Putting together your practical work

Old and out of date. 
New for 2020 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JK4VfqXBzY&t=975s

What do you write and what do you include when putting together a response to your practical work?

Here's a suggestion as to how you might go about it, needless to say adapt to your own methods if you don't like all of it, but if you're completely lost as to what to do and write, this may offer a solution. One of the key points of this approach is the use of a display folder, as it means at any point you can edit and remove pages to improve the folder in any way.

This method is ideal for your work at the developmental stages - test shoots, trials and experiments. Remember your work must be developed over a series of stages as your work out what you're going to do for the final product.

The Blue section should be your 'Planning' what you intend to do, your resources, where, when and who? Needless to say the more details the more indicates your levels of planning and organisation. The Red section is also 'Planning' but more visual - a lighting plan, showing where the light sare and included a key to explain what the components are. Generally most photography courses want 'Visuals' diagrams and sketches and if you can include these that'll be great.
The Green section is examples of images from the shoot, you can use contact sheets/thumbnails, but I've made mine slightly bigger and selected some of the images that were typical from the start of the shoot rather than all of the images, showing that I was working with poses. The text in this section deals with the colour of the background and the poses and the decisions I was making as the shoot progressed. Keep the details simple at this stage, just write about what you were trying to achieve or was expecting to happen.

Page 2 (below).

Top left - more images from the shoot either selected ones or the whole contact sheet, it's up to you, showing how the shoot comes together and ideas are developed. Right-hand side ringed in Green images of how you've set up the lights. Always step back and shoot images of your light set ups either with the camera you're using or a phone or whatever is at hand. This gives you the opportunity to add details about the equipment and is good for future reference if you use the lighting again and want to replicate the lighting.

Ringed in Blue is the image that influenced the shoot with the lighting we're trying to replicate. In this instance I've not done a lot of research into the image, but potentially you could find out who shot it and do some research into the photographer and possibly add additional images from the same series. I've written about the light and the exposure, but more could be added relating to the fact that it's high-key and the composition and a lot more (See prompts in side bar).

Page 3

This section is potentially the part where you're going to pick up loads of credits that meet the criteria. The way we advise you to do this is to structure the response to your own work using he Gibbs Reflective Practice Model which works with either 5 or 6 prompts (I've missed out no.5 "Conclusion" in this instance). Reflecting on your work making sense of it, criticising it with the intention of identifying areas of strength and weakness is an essential aspect of your work. Making sense of it and analysing it is essential too and Gibbs steers you through the process in an orderly manner and is a dream for your lecturers/assessors to mark!

Most of the sections can be relatively short and concise, the parts you do want to focus on and produce more written material around are the analysis and  planning sections. The planning part leads you into the next round of work.

Page 4
On this page, I've chosen what I felt was one of the better shots and I've taken the time to reproduce it at A3 set in a white surround. You could if you wished have it printed as a full bleed image covering the whole page. The choice is yours.

I would advise as when you produce these final shots you do so at the best quality you can stretch to and keep the approach that you use consistent.

* Note (For my students for 5135 - Fashion promo and WN25) if you do this as you go along and you engage with the process fully you should end up with a pretty useful folio of images as we'll be using some really top quality lighting techniques. The images will be massively improved if in each session your models are styled appropriately. I had to rush this example so wasn't able to get hold of a blonde model and make the images as high-key as the Kate Mosss Vogue cover.

Don't like my approach? Have a look at these here - some of the best from all around the world.

http://www.studentartguide.com/articles/art-sketchbook-ideas



How to put together your research for a photography project

Here's my current thoughts and suggestions as to putting together a photography research project.

It's an essential part of your studies on any level 3 photography courses (UAL, BTEC or A-Levels) that you study historic and contemporary photographers. Over the years I've suggested all sorts of different ways of doing it, but this is my current suggestion and I reckon it's the most efficient and easiest way I come up with and I'd like to think that our students will recognise it and adopt it.

Almost without exception the units and assignments on photography courses require that you put together research prior to shooting your images. Your images need to be informed or influenced by the work of other 'Significant' photographers. We advise that your starting point for finding such photographers is the British Journal of Photography, books such as 'Photography The Whole Story' or my list of contemporary and historic photographers which you can find here . It's important that you list your sources in a bibliography and all examination bodies and lecturers like to see and sometimes require that you identify the use of books.

 

Anyway down to the process. We'll assume that you take the correct approach to your research and research all the time using the right methods.

 

(1). This is a visual subject and you need to make your work look as though you're interested in images. Therefore the balance between written work and the use of images in your research should be 50/50.

