Evaluation of presentation of final pieces

My ideas towards presenting my final project changed a lot and I had trouble deciding on a way to present my ideas. I eventually settled on a black cloth with images printed 10x8 spaced out in rows wit two dying flowers on either side. This was my final presentation idea and I think it works well. 

When I had cancelled my images down to the last 20 I was havin trouble visualising my final images in a presented way. I looked into many routes and turned to google for some ideas yet still didn't feel motivated to chose any. I thought about hanging the images but didn feel it would have much of an impact I looked at a few ideas relatin to graves themselves some of which were:

-arrange the final images in a gravestone shape

-create a small coffin in which the images are either on/in

-hang the images from a tree

-place images inside an old novel (story book)

-create a small homemade book with images in 

All of these ideas plus many more and I did not feel like any would present my images without takin away the detail. I decided on the end to present them on the floor as it was as if you were looking down on the graves themselves. This worked as my final images were all from above. I also decided on the colour scheme of black as it is typically seen as a dark and sad colour, linking with the project I was doing. I used dead flowers as a reminder of my aim and thought it enabled the audience more with something as an extra stimulus to look at. I also decided on placing my images in rows to represent a cemetery itself. The look of them in rows I feel added to my project. 

From looking at other examples of presenting my photogrpahy I didn't feel certain ways would be as effective. I didn't want to produce a PowerPoint as it would not show the emotion of my images so wouldn't engage them as much. I also didn't want to create a collage as the images do work well collectively yet I didn't want to overpower the audience all at once. 

Overall i feel it took me a long time to find a way to present my ideas yet in the end I really liked the outcome and felt proud of the images. 

Evaluation of my Final Project

Now I have completed my work I can look back on my final project and find the positives and negatives and the way I could have improved my work.

One of the massive positives of this whole project was the fact I was engaged. I really enjoyed working in this project and really enjoyed building up my work. I feel completely involved in all of the work I have done and went into so much detail I now feel like I have a stronger passion for the thing I have researched. Another positives is that not only has this project massively increased my photography skills and techniques but I feel I have touched on many different topics and other subjects. For example, through writing this blog I feel I have increased my English skills and as an English literature student it has helped massively. I have also researched areas such as arts, history, crafts and many more just by having a huge interest in this project and subject. I feel a lot more comfortable and knowledgable with all of the aforementioned subjects and a lot more confident. 

Some of the positives of my final project:

I feel my final project has a lot of positives. One of the biggest positives I feel my final project has is that fact it will intrigue my audience and will make them engaged. This has been done through selectively choosing my images and finding the right way to present them. I also feel another positive is the project idea. Due to the project idea being quite a touching and emotional idea, it will cause more emotion in my audience and therefore also engage them further. 

Not only did I find this many positives but I also have found ways to improve my project overall. Here are some:

I found this project quite a general idea so had a little trouble narrowing down my ideas. This meant I was delayed in taking photos and had a shorter amount of time, yet overall this helped with my time management. I also felt the path I have taken within 'Woodland' towards death and the cyclical idea of nature was quite a touching subject. I found it a lot more emotional than the average photography project. This didn't hold me back as this is just a point of consideration. Another negative point was the fact I was delayed with a camera. I had slight camera malfunctions at the start of the project which meant I had to use a variation of camera phones and ended up using an iPhone 6 for my final project. This again did hold me back a little yet just showed me and my audience how high quality camera phones are in today era. This would be one of the biggest improvements if I was to re-do the whole project. I also found that due to me being so engage with the project I had too any ideas and took a lot more images than expected. This meant I had trouble when narrowing it down and finding my final pieces. 

I have also found ways to improve my project if I was to re-do it from the start:

I would have ensured I had a fully working DSLR camera to ensure the pictures were high quality. 

I would have chosen a more specific project to help with time management towards my final project.  

I would have been more open minded towards the start of the project on just how many route I could have taken and how much research and inspiration I find just from my project on woodland.  

Overall after completling the project and finding my final images I feel I have worked my hardest and to the best of my ability. This has enabled me to gain such a massive interest in multiple routes from photography. I have thoroughly enjoyed this project and feel it has showed my skills and interests  towards photograph as a whole. 

Thank you

Charlotte Hobbs

Woodland Final Images

After going on my last and final shoot I collected all my images together and began to search through my images. I had collected quite a large number of images so this processes I found challenging. I began to look through my images and picked out the strongest ones. I followed my project and kept my theme in mind when choosing the right images. I knew all the images had to work well together as I wanted to present them as a collection. I found I had created the strongest images when taking the photograph from above. After moving the strongest images to another folder I felt myself with again still a large number of images. Some images I had, I felt worked better as individual piece and one in particular I felt looked reminiscent of Jeff Wall's image of the 'Open Grave'. I really liked these images and felt it showed great emotions. 

Below I have added the image by Jeff Wall:

And my two images inspired by Jeff Wall: 

I continued looking through my images and narrowed it down to 20 high quality images. These image all had a continuous theme and from looking at them I decided I would create my final project based on the images from above. I collected around 15 of these images and felt it was too many to preset. I then edited the images and picked my favourite 10 in which I am using for my

Final project. 

