Evaluation

Visual Language The composition of my images were done so that they filled the frame of the image using the models face and the most of my images were taken so they were straight on to give that direct eye contact between the viewer and the camera lens. This was just to make the images look fuller and then have the focus on just the model without any distractions within the images. One of the images was taken on an angle so the model was facing away from the camera. This was so that the image provided a sense of mystery as she is looking away and this also brought out her facial features in the models face. I got the model to look up to the camera and this would then make her eyes look bigger and keep the focus on her eyes which is the main part of her facial features and this is what I wanted to stand out, especially on the images which were sharp. So I pointed the camera so it faced down on her face so she was looking up at the camera and this achieved what I wanted. My overall theme and representation throughout my images were all to do with mystery and to do with beauty and all my images had a hidden depth to them and were all about what is the realism behind the beauty. Thats why for most of my images have been toned down and are quite saturated so there was quite a dark mood through all my images. I even turned some into monochrome so that they were quite dark and mysterious and having less colour in my images helped add to that. I also thought they didnt look as harsh and it was quite soft. I used double exposure on a couple of my images. This physically shows what is behind the beauty. On one of the images I used an image of some writing that said a curse and was quite spooky writing. I then chose an image that had quite a sinister look to it and so I decided to choose the image where the model has her finger to her lips and it was really out of focus. I then on Photoshop made the writing go over her skin. This links really well with the image because having her finger to her lips displays quite a secretive look and this links with the image nicely. I used the same image but the one that was in focus and put quite an art filter over the top to highlight the shadows. I thought that I would also darken the shadows more to make them really dark so that even though there is a range of colours, it also has its dark side. I think that having one side of her face full of shadows splits the image in half seeing the beauty side and then the other side seeing the dark side to her. Also with the pose she is pulling symbolises the secretive side to her. The lines from her finger are pointing up towards her face that leads you into the image rather than leads you out and as she is smirking, half of her mouth is facing down and the other half is facing up which represents the different characters behind this person. Another image uses double exposure too. I used an image I took of flowers to put over an image of the model that is slightly out of focus with one hand over the models eye. I thought that this was a really interesting image. I thought that having the hand over the eye showed a hidden side and having the flowers over the top displayed beauty. I think that the colours arent too bright and they are really soft like the image and having both images out of focus makes the image quite soft and it doesnt make the image clear so this has a layer that the viewer needs to get past just like a hidden depth. The flower that is right in the middle and the nail varnish that is pointing inwards towards her face leads you to the

eye thats open. The flowers are facing an opposite direction compared to the hand and this symbolises the opposites (beauty and mystery). My fourth image of the mouth and lips is quite a bright image compared to the rest. I thought I would try out a cross-process effect and this one was a successful one. I think that the lipstick is leading you into the image and the image is really sharp unlike my other images. It also has a vintage tone to it as it has quite warm colours to it and this is similar to the rest of my images. I like the fact that the mouth is the main focal point and having a shallow depth of field on this image helps that out. The image represents beauty by having something that a woman would use to look beautiful and it shows the fakeness and also makes the viewer ask what is behind the beauty? And why isnt she showing her natural side? Image 5 is an image where she isnt looking directly at the camera and this symbolises the scared and fragile side of her that she cant look at the camera and I think that this image works better in monochrome so the less detail in this image the better. I also think that having this image super sharp gives it an impact and points out all her facial features. The scarf hides some of her face that shows that she could be scared and trying to hide something. I also think that having her lips darker than the rest of the image draws the viewers attention to the lips and it adds to the mysterious theme with them being so dark and mysterious. My 6th image is really powerful. I brightened up her eye so that it really sparkled and was the main focus of the image. Its quite a cheeky smile that the model has on and her and having the hair covering half of her face has that dark and sinister half and the natural happy side and again theres a split down the middle. As the models hair is quite wavy it acts like a frame for this image and having it fully sharp keeps the details in the image. I also think that the dark black around the edge and the red lipstick adds colour to the image as its quite pale and the dark colours compliment this. Image 7 is quite a heavy image and has an obvious filter on it. I think this image represents the mystery the best. The scarf over the models face really hides her and makes you wonder what her facial expression is behind the scarf and she is acting like there is a barrier in front of her and to find her true self the barrier needs breaking and this is what the scarf represents. The diagonal lines make the image less simple and I think this filter works as only her main facial features stand out and it is still obvious what is in the image. It also picks out the shading and makes it darker. It also has an elegant look to the image and the way she is holding the scarf looks quite delicate which could describe her personality. The dark shading around the edge keeps the viewers eyes straight to the main focus and the darkness in the image highlights the lines in the image. My final image is slightly different to my other images and is of flowers. I like in this image how they go from really dark pinks up to really light pinks as you get to the top. The image is overall quite dark and there is quite a lot of flowers at the bottom this then leads you up to the flowers at the top and even though its out of focus it is still recognisable and I think that the light in the background with the branches covering it looks quite dark and mysterious. I think the image has quite a dark tone to it even though the flowers are a bright colour and the mood it sets fits in with my other images.

