Demonstration of Technical and Visual Skills:
In the photos I submitted for the final assignment, I made conscious decisions about composition in all of them; in addition in several shots, aperture was used to blur backgrounds where appropriate. All the final photos were shot with a 55-200mm zoom (my 18-55mm is broken and I am waiting for a replacement), but in the preparation, other lenses were also used, although these images were eventually disregarded (but not because of the lenses). The final assignment also demonstrated use of shutter speed in the panning shot, which worked extremely well on that occasion.
Composition decisions included placing the subject in the middle of the frame ("rounded"), dividing the frame into thirds ("smooth"), placing the main subject in the majority of the frame ("curved"), placing the main subject in a corner to convey space in the rest of the frame ("few"), using square, vertical or horizontal formats, where to position the horizon (or exclude it), and using frameless images ("many") to convey extension beyond the frame.
Design is still a learning process for me; I think I am still relying on instinct rather than making deliberate decisions, although I am very pleased with the shapes present in the "still" and "curved" images. I will consciously think more about the design of the image as I progress through the course.
Quality of Outcome
The presentation of work is largely limited by the ability of the blog application to be edited. Sometimes the presentation does not publish in the way it looks in draft, but this is impossible to rectify. For formal assignments, I may consider submitting in a different format. I think the work submitted shows an application of knowledge learnt thus far. My biggest shortcoming at the moment is being able to take successful photographs on cloudy or overcast days, so on these days I tend to take shots with the sky excluded.
I think my ideas were successfully communicated for this assignment and that I was able to conceptualise the topics given in the course instructions. I think the only technique I omitted to display was photographing movement with water at different shutter speeds. I had too many pairs already to chose from and had already removed more than half of my original choices, so I did not really feel the need to keep adding to them. I did demonstrate use of shutter speed in the "moving" shot which was taken at 1/30s.
Demonstration of Creativity
I think the final images submitted do demonstrate creativity. Some were processed to either convert to black and white or enhance existing colours. Other photographs were cropped to provide better composition or exclude unwanted information. The "continous" image was an experiment, and had to be shot quickly; this image was not processed and was loaded as taken. In addition the angle of "straight and curved" is not a conventional aspect of this statue. I think the image "still" is very creative; lucky that the lady was wearing such an interesting top, and what an amazing backdrop. After taking this shot I was reminded not to take photographs by the museum guard.....
Context
My learning log shows some research into the topic with the reference to Bauhaus found in "The Photographer's Eye" by Michael Freeman. In addition, the exercise of selecting a large number of images and then going through the process of finalising the choice down to a few pictures forces reflection. I excluded images where, that although they conveyed the point required, either the quality or composition was not good enough to include.
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