Final Major
Project – Level 6
Evaluation
I feel that this project has been a great learning
experience for me. When I first started
the course the last thing that I wanted to do was portraiture because I didn’t
have the confidence to sit behind the camera and give instructions looking
directly at somebody that is watching me set up equipment. I wasn’t comfortable with the equipment and
nor was I comfortable as a photographer.
I avoided portraiture projects and opted for still life.
As I researched images I found myself drawn towards digital
colour photography that reflected culture and was inspired by the images of
famous photographers like Steve McCurry and Senol Zorlu, this inspiration gave
my work a new direction and I felt more comfortable with it possibly because of
my own family cultural background.
I feel that my earlier portrait images really had very
little expression and that was purely down to my own lack of confidence as a
photographer. The images were out of
focus because I felt that I wanted to take the photograph as quickly as possible
and not be seen with a large camera for too long. I feel that I had to overcome this fear when
I was given one of the old manual 6”x4” film cameras, as there is simply no
point and shoot with one of those things although it did produce the best images.
For my brief I intended to do portraiture as I felt it was
strongly linked to wedding photography and during my assignment I did try this,
however, I found that wedding photography was more staged and commercial and
because people were dressed for an occasion it changed the whole environment
and only reflected wedding culture and was far from portraiture.
I took photographs of women and men of different ages and
from different Asian backgrounds but found that people that had originally
migrated from villages in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh still had strong
traditional values and didn’t want any images of themselves anywhere that would
be seen to be disrespectful to them and decided not to look at the camera. I did initially see this as an obstacle but
having thought about it afterwards realized that after all it does reflect a
strong culture which is something that I was trying to capture in the first
place. I am now comfortable with the
images that I have but feel that I still want to produce more images of a
similar nature but with the cultural backgrounds such as the images from
Pakistan.
I like new technology and used digital equipment (Canon 6D)
for this project using both outdoor natural light as well as flash and also
studio lights for the indoor shoots. I
feel that I need to prepare better for outdoor shoots especially when it rains
(as it can’t be avoided at all times) and if I am to take on any commercial
projects or try and create more creative images by using the weather to my
advantage.
