My final selected photographs for the above captioned assignment.
Please see Photography 1 – Expressing Your Vision for my thoughts and comments.
Reflection
My first Formative Feedback from my Tutor – link as below – was incredibly helpful and hugely supportive.
So much quality and sound advise I can act on. Really pleased with the comment ‘unpretentious photographs of real life’. This means a great deal to me as I like subtle documenting photographs and it would seem in the eyes of my tutor I may have achieved this.
I agree with his comments regarding the first photograph about placing an image in a sequence and I have investigated ‘other ways to reduce people to sign graphics’ which is exactly what I think I was trying to do – showing a generic form of those we were about to see in the next few images I took, a beginning if you will. I think an image on the high street with multiple footfall – omitting faces would have worked better. Everyday people, every day High Street no real discerning details, from a distance. I looked at the work of Alex Webb (b. 1952, Magnum Photographer) and drew inspiration from his Street Photography his strong images with a foreground, middle ground and background and his strong colours, light and emotion that he fills his frame with. Many of his photographs could lend well to the generic nature of every day people on the high street.
As advised by my Tutor I have cut this from my final selection of Photographs for this Assignment and begin with the second image, as my Tutor suggests.
All my images are taken in Camera RAW. I have upon starting this Course immersed myself in the world of Lightroom. I have worked my way through (and continue to do so….) ‘The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC Book for Digital Photography and a number of online tutorials to help master and have since learnt to alter the brightness of certain areas. I intend to learn how to use Photoshop in time, once I have a little more confidence with Photography, possibly even enrolling a short course locally to help.
I have taken my Tutors advice and lifted this Photographs brightness as much as I could without compromising the image.
It was suggested to use a flash fill for Photograph 7 (The Market trader having a drag). Have now read up and researched Flash Fill as previously unaware of it and how it could have improved this photograph and future photographs to illuminate the foreground. Definitely a technique I will look to experiment and make use of.
Photograph 8 – The Bank, my Tutor rightly pointed out that this bank doesn’t look healthy! The building itself is an old, crumbling misshapen building with subsidence and this comes through in the image. I have noted my Tutors comments about using a 24mm lens warping the image though and I have researched Lens Correction in Lightroom to use for future shots. A great tool to have !…sadly for the building it actually looks like this! (why I photographed it).
Contact Sheets – Noted comments about using image numbers so they can be referenced quickly. I didn’t know how to do the prior to this Assignment so I have taken the time to teach myself how to do them properly in Lightroom, how to save and how to upload to WordPress so they can open as a separate pdf. document.
I am grateful for the technical pointers my Tutor has given me in this report. This is an area that I am well aware is in greater need of development, to improve my images but also my confidence in tackling different situations and getting the best out of them. I suspect this will always be an area where I can never learn enough so to be given guidance gives me the opportunity to explore and investigate.
My Tutor was spot on when he suggested Martin Parr might resonate with me and to look at in greater depth. I was unfamiliar with his works but absolutely love his style and have written a separate post as I wanted to note a number of things for my future self.
I have also looked into Sophie Haworth and whilst I liked her work a lot, it didn’t resonate in me as much as Parr’s Street Photography or Alex Webb’s work who I found via the Magnum Photo’s website when looking at the two former Artists.
This Assignment has also given me my first taste in using WordPress for my learning log and how I want it to evolve. Simplicity is key and rather than have two separate posts for Research and Preparation and one for final images and Reflections I intend to put everything together in one post for the remainder of this course. This will help me focus, to make it as coherent as possible and easier for others to navigate. I will work this way for my next Assignment, Number Two.
I have also through the tutor feedback been made aware of making a connection between all the icons and aesthetics I place in my images. I didn’t set out to overload my images but through my subconscious choice of taking them I can reflect back on what other meanings there are hidden. This has surprised me.
I recognise I need to be more methodical with my work from start to finish. How I prepare myself ahead of my shoots and my equipment along with how I edit and arrange my photographs afterwards. I have made major changes to the way I file my work already, with the help of Collections, Edited and Unedited named files and backing up of my work. This will ensure an organised archive of my photographs. After doing this assignment I realised I will be juggling many images and I need to have an efficient process in place. I am trying to keep an open mind as to how I work best and how it will work best for me to show case my work on this Learning Log.
OCA Assignment 1 Tutor Feedback
Notebook – Reference Pages 6 – 14 Notebook
Links to Exercises in Part One:
Project 1 – The Instrument, Exercise 1.1
Project 2 Visual skills, Exercise 1.2 Point
Project 2 Visual Skills, Exercise 1.3 (1) & 1.3 (2) – Line
Project 2 – Visual Skills – Exercise 1.4 Frame & Opinion
Bibliography
- Pro Magnum Photos, Photographer Portfolios, Webb, A. [Online] https://www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/alex-webb/ (Accessed 18 September 2018).
- Parr, M [Online], https://www.martinparr.com (Accessed 18 September 2018).
- Haworth, S. Sophie Haworth Photography [Online] http://www.sophiehowarthphotography.com/index.html (Accessed 18 September 2018).
CSmith 517189 Expressing Your Vision 
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