You must plan, set up and carryout 8 photoshoots.

Eight shoots is a lot of work- you'll be given tight key dates for completion of each shoot on a weekly or fortnightly basis. Shoots should be routinely submitted on Google Classroom.

What is meant by a photoshoot?

By now you should have a title for your project and a clear brief. Each of your eight photoshoots should be a new way of expressing your theme. All 8 shoots should work together to fulfil your brief.

Let's take the project, Life in Music as an example.

Project Title: Life in Music

Project Brief: Telling the Story of a Concert Pianist

The eight shoots for this project may involve a range of different genres. From portraits to figures to still lives of musical instruments. 

Example shoots could include be:

Shoot 1: The Concert Hall

(Exterior architectural shoot of a concert venue + natural daylight) 

Shoot 2: Getting Ready for the Concert 

(Figure shoot with props + studio lighting)

Shoot 3: My Instruments

(Still life shoot with instruments and other props + studio lighting)

You should note that shoot ideas will vary dependant on your project brief.

For each shoot you must take 40 photographs showing compositional variety.

It's important that the photos in your shoot don't look overly repetitive- you'll access marks for compositional variety. There's more on that below. 

After taking each shoot, you must complete a shoot write up using the Google Slides template.

Each photoshoot is accompanied by a template found as an assignment on Google Class. The write up asks you to select your best 24 images, know as contacts, narrow these selections in two further shortlists, provide justifications and evaluations of your choices and edit potential final images in Photoshop. This is known as the Photoshoot Process:

Plan Shoot > Carryout Shoot (40+ images) > Contacts (24) > Shortlist (4) > Edits (2)

You must store your photos securely using both cloud storage (Google Drive) and local storage in the form of a USB hard drive.

Its important to have a USB storage device with enough memory to store all your photos. You must keep secure copies of your originals and edits. 

You should use a DSLR camera, but you may use your phone for two or three shoots.

Most of your shoots should be done with the school's or your own DSLR camera, but you can use your phone (provided the camera is of sufficient quality) for up to three shoots.

To write up your shoot, you must access the template on Google Class and follow the seps below:

• Narrow your photographs down to the best 24. These are called 'contacts' - and insert12 per page on the template.

• Use the RED, AMBER, GREEN system to identify a shortlist of 4 images. These should be your top four in terms of technical quality and creativity and they must also communicate your theme effectively.

• Insert your shortlisted images into the template and add the technical data- aperture, ISO etc.

• Narrow your shortlist again to identify your top two- use the RED, GREEN system.

• Take your top 2 images into Photoshop and follow the Editing Checklist, also known as Post Production. Do not over work your images. You can find the Editing Process here.

• Complete the Post Production and Shoot Review sections of the template .