Evaluation

This assignment was called Empirical Evidence and for this it was all based around location photography which I something I feel I am good at, compared to studio photography. After looking over all the different topics we can do I was going to photograph the everyday life, but after a little bit of thought I decided against this and decided to photograph the unconventional, the "boring". My plan for this project was to go out to a wide range of locations, those that wouldn't normally be used to take photos in. I went to a range of different unconventional areas and made sure that the images were not just unique but also unconventional which is exactly what they were. The sorts of things that I photographed during this assignment are bike locks, different angles on street signs and just random items that I see when out walking on a shoot.

The idea of photographing the everyday life changing to the unconventional after I researched William Eggleston and truly became inspired by his work and felt that this was the type of photography that I wanted to do during this assignment. I would also say that Shin Noguchi's work inspired me as well as a fair bit of his street photography is quite unconventional. Throughout most of the project I used my flash on the images to give them the bright effect, I also used a narrow depth of field on the images to allow you to focus more on the actual thing that I am photographing instead of the background

Throughout the project I constantly was happy with each and every photo shoot I did. I did think that my first photo shoot that I did was actually one of the best photo shoots probably the second best after one at St. George's Park. I don't really think I had any major problems when I first went out there were a few minor tweaks that had to be altered a little bit, this did prevent me early on from taking just one shot of each item I shoot, most of the project I did just take one shot of each item.

When I look back at my final piece I am quite happy with how it came out, I do think though that if I had done another photo shoot I could have maybe got a couple of better images. The images I have are decent images and strong though I do think that extra shoots would have given me 4-6 I could have used in the final piece that would have been really strong images, a lot stronger than any other that I had produced in the project or any other.

Overall I would say that everything came out quite well there would be a couple of minor things that I would have tweaked but truly that isn't a major problem so that is a bonus really. Some of my images that I took during this project are really strong and powerful and some of my best images. I could easily see some of these images that had been taken during this assignment going into my portfolio which to me does say that I have managed to get great photos during this assignment. This has definitely been a strong assignment for me in terms of my actual photograph.

Final Image

When it came to choosing my final images I wasn't too sure which images I wanted to use. At first I decided how many images I was going to use, I already knew that I was likely to put them all on one sheet. After deliberation I decided to use four images. I straight away knew one image that I was going to use the bike lock, that was a simple choice I had known for a while that I was going to use as one of my final images. Choosing the other three images was probably the hardest part I made sure that I took my time choosing these images and looked over all of my images to ensure that I chose the best three images. After looking over all of my images taken on this project a couple of times I found the other three images, all of which I am quite proud of as I do feel that they are strong images.

Originally they were going to be half black and white and half colour though after the critique I decided to have them all in colour mainly due to the fact that I don't really think the bike lock image looks very good in black and white.

My location communication

What I am really trying to communicate with my locations and images is that you can never run out of places to photograph and that you can go to some of the strangest places and still be able to get some really strong images. This is exactly what I have tried to do throughout this project, I tried to go to some of the most unusual places to try and get some really strong and different images, which is what I believe I had managed to do throughout the last couple of weeks.

I have managed to communicate this by making sure that I went to a wide range of different locations and trying to get as many different images as possible. I was also trying to make sure that the images were really different and in no way similar which with these final images I believe I have managed to achieve this in these images. Not just in my final images, but in all images I have managed to shoot in many different locations and ensure that all the images look completely different and show a wide range of locations.

Overall looking at all the different locations that I have used have in my opinion been a really good choice and there is definitely a wide range of locations chosen which is something that I am really happy with and how the shots came out.

Critique Feedback

In the critical feedback main things that were raised were that the focus and exposure on the images which I am really pleased that it was considered some of the strengths as these were two parts that I had focused on making sure that they worked really well when I was taking the images. An improvement that was raised was choosing between having all my images in colour or all in black and white, I admit putting two in colour and two in black and white was a bit of a gamble which clearly hasn't paid off. So because of this I will have all of my final images in colour and not in black and white as all of the my final four images don't really look very good in black and white whereas they all look good in colour. One other point the group raised was not sure of the concept, yet at the top of the feedback they mention what the concept is which is strange to try and pull it up as a improvement so really that wasn't needed. It was clear when it came to the final improvement they were looking for anything to put when it says shoot more when all that was required in the critique was final images which I presented. If the group had wanted to sell all of my other photographs that I had taken during the project to try and find improvements that way they should have asked. They have also said that my images are photographing the banal and boring which is what my images are which yet again is the concept of the images, I feel they were just looking for something to add as they were clearly struggling.

