Evaluation
Of all the themes that I’ve worked with over the year, this
was the one that I was most looking forward to because I’d spent most of the
summer shooting traditional/commercial style landscapes and I had made significant
improvements to my work. When I read through the brief and did some quick research
into the photographers, I was quite disappointed because it wasn’t the work
that I was expecting. Now though at the end of the section I wish I could take
those thoughts back because I’ve learnt to appreciate the quality of the work
and it turns out that I now prefer the work of Stephen Shore to say someone
like Adam Burton.
As starts go, I think this was my worst because getting to
grips with the camera was really hard. Assembling it and learning how to use
the light meter properly was easy enough after a bit of practice and repetition.
By far the hardest part of the project was actually seeing the composition in
the back of the camera, especially in the corners and secondly, the fact that it’s
all back to front and upside down. One of the things that made it easier was
researching the area that I wanted to shoot before I went with the 5x4 camera.
I did this by scouting the area with my 35mm film camera so I had a record of
the compositions of the area so it would be easier and less time consuming.
Despite doing the extra legwork, it turned out my best shoot was done without
this method because my pictures in the area around Reeth exceeded all my others
because they followed minimalism the closest, and I had more experience with
the camera. As I mentioned before Stephen Shore was one of the most talented
and inspiring photographers that I‘ve research for this section. He was one of
the ones that inspired me to take up the theme of minimalism as well as Robert
Adams and Lewis Baltz who influenced the subject matter.
Now I’m at the end of the project there’s definitely a few
things that I would have done differently because as I wasn’t at my most
productive I made a few mistakes. The main cause of this was my organisation,
which has been less than good recently as I have worked to meet contextual and professional
studies deadlines. I would have also liked to do more shooting of specific
areas like the hills in Reeth and Holy Island if it was possible to spend a weekend
there. This would have been perfect because I would have been able to fully
document the area therefore producing a set of images that link perfectly. One
of the areas of film photography that I keep neglecting is the printing stage.
In College I have access to a range of filters that can make the best of the
negative, so I wish I’d experimented more with them to improve my marks and
gain experience for future work. Despite these point I still think I’ve
produced some of my best prints to date, so I’m just happy that I’m still
progressing, which I will continue to do throughout the summer holiday.
