My Visual Diary: Evaluation

In my evaluation I will talk about my first reactions to the assignment brief 'My Visual Diary', my different research I did in order to to get different photos and effects, different lectures that gave me inspiration, my overall time management, what I could have done better but also what went well with my Wix blog and my new Instagram account and finally how I think my final blog and Instagram has come out.

I have just finished my first project 'My Visual Diary' which meant that we had to document our day-to-day life in 4 weeks which meant that we had to make a blog and maybe another photo sharing account in order to show our project.

My initial thought to the brief when it was given to me 4 weeks ago was that it was quite a vague and open topic. In one way I felt that this was good because it could have given me the opportunity to photograph lots of different things in different scenes and sets without any restrictions but on the other hand I felt that it was a bit too open to the fact that I didn't have a clear idea of what to photograph, and was worrying me slightly. After the brief was explained a bit more I started to mind map my own ideas so that I knew what sort of things to focus on. I knew what sort of things to photograph because on the whiteboard during the lecture we had all the things that we could include in the assignment. This made me feel a bit more confident as I was thinking of the ideas that were being written on the board but, I didn't know if what I was thinking of, was right.

As soon as I got the brief I went onto the computer and researched pages of different photographers that have Instagram accounts to get inspiration. I found a lot of people that I liked the look of and inspired me to take a variety of pictures. I looked at different topics such as:

- Coffee shop corner photographers

- Travel photographers

- Lifestyle photographers

- Fashion photographers

- Interior design photographers

- Weather photographers

- Food photographers

- Landscape photographers

- iPhone photographers

I made a new Instagram account, in order for me to document a picture a day on my new Instagram account without me having to write a whole blog post as I felt I wouldn't have have time to do that, as the assignment time scale was quite tight. I felt that by creating a new Instagram account it would make it easier as I wanted the pictures I was going to post on there to be separate to my personal account. I planned to post at least one picture a day but, I didn't always end up doing that as some days I was at work and didn't have time to photograph anything as I was there all day. However, if I didn't post everyday I would make up for it the next day by posting at least 2 pictures a day. I also said that I was going to try some interior design photographs but unfortunately I haven't had time to photograph any as I've been focused on my college work, and I wanted to make sure that I got the right set to shoot. I did think about trying to shoot interior design at my house but I couldn't think of anywhere good to shoot in my house as the rooms can become quite dark so I'm going to try it another time. On my Instagram account I said that I was going to post pictures of food which I have done as that is quite an easy thing to do, but the one thing I did struggle with was the presentation of the food because it seems weird presenting food in such a uniform way but, I did enjoy it. I documented my views from my train journeys because every day that I get the train the view is always different so I can get lots of different shots. My favourite train station shot is my first ever post on my Instagram account, which is the one with the rainbow appearing across the train station. The one thing that I wanted to take pictures of was landscapes but I tried to steer away from taking lots of landscapes as I take landscape pictures all the time so, I wanted to keep my posts varied.

My research influenced my decisions about my project quite a lot. I decided to set up my new Instagram account because I researched different Instagram accounts by other photographers which inspired me to do something similar and, I also looked at different blogs which gave me the persuasion I needed to create a blog as before I was worried about creating a blog, as it would be published and people would be able to view it publically which I wasn't sure about it at first but now I've published my website, I'm used to it.

While I was doing this project it made me realise that it is quite hard to find interesting pictures to take of my daily life. It has also made me realise how much and how little I do in my life in just 4 weeks and how much my days vary with events.

While I was doing my project I learnt lots of different techniques. The first one I learnt was how to use a DSLR camera which of course I found helpful as I need to know how to use one as I need to use one in the order to complete the course and in the future in order to take good quality images. The other things that I have learnt are:

- studio continuous lighting

- how to use a film camera

- how to give feedback to other people

- how to receive feedback

- how to care about others

- how to care about what I do

- how to use Photoshop better than I could before

- how to present and pitch to others

- how to tell people what position I want them in and how I want them to pose for a shoot etc

I have learnt so much more but the list would go on forever but the one thing I have learnt is how to set up a blog using Wix. This was the most challenging as I have never written in a blog format before and have never done anything that is published as publically as my blog and website.

My images are meant to portray my daily life. I believe they do as I have tried to write a caption under every photo to explain how they relate to my daily life. I don't think I could really go wrong with a final piece for the project as it was very open. However, some people might think what has a spider got to do with everyday life as you see spiders near enough every day. It also links to the brief well, as the brief was all about trying out techniques that I haven't used before and I have never taken a picture that close up of a creepy crawly before so I was trying out something new. My picture did turn out how I wanted it to but the one thing I didn't realise was the spider was on a web in front of a window so there is a slight reflection in the image but, the glass wasn't clear glass so luckily you can't see the reflection as much as you would in clear glass.

I don't think I came across any technical difficulties during my tasks, the only thing I can think of that I need to practice a little bit more is depth of field as when we tried it out all of our pictures were either very over or very under exposed, and didn't really blur in the background. Apart from that I think that my other images were in focus and well exposed apart from the images that we had to take on the task of blurred images, the colour blue, close-up portraits and lines. The camera that I currently own is a fairly basic compact camera, but it seemed to produce good quality images.

Overall, I think I managed my time very well as I started my blog later than some people because I was unsure about making a blog at first but as soon as I made my blog I enjoyed it and soon caught up with everyone else. Also I think I managed my time well because all of my posts are in chronological order which shows that I have been updating my posts everyday otherwise my order would be messed up. Every time I had a lecture or did anything at college I added it to my blog that day so that I didn't forget what I did and so that I didn't get confused. All in all, I believe that I have managed my time well.

I also believe that I have worked well in a team as every group that I have worked in during a group task has meant that we behaved very professinally and didn't mess around and have always come back with good quality images. This proves that we were serious about what we were doing.

I think I got involved in tasks well but maybe on the class discussion side of things I could have got involved a bit more as I didn't really put through my own ideas with confidence.

I have experimented a lot with what I have done as I had never done a blog before and never used a DSLR camera properly 4 weeks ago so I have experimented with everything I have done over the past 4 weeks.

The final thing I have done is presenting my ideas to other students which I still find hard as everyone is still settling in with new friendship groups and don't want to other people but hopefully as the weeks go on everyone will get better at pitching and presenting.

I think overall, my project has been very successful as I have been able to document all of my lectures and activities I have done at college without a worry of not doing anything in time and I have managed to get a good amount of images on my Instagram account which is what I was aiming for. If I was to do this again I would probably upload more images onto my Instagram account but hopefully as time goes on I will get more pictures uploaded and will get more good quality images from a DSLR camera as the past 4 weeks have all been about experimenting.

We had to choose at least one final image for the end of this assignment but I couldn't choose just one so I chose two. This one which is above and the one below. I chose these two because I love how the spider stands out in the picture but you can still make out the web as well, the only critism I have is you can faintly see my reflection in the window behind. I also love the image of the daisies on the side of the wall because the daisies really stand out as the background is blurred. This effect is depth of field I am very happy I managed to capture this in this picture as on the depth of field shoot that we did the effect didn't work out.