Audience The audience for my chosen genre is mainly aimed at females rather than males because its a genre that requires quite an artistic eye and this is something females are good at capturing unlike males who arent as artistic in a different way. It will be aimed at a more middle class as it links well with the genre Fashion and this is something that is aimed at a more upper class and this is where Fine Art would lie. I dont think a lower class would be as bothered to look and connect with Fine Art as much as an upper class. The age for my genre would be around young adults to middle aged women because younger people would find it hard to understand what the message is in the images and what the photographer is putting across. I also think this is why it would link more to middle aged women and some young people who get inspired by Fine Art. These are the kind of people who would go to an art gallery to look at the work and enjoy looking at the image. Fine Art can be seen in art galleries and can be seen in magazines. For example ND magazine is a Fine Art magazine that displays different Fine Art work and artists that specialise in Fine Art. Its quite a simple but complex magazine and from the language used, its mainly aimed at a middle class audience that is well educated to understand their complex terminology and language. Historical and cultural context I was inspired by one main image that was taken by Saul Leiter. He is quite an older Fine Art photographer and his mysterious and dark side to the image helped inspire me on how I wanted my images to be taken. I think that the way his images werent sharp and the out of focus feel to the image really made the image look soft and mysterious. The monochrome looks a lot better than if the image was in colour because it makes the pale girl stand out from the black background. I like how the image is quite grainy and fuzzy and doesnt have the best of quality to it. I think it really shows that even the not so best quality images looks just as good and this shows exactly what Fine Art is about. I think the image has a lot of hidden depth and has a main story behind it as to why the girl is like that and why she looks so down and upset. This is what inspired me to make my images grainy, out of focus and loss of colour. It inspired me to make my images look their best without using much post production and without having a high quality look. For this one of my most successful images, its grainy just like Leiters and its out of focus and shows a hidden story behind the girl as she is covering up parts of her face just like the model in Leiters image. I did tone down the image so the colours werent as bright but didnt turn it into monochrome because of the bright colours in the image. I used double exposure for this image as well so that my image was different and expresses Fine Art. For Saul Leiters images, he didnt have the advantage of using Photoshop to create the mysterious look and to

create double exposure images like he did. But for my images I was able to use Photoshop to help set out the mood of my images and edit some parts of them that could add that extra bit of mystery. I also liked Edith Maybin and her portraiture work. I think that her portraiture work and how she represented women by using a series worked really well. I liked her style of photography and the vintage look to her images and thats what I tried to look at when taking my images. I didnt as much create a series like Maybin did but I liked her style of photography and tried to make my portrait images look quite vintage. These are both quite older photographers and this is why I like their work because its quite old and basic and doesnt need much doing to them to create really amazing images. She has really sharp images so I took some of my images so they were sharp and gave the camera direct eye contact like some of hers and this is how my images compared to Maybins images. Intentions and fitness for purpose For some parts of my final pieces I achieved what I was planning on. I achieved all my portrait photos that I wanted and I focused on specific facial features and capturing the beauty of an individual. I didnt take any Still Life photographs like I was planning to and this was due to time and I also didnt take many flower photographs and this was because of the weather and no flowers were really blossoming but I did manage to get a couple which I was pleased with because they were quite bright colours and looked alive and this brightened up the images. I think that I achieved the arty effect of my images and made them look different. I used different techniques and mainly had my camera on manual mode so I could control how out of focus my images looked and this is what I wanted in my images so I could make it look different as they arent sharp and it also makes the images hard to see what is in them and this is when people start to use their own ideas and relate them to the image and have their own interpretation and this is what I wanted to achieve. I also got some really sharp images and this is when I changed to auto mode and this then sharpened up some of the portrait images. I deliberately took them in a place where their was a reasonable amount of light so I got the right amount of lighting on the face without it being too over or under exposed. Fine Art images are mainly artistic images and are a creative version to photography. It is quite unique and has there own twist to images to create a different outlook. For example they sometimes leave their shutter speed on for a longer amount of time to create a movement blur to their images, they sometimes make some of their images over exposed and under exposed. Some images are put through a lot of post production to make them really artistic by using different filters. They also make some of their images out of focus to make them quite soft. I think that my images fit into this category quite well as they tick all the boxes for being Fine Art images with the different techniques I used. Final Images As I chose Fine Art, I wanted some of my images to be sharp and in focus but on the other hand I wanted some of my images to be really out of focus. I thought that having some images slightly out of focus would still make the subject obvious but it would also be quite soft and fit in with the theme of being

