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Final Evaluation
Overall, the aim for my project was to explore cultures and people in general and take pictures of them to be able to compare the pictures taken with these people in them and prove that we’re all the same. I also wanted to create a wide variety of work within this FMP and explore loads of different styles of photography by attempting to recreate my chosen artists work.
I researched multiple artists throughout this project, through the research task a the start, to the exhibitions we went to at the photographers gallery and to doing my own chosen artist research to which I then did a shoot for each artist in an attempt to recreate their work. Seeing these artists explore selective cultures inspired me to attempt to dedicate some of my shoots to one culture each to make the shoot a little bit more intimate and personal. My knowledge on my subject itself is very general, I know about some cultures and I understand how diversity works between us all, but there are some cultures I still needed to look in to a little bit before taking the time to do shoots on them and their personal culture. My research helped my project progress on step by step as I explored different styles of artists. Whether it be shooting on film, shooting in the studio or branching out to locations.
By doing the shoots and evaluating each shoot it created a development of ideas throughout this project. This allowed me to review on what I’ve already done ideas wise for each shoot and how I could slightly change it for next one, as well as to see what went right and wrong so I would know what to do for the next shoot and what not to do. Problems which occurred were situations like, not knowing a location well enough or people constantly getting in the way of my photos, especially when using film as I wouldn’t be able to see what went wrong until once developed. Some of my strengths included my choice of models; they created a range of culture and diversity throughout my FMP and were great with and without a direction, allowing them to act natural in front of the camera and for me to be able to capture their true culture about them. A weakness that was an occurrence through some of the shoots was that I had to work with weather being bad, because I wasn’t able to base my job around when the weather was nice and when it wasn’t, so I just had to do my shoot whenever I had the spare time to dedicate to it. Overall at the end of every evaluation I would write to myself at tell myself something that I’ve learnt and that needs to be changed for the next shoot.
I had my final piece planned from the start of the project and this benefited me, as I knew what route I was going to take with my work and it gave me a guideline, which made the whole process a lot easier. Throughout doing the test shots I learnt a lot of things before I took my final photos and this allowed me to change my idea if need be cause I had already tried it through my test shots and didn’t work out as well as I anticipated, so when taking my final photos there we barely any complications. For my final piece, I decided in attempt to keep a lot of character within the photos that I was to shoot on film. For me this was quite a risk as there was no certainty of how the photos would turn out and there wasn’t the security blanket of a DSLR screen so I found this quite a weakness. Yet the strengths would have to have been the outcome, I just knew it would be worth it if they came out successfully. They are rich in colour and character, and it has also allowed me to build my confidence with film. I wouldn’t change anything that I did with shooting my final pieces.
My outcomes as whole I believe were a success and were exactly what I wanted in my original proposal, the context which lies behind each image is so personal to each person as its about them and we can only guess or attempt to read their context, but only they know the true context. Yet it’s apparent throughout my final pieces that there is one whole big context behind all of them together and that is what I wanted to created and the context is to do with the diversity of all these people yet all their similarities at the same time. The body of the work I think is very different in the presentation side of it to other peoples work, I decided to attach fishing wire on to an empty a1 frame and clip my photos on to it to create a more relaxed vibe for the whole piece as it’s supposed to be a laidback piece featuring people. So overall I think the uniqueness of it makes it successful. My outcome completely fulfils what I was attempting to achieve, I thought differently and created a piece of work very different to everyone else’s. I grew in confidence as I shot on film and I’ve always been very hesitant about film cause the uncertainty scares me too much. And I also went up random people in the street and spoke to them, which was really refreshing and got some cool pictures of them! Throughout the project there had to be some changes of locations due to weather and busyness but it all worked out in the end. Other peoples perspective of my work is really nice to hear what they can make from the images, and so far everyone has said to me that they think it’s about people and their differences and that they like the way I’ve presented it on fishing wire and how it hangs.
Every hour I had spare I would do something small for this, so over time the work added up and I genuinely didn’t realise how much work I had done until I had to start reviewing everything, I even ended up doing this FMP at my job when it wasn’t busy, so I was utilising as much time as necessary.
If I could re work on any section, I would maybe branch out on Photoshop and take a different take of editing and try to do something a bit more time consuming and creative to add another piece of variety to my work. If I had another ten weeks, I would like to have made two big final pieces, as I didn’t like just doing one as there were loads of other shoot ideas I had which would have been fun to pursue.
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Artist Research: Tom Hunter
Holly Street Residents Series
Tom Hunter is a photographer living and working in East London after being born in 1965 in Dorset. Whilst being an artist, he’s also Professor of Photography at the London College of Communications, University of the Arts, London and is represented globally.
