Reflection:
Technical Skills –
For this assignment, I used auto-mode due to some camera difficulties, I think some cleaning is necessary as the focus was having some issues, and the camera was overheating a bit due to the weather. Luckily the focus seemed to work in the end for the photos and I am quite happy with it. As these were street photos on a busy day in a major city in Kent, I had to work quick and for me auto was the best option, although I would have preferred not to use it so I had more control. The editing definitely helped me with my photos, as making sure the ‘beautiful’ photos were bright and vibrant was essential to helping me convey the view of it being the beautiful side of Canterbury, and due to being able to have black and white photos done in editing (once again, to save time) with a higher amount of clarity using Lightroom CC, I think I was able to give the ‘ugly’ photos more drama, helping emphasise the details in the cracks and graffiti and things along those lines that we associate with more run down areas.
Quality –
In technical terms, all the photos were taken using a 24 megapixel camera taken in RAW, so they’re high quality (reduced to 1,500 pixels at the longest side as usual with OCA). I think the photos are quite sharp, the colours are nice and vibrant for my ‘beautiful’ images and the photos have come out how I pictured them to be in my head. I do think I needed to have a bit more time to create some even better photos, and I need to up my confidence levels with street photography.
Creativity-
As this assignment is so open, you really do need to be creative and think about what this assignment could mean. I liked my idea of capturing the beautiful and ugly of one city, as it is telling a story of Canterburys beauty, but also its ugly, run down side filled with graffiti and construction which isn’t pleasing to look at when you’re in ‘The Garden of England’.
Context-
I find this difficult to comment on. I think it works well with the assignment brief so I would say these photos are relevant to the context of the brief. In terms of connecting it to the part as a whole, I think it works well. As the whole part is about documentary photography, and by capturing both sides of Canterbury, I’m doing some kind of documentary photograph, I’m not lying and stating that Canterbury is only beautiful or only ugly, I’m showing a mixture of the two.
What went well –
Going through what went well is something that has stuck with me since early secondary school. Overall, the photos came out how I imagined them, the editing was done nicely and I enjoy the contrast between the two types of photos.
What could be improved –
I think if I redid this, I’d want to be able to take my time to compose images, on a busy day it’s difficult without getting in other peoples way, and I wish I had been able to find more ‘ugly’ things to contrast with the beauty. There were also some other areas I would have liked to photograph but due to technical issues I could not.
Laura's Learning Log 2 