Reflecting on Uses of Photography
Through looking at other Uses of Photography students work I was able to explore the different ways that individuals took the portfolio prompts and really made the assignment their own. I focused on two other students work to analyse one being titled ‘Soul’ the other titled ‘Mindfulness’. Both these portfolios presented contrasting photography styles and colours. The portfolio soul captures bright greens colours and reflects different shades of yellow and cream off of the green background to bring out the deep skin tones of the subjects in the image. The short description of the portfolio explains that the photographer was trying to capture and explore deep, human authenticity in their work and present a ‘tapestry of emotions’. I found that they achieved this through their variety of different shots and angles in their work. I really liked how the photographer had some images of the subjects facing the camera and then some images presented them either looking away or looking at each other. I found it very interesting to see how the creator implemented different lighting techniques to the photographs highlighting the subjects faces and strategically using natural lighting to illuminate the lighter colours of the clothing whilst contrasting the dark backgrounds. Contrastingly to the Soul project, other students work I looked at titled Mindfulness presented dark black and white images that highlighted certain parts of image to have full colour and stand out against the rest of the image. The photographer has selected certain items in each image to be coloured and contrast with the rest of the image. I thought this was actually a really innovative idea and enjoyed discovering how the creator specially selected the items with colour to show the ways that these objects can instil a sense of mindfulness into everyday life.
This portfolio inspired me to aim to create a more prominent purpose for my work in future. To quote the creator “My work highlights the importance to reconnect with our surroundings”. The work consisted of a video that played mindfulness advice slides before each image. This made me think about the ways that media can create both social change and be an individual tool, not just something that looks good. I also considered ways that I could have made my work a little more influential and relatable, but I realise that my portfolio aims to be more of a self-representative work and represents my daydreaming experience. The Mindfulness images represent ways that different editing tools such as Adobe Light Room can be used to edit images and change saturation and colour. I look forward to using Lightroom in future to edit my images in more detail. I’m also excited to explore ways I can give my work more meaning and purpose in future to help it promote more change.
During the Media studio exhibition, I sat in on a script reading from the studio Drop The Pilot. This class had worked together to produce an episode of a show they called Barrel Town. I found this incredibly interesting as the studio had worked to create a proper in-depth story with a variety of characters. I was fortunate enough to sit in on a script reading for the first episode of Barrel town and got to enjoy the storyline. I was interested to see how the class incorporated both comedy and a serious element into their scripting. It was interesting to see how they had worked on different character dynamics and left potential for future conflict and interest between these characters. The scripting was very clear in its description of what was happening in each scene, and I was fascinated how I was able to imagine exactly what was going on. I found that the script left room for a whole range of different storylines and ended leaving me wanting more. It was interesting to observe the way this studio prepared their characters storylines to carry out over multiple episodes. The group had prepared a proper script that detailed from the ways they wanted the characters to look to the exact actions taking place in the scenes. The Drop the Pilot studio had prepared different QR codes that could be scanned to reveal the Pilot scripts. These were broken up into three sections: A, B and C and each had a group of class members work attached. This made me consider ways I could make my photography work more accessible to the public in future and more easily distributed. The studio prepared a synopsis before their readthrough which helped to provide context to the story.
Overall, through looking at my classmates uses of photography portfolios and the studio Drop The Pilot’s script writing work I have been inspired to improve my future photography work and how it can be both influential in peoples live and also aid people struggling with different things such as mental health.
-Yasinta 🙂