The Square: Evaluation

In my evaluation for my most recent project ‘The Square’ I will talk about my first reactions to the assignment brief and how I felt about it, my different research I did in order to get inspiration for my concept and photos, different lectures that helped me towards the end of my project, my overall time management and what could have gone better and what has gone well.

I am coming up to the end of my third and final 4 week assignment for term 1 called ‘The Square’. The Square has been all about being self – initiating and learning how to exhibit our work in order to meet a target audience. The Square has all been about creating a final image(s) for an exhibition that will showcase our photos that we have taken for this project.

My initial thought to the brief when I saw it was confusion as I wasn’t in college when the brief was given out, I got emailed the brief with no explanation so I was confused on what to do as I had missed the lecture on what it was all about. I read through what was on the task sheet but still didn’t really understand it but I read one line which was ‘It is up to you what you choose to produce for the exhibition’. I wasn’t surprised when I read this line as this whole term all of our assignments have been very open and I personally think a bit too open but I do understand the positives of having an open topic. As the topic was open it gave me the opportunity to shoot photos which I maybe wouldn’t have been able to do at this time if we had been given an assignment with more strict rules. As I wasn’t here when the brief was given out I tried to get as much information about the brief as possible from other people. When I came back into college the next day I ended up coming up with an idea after looking on Pinterest for the morning, after I had thought of this idea I was feeling more confident about the project.

After I had found my inspiration I googled culture photographers to see if I could find a couple of artists that I really liked but I could only find one, Steve McCurry. He is very famous for doing portraits in foreign countries he is most famous for a portrait of an Afghan girl. Steve McCurry was who I took some of my inspiration from.

My research influenced my decisions about my project quite a lot. I decided to base my style of photography on what I had found on Pinterest and google. When I came to do my shoot I had the images that I had found in front of me so that I could see what I was aiming for.

While I have been doing my project I have realized that it’s quite hard to think of what you want to shoot with a meaning and influence behind it. Once I had seen what everyone had thought about doing I thought about what related to me and that’s how I came up with my idea.

During the process of this project I have learnt more techniques in the cove studio. I really enjoyed learning about the cove studio in more detail as it now means that I can use the studio on my own. I have also learnt:

• studio flash lighting

• how to receive constructive criticism

• how to make my own decisions

• how to use Photoshop and Camera raw

• how to shoot in raw

• how to set up a shoot how I want it

My images are meant to portray my family and how they have changed throughout the generations. I believe that my images show this as I have used my mum and my sister as models which is two generations of my family that do show the differences of family. My mum’s dad is Indian so my mum has darker skin compared to me and my sister so by shooting my mum and my sister in different images then it really shows the difference between them. I believe that my images link to the brief because it’s something that I can relate too and it’s something that I can relate too.

I didn’t come across any technical issues but the only thing I realized was that I probably needed a bigger light source than I had. Some of my images came out dark and some were a bit under exposed but I came out with 5 good images to choose from.

Overall, I think I managed my time well as I started my research as soon as I understood the brief and did my shoot as soon as I could. All of my posts on my blog are in chronological order and include near enough everything we have done over term 1.

I think that this assignment has been more about working individually so I haven’t worked in a team as much as normal. I have worked in little discussion groups to talk about different ideas for the project but apart from that all of the work has been done individually by me. I believe that I have been very good at organizing my time and organizing my shoot. I have proved to myself that I can organize myself.

I think that I have made the right decision about doing tasks as we got asked if we wanted to do photo challenges some days and I said that I didn’t want to do some of them as I felt that I needed to focus on my shoot and editing.

I haven’t really experimented with much as I have been using skills that I already know to do this project as I wouldn’t have felt as confident doing this project with skills that I don’t really know for example, the studio. Even though I have been in the studio a couple of times I still don’t think I know enough about it to be able to go in on my own which is why I did my shoot at home which worked out just as well.

I think overall, my project has been very successful as I have been able to take photos of something that I am interested in and something I really relate to. I have been able to research to get more inspiration, because I researched quite a lot I had a lot of inspiration to be able to do my project successfully. If I was to shoot this project again I would maybe take a portrait of my grandad and have the portraits of my grandad, my mum and my sister as a set of three to show the real change of generations throughout the years.

These are my final two images that I am very happy with. They really show off my concept and have turned out really well.