Final Evaluation

Landscape Photography

Hartlepool



The first ideas i found during this project were through a walk around hartlepool in which i searched for a location to photograph; I found two aspects of the town which particularly stood out to me. These were terraced houses and billboards. 

I began to research into photographers whom had captured landscape images of either of these subject matters. The first photographer i researched was Bill Brandt, as when i thought of terraced housing and black and white format, i straight away thought of his work. What appealed to me most about Bill Brandt’s work was that his photography was so down to earth, the work never seemed to aim to glamourise the industrial scenes the images were captured in. Following this research i began to research more so into billboard photography. I liked the way in which the bright bold advertisements almost contradicted the often drab and run down streets they stood in. 

The more i took to the streets to photograph billboards around the town the more i began to take notice of what was actually being advertised on the billboards. I found it very intriguing when i came to realise every advertisement was of cheap, bargain, money saving products such as cheap clothing, beer and cheap food. This then added so much more interest into my study of billboards, as i felt that by photographing them and the streets they stood in, what was being advertised seemed to say a lot about how hartlepool as a town or its population are viewed; poor, unemployed, in need of a bargain? I was encouraged to research more into this concept by my tutor, who told me to look into the billboard companies that advertise around hartlepool.

The main challenge i came to face during this project was found in the dark room. I found that after finding a suitable exposure times for the prints, the buildings would look successful but the sky was appearing bleached out. I realised that in order to fix this problem i needed to expose the sky for a longer amount of time. To do this i exposed the full print for the correct amount of time, then using a 0.0 filter which was something i had never used before, I exposed the print again for the amount of time needed. By using a 0.0 filter i was able to darken only the highlights in the image. One further issue I then came to find during this process was that the 0.0 filter was making the billboards which were often white, too dark. To overcome this problem i used the technique of burning, which meant the billboards were covered from any further exposure and the sky was then receiving the longer exposure it needed. 

On reflection I would have taken more care in allowing my negatives to dry correctly and I would have taken more care of the negatives in order to prevent them from becoming scratched or stained, as i felt this was something which I felt let down by when I enlarged my prints. Overall I felt the work I produced met the requirements of the brief and what I personally thought was most successful about this project was the deeper concept I came to find during it.