Final evaluation (A04)

My task was framing devices and I feel my images do represent that. From the start of the section my preparatory shoots were a way for me to get the idea of what I am meant to be doing, I feel my work has improved because I was more aware of what I was meant to be photographing. I researched all of the possible topics for me too choose to see which one appealed to me more and they were all very interesting, however framing devices interested me the most because I liked the concept of creating a frame within an image. At the start I was very unsure and confused as to what I was meant to be taking photos of, this led to me researching more on photographers, etc so I had more of an idea. With this research, I managed to do similar photographs to the researched photographers but further into the weeks I did my own thing and created quite interesting and appealing photos. Due to the amount of research that I did I was able to concentrate on what specifically I wanted to achieve, I wanted to achieve frames that were fascinating to the viewer so they would stay interested in what they were seeing. I also achieved these frames by editing, I was very discouraged with the physical experiments as I was very unsure on what I really wanted to do, hence why I did not do any physical experiments in my preparatory shoots. I came up with the idea of using the newspapers in my images because I wanted to represent how more people need to know about what is happening in the news/getting written down in newspapers. I know I could have done more of these experiments to create a series but I stopped myself because I ran out of ideas to do. Instead, I enjoyed the computer experiments and concentrated more on them. With the computer experiments there is no risk of completely ruining a picture because if you go wrong you can just undo it, this gave me confidence when editing on photoshop and I experimented with that. With my computer experiments I did tend to do the same thing so I tried to do something different each time but got a bit frustrated when things didn't turn out right so I would go for something more basic.
When researching the photographs I managed to get inspired and wanted to recreate a few of their images but add my own style, so it's not completely the same. For example; in my research log I wrote about Ranking, I wanted to recreate something similar to his work...
In my image I have created a circle pattern starting my subject's eye going out - a hypnotic feel. I have made it black and white because that is part of my final pieces series. The preparatory shoots showed me that I am capable of taking and editing really good pictures, my key thing is not rushing the images I take otherwise they wouldn't turn out how I wanted it and be really disappointed when it came to finally looking at them on the computer. The way I shoot my images have changed as I am focusing more on my settings to make sure they turn out right. My settings are a way for me to make sure my images are the best they can be, if the settings aren't you can tell but I sometimes struggle to change them to the correct ones. My focus is on manual so that I can focus on what I want and my ISO is automatic, the only settings I struggled with were the shutter speed as I would occasionally forget which shutter speed was correct - this is easily fixable. The way I present my work has not really changed but my images have, I feel my final pieces are aesthetic as they are all of the same theme with a little bit of colour.
When responding to the exam paper at the beginning I had a mind map on what I wanted to do for framing devices. I feel I have achieved only a few things on that mind map and I felt I could have looked back on it a bit more to give me ideas, etc when I needed it. The mind maps had a few good ideas that I could have looked back on and incorporated in my preparatory shoots. Also, I did not finish my last work record for component two which is really disappointing, I had the contact sheet on there but there was no other work. However, the photographs I actually produced were linked to framing devices which is good. I believe I would have produced a really nice component two if I were to fully complete it.
In conclusion, I believe I have approached the test paper appropriately and have attempted to create my own series of images from the two work records. I believe my final pieces are well presented and have been massively improved from the start. I am pleased with the work I have produced and I think I have improved a lot since the start of this section of framing devices.