During unit 9 I completed 3 photography based tasks. These involved nature and decay in a exhibition form, a school brochure and a photo essay on something of our choice. The purpose of my nature and decay was to interpret the title of the exhibition in an interesting and eye-catching way. However, the photos for the school brochure were attempting to reveal the school in the most favourable light and at the same time provide information. Finally the purpose of my photo essay was to inform people of my brother who has Autism so it is a serious deocumentary style subject.
The process that I enjoyed most during unit 9 was learning new photoshop skills when editing the original images. I enjoyed this the most because I liked to get a wider range of skills as I can be more eperimental when editing photos and I can remember them for other future projects. Out of the project, I least enjoyed annotating the images because I found it tedious and repetitive.
My favourite image from my photo essay is the one of my brother in his room where it's messy; I think this because it accurately portrays my brother's lifestyle and what kind of environment he's usually in. In comparing this to the professional example above I think this works so well because it proposes to be like a document rather than an artistic piece as they don't focus on composition. The two images both have a natural approach and don't try to hide the reality of the situations they're capturing.
My least favourite image is the photo of my brother's bedroom. I dislike this one because I think it appears to be quite dull as there is no real substance to the image. It would've looked better if it was more like the professional example as the bed being messy makes it more interesting. By the bed being neat and tidy it doesn't follow the natural feel I wanted and looks boring compared to the other images from my photo essay. This is one of my only images where my brother's lifestyle isn't accurately portrayed.
To improve my photography skills I used help sheets which gave suggestions of what to include in photos such as the rule of thirds and use the macro-setting. These helped me make my images more professional as I could be more precise when taking my images. I also gradually improved from taking multiple photos myself and seeing where improvements could be made. I now think that if I were to be set a photo project again I would take better original imaes.
To imrpove my skills at editing I watched my media teachers tutorials on the student blog. These gave tps on editing effects such as light leaks and cropping. Watching these videos allowed me to learn new skills easily and make a bigger difference between my original and edited image, making my exhibition more interesting.
I used 2 different ways to represent my photo projects. For my natre and decay images and photo essay I created a flickr slideshow. I chose this because it displays the images in a consistent way and looks professional but is a very simple process. This was also useful as my photo essay needs to be in a certain order for the narrative to be clear. However for my school photos I created a brochure in photoshop to display my images in a documentary format.
After I had completed all 3 of my photo tasks I tried to gain feedback for my tasks to see what other people thought of them. I created a questionnaire using microsoft word for my nature and decay photos. Secondly for my school brochure and photo essay edited photos I created a questionnaire using freedback. This allowed me to use a range of radio button and long answer questions. From my questionnaire about my school brochure and photo essay I have found out that: Everyone can understand the subject of my photo essay and believe it conveys a documentary feel which is what I wanted. For improvements that could be made on my photo essay images people said improved focus or better original images so in both cases an improvement on the original photo which I agree with. When asking what I could have included to show even further what the photo essay is about people said that I should include more photos with my brother in as opposed to images just of what he does. I did originally want to do this, however it was very difficult to take good photos with my brother in.
Secondly I recieved some answers from my school brochure questions: When asked if the brochure efficiently demonstrates what Thomas Adams is like all people said yes. All people thought that my school brochure represents the school as a clean, orderly, happy enviroment. When questionned on the suitability of the edited images people said things such as ‘It creates a fun feel to the school and would make people want to come to our school as it looks enjoyable to be at.” Another personal said ’I think the edits of the photographs are suitable as they suit the purpose and are not overly edited. My last question was asking what improvements I could have made to my images for the brochue. I recieved suggestions such as ‘more interesting subjects like photos in classrooms.’ and ‘Taken more interesting images as some don’t portray our school well.’