These images I feel are strong powerful images that intrigue the audience and allow them to either ask questions or develop their own understanding of the project. I feel like I choose the right images for the final pieces as they work well together yet when you look at each image individual I feel it tells a story and i believe the audience will feel gripped by each image. 

I am a strong believer in doing your best and therefore did try hard with this project. I really enjoyed working towards a goal and deadline and feel the outcome was positive. 

Below I have added my 10 final images for my WOODLAND project:

enjoy!

Panorama's from Woodland shoot

After I visited the graveyard to collect images I found the use of a Panorama was necessary. I was inspired my Jeff Wall in his book in which I've done a blog post and kept this in mind.

I really like how panoramas are used to show large scale images in one and loved how a graveyard looked in this style. I haven't edited these images as I don't feel it is needed as the idea of them

Is more important than the smaller detail. 

THESE ARE MY OWN IMAGES:

Unedited 

Technique inspiration- Curves

After taking into consideration the work I produced in my coursework I looked into curves in Photoshop and wanted to create some images that were classed as 'different' 

  In order to edit these images I simply uploaded the image to photoshop and opened the images curves. This is a setting that changed the colour of your image. I moves the last bar of the curves setting to the center and became moving the second one in different ways. This made the images colours change drastically and showed a change in curves. I wanted to try this before possibly using it as a final project idea. After playing around with the effect I decided not to use the effect as I didn't feel it related much to my project. Here are the results of that:

THESE ARE MY OWN IMAGES:

Flower shoot #3

I wanted to take inspiration from the photographers I had previously looked at and create some images of bunch of flowers of mine.

I found the images looked better landscape and the colour scheme naturally worked with the lighting. I visualised the work of other photographers and this was a mixture of my work and pure inspiration. 

I have added two images I edited myself in the style of black and white. 

THESE ARE MY IMAGES 

unedited 

Here are the two images I edited using an online editing software and my own images. 

THESE ARE MY

IMAGES:

Woodland/grave shoot #2

I wanted to go on a shoot with the intention of taking lots of pictures to create a basis of my project. I visited one of the graveyards in sheffield in Woodhouse and goin it was a suitable environment. I spent roughly 1 and a half hours at this graveyard looking to find the perfect images.

 I believe I found some pictures that would not only work well in a large group but very well as individual images. From going on this shoot I found many positives and many negatives I which I will outline. I found myself engaging more with my project whilst being on shoot as I felt closer to the project subjects. 

I had an idea in mind of the types of

Images I wanted to produce yet didn't want to be too stern so let myself take the images I either saw or wanted to create. I found myself using the camera in landscape mode as it fitted more into the frame and it allowed for space. I also naturally took general pictures rather than the small detail maybe on some gravestones. 

Here are some positives and negatives. 

POSTIVES:

-not far from home, enables quick entry. 

-opening times allowed me to visit when needed. 

-the time of day meant I could take well lit images 

-the image subjects were always there so I didn't have trouble working around them. 

NEGATIVES:

-a graveyard is a public area and I found it personally emotional

-the sun meant there was a lot of shadows I needed to work around

-I had to wok with two types of camera phones to produce the images due to recent camera damage 

-there was quite a lot of graves which almost gave me too many images. 

-found it difficult limiting myself to taking too many

After looking through the graveyard and taking the images wanted I decided to look back on my images and see what I had produced. I found a lot of shadows and some were not in focus so after looking at these and finding my mistake I decided to re-shoot some images and here was the outcome. 

THESE ARE MY IMAGES 

unedited 

MEDIUM 8- ART/CRAFTS/FASHION

Grave Ciao

Grace Ciao is an artist from Singapore who uses flower petals in her fashion work.

This is not the typical way to relate fashion designs and that's the reason it is so special and unique. The use of these petals not only shows how you can create beautiful designs from petals but shows and links with my project. The fact the artist, Ciao is using real petals shows how she is wanting to preserve and keep the petals to live longer. This is just one of the ways we have tried to preserve flowers from living things to dead and sometimes dried objects.

I find this very inspiring as the use of the petals to create something new is exciting and shows how more than one medium can create something completely new. 

This links to my project as the fact flowers and woodland in general is living and breathing shows how as a human rave we want to try and preserve the flowers and we will find ways to do so because we don't like the fact the flower have an end. This works the same with humans and the use of petals to create more art shows how we can prolong there 'life'. 

Below are two examples of her work: 

MEDIUM 7- HISTORY

A mummy is the body of a person (or an animal) that has been preserved after death. They were any Egyptian who could afford to pay for the expensive process of preserving their bodies for the afterlife.
The earlier mummy's were said to have been from 2700 B.C.

Mummies were created because the ancient Egyptians believed that when someone died, their soul left their body. The soul would then return and be reunited with the body after it was buried. However, the soul needed to be able to find and recognise the body in order to live forever. 
This I found interesting as the fact they are wanting to preserve the bodies similar to humans wanting to preserve flowers and creating art. The way flowers are preserved is similar to humans as both are dried and preserved for specific reasons. I took inspiration from this and want to preserve some flowers and see the effect.