These photos are from a series by Tom Hunter called Holly Street Residents all taken around 1988 after Hunter stayed in this block of flats for six months on the 18th floor after hearing these flats were to be knocked down. For the duration of two years he took the series of photos with people living there who were to be evicted. He then done an exhibition on the 19th floor of his work and this was the start of his work being seen by big names in the art industry and soon after Charles Saatchi came along and bought all of his photos.
I like these photos as I believe they capture all the diversity of culture within these flats. It shows the difference in environment in one location and building between all these people that once lived there. It also allows us to compare the change in interior from the late 70′s to 80′s till now and how style has developed over the years.
For Hunter to actually be able to gain peoples trust over the duration of him being there and to manage to take these photos is pretty special, Holly Street was known for being a rough and ‘a real no-go area’ after Hunter explains there was gangs everywhere swarming the block and he explains how even saw a dead body in the time of him staying there. So to go around and ask people to invite you in to their home and take pictures of them in their environment whilst living on a housing estate so bad that it’s having to be knocked down is a hard task to permit to.
As well as the photos being so urban and captivating, the context behind these photos are what make these photos so special. It’s as if all these residents have opened their door to the public and have allowed us to look around.
I chose Hunter as one of my artists to research as I felt his work relates to what I'm trying to personally achieve through my work and that is to capture everyone’s differences whether it be culture, sexuality or habitats etc. And Hunter achieves all this through his work.
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Post Shoot Evaluation: Martin Parr
With this shoot, I wanted to branch out from people in their day to day life and explore peoples profession, and capturing them and their differences all working together, so I planned a small shoot at KFC. My plan for this shoot was to attempt at some documentary photography, rather than portraiture and I think that is what I have created through looking at my final pieces.
After talking to the colleagues about what I would be doing and if they were happy to be on camera, I quickly briefed them on how I wanted them to just ignore the camera and me being there. At first they were warming to it and after I had been there for a while they were fine and just got on with their jobs. I took pictures in different locations of the stores featuring colleagues who had different positions such as the team members, team leaders and even the manager of the store. This was to emphasise on the fact that no matter what position we are at a job or at any circumstances, we’re all the same yet we just have a diversity with one another.
Everything went as planned during the shoot, there was only a few situations that delayed the process, one being the customers coming in (I couldn't take photos of them) so this delayed the shoot slightly but it was completely understandable.
Martin Parr shot people in their day to day life, whether it be work or whilst at work for some of them. I chose to branch out to shooting in a workplace as this gave me an opportunity to vary my shoots and show my experimentation. I attempted to re create his work, but overall I didn't like this shoot that much as I felt the outcome was very basic and boring and show a lack of character. I don't know whether this is because of me only just trying out documentary photography or whether it was the choice of work place but overall these were my least favourite photos i’ve taken so far.
If I were to do this shoot again, I would try make it more exciting. Maybe do more close ups of what they're doing and explore all the styles I could shoot with for documentary photography, I will also remember this for my next shoot.
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Artist Research: Martin Parr
GB. England. New Brighton. From 'The Last Resort'. 1983-85
Martin Parr is a British documentary photographer who is also a member of Magnum Photos, an international photography corporation co-founded by the famous Henri Cartier-Bresson. His photography is known for documenting the social classes of England. ‘The Last Resort’ is a photo series created by Parr which is documenting people in New Brighton resort in 1984 which is located a couple miles from Liverpool. After New Brighton suffered some decline in tourism and things down scaled after World War One, there was still known to be local hotspots to still be up and running such as an amusement park and a lido which is known to be one of the biggest in Europe.
I enjoy the action throughout these photos as they're clearly not posed, it shows people in different circumstances such as people working or at the lido with their friends and children, creating a variety of circumstances instead of a variety of culture, so Parr differs from the other artists I’ve researched in that aspect. I also love the contrast of moods and expressions shown throughout this series, it really highlights the treasures of a typical British holiday/weekend away. It also shows a friendly close knit society which I find really pleasant and Parr manages to capture these special moments really well, it’s as if he is at every perfect situation to take these photos.
I also love the clear use of film, I find that’s one of the best things of slightly dated photography as they wouldn't have the opportunity to use a digital camera. But I believe film gives such a nice tone to the images and also adds to the legacy of photography as a whole. You get the depth of field and colours you would get with digital, just with more culture to it.
