Lauren Barrett A2 Photography Unit 3

Project Evaluation:

I am generally really pleased with the results of my Unit 3 project, especially in comparison to my Unit’s 1 and 2. Whilst I didn’t have an initial dramatic improvement in terms of creativity, I feel like my Photoshop skills have definitely improved, leaving the overall quality and finish a lot more professional, whereas I didn’t pick up on these finer details during my first year in Photography. However, I feel like I have again chosen a rather difficult topic for myself for this unit. Despite being a rather broad choice, I had to work even harder in creating in-depth ideas and shoots especially as it was also one of the choices for the Unit 2 exam. In order for my work to really stand out against what some of my peers may have created during Unit 2, the ideas that I chose had to be much more in-depth and the contrasts had to be more intense and represent a sense of psychological thinking rather than just presenting the contrasts in a visual manner. Overall, I feel like I have also developed dramatically since the start of this Unit, as I feel that my first few shoots were relatively weaker in comparison to the last few I have conducted in recent months. The initial shoots were somewhat less planned than the more recent ones, showing my progression in terms of organisation, and I feel like the ideas didn’t stand out as well as some of my later shoots, resulting in far less final pieces. Also, some of the shoots may not have turned out as theatrical as I had planned, as stated in my Project Proposal, but that was mostly down to struggling to find suitable costumes and props for a reasonable price, and also finding reliable models who were also free when I needed to shoot. Despite this, I feel like I have adapted well to this issue, making the most of the studio equipment and what I could do with small, simple objects as my props.

My absolute favourite shoot of the entire unit was my 10th shoot back in November, which I titled ‘My Bloody Valentine.’ The focus behind this shoot was the idea that whilst when humans die, or are injured, blood is usually used to represent this, and we are also capable of expressing emotion. In contrast to this, when flowers die they simply wither and despite the fact that they are too living creatures, they can’t express emotion. This shoot also had a much simpler message, connoting the contrasts between life and death, as, whilst the flowers were clearly still healthy and very much alive, they were seen to be ‘bleeding’ symbolising the idea that they had in fact ‘died’. To further connote the idea of death, I set up two ladders with fine wire tied between the two, and then hung the flowers upside down from the wire. Although quite creative, this made shooting more of a challenge as I had to shoot from very specific angles to ensure I captured the flowers in the composition that I wanted, but I also didn’t want to be able to see the wire as I wanted it to appear as if the flowers were suspended in the air. This technique was really fun for me, as I hadn’t done anything like it in any of the shoots I have conducted throughout A Level

Photography and it also gave me an interesting insight into the types of shoots I should perhaps consider doing when I conduct the next exam unit, Unit 4. I personally thought that the results looked really effective, and were a great chance for me to experiment with editing techniques such as selective colour and animation. The shoot also gave me a chance to use the macro lens for the first time in a while. As I added more water to the fake blood I was using, it created more of a ‘dripping effect’ off of the flowers which is what I was initially hoping for, which looked particularly effective under use of the macro lens.

Lauren Barrett A2 Photography Unit 3

I felt more-or-less the same about my 11th shoot, another one of my favourites from the entire unit. This particular shoot where I looked at the colouring of roses was one that I looked -forward to the most since creating my project proposal, but it simply took too long for the effect on the roses to take place. What I did was place a bouquet of white roses in various pots of water that had different food colourings added to them. These colours were supposed to be absorbed by the flowers in order to change the colours within the rose petals literally after a few hours, and the longer you left them, the more vibrant the colours were meant to be come. However, the technique didn’t seem to work for me, and I believe this was because of the lack of natural sunlight. If I had done this technique outside in the summertime, it may have worked better. The flowers only gradually withered, and only picked up very slight colourings. I tried the technique several times, something I have learnt I may have to do in Photography in order to get the right results, and eventually settled for roses with very faint yellow and blue colouring as if I had left them for longer, they could have begun to die and would not have looked as effective. I was relatively surprised when I shot the flowers, as using the macro lens allowed me to strongly focus on sections of the petals where the colour was graduating, and afterwards, I found that changing the levels and curves only

added to this effect. Overall, I feel that my resultant images from this shoot looked quite professional; the hues of the two colours contrasted really nicely and the vibrancy of these colours help to make my work stand out really well. I particularly enjoyed the editing of this shoot also because I was able to play with different techniques I wouldn’t ordinarily use on my work; for example, I changed the hue and saturation of some

of the edits quite dramatically to create different colour contrasts, and I feel the image on the left for example has a nice fantasy element to it.

Despite how proud I am of the work I have accomplished in this unit, I am also proud of how I have developed my skills in the studio, specifically as I experimented with lighting quite a bit. My 4th

personal shoot in particular which involved the pumpkin with the fairy lights was a real challenge for me, as the lights were on a particular setting which made them flash on and off, which made photographing the pumpkin hard and it involved me experimenting a lot with the shutter speed and the aperture. As I wanted to photograph the lights when they were on inside of the pumpkin, the studio lighting had to be reduced greatly also as it was then making the images too bright. It was a struggle, but I had to be persistent and try various combinations in order to get the results I wanted, and this, I feel, has taught me a lesson about Photography and working hard to get the results that I want and I also feel that my understanding of the studio set-up has also improved too, which should benefit me a lot when I come to do my Unit 4 portfolio.

Overall, I feel like this Unit has been a great stepping-stone into my progress into the final unit. My creativity has definitely developed during Unit 3, as all of my different personal shoots are unique to me and my topic, and I feel like I certainly haven’t repeated any of my ideas again and again. I thoroughly enjoyed conducting this unit, like I have enjoyed Photography from the very start, and despite the challenges which I have slowly overcome, I feel I have produced a strong portfolio which I can only hope that I will be able to better in Unit 4. From this unit I have learnt that I will

Lauren Barrett A2 Photography Unit 3

definitely need to really think about the options available to me in Unit 4, and possibly plan a selection of shoots for each topic to ensure I pick the one that I will enjoy the most, and also the one that I will be able to produce the best work from. I see from this unit that I do generally struggle to find people to model for my work – the people that I liked to use, particularly in Unit’s 1 & 2 have now had their timetables changed and are no longer available at the same times as me, and it is unfair to continuously use my peers when they have their own work to be getting on with. Therefore, this suggests to me that I should consider a topic in Unit 4, which will allow me plenty of ideas that do not involve people, yet would still allow me to be completely independent and creative. I will also carry forward my good use of time keeping and organisation into Unit 4, especially for the exam portfolio, as this will be vitally important to me. I felt like the planning stages of this unit were particularly important to me as they ensured I really understood what I needed to accomplish during the topic, a great benefit to me, which I will take forward into Unit 4 also. In my

Project Proposal for example, I was able to outline my initial ideas and where they rooted from, which in turn, allowed me to develop my own creativity as I conducted more shoots. I am disappointed that I didn’t get to do all of the shoots I had planned for, for whatever reason it may be have been, such as the idea of the Twisted Princesses inspired by an illustrator on Deviant-Art, but perhaps I will be able to build some of these ideas into whichever topic I pick for Unit 4, as I feel they will give me great diversification across all four of my A-Level Photography portfolios.