I was extremely pleased with my feedback for assignment two and I did not feel that a re-work was necessary. I had met the brief of ‘crowds’ and added my own personal viewpoint, quite literally, of the back of heads and slightly obscured views. This was the first assignment where I think I truly started to pushed myself out of my comfort zone as I never usually photograph people, most definitely not the public and I hate crowds!
I feel that I have demonstrated progress on this assignment and I tried to show better conviction in my final selection. I also stepped out of my comfort zone and battled my shyness head on, and I surprised myself by enjoying it. I had a number of choices which may or may not have been the better final selection but I felt the images I chose represented my personal point of view within crowds.
I demonstrated an understanding of shallow depth of field and deep depth of field although I did not have as many deep depths of field images to choose from for my final set. I felt that I looked for opportunities for images and composition within the crowds and tried to overcome the pace with which I needed to capture these images. I also experimented with different ideas such as not using the viewfinder from within the crowd , example below, although this was not very successful as can be seen on my contact sheet. I may explore practicing this some more to see if it a skill which can be honed with time.
I also learnt that using my zoom lens to near its maximum length was to my detriment as some of the images I would have liked to use appear too grainy for the final selections, so I have realised I need to get up close and personal with my subjects in future.
In my final choice I think I have communicated my view of crowds successfully and they work cohesively as a set.
I did start out with the idea of focusing on Santa /Christmas and had some creative ideas on presentation. I explored the idea of Christmas cards with my images which I could then re-photograph into a new single image. I also though of an advent calendar type presentation, these ideas I thought would communicate the over commercialism of Christmas and Santa Claus which the set of Santa selfie images I took may have worked well for however I choose a different final selection.
I think I could expand on my final images if I could perhaps retake the viewpoint when the crowd was no longer there and overlay them somehow with Perspex or I could cut into multiple copies of the image and almost create a decoupage 3d effect of the heads I refer too. I also like the idea that these images could be almost life size and at eye level height so that the viewer takes on a voyeuristic view point and can see as well as feel the images through my eyes.
Wendy Rose Expressing Your Vision 