Progress evaluation 

1/2/2024 

When I first got the Exam paper I was going between two themes either, issues and concerns or unseen. For a good two weeks I was set on expanding the issues and concerns theme, possibly going down the path of poverty and crime. Demonstrated in the second mind map above I began to narrow down each topic within the theme and started to look at what each of the six artists could illustrate. it became near impossible for me to try photograph what my ideas were and for them to all tie in as one, every little idea I went down I lost sence of the actual issues and concerns question. Finally I transitioned my thoughts and ideas over to unseen as the overall topic, shown in the first mind map I began to find artists that could be of some interest within the topic, additionally  I wrote down possible pathways I could go down. Some of the ideas where , demonstrating unseen through portraiture, symbolising the personal unseen aspects of humanity and life experiences, also the unseen interactions that take place between individuals. Now feeling as though I had a slight sense of control over the project, I placed all of these artists onto my web page and selected Levi Wedel and Carl Wooley to capture first.

18/3/2024

By this point in my project I am just over a month in, in relation to the last progress evaluation, I did take Levi Wedel and Carl Wooley pictures. I am starting to get slightly worried these have been a waste of time, as I spent around two weeks shooting these and editing them, going back and forth to Stockport but I wasn’t happy with the way they looked in the overall aesthetic of the project, basically not hitting the points I was imagining. While these two artists have been my main focus, in the background I have also been taking a deeper look into a collage artist Mackenzie Reynolds. I have sourced a whole load of images from family members, these images tell such a great story and have so much meaning and depth behind them, so not including them in my project just felt stupid. Throughout the end of Feb and start of March, i began editing these images on photoshop and creating some collage pieces, reading all the hand written letters/notes, then placing them behind the voided space I had removed from the image. Throughout this process I took a hard look at the project I was creating and came to a realisation, the artists I had captured prior, didn’t work well with Mackenzie’s work, so I decided to take a different approach when demonstrating the theme of unseen. Swiftly guiding me towards another artist, Nick Francher, I loved the use of materials and subjects in Nicks work, something I haven’t touched upon in a long time within my photography. Again, around the end of February I conducted a photoshoot, this photoshoot was just going to be an experimental one as I didn’t fully know if it was something I wanted to include. Spending the whole day shooting for Nick, I decided 100% these were going to be a part of my final outcome, I finally made a  concluding aim for my component 2. This aim was for it to be a story of somewhat hidden narratives and obscured identities. 

1/4/2024

Over the past few weeks I have really tried to push myself into conducting at least 2/3 photoshoot a week, which has been successful, subsequently putting me in a position right now where I am up to date. Following up on the last progress evaluation, I had finished taking the images for Nick and was brainstorming other potential artists to include. Keeping this theme of obscured portraiture flowing I selected another two artist, Luis Antonio Santos and Lucas Simoes, each of these artists have an individualistic approach when obscuring the subjects. Luis’s use of long exposure contrasting with the subject being engulfed in mundane low-lit surroundings, really intrigued me. Initially the thought of introducing a new skill, like long exposure, selective use of lighting and surroundings while shooting at home felt slightly nerve racking. I say selective use of lighting and surroundings as I had barley done any studio work at home and didn’t have backdrops nor any fancy lights, but after attempting with a stretched bed sheet I figured out wallpaper or an unpainted wall would work best. Eventually, I found a small area of wall up in the loft of my house that was getting work done to it, I taped the curtains to try reducing any light seeping into my shot and set up my tripod. This shoot went over 3 days using different subjects and light sources and eventually I was happy with the outcome.

At this point in my project, I had conducted two portraiture photoshoots, although I still had to take pictures for Lucas simoes, I wanted to introduce this sense of hidden narratives, through items and random objects that would leave the viewer questioning the images meaning. Sophie Calle was perfect in demonstrating exactly what I wanted. Around the end of march I went to the vintage Emporium in Stockport, where they lay out multiple different sections of the space into settings, like bedrooms, wardrobes and play rooms, here I was able to capture small random scenes/objects that I wouldn’t have found elsewhere. When it came to lighting, it was very dimly lit, Sophie Calles work on the other hand exaggerates either natural lights seeping in from windows or flash. I decided to incorporate this use of flash, having this as an element emphasising the sharp contrast between light and dark , gave my images that unsettling feel symbolic of crime scene photography, something portrayed heavily in Sophie's work.

