• Demonstration of Technical and Visual Skills materials, techniques, observational
skills, visual awareness, design and compositional skills
I think I did o.k regarding these, I did several test runs of the area before doing the final shoot deciding on what would make the best compositions and think most of them worked out o.k.
• Quality of Outcome content, application of knowledge, presentation of work in
a coherent manner, discernment,conceptualisation of thoughts,communication of
ideas
This area again I think I fulfilled the requirements, though the areas i know I need to work more on are communication of ideas and conceptualising of thoughts.
• Demonstration of Creativity imagination, experimentation, invention, development
of a personal voice
This area again I am fairly happy with and think i am starting to develop more of a personal voice, albeit slowly at times.
• Context reflection, research, critical thinking (learning log)
This is another area i need to work more on, although I do a fair bit of reading outside of the actual coursework, I know I need to highlight this more on my learning log, this is an area I find difficult at times, expressing things, especially having spent a long long time away from any academic enviroment.
Tutors feedback
Overall Comments
I was pleased to see you have stuck with a central theme for this assignment and created a cohesive series looking at a specific place. This will serve you well as a learning experience for later assignments and modules. The subject looks fascinating with a lot of different aspects open to be explored in photographs. This is where I feel your submission falls down somewhat you note that your intention was to focus on the character of the building which is a great idea. The series as presented comes across more as an initial test shoot rather than a finished exploration of place though, with numerous, conflicting ideas appearing but never being resolved. In terms of the assignment this isn’t too much of a problem –the brief only asks you to bring out the formal qualities of the subject using monochrome which you do. Some of the images were a little flat but these are easily fixed with a little adjustment of the tone curve.
Feedback on assignment
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity
As you progress towards the final level 1 module and then level 2, you will need to start thinking more about the context in which you are making pictures –why are you making pictures in a certain way? Wit this is mind I have focused a little more on the conceptual side in this feedback to give you a prompt to start thinking about how your images can be read and what the message they are trying to convey is. Once you have mastered the technical side, your photography succeeds or fails on the message it conveys.
On a technical note, some of the images were a little ‘muddy’ –as in lacking in contrast. I realise you were trying to keep the sign detail in the first image but I feel you went a bit dark. I have made a quick lighter conversion below –if you wanted the sign detail then you would need to mask the signs and bring back the detail that way, but I am not sure you need to –the large white
rectangles look almost like the building’s eyes. I also used the lens correction filter in Photoshop just to remove the barrel distortion a little and cropped the image slightly to bring the central pillar into the middle.
Original
Lighter, cropped and distortion removed
I wouldn’t use the clarity slider for sharpening –better to use the sharpening settings. As you are using the D800 you can use a basic deconvolution sharpening pass in Lightroom and should get great results. I am not 100% on the equivalent settings in Camera RAW but in Lightroom the settings are: Amount: 60; Radius: 0.7; Detail: 70 (although I found 35 better personally when I was using a D800) and Masking: 20. If you aren’t using Lightroom yet I would suggest you do –it makes life a lot easier in terms of managing RAW files and processing quickly and easily. It is also useful to get hold of a set of VSCO film style presets for Lightroom as these give you a good starting point to understand what the various controls do in Lightroom.
There were other images which were a little dark as well, so I have adjusted another below for you to see a potential alternative interpretation:
Original
Curves adjusted
As you are looking at the character of the place, I would suggest making repeated trips to begin to see how the building itself operates and begin to think about how your images could reveal the relationship the place has with the constantly changing inhabitants. One strategy might have been to maintain compose images where the people, where present, would always be a similar, small size, shown within the context of the wider building, perhaps with a slow shutter speed? I have included a couple of examples of photographers who have spent a great deal of time looking at specific buildings so that you can see how others have tackled the same problem. A brief write up of your interpretation of these works would be great to see in your learning log.
Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays
Context
The log is progressing in the right direction but you need to make more of an effort to make regular posts about the work of other photographers you are looking at. In
the Research and Inspiration category there are 2 posts since the submission of the last assignment, and one of them is only a couple of lines. Short posts are absolutely fine but you would want to be making a lot of them, which would then be punctuated by longer, more analytical posts exploring what you think about the different bodies of work you are looking at. Why do you feel a series is successful? Why do you think it isn’t? What contemporary critical discourse is an artist referencing in their work? How can this relate to your own images? Which areas of photogr4aphy do you feel most drawn to when looking at the work of others? Is this influencing what you are photographing? Is it influencing how you are making pictures?
RobCox 