Overall Project Evaluation
During this project for Unit 2, leading up to the exam, I have come across the negative factors and the positive factors of being able to work independently based on an exam question that I have chosen specifically. Out of the five exam questions on our paper, I chose to select Story Telling, as it was an open question which could lead to many ideas to develop through. With the exam being 5 hours long, I was able to have enough time to complete two photo-shoots before having enough spare time to edit these photographs and have two final pieces. For the actual unit, the work was split between two sections; Contextual work and Practical work. As an overall plan to begin with, I decided that most days of the week when I did not have registered lessons for Photography, I was to work on the larger sections of the contextual work such as the Image Bank or the Research Log, to make sure that on these registered lessons, I was able to complete two photo-shoots every week for the practical work whilst also having enough time to complete the edits and the work diaries. By having an overall plan as this unit began, I have found that all my work was completed properly, fully and in-detail within the the time limit we had.
Contextual work:
With previous experience in Unit 1, with contextual work, I mainly focused on this section to begin with before I made a large start onto the practical work. The contextual work, was positively easy when I started my independent study around the subject of story telling, the reasoning behind this was that many photographers from all different work styles and focused genres all link in with the subject which helped me with the research log. I also made sure to spend the beginning of the unit, completing small tasks that take up a certain amount of time to be able to spend more time later in the unit with the work diaries. The main positive factor of this complete section of work has to be, being able too work independently on my own subject, because it helped the contextual work majorly as the photographs for the image bank and the discussions were more easier to write about in-depth with a variety shown as well. I believe that the time keeping of this section counterbalanced the whole work, as I was able to keep moving forward throughout my practical work with only the worry about having to complete work diaries, one after another instead of leaving them all to the end. The only negative factor of this section, was my own cause as half way through the unit, I realised that the definitions should have not been placed upon each shoot, but on the sections which I split my story telling into; Fairytale, Personal life, Horror V.S Elegance and Reenactments of songs, stories and poems. This was soon changed as I removed all that was needed to then restart the definitions again as a separate topic, which did not actually take too long for me to do, in my spare time. This as an overall negative factor did not affect the rest of my work speed as it was an easy section to quickly redo.
Practical work:
Moving onto practical work, I found this section involved difficulty which could be solved within time. The reason for this difficulty was more based on time with models turning up late, which made the time I had for the studio lessen by quite a bit, this was then soon solved by choosing to only take mostly self portraits to keep the time for the studio high. With actually taking the photographs out of the way, and not actually being focused on as a problem, I started developing my ideas into extreme and unique photo-shoots such as my Dead Animals from roadkill shoot. These extreme and unique shoots are a huge positive factor, as my work is able to stand out for the audience really well, but also provide me with different criticism to work from when I develop into another complete different idea. All my practical work varies between genres which shows how open I am as the photographer into taking different photos. In the practical work genre, I keep too doing two photo-shoots a week before also keeping spare time available to complete the print techniques, straight prints, computer experiments and the physical experiments. With these types of techniques, prints and experiments being straight forward and varied, I do find the physical experiments more of a challenge. The reasoning for this, is because I'm very limited to ideas that I can make on the straight prints and how to present them. By researching into previous students works and asking around, I am able to gain ideas for this section of practical work and continue to vary for the audience. I believe that since Unit 1, my practical work has improved extremely, whilst also showing how my development has increased slowly over time.
Moving on from these two sections, I have decided to think deeply upon my future advice for which I can give myself for Unit 3. As an overall view, I would actually tell myself to continue focusing hard on the timing of my work like I have done for this unit, to make sure my contextual work will counterbalance my practical work. It has helped me by a mile! Moving on from this, I should really focus clearly on finding ideas for physical experiments, instead of leaving them last minute, when the unit is due clearly in the next few days. It's not a smart move or idea and it would benefit just doing at least one physical experiment briefly after each photo-shoot. I should never even be scared to ask what other people have done for theirs as I can always develop their idea into a bigger picture. Finally for my practical work, I should never ever get stressed or emotional if a model drops out last minute which has never happened yet, or even if they are late. I should always keep a back up plan just incase any situation happens, so it does not stop my development of my practical work. Also another piece of advice which is really needed, is to never ever stress when it comes to the photography exam, as this exam is just like an ordinary lesson but just with timed conditions.
Moving onto practical work, I found this section involved difficulty which could be solved within time. The reason for this difficulty was more based on time with models turning up late, which made the time I had for the studio lessen by quite a bit, this was then soon solved by choosing to only take mostly self portraits to keep the time for the studio high. With actually taking the photographs out of the way, and not actually being focused on as a problem, I started developing my ideas into extreme and unique photo-shoots such as my Dead Animals from roadkill shoot. These extreme and unique shoots are a huge positive factor, as my work is able to stand out for the audience really well, but also provide me with different criticism to work from when I develop into another complete different idea. All my practical work varies between genres which shows how open I am as the photographer into taking different photos. In the practical work genre, I keep too doing two photo-shoots a week before also keeping spare time available to complete the print techniques, straight prints, computer experiments and the physical experiments. With these types of techniques, prints and experiments being straight forward and varied, I do find the physical experiments more of a challenge. The reasoning for this, is because I'm very limited to ideas that I can make on the straight prints and how to present them. By researching into previous students works and asking around, I am able to gain ideas for this section of practical work and continue to vary for the audience. I believe that since Unit 1, my practical work has improved extremely, whilst also showing how my development has increased slowly over time.
Moving on from these two sections, I have decided to think deeply upon my future advice for which I can give myself for Unit 3. As an overall view, I would actually tell myself to continue focusing hard on the timing of my work like I have done for this unit, to make sure my contextual work will counterbalance my practical work. It has helped me by a mile! Moving on from this, I should really focus clearly on finding ideas for physical experiments, instead of leaving them last minute, when the unit is due clearly in the next few days. It's not a smart move or idea and it would benefit just doing at least one physical experiment briefly after each photo-shoot. I should never even be scared to ask what other people have done for theirs as I can always develop their idea into a bigger picture. Finally for my practical work, I should never ever get stressed or emotional if a model drops out last minute which has never happened yet, or even if they are late. I should always keep a back up plan just incase any situation happens, so it does not stop my development of my practical work. Also another piece of advice which is really needed, is to never ever stress when it comes to the photography exam, as this exam is just like an ordinary lesson but just with timed conditions.
