End Project Evaluation

When I began unit 4, I had just finished a project which contrasted completely with the subject that I was about to undertake. I had previously been dependent on Photoshop and had developed my skills throughout the unit 3 project, however I wanted to have an opportunity to explore different examples of photography by choosing a subject unlike hyperreality. For this I made mind maps for three subjects which I debated choosing. Out of the three, I looked into people and possessions, water, and finally journey. All three of these differentiated from my previous project of hyperreality, however I saw more potential within the journey subject to explore it on both a literal and metaphorical level. To start off my shoots, I had an idea which I had actually wanted to use since the start of the year, however due to the constraints of my previous projects I hadn't been able to use it. I managed to link my first shoot to my subject by showing a journey through time as well as location by communicating a story, by holding an old photograph within the image. I was unable to achieve the images that I wanted practically, so I had used my Photoshop skills that I had developed throughout the year in order to create a convincing result. I wanted to address some issues that I had within my last unit. I wanted to support my work with a wide range of support information by studying photographers and linking my work to theirs as well as taking influence. I believe that I managed to consistently do this throughout the year of a better standard than my last unit.

As I progressed through my project, I wanted to keep my ideas within the subject new and interesting, never dwelling on the same meaning of an image for longer than was needed. This was something that I thought could have been better within the start of my unit 3 project. I wanted to pay attention to the progression of my shoots and think about ways that I could develop my work in a way that causes the images to work well as a series of shoots instead of appearing mixed in meaning. I believe that it would make my project appear stronger as a whole and communicate elements of journey better to the audience. I began to utilise a form of travel photography within my work which I had not had the opportunity to use where I would remove the need of Photoshop and focus on aspects of whatever location I was photographing and highlight what made each location unique. I developed each one by looking at different photographers such as Ansel Adams, William Eggleston and Robert Frank in order to influence each shoot to make each one appear visually unique. I also took inspiration from my last unit in the form of a Print Technique which in my unit 3 shoot held little purpose, however I saw how I could apply image and text in a way that would compliment the subject of journey greatly while creating a series of images which complimented each other to highlight a different location independently.

For my final two shoots, I wanted to create shoots that differentiated from anything which I had attempted before within photography. I wanted to do this in order to round off the project memorably and to contrast the previous three shoots of travel photography which I had developed. For this I decided to experiment with technology in a way that I have never attempted. I used a drone for one shoot, allowing me to capture journey on a grand scale, revealing aspects of the environment that have remained previously out of reach from me. I created images that worked as a series in order to highlight how different locations are unique from each other. For my final shoot I experimented with a program which I have never used. I used Final Cut Pro in order to create my time-lapse. The result created some of the most visually unique pieces of photography that I have ever produced.

Overall, I feel that I have addressed the issues that I had with my previous subject and have looked to create work which shows this. I have attempted to present my work as one cohesive project which does not unevenly work together but does show some experimentation. I have used the subject of journey as a platform to explore physical journey, emotional journey, and implied journey with reference to influential photographers who helped boost the quality of my work by motivating the direction I took. I feel that it has been a very successful project and I have managed to create diverse and interesting work which services the subject well while working well with my previous unit, by experimenting with unknown forms of photography and trying to push the quality of my work to the next level.