Assignment One – Results.

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I initially began taking photographs whilst in Rome. Inspired by the city, I wanted to utilise my time there and take a few shots for this assignment. However, the concept was still growing and I felt that the story would naturally grow as I became inspired by my surroundings and the photos that I took.

Contact Sheets.

I started with my contact sheets. I felt that the story would grow as I selecting and put into order, the photos I wished to use.

Change of Direction

As I began to select my photos, I considered my idea. I thought about how the same photograph can be manipulated in many different ways to portray a particular viewpoint, using context. I decided therefore, to use this assignment to explore this. I would use the same set of photographs, telling the story of only one person with text, but in two subtly different ways. Language is a powerful thing in the media and with only slight differences, the impact can change dramatically. It can be used to focus and manipulate the viewer in one way or another. To me, this is an important aspect of the media in particular, that should always be considered by the viewer. Reading various articles in the news and focusing on the context, highlights this point well.

My Initial Results

Initially, my idea was to utilise more than one photograph and combine them with the text using photoshop. I had originally considered the idea of laying out the photographs and the text and then photographing that, but I wanted to make use of the time to explore photoshop and improve my skills with it, having only really used Lightroom until now.
However, I wasn’t pleased with the results. I felt the image too busy, even after playing around with the colours, opacity and placement. I therefore, decided to keep it simple, using the same layout for each photograph except the last one, in which I placed the text at the top. This was both, to signify a conclusion to the story and it appeared more pleasing to the eye and less intrusive to the image.

My Final Selection – Set One

My Final Selection – Set Two

I was happy with my outcome, despite struggling with my motivation initially. Part one of the course has helped me to focus more on the context behind the images I create and to consider this each time I pick up my camera. I have to admit that I am not always sure at the time of shooting, exactly which angle I am aiming for and sometimes this grows as it did with this assignment. It may not even be apparent to me until I am looking at my photos on a computer screen, and even then, the context can change depending on my mood. I feel this is an important lesson for me.

Reworked Following Tutorial.

After feedback was provided by my tutor I chose to rework my images. I found that Times is an often used font for newspapers and articles so I went with that and made the date more of a title for the picture. Following on from the feedback regarding the layout, I agreed that it could be improved so I chose to create a frame and keep the text outside of the photograph and instead within a frame to keep it all together, this helped to create the effect of viewing an article. I am much more happy with the aesthetic layout of the series now. I did add a white frame around the photos but this isn’t apparent as you view them here.

Results:

Set 1:

Set 2:

Research

You can find my research for this assignment here.