BACK TO SCHOOL!!

Im so glad to be back at uni and I really cant think of any better than a full year based on portraiture! I may have died and gone to heaven (my view on this may change so please be prepared for some bitch fits and possible abusive posts ha). Im really looking forward to it. Kind of sad that I will be missing some of it though :(

Evaluation of Film and Digital

(this might be too late but i thought i would be cheeky and try anyway)


So through this project i got the chance to use both media along side each other and it really give me the chance to compare them. Over all through out my photography courses i have always favoured film, and this project hasn't changed that preference, if anything its only made it stronger and given me more tools in which to produce film based prints.

Learning to use the 5x4 camera has been a real experience and i have ran into more than one problem with it. However this is what i love about photography and it really makes you appreciate a good print when you have it in the end because you know what effort, time and also money has gone into producing the final image. What i also prefer is the grain and the detail that is captured with this type of film shot. Its is really detailed and when teamed with the warm tone paper it really did create some beautiful shots.

I think that the detail and grain is whats lacing in a digital image for me. Even though it is a lot cleaner and sharper it just doesn't have the rich look and quality that a film image has. I don't know if its me not giving digital a chance but i just think that its too easy to cheat. In my eyes this is what makes it not as special as film.

With digital i can take a 100 pictures in about 5 mins and then i have a range to choose and can still make it better. With 5x4 i have 1 shot to get what i want perfect and then i have limited editing in the dark room. Its more raw and has more value because its harder to re-capture. I think that digital is just too easy in my eyes it doesn't push me to want to make amazing images, it doesn't drive my passion. It makes me do mediocre images that can be "sorted out" later and i think that this is the sole reason I'm not happy with my still life and i really feel proud of my landscapes. I can see were effort has been put in.

Evaluation

This is my first attempted at both landscape photography and also using a 5x4 camera. Personally I think I handled it rather well. I prefer to work with film so that was a relief to begin with, and learning a new way of shooting and printing is always good in my eyes. I really wanted my work to have some continuity in this project as I think that this is something I have been lacking in others. I feel like this was the base of my project and I strictly kept to this.

From the beginning of the project I had a range of ideas and a good set of starting points inspired by my research. The town I live in too also inspired me. I think that I used these influences and inspirations to capture some shots that I am really proud of.

The main thing that I struggled with in this project is the camera itself. I wasted a lot of film from not putting it into the dark slides correctly and also not making sure that the shutter was closed. Also another thing that I learned is that the lens has to be straight and positioned right to make sure that my shot was in focus. I think that this caused me to waist a lot of time by having to re-shoot some of my images.

Overall I am really happy with the out come of this project. I have used a wide range of research and I think that this has really helped me to create a group of prints that I am really proud of. If I was to do it again I would simply do everything the same but maybe go out and shoot more and earlier in the project so that I had more time to spend printing and making sure everything was perfect as it could be.

Final Images

These are the set of images i have chosen for my final prints. These arnt the actual prints as silly me left them in my locker so i didn't forget them for tomorrows big day or even ruin them with my clumsy ness. I chose these 5 because i think they are the images that best showed what i was trying to achieve in this project and I'm really happy with them as a group and also as individual images.

Landscape Photographer of the Year Awards 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/uknews/9640813/Landscape-Photographer-of-the-Year-Awards-2012.html

All of these pictures are really striking and i think that they are all great in there own unique way. I really found it hard to narrow them down to put into my blog thats why i have used so many in this post. Some i haven't written about because i think they speak for themselves on why i have decided to put them into my blog...

I like this one a lot because it is just a really interesting image. The way that i would have never looked at this and thought it would make a good image. Thats why i like it so much because its not really your typical landscape shot. Also reminds me of the rows of houses you see round here. Its really simple, there isn't loads of colour or things going on in the image. Its looks to be a true representation of the location.

This looks so sharp and full of detail. Maybe the photographer has used a long shutter speed. Also looks like the photographer got low on the ground so they are slightly looking up. Makes everything around look bigger and grander.

The way that the weather has been captured in this image is stunning. The brightness of the flowers and also the little bit of light peering out of the clouds really highlights the image. And the little strike of lighting just makes the image intense and just magical almost. 

Need i say anything more other than the colour! it is lush, even the light coming through the trees really looks like a shade of lilac.

Evaluation

Still life really hasn’t been a good project for me. To say I struggled is a bit of an understatement. I have never really dived into the realms of still life photography before and if I have it’s been a small area of another project. When given the brief I though ‘ahh this will be easy, how hard can it be’ but yeh guess I was too cocky for my own good. I began with paintings as research what I found plenty to choose from but when it got to more photography based work I really struggled to find artist and photographers from more recent time. I don’t think that there was a lack of them but they all seemed really commercial based and I didn’t really want to go down that route for my work. In the end I felt like this couldn’t be avoided. 

I also really struggled with what to use as props in my shoot. I really don’t have anything of any significance to me and nothing that would be interesting enough to photograph. Once I managed to choose what to photograph I then struggled with composition and how or when I should use something. I don’t know if I just let my brain run away with me but I really think I began to over think it too much and this lead to me not really shooting anything because I was too busy sat there worrying about it rather than getting out and doing it. 

If I was to do this project again I think that I would get in the studio from the get go and not focus on what I'm shooting just get there and shoot whatever I have available. I would also dive deeper into my research and find images that inspire me and give me a creative burst and passion for still life. 

Overall I think that I did the project efficiently but maybe not to the best of my ability. I would also manage my time so much better as I think that a lot got wasted. I would also do a lot more shoots to make sure that i had a wider range of images to choose my final shot out of.

Final Image

This is the image that i have chosen and sent of to be printed as my final piece. I think that it captures everything that i wanted from the project and it also is something that relates to me.