Reflections on Interim Review

Since having my work assessed in the interim review, I have come to the decision to change a few things in my work. I appreciated the feedback because it made me realise how to improve my projects.

• I am considering whether or not to reprint my Object image. I think the colours are appropriate for the issue I have explored but my initial desire was for it to look warm. I may reprint and decide which looks better; the warmer image or the colder image for the point I am trying to put across.

• I have also decided to reprint two out of the three environment photographs I displayed to make the colours perfect and evoke the right feelings in people. I want to reshoot the other photograph because it didn't fit in with the series very well and was two different from the others. I want them all to relate well to each other and really work as a series.

• The other adjustment I might make is on my pastiche. Due to low contrast in my exposure it was hard to print without either getting an image slightly flat and bright or an image too dark.

As it stands, I feel like I need to make these changes before I'll be happy to submit them again. This time when I print I will leave enough time to walk away from my images and hopefully be able to decide when I look at them the next time if any further improvements need to be made.

Critical Appraisal: The Rural Environment (300 words)

My environment series on graveyards and cemeteries displays the juxtaposition between the beauty of them and their not so beautiful connotations. My aim is to demonstrate how beautiful these landscapes can be because my personal approach to representing the landscape is to portray it at its best as this is what I strive for in my photography: finding beauty. I want people to feel positive about my photos and understand how I perceive the environment.

During my research I looked through a lot of photographs of my chosen subject which were not befitting. It really made me realise I wanted my own to have warm lighting and colours and focus on the natural environment of these places. I wanted to create my work in a similar way to Simon Ward. The significance of his work is that he is known for creating images of beauty from something not commonly perceived as beautiful and I want to create beautiful landscapes of places often depicted not only in black and white but in an eerie and spooky manner.

I managed my studies conveniently though taking test shots on 35mm film, making contact prints of these and recomposing my favourites on medium format film then processing this for my prints. I also arrived early to print and utilised my time effectively to get them all done in a couple of days.

My final prints are warm in colour, and focus on the positivity of nature in my chosen locations; the graves even taking a step back from the focus in some cases. The challenging part of completing this project was managing time. I overcame this by being prepared with my negatives and being punctual. I wouldn’t change anything other than possibly fine tuning the colouring of my prints but I am very happy with my finished project.


My series: (inaccurate colour through scan)

Environment Project: Shooting and Printing

Last week during my days off I took three rolls worth of photographs on my 35mm film camera. These were test shots in a sense but I planned to use these if worse came to worst and they turned out to be very helpful.


              

A good few of my photos were not exposed correctly on the contact sheet but I could save these when printing individually. However, I looked at the rest I could make out; looking for the best composed and the warm beautiful colours that I could make my prints from to convey the beauty of the scenes.

Then later in the week I went back to the same places, and re-composed my favourite shots out of the 35mm lot. This time I used a 6x9 medium format back on a Wista; 160 ISO medium format film and chose a shallow depth of field for a lot of my chosen shots. I felt that this would be more fitting while showing the beauty of them and create a nice look. However for some I needed to have it all sharp for the scene to be viewed as a whole and really appreciated.

I have chosen to print a series of 3 images. Frames 1, 5 and 6 are the images I have chosen to display as prints for my environment series. However, upon closer inspection I have noticed some faults with the first frame which may have occurred during processing. If I can't print this photograph I will print the second frame instead.

Overall I want my photos to look warm and make people feel good when they see them rather than negative. And rather than find them effective in a haunting way as graveyards and cemeteries are often depicted, find them effectively beautiful and inviting.

Environment Series Research - Simon Ward

Much in the way my idea for my environment series involves portraying the beauty in something usually not associated with that quality, Simon Ward, a fine art contemporary photographer; scans objects taken from graveyards and dead animals to make "aesthetically beautiful and memorable images". I'm not sure whether I personally agree with this comment but I know some people will be able to appreciate the beauty of something in death. I hope through my photographs I can achieve the same.

He also did a project called 'The Guardians' where he collected items from children's graves and scanned them. It is said that "the objects function as an attempt to compensate for the loss by creating something tangible, a receptacle for the placing of memories".

I find Ward's work too controversial for me. I don't agree with the fact he has stolen things from graves where people have lovingly left them in memory just to create scans. I would have much preferred to look at photographs taken of these items in their original environment where no interference has occurred. I wouldn't say his images of his late pet cat are in bad taste but I don't agree with them and I don't feel anything positive while looking at them. I don't particularly think it is a respectful thing to do with a dead animal; especially domesticated.

Simon Ward deals greatly with the theme of death in his work and where the locations of my environmental images holds these connotations too, I do not want to focus on it. I want to show the aesthetic beauty within my locations through capturing them in a way that is overall positive and so that people appreciate the beauty in them rather than what they usually mean.