self evaluations

PORTRAIT / SELF EVALUION

1)      What is your understanding of issues related to the Portrait project?

This unit, The Body, aims to explore the symbol of the human body in particular, portraits.

When understanding the issues related to portraiture, I was aware that capturing a portrait is not just a basic recording of a person’s appearance, as it uses much of the same values of still life. The same use of semiotics can be applied to the portrait, to help portray a deeper and more complex story of the subject.  An issue that can occur when taking portraits is not capturing the person's emotions and feelings in that moment in time, I took this fact onboard and remembered to try and gain this, in my shoot production.

2)      What context would you place your work in?

For this part of the brief `the body`, our task was to photograph someone either from the local area of Medway or another student from uca who we are not meant to know. The photograph had to be taken in black and white and be taken on either using a medium or large format camera.

For my research I looked and analysed several photographers and books that helped inspire me towards my development, these were…..

Tracy Emin

Paolo Roversi

Cindy Sherman

Cecil Beaton

Sophie Calle

Valerie Belin

Phillip Toledano

Throughout the 20th century, photography and television, and even footage from the popular culture I think, have been transformed into art media. Since the 20th century photography has emerged the surrealism like the photos seen from the Cindy Sherman series. And when developing my thoughts, i wanted to look closely into glamour and what is real and not? I began researching into stereotypes for women and how they are perceived?

3)      How did my photos translate to my initial thoughts?

I think my final photos translate well towards my initial thoughts, as the portrait, I think links back to my idea of reproducing a similar style as Richard Avedon's work, capturing the subject’s personality with his subtle usage of light. The photo also expresses the essence of the subject and overall brought a sense of sophistication and authority to the portrait.

4)      How have you managed your studies?

Throughout my project I have tried to manage my studies in an organisable manner, including researching several photographers and suitable locations, to help develop ideas, and also have set goals and targets to help build upon tasks.

(Choose different words)…?

5) What aspects of your shoot productions do you kneed to reflect upon and why? 

When thinking about what aspects of my shoot production I needed to reflect upon I thought of camera potion. When photographing my model I had trouble centring the model in the frame, I think due to the background being black I found it difficult to find the frame in the camera. I also thought the background still looked to dark, therefore moved the model forwards and increased the use of light. I think I could improve this, with further practice.

6)      What has been the most significant challenge on this unit so far? How can you overcome this in the future?

Finding an appropriate model was a challenge for this unit, as the portrait had to tell the story behind the project. Developing my research into ideas was another issue, as the model I had chosen lacked in confidence and self esteem; therefore I had to come up with several ideas on how the model could project the chosen story.