Evaluation

The end of my first blog and all things considered (me being a technophobe, not liking things I do to be public knowledge etc) I will deem it a sucess!

It has forced me to work in a different manner to my usual form which is to keep everything I do, notes, research, images and working practice and then put it in the journal together. Should I have admitted that? Anyway through this manner I have posted everything within a day or so (depending on editing) of producing images. I have tried not to waffle on too much, and make it a bit of an interesting read!

I have produced a wide variety of images, from both film and digital technology and hopefully have incorporated a cross-section of portraits, as befits the brief. Having said that, looking at my final selection there appears to be a greater number of close-up portraits and indeed numerous self-portraits. But I suppose it shows continuity! Also the excessive number of self-portraits are, as explained earlier due to the fact that I am a willing candidate to practice lighting on.

The main thing this brief has brought home is the importance of planning when shooting people, especially where the Leeds shoot was concerned, if we had not had the first day to plan I feel our success rate would have dropped dramatically. Where I may have failed in the blog is not posting all my research and editing practice, I felt this was unneccessary as much of it can be found in my 'Systems and Processes' file.

To finish on a high, I feel I have been prolific in my work, my editing skills have improved, both digitally and in the darkroom, even in the short period from the last brief of 'Objects', and I have thouroughly enjoyed the brief.

Winding Down

Not much more to go up here as it's coming to a close, less than a week to go. So my final images are a couple taken in America over Christmas with my Mamiya and the others from the fashion shoot in Leeds taken on Holga. (all are scans of negs)

Both the American images are shot from the hip and as part of people at rest. I wanted to capture the subjects unaware, immersed in their own world, separated from those around them by music, books or simply their thoughts.

The first image will be included in my final portfolio as a hand print.

Always a bit hit or miss with the holga, I didn't try anything outrageous here, just straight shots using available lighting and I'm satisfied with the results. (Played with brightness/contrast in CS3.)

After The Storm

A brief respite after the shoot, prior to the editing, to collect our thoughts and evaluate what we achieved over the last three days. As mentioned Tuesday was a planning day so we met Susan at Leeds Art and Design building, had a chat over coffee about the location:

http://www.shineinharehills.co.uk/home.asp and a quick look at some images of the garments we were to photograph.

After making a trip to Shine we got down to trying to split the designs into groups, where we thought they would best be shot, if accessories were required etc. It was then broken down to hourly sections so that we had a schedule to work to, well try and work to!

We also decided to have lights set up in the room that had been hired as base camp so that we had the option of plain background if needed.

Wednesday we had two female and one male model and Thursday the two females. Six male outfits, thirty-two female. Over the two days we shot over two thousand images, we decided on shooting both location and plain background for each garment so that Susan had more options for her final images. We both shot on Johns camera and for the main shot 50mm.

Many of the garments lacked inspiration when on the hanger, but once on the model both John, Susan and I had ideas for what would fit the look and hopefully this has been achieved in the final images.

I think John and I worked well together, taking inspiration and creating new ideas from each other. Also when watching whilst someone else shoots, you see things from a different angle which they may miss.

Stressful? Yes but not headache stress, achievement stress.

DON'T PANIC!!!!

Bank Holiday Monday and all's quiet..... well not really as John M and myself are off to Leeds Uni tomorrow to do a reccy for a fashion shoot taking place over Wed and Thurs. Tomorrow is all about the planning!!! Today is about have we got everything and do we know what we are doing????

We have been looking at various people for inspiration and ideas including http://www.rankin.co.uk/portfolio/fashion

and http://www.thomastreuhaft.com/Tim_Walker/tw.html

Alongside this I have been viewing

http://community.livejournal.com/foto_decadent/?skip=20

for personal ideas. A couple of favorites:

Vogue Italia 1999: Paolo Roversi

Tiberius by Chadwick Tyler

This week I have been putting together a varied selection of possibles for my final portfolio for both my 'People' and 'Personal Management' assignments. All the images have been taken over the past four-five months with the intention of use in the people journal/blog.

Some have been shot specifically i.e. The Face, People at wok or rest etc, whilst some have been experimental (most of the self portraits) and have been deemed successful enough to be included.

I have created contact sheets of all the shots looked at and have highlighted the potential final images in red whilst possibles are highlighted in yellow. (This was done by myself and JH)If anyone would like to disagree and advise altenatives please do. There is no order to the contact sheets, for some reason CS3 decided this was the way to create them!

The majority of my images have been on display on here or Flickr, although there are a few unseen ones.