Final Evaluation

Still Life Level 5

Evaluation

To begin this project I worked with a Phase One camera capturing images of food. It was a project I felt much enthusiasm for at first, however the more I learnt about the project the more I realised there is to food photography than what meets the eye. I feel my final outcome was successful for the short amount of the time I was given. The set up and props used create a strong composition in terms of shapes and colours. Along with the relaxed feel of the image I felt natural lighting was most suitable. If I could improve the image or capture it again, I would experiment with preventing the light reflecting so much on the soup. I would also experiment with using a different set up as I feel the colours and ingredients would have also worked well with a white rustic table or lighter coloured objects surrounding as appose to dark woods.

Product photography without a doubt, has been the mini assignment I’ve struggled with most. This mini assignment and the food assignment where I also had to work in the studio have really helped me in choosing what path to go down in my final year of Level 6. For this image I simply used a shiny white surface to stand my product on and a white background. I used white boards either side of the product and a soft light slight left of centre to light the product. I chose to photograph the product in its packaging so the company name was on show. I feel it looks fairly successful however if I had more time to spend on this project I would have experimented with photographing the product out of the packaging, maybe with other props or advertising elements around it, as after all, product photography is about selling the item. 

The nature Morte/Vanitas assignment not only challenged my ability to work within the studio but it also challenged my ability to work within a team. Working within a team is something I found I excelled at. In order to create this image my team formed ideas then each member had a particular role in creating the image, such as Camera man, Capture one, and creating the set up. My role happened to be creating the set up. This was a vital role as we were trying to re-create the scene as similar as we possibly could to a Vanitas painting we had been set the task of re-creating. This was something I enjoyed and I can say I am proud of the outcome of the final image. I felt by this project I felt more comfortable in the studio, as I hadn't really been in the previous studio based assignments of food and product. 

I found my natural interest in our Documentary assignment and found most inspiration from the photographers I researched. My final image was influenced by the work of Stephen Gill who had created a body of work where he photographed betting slips and called it 'A series of disappointment'. Following this I chose to capture old pieces of paper such as receipts or bus tickets I found. For the mini assignment I chose to produce images of different bus tickets however following feed back I received in a group critique, I was told some of the images almost looked like flatbed scans because of the bold black background and the way the tickets were laid flat. As a result, for my final image for this project I’ve chosen to hand an image i took at home of a betting slip. What I like about the image is the way in which it is not laid totally flat. I like the contrast colours in the image and feel the half open fold creates real mystery in which the viewer is left questioning what is on the betting slip. 

Lastly digital archive was a project I thoroughly enjoyed and feel I would have excelled in more had I of had more time to explore the subject. I enjoyed researching contemporary digital montage work and liked the freedom to experiment. Here I have presented two out comes. Both outcomes I produced seemed to follow a creative fashion/advertising route. My preferred outcome is a collage where I have created a digital mood board, however I felt it did not show my photoshop skills as they are simply images taken as they are and layered on top of one another. The second image shows my creative ability to use photoshop and create a digital composition. What I also prefer about my first outcome is the fact I have used some of my own images where as the second composition is images I took from the internet. I definitely feel I would have been able to create something like this using my own images if I had more time. I feel this style of work is really the only time I could allow myself to enjoy capturing 'product' style shots.


I enjoyed writing my own brief for this project, as i chose documentary still life photography. My main inspiration came from the work of Nigel Shafran. I feel my outcomes were successful, i followed very closely to a project Nigel had created himself called suburban garages but made it my own by capturing more interesting and unique garages in the more run down areas of Hartlepool. To expand this project if I had more time I would have liked to have created a contrasting project by capturing images of garages doors of the more ‘well off’ homes of hartlepool as I feel they would have worked well in a series along side the images I have already produced. Although at the very begging of the project I felt I had more enthusiasm and interest in the commercial side, through the mini assignments and practical work I have come to realise my true vocation in this degree is the pathway of fine art. I feel this is also a sensible route to take in relation to the subject I have chosen for my dissertation. I naturally prefer to challenge and address currant day issues or real life situations in my work as appose to working within a studio making advertising images for a consumer market. 

