Assignment 5 – reflection

Materials

• For this assignment as the images were all shot on the same day and over a relatively short time period, I relied on viewing the images on screen and did not think it was necessary to print them.

Techniques

• All the shots were handheld and I mainly shot at f8-10 to ensure as much of the images were in focus as possible. On a few of the images I shot at f4, the largest aperture of the lens I was using, in order to blur the background and draw the viewers’ attention to the in-focus objects in the images.

Visual awareness, design and compositional skills

• I was conscious that the owners/managers of the petrol stations might not be happy for me to take images on their forecourts and as a result all the images were taken from public places which meant that most of my images were relatively wide-angled as I was shooting with a 24-70mm lens. Because there was a degree of similiarity between all the sites I concentrated on trying to create some variety by using leading lines, repetition and photographing from different angles.

Quality of outcome

Content, application of knowledge, presentation of work in a coherent manner, with discernment

• I chose to present the images chronologically in a gallery format. The reason for this choice is I wanted the images to be an objective record of my visit to the petrol stations and by presenting the images in the sequence in which they were photographed I was not trying to alter the message which was that on the day I chose to document the impact of the shortage of fuel tanker drives in Cambridge, less than a quarter of petrol stations had any fuel to sell. The matter-of-fact presentation was also a device to try and give an impression of the experience a motoris would have driving around trying to find fuel, especially if their low fuel warning light was on.

Demonstration of creativity

Imagination, experimentation, invention, personal voice

• I think what the images for this assignment demonstrate is a willingness to take a risk and change tack when I felt that my original idea was not working; which I think counts as experimentation.

Context

Reflection, research

• I think the two main points I will take away from this assignment do not relate to the images I presented but instead to my original idea which I did not feel able to complete in the timeframe for the assignment. The first point is about clarity of ideas, I think for my original ideal I was not completely clear in my mind about what I was trying to accomplish, whilst I originally thought it was to create a series of images examining old people living alone, it became more of a study about my father, who is in his eighties and lives alone. The second point is in part related to my lack of clarity about my orginal idea, because I did not have a clear idea about what I was aim to achieve, I also did not have a clear idea of how much time I would need to create it. Thinking about this now, from looking at and reading about the photographers whose work I researched it should have been obvious to me that creating a very personal series involves a long-term commitment to taking photographs. So I have come away from this assignment slightly frustrated that I did not achieve what I originally set out to do, but with a clearer idea for a long-term project photographing my father.