(2). I advocate the use of A3 display folders...

There are number of reasons for this. (a). You can edit the work easily, so many students change their minds about the way they work and produce work out of order leaving blank pages with the intention of filling them in later and then they run out of time. With these folders you can swap and change and omit work easily/ (b). Most colleges have photocopy machines with A3 paper and you're probably allowed to take a few sheets of paper if you ask your lecturers and this reduces costs. (c). I recommend as below you use one side of a two page spread almost exclusively for the images you find associated with the photographer you're researching and on the adjacent page a key image about A5 size surrounded by your written work. (d). When you hand in your finals they look impressive as A3 images or surrounded by a white mount affect when printed as A4's on an A3 mount. If you spend the time and money acquiring high quality finals as you complete each of your projects these can be removed and added to a final portfolio at the end of the year.

 

 

So this is the way I would suggest that you compile your work

 



So this above would be an A3 double page spread. The recommendation is that you do make it visual and have it so that 50% of the work is made up of images.

 

So the image above is the 'Image page'. When you find your initial or key image you'll probably find associated images collect them all together as files and then print them off - print off about 8 or 9 approx. A6 in size. If you use a PC (proper computer) in windows select four images to print and windows will neatly nest four images on the page to print at a time onto A4.

 

At the top of the page you'll see a couple of images that are associated with the Testino images by virtue of the pose. The pose looks to be inspired by Jan Van Eycks 'Arnolfini Portrait' and interestingly I noticed that it also was similar to David Bailey's photograph from the 1960's of Jean Shrimpton. It maybe that both photographers were inspired by the work of Jan Van Eyck and realising that this image has stood the test of time for several hundreds of year was a pretty safe bet to use as stylish pose? Where possible and as much as possible look for these kind of links and identify them (This is the reason you're encouraged to look at images constantly).

 

Include on this page if you wish some written work. As I developed this approach I started to use this page to write up my initial observations and immediate thoughts about the images. On the adjacent page below I then wrote up the facts rather than opinion and speculation.

 

 

 Make sure both pages (Ringed Blue) have a big clear title including the name of the work/images. From your initial research where you collate all of the images pick a key image that you feel you can write about - possibly the first one you noticed or the one with the most interesting features. * As you collect the images from the website, save some of the HTML addresses to include in your bibliography. Also look at the website in case there's some written content that gives you more information about the images. If there's not then start to look around for written content that is associated with the artist or the images. The best way to do this is type in the name of the photographer pre-fixed with "Interview with" so I would have tried a number of searches using...

 

Interview with Mario Testino

Vogue masterclass September 2011

Vogue master class interview Mario Testino

 

I'd have repeated the same searches on Google but with a video search enabled. This generally brings up some really good resources and it was through watching the video of Testino shooting a Japanese shoot for Vogue that I identified his own research methods and the equipment and lighting he uses on set. All very much worth looking at.

 

Two interviews is generally enough, along with videos and the original sources from the BJP to get enough information to write about the image/s using the prompts (Circled in Red). If you're struggling generate written responses to the images use these prompts (see the sidebar to the write of this blog page).

 

Try and generate for your Final Major project at least ten pieces of research like this independently. You'll get the chance to practice this in class with help, but to push the work on to Merit level you need to be seen generating your own research more specific to your own needs.

 

A very similar approach can be used in conjunction with your practical sessions and another video and series of images will be added after I've made the resources.

The Prompts - Responding to and writing about images "Light".

This is an important one to always include as it demonstrates your knowledge of how light is used. For this you need to look at the light and judge whether the photographer has used available light, studio flash, flash guns, daylight or a mixture of any of these or something different? You should then write about the quality of the light in terms of it being ‘diffuse’ or ‘Point’ light, discussing the impact this has on the image – shadows, contrast, definition, flattening, vibrancy of the colour. Does the light set the mood in the image; does it make the image look dark, sinister, bright or happy? Think about and discuss the light in terms of other aspects of photography you’ve previously learned about – does it look like another practitioners (Photographers) lighting style, does it help with making image look objective or subjective, is the light full of drama or is it neutral?

Say why you think the photographer has made these choices – how relevant is the light to the image overall - is it inconsequential or fundamental? Could the light be used differently – is the light consistent or inconsistent across a series of images – think about the Becher’s for instance all of their images had a uniformity by virtue of only ever making their images when the light was of one specific type/quality.

With interior shots featuring people or objects, look at where the light is falling, look at reflections in the eyes and other reflective surfaces or objects – look for clues as to what kind of light has been used? Is it simple or is it complex?

You might even include lighting diagrams?