Overall Project Evaluation

Overall, I have found this project interesting and fun, as the topic of “Contrasts” allowed me to explore a range of different ideas, as the topic did not confine me to looking at only certain things, as almost everything has a contrasting idea or a way to show it in relation to contrast. There have not been any times where I was stuck on ideas on what to shoot, but sometimes it was more difficult to show the idea. For example, the shoot I done with a heart took more planning than other shoots and was more difficult as I had to find a model who would not be put off by the use of a heart. As the project went on, a theme started developing in a way as my ideas all related to horror and gore, including my exam shoot. This was because it is easy to show contrasts within this, and they are quite obvious, such as life and death. I also chose to do focus the majority my work on the idea of horror, as it is a topic I find most fun to explore

and create as I get to experiment more with different lighting, makeup effects and editing. Although I find this more fun, it is not something that I can decide to do last minute or with minimal planning as it takes a lot of preparation, such as for my exam shoot the makeup took me almost 2 hours. Other than the idea of horror, something else I have enjoyed looking at is portraits, and is what I am most interested in shooting. I have done various different portrait shoots showing contrasts such as age, both obvious and mental/physical age. The majority of these I used the studio for as they help give a more professional look and I got to experiment with different lighting. This included the ring flash and up – lighting, both of which I had not used previous to this unit and I really like how both add to the style of the shoot, such as the up – lighting creates a more eerie effect, and the ring flash goes well with portrait shoots, removing the shadow.

I feel that in this unit I have also developed my editing skills a lot, as I now know more techniques and have better knowledge on how to accurately use the various tools on Photoshop together to get the best out of them. As well as knowing more about editing, I know more about what editing goes better with what photographs. The main area I feel I have improved on with editing is makeup editing, recolouring and smoothing skin, as the majority of my work is portraits and work that needs smoothing out, for example the edge of the zipper on my exam shoot.

Out of all of my shoots, I think my favourite shoot was the either the black and white portrait one or the zipper shoot. This is because I think these had some of the best results and especially with the zipper shoot I had a lot of freedom with editing giving me space to experiment.