Being evaluative

This afternoon we had a lesson on descriptive writing and how to write an evaluation.

We got given a sheet which had the basic structure of how to write an evaluation which helped me a little bit but it did confuse me slightly.

This is what I learnt from the session:

1. Before I start I need to identify the purpose of the piece of writing I am writing about before I actually start writing anything.

2. Identify who the audience is. By identifying the audience I can decide how to structure my writing and how to write it - whether to write it in a professinal manner or a less professional manner.

3. Start planning my text. Organise what I want to say using using bullet points and saying when there are different paragraphs.

4. Order. I need to work out which paragraphs and which points need to go where.

5. Write.

6. I need to go through and proof read what I have written to make sure it all makes sense.

After we had this lesson we wrote an evaluation this is what I wrote:

Plan:-

The Shoot:

- Models

* directions - how to tell them what to do in a polite and non bossy way

* communication - how to communicate with them to tell them what to do during the shoot, before and after

* model placement - how I worked out where to shoot my photos

- Technical

* kit - what we used and had to rent out, did it work with having to share a camera?

* WHAT YOU LEARNT

* resolved things - white balance, ISO etc

* things still to overcome - model placement and model directions and communication

- Ideas

* RESEARCH - yesterday's lecture about the different portrait photographers

* model placement - how it felt telling them what to do

- Prep

* styling - how hard/easy it was to style the model to make the model look similar to the pictures

* lighting decision - what lights I chose to use and why?

- Thoughts about it - what I thought when I started to research the different pictures and after I had the lecture yesterday

Task:-

This mornings task was to bring the research that we did in yesterday's lecture into a shoot with continuous studio lighting. In yesterday's lecture we researched four different portrait photographers: David Bailey, Rankin, Mario Testino and Platon. Last night I went home to research all four photographers and printed off three pictures from each photographer so that I had some images to look at this morning. I did this because the last time we did a shoot like this I looked at an image on my phone and it missed out the most important part of the image, the pose.

This morning, to start with we had to look through our research and decide what photos we wanted to base our photos on. We then got given the task which was to try and shoot four images (one based on each photographers style) some using the studio continuous lighting and some using natural lighting. To start with we were using the lighting, we had a choice of either the Arri light or the LED light. I chose the Arri light because I have used the LED light before and I didn't like the effect the LED light gave out. By using the Arri light it gave off a very yellow tone on the white balance setting we had on at first, but after we looked back at each other's photos we changed the white balance from auto to tungsten. This changed the background light colour to a brighter white tone in the background.

We had to use models in our photos. I have used models in the past but not very much so using models today was very challenging because I don't like bossing people about and telling them what to do. After I got into it I started to get used to telling them what to do because I needed to tell them what to do in order for me to get the photo effect and pose that I wanted.

From today's shoot I have learnt that I need a bit more practice on using studio continuous lighting and models together to get the shadows in the correct place. I also need to practice a little bit more on telling my models what to do because I'm still not 100% confident.