mysterious if I took the images that way. I got all the focus right on my images and got them how I wanted. Some of my images turned out crystal sharp and others came out really out of focus and I wanted a wide range of this because then I could have some really sharp portrait shots and then some out of focus Fine Art work that had an artistic effect to them. I deliberately chose a part of the house to take my portrait images and I chose a room that had the best amount of artificial lighting. I didnt use much natural light because I wanted the right amount of lighting to bring out the shadows and compliment the skin without being too harsh on it. This also controlled the exposure of my images and didnt make my images either under exposed or over exposed and that was the difficulty of getting the right images. The lighting was a good choice and helped my monochrome images as it brought out the shadows in them and as their wasnt much natural light I needed something that was bright so they didnt become under exposed and this well lit the images. On some of the images I used the flash that is built in with the camera so that it made certain features stand out and really darken the shadows that were there, as this would also add to the mysterious and dark theme to my images. I didnt really have a shallow depth of field as I didnt have much of a background and got the portrait to fill the frame. This was because there would have been no distraction and the face was the main focus of my images and with some of my images being out of focus to start off with it wouldnt have needed to be used. I think that I controlled the post production well and I didnt go over the top in my post production. I wanted to just bring out the highlights and shadows in some of my photos and change the toning too. I tried not to manipulate the images too much. I think that my images have a hidden depth to them and leave the audience looking at my images with questions and this is what I wanted for my images. I think they are still easy to notice what is in the images and that the subject stands out and I didnt want to do too much post production incase this made the images really hard to see what are in them but my images are clean and tidy and arent too busy and have fit in with the genre Fine Art. I made my images quite arty as well as that is what Fine Art is about and this is shown through the different techniques and different settings used in my images. I feel that all my final images are quite successful because they ended up how I planned it before I went but I think that I could of taken more mainly focused on body parts or facial features as I wanted to get some more but I was pleased with the photographs I got. I feel that the face in my portrait images was the frame for my images and this then draws the attention to the focal point of the image. For example the image where the scarf is round the models head leads you into the image and acts like a frame as it curves round the models face and this frames the image and leads your eyes straight to her face and the main focal point of the image. I also think the images that I used a double layer on were my most arty images and worked really well and this fits in with the genre Fine Art. This is

because of the different textures the image has and it wouldnt come across as a normal image. Technical Competence Even though I knew the basics to a camera as I had my own and also was interested in Photography, I have gained some more technical skills in this project. I now know how to control the ISO setting whereas before I would just let the camera sort the ISO out as I wasnt 100% confident on how to use it and how it worked. I have also more confidence with my shutter speed and what to try and avoid in my settings when changing the shutter speed so it isnt on for long and this then reduces the motion blur. I didnt really have much of a depth of field because most of my images were out of focus which I achieved by using the manual setting on my lens and controlling how out of focus the image Im taking actually is. The aperture controls the depth of field. So the smaller the aperture, the more extensive the depth of field is. I got the right exposure by using the right white balance setting for the appropriate lighting and picking a fast shutter speed so that it didnt let too much light in so that it became really overexposed and blurred. Depending on how dark the room was, having a fast shutter speed wouldnt work in low lighting and it need a slower shutter speed to let enough light in but to achieve a high quality image with a slow shutter speed requires having the camera either propped on a tripod or on a piece of hard furniture so that there is no motion shake. Having the shutter speed on for too long also causes a lower quality and also having a high ISO creates the same thing and makes it quite a grainy photo with a lot of noise and this is what I tried to avoid but it has come through on some of my photos but that could be due to the saturation that I added to my photos and some of the editing processes. I have also learnt that having the wrong white balance on changes the colour tone of an image. I had one of my images come out with a blue tint to it because I used the flash setting instead of white fluorescent light. I also feel that I have learnt a lot more about the white balance setting and can control how to get the right tint to my image and if I want a warmer or colder feel to my image, I now know how to change it so that I achieve this. Creative Ability I realised that when I chose to do Fine Art that I would defiantly need to be creative and artistic. This is the one genre that really links to art and the artistic side needed to shine through in the images I took. I thought by taking my images slightly out of focus and adding that element to them was quite artistic because it wasnt the same as having a sharp image. Especially the one image that had the model with her fingers to her lips and the double exposure added on top of her face. This has more of an artistic and dark feeling to the image and this wouldnt have achieved the same feeling if it was sharp and not using the double exposure on top. I have never took portraits before and I have always been picky and liked my photos being in focus