Comparisons in research work and mine

The main difference between the locations of my research artists and my own is that they incorporate the street into their photography. I have been actually taking them out on the streets but haven't incorporated the streets into my images. The only person in my research that my images are quite similar to and that it is clear that I have drawn a lot of inspiration from is William Eggleston. I have tried to incorporate bits from each research artist that I have looked at into my work, but I am not that sure whether much of the work has come from each research artist.

The research artist have used people in practically every shot, except William Eggleston contains a lot of people. The work of the research artists varies between colour and black and white, so because of this two of my final images will be in colour and two will be in black and white. The location in the research doesn't really change much most of the work is set around the same town or city, which is what I have done all of my images have been taken in Burton despite opportunities to go to other locations such as Derby I wanted this to be the same as the research artists.

Almost every research artist has black and white images, but for me some of my best images they didn't look that good in black and white. I tried to mix it up but I don't think it went down to well so that won't be something I will be doing again.

Choosing the final images

When it came to choosing my final images I felt that I had a fair few images that I could choose from. Even before I decided to choose my images, I knew of one that was definitely going to be one my final images.

 When it came to choosing my first image I knew straight away which image I was going to choose, the image of the bike lock in the leaves. This was chosen straight away because this is one of my favourite images that I had taken during this project so I knew instantly that it was going to be chosen, there were a few people who I had spoken to as well who liked it which meant, that without a shadow of a doubt this was going to be used as one of my final images.

 When it came to choosing the second image to use as a final piece I did have a couple in mind, but the one I chose was the more basic street sign this was chosen because it shows the top of the sign with the swan on and the part of the sign indicating where a certain place is, is clearly visible and readable despite being at the angle it has been taken at. This was a clear indicator to me, to choose this one. I also liked how the image didn't just have the white background of the sky but of the trees as well.

The third image I chose was the one of the metal book on the bench covered in rain water. This image was chosen because I liked the effect it gave when covered in the rain, there is one part of it that isn't that readable, but one section of it is readable. I still think that this is a  strong image though had the second part of the book been completely readable it would have been a really strong image as quite possibly one of the best images that I had taken over the project. Had the image not been taken from over the top, it may have come out perfect, but despite this I still like the image which I do believe is a strong image.

The fourth final image I chose was the one of the goggles in the twigs and grass, this was chosen because I felt that the image look quite good as the goggles had just been moved out of shot in a completely different image unrelated to my project, but I felt where it had been accidentally positioned looked really good. I do think it is quite a strong image and easily beat the one of the leaf that I was originally going to choose as a final image.

Location Choice

When it came to the locations, I wanted to go somewhere where I knew there was likely to be a fair few images. This wasn't a specific location, but all over the area, there were plenty of opportunities in every single shoot.

 When I set out on my shoot I didn't have a specific location in mind I just went out to shoot unconventional items. I had a rough idea of the location but not a specific location I kind of wanted to go to places where there is likely to be a fair few unconventional items and really around Burton there are quite a few of these locations.
The location for the first image was chosen as it was normally a quiet area and it was quite unlikely that around this time that there would be anybody sat on this bench and thankfully there wasn't.

The location for this image was chosen because this was almost always going to be there as it is so rusty that it is very unlikely that it is ever going to be removed. Also where it was with the background it gave it something different in the background and doesn't just give you the lock to look at, but it isn't in focus and has used a narrow depth of field to allow it to focus more on the lock then the actual ground and surrounding location.

This location was chosen because I knew I was likely to have a lot of objects that were easily considered unconventional and I could take image of such as this image. This image is simply bird poo on a leaf and I decided to take a photo of this as it is completely unconventional and it was likely to be something that no one would really take a serious photo of, some people may just take a photo of it for a laugh, but not how i've done it. This location did contain a lot of items that were considered unconventional.

This image was also taken in the same location and it showed that even just moving something accidentally can produce some really good unconventional images like this has done. It also shows that it was a really good location to use for unconventional photos, if someone was trying to get photos that wouldn't be considered unconventional then it wouldn't be a location that would really be used for that sort of shoot.