Environment- Evaluation

I am a lot more pleased with my work this term, than last term. I feel as though I have a clear idea. I have also experimented with both of the techniques i have been taught, colour and black and white film. I have conducted thorough artist research and have taken digital test shots. If i were to improve on one thing it would be my time management. I believe that I could have taken this project further had i managed my time better, however i believe that since my last attempt at this project my time management skills have already increased hugely and I think the further into this course I go, the better and better i will get at managing my time. As i can already see that I have greatly improved. The reason it upsets me that i did not manage my time correctly is because although I have managed to take all my photos and conduct all the necessary research, I have not had enough to print them. This means that my final photos are sloppy and are not to the highest standard that they could be. This upsets me because i have taken so much time and thought into researching and taken the photos but i can not show them off to their full potential. To me this weakens my ideas as a whole. People are no longer looking at the photo but the wonky boarders and the added in frame from the next photo in the negative. My photo of the two homeless men is a classic example of this. The boarders are wonky and it has an added in frame at the bottom which I really wouldn't like to be there. Im disappointed in myself that my poor time management skills have resulted in weakened final prints as I think I had a strong idea that really could have worked.

I have really enjoyed working on this project this term. I think last term i was really distracted with moving into halls, meeting everyone new and making friends and this really lead my work to slip. However this term now that i am settled in, i've been concentrating on work a lot more. Getting out and taking more photos and doing more research has really rekindled my love for photography. Last term i really forgot how much I loved photography and how it gave me a thrill to go out and take photos. I love the whole process from research, to test shots, to developing film, to printing to get to your final image. It is really satisfying looking at a great final image after all the work you've out in to get there. That is why I am so disappointed that my final prints haven't come out the way i'd hoped.

I also haven't had enough time to print all my final shoots, this disappoints me further. However although this is disappointing at least I know where I have gone wrong and i can work on this. It is great to have lots of research but not if it is stopping you from having enough time to print final images. I know my greatest set back is my time management skills, but I know this now and I think the amount of work I have done this term compared to last already shows that I have improved in this area.

Urban Environment- Camera and film choice

I've decided to take my photos on a Bronica camera using black and white Ilford HP5 Plus 400 ISO film.

Urban Environment-

I have realised which direction I would like to go in with my urban environment photography. I've realised that the kind of urban environment photography that I am drawn to is the photographers that have managed to catch a moment in their photos. A moment that if the photographer had waited just a couple more seconds to take the photo they would have missed. I think there is something a little more special in these photos becuase there's the thrill that the photo could have been missed and the satisfaction of managing to capture it. Im interested in the natural atmosphere of the city I am taking pictures in. Linking this back to Bill Brandt's photo 'Off India Docks Road' and how I liked the fact that the police officers reaction was natural and Brandt had managed to capture this.  I talked about earlier how I wanted to portray maidstone in a certain light but no longer want to go down this direction. I don't want to create a fake atmosphere, I want maidstone's natural atmosphere to be caught on camera and portrayed to viewers. My reasearch into street photography also made me realise that I liked the naturalness of the photos and how the people and things in the street happened to be there. Im a real believer in fate and things happening for a reason so this is why I like this type of photography so much because it is fate who and what you end up taking photos of. It's also more fun for me as a photographer cause it's spontanious and surprising. You never really know what photos your going to end up with after a day of street urban photography. So for my final photos im going to take my camera out and look for interesting, out of the blue, natural occuring incidents within Maidstone.

Urban Environment- Andreas Feininger

I've come across the artist Andreas Feininger who is mostly known for his urban environment photography. Feininger had said that the city had attracted him since his earliest days as a photographer. But in time this love grew to include all the aspects of the city and its buildings, its people, its cars and traffic jams, its confusion and even its ugliness. "I see the city as a living organism: dynamic, sometimes violent, and even brutal," he stated. I think the people in the city is something that really interests me as a photographer because those moments you capture of them people are luck or fate. It is being in the right place at the right time to walk past those specific people and capture those specific actions that are taking place.









I think aswell looking at Feininger's work a lot of it is being in the right place at the right time. I think there is something magical about being in the right place at the right time, if you manage to time the moment perfectly you could end up with an image that changes your career. Like this image above, Feininger taking the picture just as the man leans over the egde completes the image. I feel like the man being there makes the photo a lot more invitng and less rigid and cold, as the space at the top of the picture and the hard, rectangular, rigid edges of the balcony's give the photo a cold hard feeling. I need to think about whether I want maidstone to be portrayed as cold or hard or to make the photos more inviting.

Environment- Urban- Favourite shots

I took a lot of digital photos so I thought it would be useful for me to look through them and decide which ones worked best. These are the ones that I liked the best:

I liked this photo because I like the composition. I feel like the photo is easy on the eye and not awkward to  look at. However there is a shine a light reflecting off something which I don't like. I feel like it takes away the naturallness of the photo and reminds the viewer that it's a photo. Even though the viewer knows its a photo they are supposed to get lost and be taken in. To forget that what they are looking at is a photo. I feel like this photo gives off a laid-back, easy going, sunday afternoon in the country kind of feel. Even though this was taken in a city train station car park.

I again like the composition of this photo. I like how the tyre marks make 

Environment, Urban - Brief recap

I've decided to go back to the breif to make sure i actually am on the right track. Sometimes people start projects following the brief and then they get so caught up in their project and go off on a tangent. So I jsut want to go back to the brief and am still keeping in the guidlines.


Also look on photography blog... tasks to help me in this blog.

Environment, Urban - Artist Research

I've chosen to look at ... they have shown the city in this way!

Environment, Urban - City feeling

I still need to work out how I want to portray Maidstone. Im going to look back at my digital photos i've already taken and think about what feelings these photos give out to the viewer. Im also going to look at other artists and see how they have decided to portray the city.

Environment, Urban - Evaluation

I really enjoyed taking the urban photos and I was really pleased that members of the public let me and were willing for me to take photos of them. Some even asking if I wanted a picture and asking how they would like me to pose. You get a lot of looks of people in the street so im glad that this didn't put me off. I've taken a lot of photos so im going to go through and highlight the ones that I think are best and work the best.

Environment- Urban, Digital Photos

These are the photos I went out and took digitally.