evaluation on unit one
Throughout this course I have explored different themes that has made a change in the way I take and analyse pictures. I have explored different techniques and and processes. I have researched many photographers that have a certain way of taking pictures and use different equipments, this has shown me more ways that I could take pictures than just using a camera. Also in unit one I have a personal projects page that is filled with many different topics.
A topic I really enjoyed in unit one is in the personal project page, Street Photography. In this topic we started of by watching a short clip called everybody street, involving different photographers, and how they take pictures and what they take pictures of. We then explored the ways of seeing, taking pictures of things that are going on naturally like people moving around, daily actions. I had to annotate a picture made by Garry Winogrand called the Sunset Boulevard made in 1969. Throughout the whole of unit one we had to do a few annotations which made me a lot better at describing pictures. We learned about slow flash synchro, which is a setting on a camera. We experimented with slow flash synchro by fist annotating a picture then taking are own pictures. towards the end of the street course we learned about the rule of thirds that is a three by three grid, already on the camera to help you compose your shot, using the lines to guide you.
Another theme I liked is Abstraction. In this topic I had to take pictures of things that you wouldn't know what they are. I first started out taking pictures of things like graffiti, patterned fences, shadows with patterns, anything kind of messy or lots of, like chairs lined up in a row. Then I started out making photograms with random objects I found around in my house. The reason it was random objects and not anything specific is because the end result was meant to come out as a photogram that you don't know what objects you used. Also a photogram is quite abstract already as its not something realistic, its not an actual photo or the actual object. Then with the photogram I decided to make them more abstract by cutting them all up and reforming them in the wrong order. The photograms were used as some of my final pieces after I added the cut up photograms into photoshop and played around with the duotone setting, which changed the colour of the photogram. Later on in the course we learnt about Saul Leiter, another famous photographer who took abstract pictures. Most of he's pictures are taken through glass windows, which doesn't make the background of he photo clear and also captures the reflections in the glass.I then took my own pictures like him, this showed me that I don't have to take clear images for them to be good, the blurriness and reflections in the pictures I made looks better then some of my pictures that are take with a focused setting. During the abstraction course, we learnt about many other photographers including; Jaromir Funke, Harry Callahan, Ralph Eugene, Wolfgang Tillmans and Alan Babbit. Then for my final piece, I took pictures that I edited in photoshop by changing the colours and printing them out on a big card.
The topic I liked the best is Natural world, which is my end of year 10 project choice. I really enjoyed this topic as I got to explore different photographers in the natural world topic. I first started of taking pictures of leafs, water, fruit etc. Then after studying more natural world photographers, I started creating an idea that I would use as my final piece. The idea was that I would take pictures of manmade things, then collect leafs and grass to make a photogram with them, after that I scanned the photogram on to the computer, put it into photoshop and mix the photograms with the pictures of walls, rooftops and other manmade things. To come up with this final piece, I just looked at my natural world page and then thought I could do something in photoshop with the photos. Also I played around with the colour and made it bright and colourful. My final piece idea really worked for me as I have fun playing around with photoshop.
Overall in unit 1, I have enjoyed exploring about different topics and it also has shown me what type of photography I enjoy most. I have researched many photographers, not just to know about their photos but information about themselves which can sometimes make the picture they took have more of a meaning.