Tutor report – Assignment 4

Overall Comments

The brief was to produce a series of images - 6 best images and at least another 6

other good ones to allow choice - for a travel publication producing a considered

and thoughtful piece on a place. You have met the brief in that your images that

are publishable and give a feeling of a place that is quiet and prosperous.

I get the feeling that you have set a day for your photography and wandered

around taking shots as they strike you with no preconceived plan and from this

pool of images you will select your submission. This of itself is not a fault, but there

is a feeling of a lack of deliberation about your images. This stems from questions

about some of the technical and compositional decisions you have made.

Your images, while perfectly acceptable, do not project a considered sense of

purpose and invention that would make them stand out from the crowd. As a

result, they are average and a little stereotypical.

You have obviously thought about which images to use but your lack of an

articulated rationale for your choices relating to what you want to communicate

and the preclusion of the possibility of re-shooting scenes to fit a specific aim

contribute to the feeling of a lack of direction. I will elaborate further by posing

questions in my discussion of the individual images.

You need to be considering and articulating what to say about a topic together

with how the imagery serves this purpose, both in your own work, and also looking

at how other photographers’ do this in their work.

Assessment potential

I understand your aim is to go for the Photography Degree and that you plan to submit

your work for assessment at the end of this course. From the work you have shown in

this assignment, providing you commit yourself to the course, I believe you have the

potential to succeed at assessment. In order to meet all the assessment criteria, there

are certain areas you will need to focus on, which I will outline in my feedback.

Feedback on assignment

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of

Creativity

Given that you are producing images for a travel publication you need to be

thinking of an image that would be a candidate for a cover image, one that would

set the scene and tone of the article. There would then be others to illustrate detail

and particular aspects finishing with an image to suit the conclusion. In this way

the images help confer and fit in with structure of the article.

With image one you have a scene which conveys a feeling of peace and tranquility

very well. The reflection of the building in the still water, the sunny day all play their

part in this and make a good image.

On a technical note, But is this the best ‘cover image’? There is little space for a title

which would normally appear at the top of the frame - somewhere in the sky. It

might be better in the middle of the article. A better image that has space at the

top for a title could be one of your alternative images - DSC_0013.

Another consideration would be the orientation of a cover image - these tend to be

portrait rather than landscape. If so which image would you use? It’s these sorts of

considerations that you would do well to address in your accompanying notes.

On a technical note what made you choose an aperture of f22? This has resulted in

the camera setting the shutter speed to 1/45 which runs the risk of introducing

camera shake if you are hand held. An aperture of f11 or even f8 would have been

sufficient to keep everything sharp and allowed a faster shutter speed and ruled

out the possibility of camera shake.

Its this sort of observation coupled with a lack of rationale that contributes to my

feeling that you have let some things ‘happen’ rather than making conscious

decisions.

Image 2

Yes a good image that reinforces the feeling of a happy and prosperous place. I’d

have moved forward a little to avoid the out of focus frond that obscures part of

the swan. I find it distracting.

Your fast shutter speed has frozen the birds in flight and any movements of the

children throwing the bread. Was this a consideration you deliberately made? You

set the camera on aperture mode! If freezing motion and fast shutter speed was a

main consideration you might have chosen shutter priority. Again some evidence

of planning and consideration about your thinking would be good to see in this

respect.

Image 3

You have caught the elderly man well. The sunshine helps to convey a feeling of

well being. Imagine how an overcast dull day would have changed the

atmosphere, how about another time of day - early morning/late evening.The man’s pose together with his isolation both literally (no other persons in view)

and suggestively ( by virtue of your focal length and aperture throwing both

foreground and background out of focus) could convey feelings of isolation and

loneliness and the hat on the bench a feeling of ‘lost’ hat could convey quite a

different message about the place neglect of the elderly? If you don’t want feelings

of neglect, how would you change the scene? These are variables that you need to

be considering as part of your planning.

On a technical note, why choose such a high iso setting? you run the risk of higher

distracting noise. You could lower the iso (and avoid the noise issue) and still

maintain the wide aperture by selecting a slower shutter speed. An iso of 500 and

shutter of 1/500th would have done the trick.

Image 4

I find this a weaker image. It is quite an average image that many people could take

- it’s not particularly remarkable and could be anywhere. Is there any significance

about the timing of the shot? Why cut off the tops of the trees? Is there any

significance about the spectators, the players on the sidelines? Why not make it a

portrait orientation?

By itself it doesn’t convey much about the town. It requires additional information -

supplied by caption? to make the significance felt. You need to be thinking how to

make the image more unique and still tell the story about the advent of the sports

centre.

Image 5

I like this image and you have done well to crop it from the original. The end result

makes a good composition placing the key elements of the image well in the

frame. Your exposure is good and your choice of high shutter speed to freeze the

motion of the cyclist and dog are good.

What do you think it contributes to the story about the town? How might you

change things and for what purpose in relation to the effect this would have on the

story?

Image 6

It’s a nice image and I like the way that you have caught different elements - the girl

snapping Minnie with her phone, the coy stance of Minnie. The adults on the right

of frame are looking out of the frame as is Mickey which is a little disturbing.

Did you have any other frames of this moment? Did you move around to change

the composition of the protagonists, wait for others to come into shot?

1/30 sec is a little slow and risks blurring you might have been better to pick

shutter priority and a faster shutter speed.

A couple of your also ran images are good and might be worth re-considering but

for different reasons:DSC _0072 - the empty park bench is very evocative and could be used to convey

emptiness as you point out but its use would depend on what message you want

to convey about the place.

DSC_0081 Illustrates one of the small bridges across the river that you mention and

as such would be worth considering as a unique feature of the town. The sky is over

exposed and it’s debatable whether this can be saved in post production.

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays

Context

This is still a little limited in setting out your thoughts in relation to your aims for

various shoots, your planning and an analysis of the results.

Think about how your work relates to work you have seen by other photographers

and how work you have seen can provide the foundation for your work

Suggested reading/viewing Context

Have a look at Chris Killip’s work In Flagrante - in this you can see how his work tells

of decline, the consequential waste of experience expertise and its effects on the

people.

Also Hans van der Meer - http://www.hansvandermeer.nl

John Davies - http://www.johndavies.uk.com/

Mitra Tanrizian’s work on Leicestershire - http://mitratabrizian.com/leicestershire.php

http://www.edinburghsouthsiders.co.uk

Pointers for the next assignment

Plan before you shoot, setting out what you want, why and then consider how you

are going to achieve this. I would suggest you give careful consideration to your

editing down the images to the twelve that best conveys what you want.