If I were to personally to re create these photos, I would love to do it in a small tourist location like New Brighton, as that’s what makes these photos. Using a subsequent location just wouldn’t be the same.
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Post Shoot Evaluation: Frank Monaco
This test shoot was one I was really looking forward to doing because of the big change of location. I shot this all down in Exeter, Devon which was super exciting for myself as I had never been before and it gave me the oppotunity to branch out of London and really create the variety of locations I wanted to present throughout my FMP.
So my initial plan was to find a place which was unique to Devon and so I found this beautiful location and landmark to Exeter and that was this place called Cathedral Green which had a phenomenal piece of architecture (the cathedral) and a beautiful surrounding area which was greenery, small little cottages and independant shops which were perfect for my description of a location I planned. I believe that because of my amazing model and location, it created a great country vibe to my photos, which is showing a new side to culture involved in my FMP, rather than it all being city-based.
One of my other aims for this shoot was to replicate the happy and welcoming vibes that people from Devon came across as to us. So even though my model wasn’t from Devon herself, she still easily captured the vibe of people from Devon and helped me portray that through these photos.
The only problem that did occur was the wind and rain, if you look through my contact sheets you can see how we especially struggled throughout the wind. To deal with this we just had to perservere and capture a lot of photos, and it worked as I love some of these photos.
If I was to do this shoot again, I would love to do this with more models and maybe even some of them from Devon, just to create a variety cause one thing I love is variety. I would also capture more photos in different locations in devon, yet because I wanted to shoot during ‘the golden hour’ for this shoot, after I had finished at this specific location it was too dark.
For my next shoot, I need to remember that if im going to a location which I haven’t been to before, to research the location further so I can find more than one place to shoot.
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Artist Research: Frank Monaco
Frank Monaco was an American-born photographer but was also featured part Italian within him. He was famously known for being a hard drinking photojournalist after firstly taking up photography in the 1950′s. He’s captured many events featuring people such as Frank Sinatra, Royal Family members and The Rolling Stones. As well as capturing big events he also enjoyed capturing private contemplation's such as monks across the world and also the culture in India, a country he was known to have loved.
Initially I love his photos because of the running theme of black and white throughout them. The bold contrasts throughout the photos adds to the photos 1960′s vibe of the rock and roll lifestyle, it also add simplicity to harsh photos such as the second photo seen above which features a load of leather.
Monaco successfully captured special moments throughout his years of being a photographer, allowing us now to look back in time and appreciate the differences in culture over time, and to see the contrast of what life was like back them between places like the MET Gala and a Rolling Stones gig.
If I were to recreate these images myself, I would most definitely use a black an white edit during post-production. Just as an attempt to recreate his bold contrast that runs through his photos. I would also use a location with a lot going on within thebackground as his photos never feature much negative space, even with the photo at the top featuring the lady on her own, there’s alot going on within the background such as the leading lines of the tracks which in my eyes is a slight distraction from the main model, yet saying that Monaco always had something more than one thing going on with his photos.
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Post Shoot Evaluation: Gisela Torres
Looking back through my work for this test shoot I think I made a good attempt at mimicing the style of Gisela Torres’ photo series Paris, Peckham. Looking through my plan for this shoot I can see that everything I did intially plan, I did have a good go at. I wanted to achieve a laidback photoshoot which focused on only one culture/race which is what Torres presented through her photos, I wanted this shoot to slightly differ from the other test shoots to create a variation of styles, therefore I attempted in giving my model no directions so he could just do as he pleased, capturing his natural livelihood for him and his culture.
I believe the photos came out really well for having no direction to them, I told him where to stand and he just acted completely natural (whilst knowing a camera was pointed at him.) With this shoot, during the editing process I knew I had to increase the vibrance a slight amount as Torres’ photos were very vibrant and I’m not sure if she did this through post-production or they naturally came through like that, so either way whilst editing these images one step used was increasing the vibrancy to really attempt at re-creating her work.
Whilst shooting we had some difficulties with the location due to it being a busy time and there being loads of people and cars, so I dealt with this by just being polite to people and having a quick shutter on so they could continue with their day without me interfering. With the cars, I just had to wait for it to be quiet for a couple seconds and quickly take picture whilst standing on the island crossing.
If I were to do this shoot again, I would choose a location more personal to my model so there would be relevance between the two and just to add to the theme of my shoots being culture and diversity. I would also next time shoot this test shoot by using a smartphone to really portray the inspiration and to also add to laidback vibe of this shoot.
For my next shoot I need to remember to go to my location at a quieter time of day to easily do my shoot with out me interfering anyone or anyone interfering me.
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