Final Images. Own project

ILA.

Final images

My choice of documentary still life photography has to be between garages and street signs. The difficulty i feel i come to face is what classes more as still life photography, or whether either of these genres of images even class at still life photography. As discussed with my tutor, these is possibility the images could be seen more as landscape documentary images. 

With my own view take upon this, i feel because the scenes are of 'garage doors' not just similar scenes i feel it is suitable to the classed as still life documentary photography. My work appears extremely similar to that of Nigal Shafran, however his project was of suburban garages. I tried to capture more interesting and unique garages in the town such as this one below which is of the back of a car wash in hartlepool. 

The image above is possibly my favourite image of the series. Although to some it may be seen as the most 'boring' or plain image and garage door. I feel the composition is very unique. My eye as the view is constantly torn between the strange blue and red striped board above the garage and the two black doors which appear almost identical either side of the garage. The garage all in all, stands plain and stripped down. I feel these is a lot of mystery about the image. 

I feel the series works well together due to the similar colours throughout each image. As a collective they work well. I like the variety i have chosen to include, from writing on a door, to a plain metal door, to a painting door, to a half open garage door. Each door has its own story and mystery urging the viewer to wonder who the garage door may belong to. 

Choosing Finals

Street Signs

For my final images the choice is between a series of street signs, or a series of Garage doors. What makes the street sign images so unique is the fact that all the street signs remain the same, however the scene they are placed within differs.

I feel these are successful images and these are the three i would chose if i were to create a series. I feel this and the project of Garage doors are both something i could carry on for a long time, finding more and more interesting scenes and places to photograph. For this project, i feel these images may be classed more as Documentary Landscape images as it is the scene behind the street signs which creates the interest in the image. 

Final 5 Images

Final Images


Mini Assignments 




Food Photography

This photograph was taken on a phase one camera. I think one of the most striking aspects about this image is the sharp quality, this obviously being down to the high quality equipment i used. To create the set up i simply place 3 planks of wood on the floor, and placed a chopping board and my ingredients on top. The idea of the green bowl and rustic looking knife and spoon aimed to create a old cottage/homely feeling along with the old style chopping boards. I feel this concept has been achieved, along with the evidence of the ingredients also along side the bowl in a casual way. The image draws the viewer in, making them feel as though the food has just been prepared and is ready to eat. The way the camera looks slightly down on the food makes the viewer feeler as though they are literally looking down on the food and are being invited to eat it. Along with the relaxed feel of the image i felt natural lighting was most suitable. If i could improve the image or capture it again, i would experiment with preventing the light reflecting so much on the soup. I would also expedient with maybe using a different bowl or set up, i feel these colours and ingredients would have also worked well with a white rustic table or lighter coloured objects surrounding.

Product Photography

Product photography without a doubt has been the mini assigment i have struggled with most. Despite feeling i had a lot of interest and enthusiasm in the subject, when it came to the practical task of taking images and creating studio set ups i did feel i struggled. This mini assignment and the food assigment where i also had to work in the studio have really helped me in choosing what path to go down in my final year on the degree. I feel as though working in the studio does not suit my natural work flow. For this image i simply used a shiny white surface to stand my product on and a white background. I used white boards either side the product and a soft light slight left of centre to light the product. i chose to photograph the product in its packaging so the company name was on show. I feel it looks fairly successful however if i had more time to spend on this project i would have experimented with photographing the product out of the packing, maybe with other props or advertising elements around it, as after all, product photography is about selling the item. 

