I do not feel as though I have learnt anything that I was not already aware of whilst working on this brief. I feel as though I already possessed a decent amount of knowledge where location photography was concerned; things like what can affect the outcome of your images, etc. This said, I now feel more aware of how it is possible to tell a story with photographs, which is something that I do not feel I had a great deal of knowledge of before.
If there is one thing that I would like to have improved or would do differently if I were to do this brief again then it would be to improve my motivation and time-management throughout the brief. To be brutally honest, both of these things have been extremely poor whilst I have been doing work on this brief. I felt apathetic towards the brief to begin with, as I did not really have an idea of what I wanted to do, and this was something that I found difficult to shake off, even once I had got going on the brief. Working on two briefs (this and my final major project) at the same time did not help, as I found myself prioritising one, the FMP, over the other, with this brief getting left by the wayside, so to speak. This is definitely something that I do not want to do again.
My research for this brief partly consisted of looking at examples of narrative photography; I looked at the work of Sophie Calle and Gregory Crewdson. I found both of these photographers' work interesting, as it gave me something of an idea of how it was possible to tell a story with photographs. I found Calle's work the more interesting, though; although it was not as surreal and eye-catching as Crewdson's is/was, I liked it simply for the fact that she took simple, every day objects [found in hotel bedrooms in this case] and created a person from them; I found myself wondering about who had left the items behind in the hotel, which I think was the entire idea behind her work. Part of my research also consisted of shooting various sets of images at home, which are shown in the contact sheets on this blog. I found this useful as I got some good ideas for lighting set-ups that I will be able to use in future work.
If this brief has taught me anything about myself then it will be that I should not leave things unfinished for a significant amount of time, because I then find it difficult to motivate myself again.
I struggled to come up with ideas for this brief to begin with, which I think was part of the reason(s) why I eventually became so apathetic towards it. When I first read the information for this narrative brief, I thought that it would be easy to come up with a good idea, and that I would be metaphorically brimming over with ideas, but this was not the case. Ideas that I did have in my head a few months back did not come to fruition in the end. The idea that I eventually used, which was a theme centred around being poor/lack of money and how this can affect a person, was I believe suggested to me by my tutor. I have had problems with money in the past, so it was quite personal to me in a way, and I felt that this could be an interesting theme to work with.
The idea that I wanted to put across with my images was, as mentioned above, how being poor and not having money affects a person, and looking at my final images I personally think I have managed to get this across. They start showing a few coins, i.e. someone realising that they do not have a lot of money, so they decide to look for a job, then face multiple rejections, eventually sinking into despair.
On the whole I am once again pleased with my final images for this brief. I think they work well in getting across what I wanted to show, and would work well as separate images on their own. I wish that I had felt more enthusiastic for doing work on this brief, as this would have more than likely enable to me to produce work of a higher standard, but this is not too big a minus point as far as I am concerned.
If there is one thing that I would like to have improved or would do differently if I were to do this brief again then it would be to improve my motivation and time-management throughout the brief. To be brutally honest, both of these things have been extremely poor whilst I have been doing work on this brief. I felt apathetic towards the brief to begin with, as I did not really have an idea of what I wanted to do, and this was something that I found difficult to shake off, even once I had got going on the brief. Working on two briefs (this and my final major project) at the same time did not help, as I found myself prioritising one, the FMP, over the other, with this brief getting left by the wayside, so to speak. This is definitely something that I do not want to do again.
My research for this brief partly consisted of looking at examples of narrative photography; I looked at the work of Sophie Calle and Gregory Crewdson. I found both of these photographers' work interesting, as it gave me something of an idea of how it was possible to tell a story with photographs. I found Calle's work the more interesting, though; although it was not as surreal and eye-catching as Crewdson's is/was, I liked it simply for the fact that she took simple, every day objects [found in hotel bedrooms in this case] and created a person from them; I found myself wondering about who had left the items behind in the hotel, which I think was the entire idea behind her work. Part of my research also consisted of shooting various sets of images at home, which are shown in the contact sheets on this blog. I found this useful as I got some good ideas for lighting set-ups that I will be able to use in future work.
If this brief has taught me anything about myself then it will be that I should not leave things unfinished for a significant amount of time, because I then find it difficult to motivate myself again.
I struggled to come up with ideas for this brief to begin with, which I think was part of the reason(s) why I eventually became so apathetic towards it. When I first read the information for this narrative brief, I thought that it would be easy to come up with a good idea, and that I would be metaphorically brimming over with ideas, but this was not the case. Ideas that I did have in my head a few months back did not come to fruition in the end. The idea that I eventually used, which was a theme centred around being poor/lack of money and how this can affect a person, was I believe suggested to me by my tutor. I have had problems with money in the past, so it was quite personal to me in a way, and I felt that this could be an interesting theme to work with.
The idea that I wanted to put across with my images was, as mentioned above, how being poor and not having money affects a person, and looking at my final images I personally think I have managed to get this across. They start showing a few coins, i.e. someone realising that they do not have a lot of money, so they decide to look for a job, then face multiple rejections, eventually sinking into despair.
On the whole I am once again pleased with my final images for this brief. I think they work well in getting across what I wanted to show, and would work well as separate images on their own. I wish that I had felt more enthusiastic for doing work on this brief, as this would have more than likely enable to me to produce work of a higher standard, but this is not too big a minus point as far as I am concerned.
PASS
ReplyDeleteI can see this work has lots of potential and the beginnings of some really good work. They work well together as a narrative. When your work is personal it communicates the most. As you say in your evaluation you lacked motivation and let this brief slide. This is reflected in the amount of work you have done, but I think you know this anyway. Well done in completing the course, I don’t think this Pass grade will affect your final mark too much.