Evaluation

Evaluation

Street Photography

The first Photographer I was introduced to by my tutor was Bruce Gilden. After watching a short video of him I was blown away by his unique style and the amazing outcome of his images. As his work was like no other work I had seen before, it really captured my interest. I would say that the main inspiration I found in street photography was from Bruce Gilden. No matter what other photographers I began to research, no other photographer grabbed my attention and interest as much as this photographer did. Throughout this whole project I have kept the work of Bruce Gilden in mind, constantly trying my best to capture images like his.

Using a 35mm SLR and the developing process was not an issue for me, as these were aspects I was already familiar with. However when I stepped out onto the street for the first time in this project, it was then, it dawned upon me that this was going to be harder than I had originally thought. The main challenge I faced throughout the project was gaining the confidence to capture images close up to people, like I was intending to. Before this project I really had not realised the way in which the public react to a person taking photos in the street. I learnt to overcome this fear of people looking at me, as through research into the laws around photography in the UK, and seeing the way Bruce Gilden would react to abuse on the streets, I came to realise that I had every right to be there taking photographs as I was doing no harm.

After gaining the confidence to capture images on my first roll, I ended up exposing my film to light in some areas, due to not fully winding the film back into the canister. I soon learnt from this mistake and I think that is made clear when you can see the progression of my contact sheets. A progression which I believe can also be clearly seen in my contact sheets, is the way my confidence grew throughout the project, meaning that by the end, I had some really close up shots of peoples faces.

My five final prints, link together as a series. Despite the final five not showing influence from Bruce Gilden, whom I was inspired most by, during the project I came to realise that without intending to do so, I had created my own ongoing theme throughout my rolls of film. My natural style was evident; I seemed to be attracted to capturing images of individuals often from a side on view, central to the image. I feel the five final prints work well as a whole, show a strong sense of my individual style as a street photographer and meet the requirements of the brief successfully, especially considering the images had to show some aspect of human interaction.

On reflection, I am pleased with the outcome of this project. However if I could have done things differently, I would have experimented far more in terms of variety within my images. Although my final five do work together well as a whole, I do believe more variety would have made my outcome more appealing, interesting to look at and would have shown my ability as a street photographer even more so.