Vanitas Photography

This assignment not only challenged my ability to work within the studio however it also challenged my ability to work collectively within a team. Working within a team is something i found i excelled at. In order to create this image my team brain stormed ideas then each member tended to have a particular role, such as being the camera man, using capture one, and creating the set up. My role happened to be creating the set up, this was a vital role as we were trying to re-create the scene as similar as we possibly could to a Vanitas painting we had been set the task of re-creating. I was essentially the stylist. In order to create this image we make the set up of found and bought images, we then placed them on a black table cloth in a studio with a black background. We used a soft box studio light to light the image from the left hand side frontally. We also had two black boards either side of the set up to try and create some shadowing. 

Documentary Still Life

This assigment was without a doubt my favourite. i felt i found my natural interest in this subject and found most inspiration from the photographers i research. This particular image was influenced by the work of Stephen Gill. Stephen Gill had created a body of work where he photographed betting slips and called it 'A series of disappointment'. Following this i chose to capture any old pieces of paper such as receipts or bus tickets i found in my home. For the mini assignment i chose to produce images of different bus tickets, which i felt were interesting because they said exactly where the person was traveling and what time ect. However following feed back i got from the class, i was told some of the images almost looked like flatbed scans because of the bold black background and the way the tickets were layer so flat. As a result, for my final image for this area of the project I've chosen to hand in this betting slip image. Its an image which i used natural lighting for what i like about the image is the fact you can see the shadow, and the way in which it is not filed totally flat. I like the contrast of red, black and white in the image and feel the half open fold creates real mystery in which the viewer is left questions what is on the betting slip. 

Digital Archive.

Lastly this was a project i thoroughly enjoyed and feel i would have excelled in more had i of had more time to explore the subject. I enjoyed researching contemporary digital archive work and liked the freedom to experiment in it. Here i have presented two out comes. Both outcomes i produced seemed to follow a creative fashion/advertising route. My preferred outcome is the first outcome where i have created a digital mood board, however i felt it did not show my photoshop skills as they are simply images taken as they are and layered on top of one another. The second image shows more my creative ability to use photoshop and create a digital composition. What i also prefer about my first outcome is the fact i have used some of my own images where as the second compositions are images i took from the internet to experiment with. I definitely feel i would have been able to create something like this using my own images if i had more time. I feel this style of work is really the only time i could allow myself to enjoy capturing 'product' style shots. I feel for the short time frame given they are successful outcomes and present my thought trail and aims. 

Still Life Documentary

Own photography


As a response to the work i had recently studied by Stephen Gill i chose to take to the streets of hartlepool and photograph in a similar style. My aim to to photograph billboards and any similar objects i could think of. I used my Digital SLR camera as it is a quick and easy media to use.

A main issue I feel I'm facing when capturing these images is whether they would be classed as Still life documentary or landscape documentary photographs. As during class the main types of documentary still life photography we looked at seemed to focus more on actual objects or possessions.


For these particular images i was inspired by the work of Nigel Shafran whom i have previously research in this blog. This photographers work really was the first real inspiration i found during this project of documentary still life photography and carries on to inspire me most now. Following his work look at suburban garages i chose to capture a series of images of similar scenes in Hartlepool.

Stephen Gill

Photographer Inspiration


The work of Stephen Gill was something we were shown in class by our tutor. We were actually only shown one particular project by Gill which involved the documentation of still life objects. As explained in my previous post about what i want to explore for my personal project, i explained how i want to capture images of still life scenes as appose to singular objects on a background. I researched into the work of Stephen Gill in my own time and found his projected titled 'Billboards'.

In this body of work Stephen Gill captures a series of images of the back of billboards. This appealed to me massively as the idea of capturing a series of the same concept but different versions of it was what i had had in mind. Firstly the idea of the back of billboards is interesting because this is something we never tend to see or if we do happen to pass such a thing, it would be rare we would stop to look. Secondly the process of capturing all billboards but obviously different ones in different scenes shows the vast variety one object can be shown in. 


http://www.stephengill.co.uk/portfolio/portfolio#id=album-24&num=content-569 

I aim to capture some images similar to this myself. However rather than taking the idea of Stephen Gill and capturing the back of billboards, I think i would capture billboards from the front way on. The reason i would do this is because in a past Landscape project i actually captured images of billboards, so by capturing more in this project i would be able to expand on what i have already researched and discovered. 