and sharp but this project has made me more creative by seeing different genres and having a different view on photography by trying the Fine Art genre. As it is quite a creative genre I tried using different techniques which worked and that made me more creative, especially in Photoshop and using different tools to make my images look artier. For example I used two images and layered them to make a double exposure effect. This was done by turning down the opacity on one of the images. I also used a filter that made one of the images look like a painting and this was done by applying a filter and changing the settings so it didnt look too overdone. This just added some different textures and effects to my images and I tried to make them look quite arty by doing this. By using different settings on the camera and having more control of how I wanted my images to look also helped me when I was wanting to be more creative because I had more control of how creative my images would turn out (by changing the ISO, shutter speed and aperture). There was some images in this project that inspired me and looking at different photographers helped me gain more creative knowledge of Fine Art but I used this knowledge and added my own way of how I would be artistic when taking images and applied what I already knew to accomplish this. I saw different photographers and their way of expressing art throughout their images and got some ideas and then developed a theme using this and this also helped me gain a creative knowledge of Fine Art. Time Management In the project I felt I kept on top of the deadlines and that I met every deadline. This was due to being on top of all the work and focusing in lessons to get the work done to my best of abilities. I achieved everything that I wanted to in the project and met all the standards that I was looking for. I do think that I needed some more portrait shots of facial features and body parts and I was a bit tight for time but I got a good range of images and ended up with a final 8 that I was happy with. I felt that I could next time plan the shoots more carefully when I get to the location or take some more out of college time so I have a wide range of images from a wide range of different subjects as I also would of liked to have some more images of different landscapes and macro images just to also link in with Fine Art as it was all mainly portrait photographs that I got. I felt that I had enough time during the post production side to my images. I had extra time after editing my photos and I completed everything I needed to get done and I had a wide range of different techniques on my images that I used and had a good set of images to pick my final 8 out and this was due to having enough time during my post production. Responding To Feedback I got a mixed reaction to my final 8 images that I had peer evaluation on. I got a couple of comments about my image of the flowers. One person thought it was quite boring compared to the rest of my images and another person thought it was blurred and out of focus and its hard to tell what the subject is. This image was deliberately made to look out of focus and blurry as I felt this made the image look different than a standard flower shot and made it quite artistic but I do understand that people may think that it has been done accidental. It wasnt as good as my other images because it is an image of flowers but out of all the images I took I think its one of my best images and the colours in the image

are so strong and I think that it is noticeable that they are flowers. Another image that was described as my weakest was the heavily edited one. This was seen as less professional and not exactly aesthetically pleasing. I do agree that this image was heavily edited and I put a filter of monochrome over the top to make it quite a simple image. I did it because I felt that this brought out only the features in the face and this helped them stand out. I also agree that it look as professional but it was just an experimental image and I thought the outcome worked well. The image that contained the double exposure effect got some positive feedback. It was seen as aesthetically pleasing and the colours worked well with the models nails. I agree with this and think the two colours link the image together and this doesnt make it look random or out of place. Somebody also commented saying that the image of the lipstick could be used for advertising purposes and I never thought of it that way. My image of the model looking away with the scarf on her head got positive feedback. They said it was artistic and clear and it provokes thought at what is being looked at. I never thought about it provoking thought and thats quite a good point and I think the image is clear because its sharp and has no depth of field in the image. The image of the model giving direct eye contact was also another image that got positive feedback. It was seen as the strongest image because of the simplicity of the photo and that the lighting was good and there was a good exposure. The warm tones in the image also gave it a vintage effect and the eye contact made it aesthetically pleasing. My areas for improvements are to use less heavy editing and to make it gentler, to make the genre more obvious to the viewer and some photos were out of place in my line-up and some images were shaky and a little out of focus but for this point, my images were meant to be like that and I did want most of my images t be out of focus and I made it deliberate. Some of the overall strengths were that they were very effective, nice flow of photographs with the macro technique used throughout and really good balance of colour and saturation. Some more were that my Photoshop techniques were superb, the camera controls were used correctly and they liked the experiment of double exposure and layering the two images.