Technical and Visual

Technical accuracy – From a technical standpoint, I was conscious on this assignment that I am now only one more assignment away from level 2 and felt that it was time to up my game.  There were a few technical improvements suggested for my Assignment 3 submission and I wanted to ‘raise the bar’ on this assignment.  Whilst Assignment 3 was opportunistic, which is not an excuse for poor technical accuracy, all of the shots in this submission are staged to get across a specific point, even more reason for accuracy.

All of my shots are taken using tripod and remote release etc. and the shots that have me in them are taken using a remote release on my phone which also includes a live view and allowed me to position myself before releasing the trigger with a timer.

Some of the shots are taken in a second shoot after reviewing the shots during editing and discovering unwanted imperfections.  For example, on the contact sheets, A4-213 was my chosen shot for the vitamin tablets but a closer inspection of the full size image reveals that the bottle of Sambucoil is slightly out of focus due to a too-shallow depth of field.  I met have left this previously and claimed that I only wanted the focus on the orange bottle, but this is not the case so I restaged the photograph – only 30 minutes extra work but something that is a development for me.

Variety of shots – I wanted to make sure that there was a good variety of framing to the shots rather than simply have the same framing with different content in every shot.  The four pictures that have me in them are all different from each other and the five others pick out specific elements of my life that are important to me at this time.  I’m pleased with this aspect of the assignment as I think the variety, yet consistency of the shots has worked well.  From a developmental perspective I need to aim for this level of variety and consistency when it comes to opportunistic shots rather than staged ones.

Quality of Outcome

I am pleased with the quality of the outcome on two counts: the technical aspects that I have described above but also in terms of the content of the shots.  All of them are staged, but I wanted to them to look as though they are not staged, simply captured from a window into my life during this time.  I think that I have achieved this aim.   

I still think I have work to do visualising the shot before hand in order to reduce the time taken to frame the shot and to avoid a lot of wasted shots.  The contact sheets so that I spent a lot of time making very small adjustments to each scene before landing on the shot I wanted.  This works in a staged setup but not in a ‘live’ scene.  I wrote in my Exercise 4.3 storyboard how much I learnt thinking about how to portray something into a scene, even a simple sketch, and I could perhaps do more of this ahead of actually shooting photographs.

Creativity

This assignment was inspired by text, in my case ‘Stay Home’ but I also wanted to incorporate text into some of my images.  The two primary examples in my submission are Stay Home #5 and #8.  

Stay Home #5 took me some time to think of.  How to portray in a single image the time I would normally get up and the time I was getting up instead.  I had thoughts of showing myself turning off an alarm clock at the new time but that would not show the old time.  The shot of the alarms on my phone is entirely made up, I don’t normally have those times set (although they are the two times I would be getting up).  I do think it gets across the point.  

Stay Home #8 is a bit more obvious but I was very pleased to find in the shops the bottle with the word “Immunity” on the lid.

A struggle for me in creating my shots has been the issue of polysemy and some inbuilt desire that I seem to have to make sure that the shot very clearly articulates what I want it to.  On an intellectual level I understand that doing this leaves less for the viewer to make up and therefore possibly less time looking at the image.  I think some of my shots make some headway in this area, a viewer probably needs to spend a little longer on shots like #4 to work out that I am using a window ledge in the living room as a makeshift greenhouse.  Of course they may never get to this conclusion but I have added clues to it being a living room with a glimpse of the chair, and the coffee table with picture frame on it.  A4-35 in the contacts show what happens without these, and A4-21 shows me playing with other symbology in the shot.  I still this as an area for development and struggle a little I think because in my day job, I make a living out of removing ambiguity from things.  

On the polysemic front, I chose not to name each image as I wanted the viewer to get its meaning from the image, not from reading the title.  This is a conscious choice which I think works reasonably well. 

Context and Research

During Module 4, I have put more effort into reviewing other photographers and can feel and see the effect immediately.  During this assignment I have taken influence from:

• Crewdson – I researched Gregory Crewdson’s work and was astonished at the level of effort he goes to in order to create a scene.  A particular example being his work to create the set for Ophelia (Crewdson, n.d.) This discovery is what inspired me to create all of the shots that I have used within this assignment.  Of course, my shots are not as elaborate but they are all constructed and I went to a lot of effort to make them look as real as possible.  I think this is successful, they do not look staged to me, even the ones that have me in them.
• McCurry – I researched Steve McCurry’s recent book India (McCurry, 2015) and in doing so noticed how all of his shots, even his opportunistic ones, are perfectly framed.  This inspired me to take the time to get all of mine as accurate as I could do.  And, recognise that I need to improve on this aspect for my non staged shots.
• Wade – Researching Aubrey Wade I noticed on a particular website (Clifford, 2018) that his captions were so detailed that for me, it distracted from the image. It was this observation that led me to number my images rather than caption them, I want the viewer to deduce what it is saying from the image, not the caption and I do not think that a description of the scene would add anything to the images.  

Aside from the specific learning, the more general point is a learning that all research of photographers can result in a learning of something, even if the images or the photographer being researched has nothing to do with the subject matter that one may be capturing oneself.  

I have updated my blog so that research is in its own section, reflecting that the research is more general and not tied to a specific unit of the course.  I will also put some thought into assembling all of my research across my studies into a single place so that it is not left behind as I progress from one module to the next. 

Bibliography

McCurry, S., 2015. India. Phaidon.

Crewdson, G., n.d. On Set Ophelia. [image] Available at: <http://www.gregorycrewdsonmovie.com/image-gallery.html> [Accessed 14 May 2020]

Clifford, E., 2018. Great British Welcome Highlights Refugees And Their Hosts Across Britain. [online] British Journal of Photography. Available at: <https://www.bjp-online.com/2018/01/great-british-welcome/?> [Accessed 7 June 2020].