Overall Comments
Dear Jennifer
Thank you for sending me your fourth assignment.
Overall, this is an interesting topic to photograph and you have shown
that you have gone outside your comfort zone with this set of images, having
previously had no connection with the team of people you have photographed. You
have also evidenced how you approached the subject, how you contacted the team
and your plans to promote the boat-builders through the form of a calendar.
This has shown a great deal of forward planning and organisation, particularly
surrounding their dates to work around, so you have shown good organizational
skills on this part.
The images overall capture the ‘day in the life’ of making a boat, which
I feel would have benefitted from more imagery, although I appreciate you were
limited to the seven images for the calendar. You have not sent me any contact
sheets of the full set of images where you have marked other potential images
(although I have received images on your memory stick). It is important to
provide evidence of images you have dismissed, so the assessors can see you
have shown discernment, rather than just send me a whole load of images to
plough through. Ultimately I feel that some of your final images are lacking in
creativity and that there was potential to develop this further with at least
one of your final images.
There are some concerns surrounding the exercises leading up to this
assignment brief. I cannot find them on your blog and I feel that they should
have informed this current assignment, regarding advertising and unpicking the
layers of an advert or fine art photograph to be used in an advertising context.
You may have carried out the exercises and not yet uploaded them to your blog
and if this is the case, I think there are some elements which you need to
re-visit or research further. If you haven’t carried out any of the exercises,
then I am concerned that you have not fully researched this important area of
advertising within photography and that it may affect you considerably with
regards to the final assessment.
I am also struggling to find any references to photographers who have
influenced you. I can see that you have attended an ‘amateur’ art and craft
show recently, but no other references to more recent academic resources,
neither primary nor secondary and therefore you should look to resolve this or
it will be highlighted at assessment.
I understand your aim is to
go for the Photography/Creative Arts* Degree and that you plan to submit your
work for assessment at the end of this course. From the work you have shown in
this assignment, providing you commit yourself to the course, I believe you
have the potential to pass at assessment.
In order to meet all the assessment criteria, there are certain areas
you will need to focus on, which I will outline in my feedback
Feedback on assignment
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of
Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity
The prints to A3 are of a good quality and an
improvement on previous prints, with no sign of banding in this set.
1 Beer Fishing Boats – This image is inconsistent
with the other shots, which have more of a social documentary feel to them
overall and are all ‘indoors’. The shadows are quite harsh on the boats and I
wonder if you returned to take at a different time of the day? The image
overall is very front on, which gives the boats a rather flat feel. Did you
experiment with different angles or was there some reason why you chose this
shot? Perhaps others had distractions in the distance? The horizon line is
perfectly straight, so well done for achieving that which is often overlooked.
2 Lofting – My eye is drawn to the skull and cross
bones flag in this image, which I find far more intriguing and I would have
thought had great potential for some creativity, as well as a little humour!
Technically, this image looks a little stretched and when I first saw it in
situation in the calendar, I thought you had stretched it to fit the
rectangular template. It could be barrel distortion or use of the wide angle
lens which has created this effect. There is some extremely poor
post-production work around the hands of the two main figures (which is not
visible in the image on the calendar). Did you print the wrong image? Finally,
the whiteness of the windows is very over-powering and stands out too much. I like
the slightly shallow depth of field and I also like the low angle opportunity
taken to capture this image.
3 Sealing – It is unclear if anything is pin sharp
in this image.
4 Ribs exposed – This image has great potential.
Patterns and lines work really well in photography and this could have made a
great opening image. I can see from your memory stick that you took lots of
photos of this. You need to put them on a contact print and reflect on them. There
are some really lovely textures and the natural lighting shows the warmness of
the colours and tones.
5 Regina Plans – This is quite a busy image as there
is a lot going on in the scene and would have benefitted from a more shallow
depth of field. I am struggling to find where this image is pin sharp, but I
believe it may be around Regina’s waist. If using automatic focus, always half
press the button down on the person’s face and then move the camera to the
composition you want. There also needs
to be more experimentation with cropping as you have cropped the bottom of the
boat and the person’s legs. 0076 is a much stronger shot which I have found in
your memory stick.
6 Tender – This is a much better composition and
crop for the finished boat. The letters are pin sharp and there is enough
interest in the background without being too fussy. It would make a very good
‘advert’ for the company.
7 Moving Boat – again the cropping off of everyone’s
feet and too much sky means this would have made a better composition if you
had positioned your camera slightly lower. The image is too busy with lots of
people, some of whom are hidden, giving this image more of a ‘snap’ feel to it,
rather than a considered composition. There are too many images like this in
the 3-hour time slot you have taken them in. A variety in style of photography
would have benefitted you more – perhaps taking photographs of the craftsmen
and women beside their work in semi-posed environmental portrait shots would
have been another option to consider.
Coursework
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of
Creativity
As mentioned above, I cannot find any exercises
completed for the advertising research and I feel that this may have affected
your judgement with regards to this set of images. You also need to read the
brief carefully, regarding an A3 calendar, not a set of A3 prints and a
separate smaller calendar which has some very pixilated text on it.
Research
Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis
There does not appear to be any critical analysis
for this assignment. It is very important to research the theorists mentioned
in the exercises and to incorporate their theories into your own portfolio. For
example, regarding the image of the ribs of the boat, this could have involved
Roland Barthes’ theory on unpicking the layers of an image. At first we may
question what this image is. You could have discussed the denotation and
connotation of this image alone, at length (the craft, history, fishing
industry at present, skill, lives lost), and I suggest you do this at the
earliest opportunity.
Learning Log
Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis
As mentioned in the feedback for the last
assignment, I cannot find any mention of photographers that you have looked at
and who may have influenced you in your work. They don’t have to be
specifically photographers who photograph boats! Industrial photographers or
even architectural photographers may inspire you to be more creative in your
work.
Try not to be overly descriptive but more
reflective on what improvements you would make given the opportunity to do this
again. The information on the people who didn’t want to be photographed was a
valid point, considering ethics and copyright.
Suggested reading/viewing
Context
Look at the work of
classic photographer O Winston Link who photographed trains, or another classic
– Frank Meadow Sutcliffe who photographed people in Whitby. Also take a look at
the work of Niki Feijen who photographs abandoned places with a real atmosphere
to them. http://www.nikifeijen.nl/
Pointers for the next assignment / assessment
Try to ensure that you narrow down your subject for
the presentation, rather than tackling a huge genre