14/4/2024

Transitioning into the last few weeks of the exam period, I again wanted to include this diverse range of artists while still having them all unite as one in some way. Lee Freelander was an artist who I felt included both, obscured identities and hidden narratives, the reflections of structures/buildings cancelling out some of the mannequins body parts, correlated with this double exposure feel to the images, and really emphasized the theme of unseen. ‘I originally wanted all of these images to be on film, so I conducted a shoot in Liverpool on my film camera that was loaded by a women who served me. Spending the whole day in Liverpool (it was such a sunny perfect day) I took all my pictures, after bringing it back to the shop they told me they hadn’t rolled it correctly and gave me another role film, witch at the time was useless. This set me back slightly and got me quite nervous that I wouldn’t finish in time. I decided to roll up the next film myself and waited a week until my next shoot, as my family were all going to London for the day and I saw this as a great opportunity. In London I captured all the digital ones on my page and also most of the film shots, the weather wasn’t the best but I was overall contempt with how they came out after. Additionally, having an extra 5 shots left on my film roll I went round market street then got the negatives developed at advanced photo.’ (taken from my contact sheet page). Finally, surrounding the initial week of April I began taking pictures for Lucas Simoes, my vision for this artists was to create a series of carefully selected yet random images, that look as though they were taken over a prolonged period of time. I conducted my first ‘shoot in the photography hall and used both a black and a white backdrop with different subjects adding to the variety of my captures differentiating them from one another. When editing these in camera raw I thought I had possibly done to much in just the studio, additionally I regretted using the white backdrop so much and wish I utilised the darker one when capturing the two male models. Nevertheless, after assembling the page I was very happy with the way it was presented, and the white contrasted well with the darker images.’ (taken from contact sheet page). The second and third shoot I conducted was at home and fletcher moss park, I wanted to include a younger set of subjects, so I captured my younger sister and my friends two younger siblings. In fletcher moss I took images in a series of different locations around a church, in a graveyard and amongst greenery, I took these as straight forward portraits as I really wanted to focussing  and emphasize the features on the girls, like their eyes, lips and hair. For the final stage in this process, again to add to the contrasting image collection I decided to use some old family pictures of my cousins, siblings and parents. ‘I didn’t want to focus on only using these as I wanted to test my ability to try and create images that could gel together and look as though I had either taken them over a prolonged period of time, or even collected them from other people like Lucas did.’ ’ The final stage in this was the editorial process, it was something I really enjoyed doing, I did my usual editing on camera raw, after a slight bit of trail and error on different paper I decided to print these of at Tesco, doing this it allowed me to burn the paper carefully to create that pop of colour incorporated in Lucas’s work. Following this I scanned the images in and further edited them (shown in the editorial process) resulting in final outcomes I was very happy with.

FINAL EVALUATION  

Overall the progress I have made from the start of this component to now is huge, to begin with, I was nervous about getting something wrong or not meeting the standards of people around me in class, even more so I was thinking way to deeply into the theme and what was wrong and right to include. Gradually progressing through each week, I have come to an understanding of when to trust myself in making decisions, and slowly I have allowed myself to create work from a perspective I perceive instead of thinking of another’s perspective. Besides the personal growth when relating to my creativity, through the course of component two I have taken a whole different approach to photography, one I haven’t hugely touched upon before, the use of portraiture and staged settings. This has enabled me to introduce artists like Luis Antonio Santos, who expanded my knowledge and skills when doing long exposure, also Lee Freelander, where I gained a better understanding of film work and how exposures can differ from each setting and situation. Not only this, but when including a collage artists like Mackenzie Reynolds, spending days flicking through hundreds of pictures I became so mesmerised surrounding the evolution of the camera, I felt as though I got a real insight into how much it had changed through time, the way it shot, the colour, the contrast and the quality. Nick Francher, was the one artists who showed me that less is more when editing, I spend days editing these images, I couldn’t figure out how to transition a white studio lit portrait image, to a green tinted studio lit image (although it sounds straight forward the outcomes were never the way I wanted). Finally, after a lot of tweaking I gathered a method that worked for me and my images, I even included two of the images in my final pieces when to begin with they were some of the worst.  To conclude this component, and relate back to my statement of intent. I have hit all my aims and objectives, each part of my project is an individual response to unseen, yet they all work as one. It’s a story of obscured identities and hidden narratives, I have carefully selected artists and replicated their work enabling viewers to take a deeper look at these images, in a sense creating there own perception of what they see and what they want to perceive as unseen.