My work has been influenced by my research in many ways. One main photographer that has inspired my work is Alec Soth. His documentary work has influenced my style of photography as it has made me want to create more documentary style projects. I like how he tries to include people as much as possible in his photographs as this shows how everyone leads a unique life. I also liked the documentary work of Stephen Shore as he takes an ordinary street with no unique or outstanding qualities but creates eye-catching images with the way that the picture is shot. These two photographers are major influences in the work that I created in my London documentary series as I hoped to document the culture and life in Camden Town. I also liked the work of Ansel Adams as I like how he used tones in his images to create great contrast in the darker and lighter areas. I took inspiration from this in my own landscape photographs and tried to mimic his editing style. Before each project I carried out, I created an image bank relating to the subject to draw inspiration from during my shoots. When making these, I found myself being drawn towards images with vibrant colours as opposed to black and white or desaturated images. I liked how happy and bold the images looked and so incorporated this into my work as often as I could.
I have learnt many new technical skills throughout this unit. Before, my technical skills were very basic in Photography - I knew how to use shutter speed and how to change the ISO in order to get the right amount of light in an image. Now, I feel much more confident in using the settings on my camera and feel that I am creating better images as a result. I have learnt a lot about how to set up and use a studio. Before, I had only shot in a studio a couple of times and it had already been set up so I had no prior knowledge of how to do this. Throughout this unit, I have learnt how to set up softbox and redhead lights in order to create both an evenly distributed and targeted light source in my images. I also learnt how to use reflectors along with the lights to control the direction of the light beams. This has helped me create different moods and atmospheres in my images. Along with the lights, I learned how to use tools such as a light meter to ensure that the settings on my camera are correct and that I have the best outcome in my images.
The way that I take my images had changed considerably since starting this unit. Throughout unit 1, I have been making developments and improvements with the composition of my images. By focusing more on what was actually in my image and the angle I was taking the image at, I have been able to create better images. This is due to me being more considerate and taking more time when it comes to actually taking an image, rather than just quickly taking a picture of the subject. As I have focussed more on the angle I take an image at, it has resulted in images that are more appealing to the eye. I have also been more focussed on using shallow or wide depth of field. Before unit 1, this was not an element within shoots that I focussed on and made sure I included. Now, I realise how vital it is to use depth of field to get a good image and is the first thing I think of when I go to take a picture.
As a part of this unit, I have experimented with computer and print techniques.This allowed me to be more free with the techniques and effects I created in Photoshop as they were not typically effects I would use in an ordinary photo series. This also helped me gain more skills in terms of Photoshop and will help me in the future if I ever do wish to use these techniques as part of a project. I have also used physical experiments to demonstrate my ability to experiment. Again, this is not something that I have needed to do with any of my photo series, but will be helpful in future if I ever need to as I now have knowledge on how to do this. This also allowed me to be more creative and add whatever I wanted to my images.
My work is developing more in the direction of documentary. When I first started with unit 1, I was expecting to be more drawn towards portraiture or nature/landscape photography as this is what I had enjoyed doing previously and this is what I would look for in photographs. Now, I have found that I enjoy documentary photography more as it creates such unique images. I found a lot of inspiration from Henri Cartier-Bresson with this as he talks about the 'decisive moment', which I agree is one of the best parts of photo documentary - any image captured could never be recaptured identically.
The area in which I feel I was most successful in this unit was within the editing of my images. I feel as though my image editing has improved significantly as I am now able to use tools that I couldn't before (for example, levels and burn/dodge). I feel as though my image editing has helped me create better and more aesthetically pleasing images and so helped me improve within photography as a whole. I also feel that I was successful in capturing images that represent all of the formal elements - for example, colour - and so I was able to follow any task that was given to me successfully.
One area in which I feel I was not as successful was in evaluating images - both in my image banks and my own. Whilst I could explain why I liked an image and could find different elements within an image, I feel that I struggled when it came to finding connotations and implications in images. Whilst I have found this less of a struggle towards the end of the unit, I still find this quite difficult to do and feel as though my evaluations are quite weak because of this.
