and celebrated fashion photographers. His work has been featured across the globe in magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair and V and he has crafted and contributed to the imagery of leading fashion houses such as Burberry, Gucci, Versace, Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana, Salvatore Ferragamo, Estee Launder and Michael Kors, among others In 2002, The National Portrait Gallery in London staged the landmark exhibition “Portraits” by Mario Testino that to date remains its second most successful exhibit. For ten years it had the highest attendance of any exhibition ever to be held there. Over the next four years the exhibition went on tour to Milan, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Tokyo and Mexico City. for my comparison i used his famous photo of Princess Diana as my first step to the comparison , in this particular photo she seemed to be laying on a her side with her hand raided but head rested on the crossed arms, wearing a beautiful pearl dress, the photo portrayed her in the softessed way and that’s just how the media portrays her as well in comparison to Annie Leibovitz photograph of Miley Cyrus who at the time was 16 but was photographed topless and this stirred up so much controversy as she was meant to be a young teen role model as she was the star of the Disney production “Hannah-Montana” . These are things that are meant to be taught of in portrait pieces, does the image portray positively ? Does it convey the message of the theme appropriately? these were things i began to take into context , so i decided to go back to my mind map and expand it and came up with bad  things that i do and i future linked this to the 7 deadly sins, the next question was who i was going to take the photograph of and i just taught it will be more convenient to take the picture of me , so i mounted a tripod in my back garden and set the timer from the menu and began taking the pictures, i took the photos at about 4pm and this was because i wanted to use daylight rather than any other even thou i had done alot of test pieces using studio lighting, i just dint like the effect it sometimes came out with , for some of my test photos i took pictures of Amy Roberts who is one of my very good friends and she has very beautiful eyes and freckles which i also have but hers seem to be more symmetrical so i decided to make this as one of my final pieces as well because i really liked the outcome of it , i believe this was successful on this , i edited both the final pieces on Photoshop , even thou the final piece was inspired by 7 deadly sins , i only have 6 this is because the last picture i took was unsuccessful , the proportioning of the photo did not align with the others ...from this second assignment , i learnt how to use studio lights and how to set it up , also i learnt about new photographers and their styles i believe the standard of work in this is much better than that of the last because its a lot more advance in editing and the techniques and styles i used.