What i do like about this work by Stephen Gill is the way he choses to show an object or scene from a different perspective to what we would normally see it in. I would like to possibly try and explore this concept using objects or scenery other than billboards. 

Personal work

Initial Learning Agreement


For my personal project after taking part in all 5 work shops I've chosen to focus on Documentary photography as this was the genre of photography i enjoyed most. For my personal project i created my own initial learning agreement. Within this i explain my aims for the project, my expected outcomes, and how i will achieve these. I also give some examples of a photographer who's work inspires me most.

Digtal Montage Still Life

Personal Work


To start my digital montage project i tried to re-create the digital mood boards i had previously researched. To do this i used a mixture of my own images and images i found on the internet. To create them i used a blank canvas in photoshop and i dragged and layered the images. Some images i used the magnetic lasso tool to cut them out. I created the mood boards with themed colours just like the ones i had found in my research.

I feel the colours and the images in the pink mood board is more intereneting and eye catching, especially at first sight. However  i feel the composition of the first piece works better on a whole. 

To improve these pieces if i had more time i would of printed them out, painted on them, then scanned them into the computer to create a similar composition to the images/mood boards i have previously researched. 

After seeing advertising in many magazines and on websites of designer products, and now realising how big digital montages are becoming in advertising i chose to create my own digital montages in the style of an advertising image. Here for both compositions i simply took images from the internet and played around with layering on photoshop. The idea i was trying to create for the first image was the idea of the possibility of it being a real image. I feel theres an element of digital manipulation in the image but at the same time you want to question whether the bags were actually hung like that for the image to be taken. 

I enjoyed experimenting with taking images from the internet and not really having any boundaries with what i was to create. This style is extremely modern and contemporary and is something i would actually enjoying exploring more in the future. 

http://blog.jeffnelsonphoto.com/blog/tag/handbags/

Digital Montage

Tumblr

http://kate-jp.tumblr.com

Through research I've found several inspirational blogs that focus on digital montage. My previous post presents a style of digital montage probably more suitable for a beginner like myself. 

However here I have found an example of more complex digital montage images. It is evident that these photographs have been edited in a highly skilled way using photoshop.

by the looks of the background and the lighting on the objects it looks as though the images have been taken in a studio setting. The images show dramatic reflections, of strong lighting. Some of the floating objects may have been created within the actual image however it appears as though some of the objects have been photoshopped in.

The above image shows how digital montage is starting to be used in a commercial way, advertising clothing and accessories. 

The title of the person who made this blog and these images is a graphic designer. Digital Montage uses and shows both the skills of photography and digital editing. I find great interest in digital montage due to how modern and contemporary it is. I like how it bring two wrist skills together to create an image. I feel this particular level of digital montaging is created through a highly skill graphic designer. 

Digital Montage

H / F

Tumblr

When searching digital montage on Tumblr I came across this site: "WWW.HABITUALFEELS.COM". The tumblr page had various digital made images which looked almost like mood boards. 

During class with our tutor we looked at different example of digital montage. It was interesting to see as it became evident almost anything goes. We explored the ideas of taking photographs of photographs, or taking photographs off the internet, and them not having to be your own. Our tutor also suggested the idea of painting or drawing onto an image then taking another image of that.

When carrying out my own research i came across these images which seemed to fit perfectly the experimentation with digital montage my tutor was talking about. What attracts me most to these images are the paint marks on the images. I feel this is a really interesting way to experiment with an image as the paint has clearly been added by hand then the image has been scanned or a photograph has been taken of it. Its really interesting to look at the several digital layers created in the image. 

I think what also makes these images work so well is the colour schemes within each image. I would really like to try and create these kind of images myself by taking photographs of magazines, and taking images from the internet as well as layering my own images.