Week 12

As I mentioned in Week 11, this is probably the happiest I have been with a final project so far throughout my media course. Photography has always been something very interesting to me, although I do not have much experience and are not very good at it. The project came out better than I originally anticipated, and I hope other people enjoy the portfolio too.

One key learning about your own photographic or broader media practice that emerged in the process of completing Assignment#4

In the process of completing this Assignment, one key learning experience that emerged was how important planning was. I was so grateful I gave myself enough time to edit everything, as it was definitely the most tedious process for my chosen project. I think normally I would leave the editing and finalising the least amount of time and it often meant that my work was good, but there was always something missing. Because I was able to properly plan out and get the starting stages of this project underway quickly, it meant I did have that extra time to perfect things I wanted to perfect. I learnt how important the editing process is in the photographic practise, and how much it adds to the final product.

If you had an opportunity to repeat the Assignment 4 project what is a key thing you would do differently to improve the final outcome (and what reason stopped you doing it in the first place)?

I think I would focus more on maybe an issue or concept. Although my project does have some social commentary, I don’t think it is a very strong commentary. Reading my feedback, I realised that maybe that was what was the drive for a lot of the projects, and mine didn’t seem as clearly to have an ‘issue’ that it focused on. If I were to have an opportunity to improve the final outcome, I think I could have some more political commentary – maybe some more text or images that convey the commentary. As well as this, I think I would also have used better lighting. Although I did edit the pictures in Adobe Lightroom, I wasn’t able to fully fix the lighting, which was obviously a mistake I made during my photography. If I had shot with better light I think both the photographs would have come out better as well as made the editing process a bit smoother for myself.

What core photographic concept/idea encountered during the 12 weeks of the studio (in readings or class discussions) has had the strongest impact on how you will approach photography in the next year?

The photographic concept that stuck out to me the most was in Week 5. That week, we spent the whole class experimenting with different lighting techniques. Although I probably won’t use a soft-box lighting kit in my personal life, the experimentation of different lighting techniques gave me an entirely new perspective on how lighting creates different effects. I had never used lighting gadgets before, so this was definitely a turning point in regard to my photography learning. I hope to learn more about photography over the next year as I have really enjoyed this course.