Evaluation

Evaluation

The concept behind this project was not to clear in my head at the beginning of this project, I always wanted it to be around my grandparents but finding the link between them and the extra-ordinary was hard for me. But once I broke down the meaning and realized that anything can be extra-ordinary due to that fact everything is extra-ordinary in its own way. To me their outlook on life and how happy they are together 50 years on is just that.

The factors that really influenced me during this project was defiantly the images Natalya Renik has made of the documentary project entitles ‘Days with my father’ Before this I couldn’t decide between portraiture and documentary and what kind of lighting, background etc, I was finding it very difficult to find my direction with the photographs. Once I came across those images I made sure in the next shoot I tried out softer lighting and a more fly on the wall approach to the shoot, capturing them doing everyday things, almost a day in the life. After this shoot and I reviewed the images I knew those were the ones I wanted to use for my final project.

I feel like my final outcomes for this project brief meets the requirements, because extra ordinary can mean anything, everything is extra ordinary. Something that is normal and everyday for one person can be amazing to the next, an example would be us having electricity is normal and something we take advantage of everyday, but to someone who is less fortunate than us who does not have electricity would think it was amazing. 

If I could go back to this project and improve my work I feel I would try to capture more candid images of my grandparents. I did include a few images that had my nana looking directly into the camera, and looking back I feel images of candid photographs would best represent my concept of capturing my grandparents in everyday life.

For this project I feel in order to take documentary images I had to gain a better understanding for this type of photography. Unlike other people I am close with who often shoot in a documentary style I don’t tend to go in that direction. Through research I feel it defiantly gave me an image in my head of what I personally wanted to capture during this project and also just a better understanding of documentary as a whole.

New skills I have learnt throughout this project are defiantly to be critical when choosing images that are my own. Images that I think are amazing might not be so great to others; equally images I hate might be really good to others. I also feel like I have gained more experience observing people whilst taking photographs of them, I have always spent a lot of time around my grandparents, more so when I was younger but I haven’t really taken in little habits they have. Going to photograph them made me sit down and observe them so I knew exactly what activities and traits I wanted to capture. This is a skill that not only applies to photographing people but also general people skills.

This assignment challenged me in a lot of ways, it defiantly made me have to think to find a concept, it made me take photographs in a style that I really haven’t gone into a lot in my own work not only just in university. I am very glad I challenged myself to take photographs in a way that I am not used to because I am happy with the way it turned out and now I feel a lot more comfortable in a style I’m not used to.

In the end I chose 5 images to put forward for this project, they were all printed in A3 and the paper type was lusture. After we all had our prints an outside editor came in to condense the class’s images down to one or two images each. These images will then go into the magazine that will be put together in the near future. I have ended up with one image which is a portrait of my granddad I am happy with this final image and it is actually one of my favorites of the entire project.

Upon reflecting on this project I am extremely happy with the end result. The images I have put forward I feel are the best I came up with, although every image and concept can always be done better. I feel my images perfectly portray my concept.