For my final major project I decided to do the theme of documentary photography, specialising in street photography. I chose to do this as my final project because I have always been interested in documentary photography but I have never truly explored it in a great amour of detail. After researching documentary and street photography to start of my project, I finally decided to focus further on the idea of surveillance and the idea that everyone is being watched when they are out and about without even realising it. However, I came into some struggles when trying to figure out how to portray this idea as a project. After a vast amount of research of surveillance and researching some photographers that have used the theme of surveillance in their work I started to get and idea of how I could portray it.
When researching for this project, I started with the basic of street photography, I learnt about different photography and the techniques they use when doing their shoots. All the artists I researched had a completely different creative ways of shooting street photography; this research helped me come up with my own creative ways of how I could show it. To further the artist research, I also created some artist responses, whereby, I created mood boards which reflected the theme of their specific work as well as creating some image based solutions. I done this by using Photoshop to create photographs which replicated one of their photographic pieces. As well as doing artist research, we were also able to go and visit David Hockney's exhibition in Tate Modern, although his theme of photography is very different to mine, his exhibition helped me discover new ideas of how to present my work. Furthermore, I did tother research to help me learn about surveillance, learning the statistics and facts of how often we are watched around the UK. As well as this, I also looked into some more photographs that had done similar projects when in came to surveillance.
After completing all the research on street photography, surveillance and on other artists I wrote out 4 conceptual and 4 technical shoot plans. My technical shoot plans focused on techniques that I had not looked into yet as a photographer; these included night photography, experimenting with shutter speeds and also some Photoshop techniques. Although these weren't directly linked with the themes of my project, they helped me learn some new skills that I will be able to use in future photography projects. My conceptual shoots were written to help me develop my ideas and to be creative with the theme of surveillance. I started off my shoots with a basic, just getting to learn what street photography was about, taking candid images of strangers and making them look professional. I was very lucky to start of this project in Iceland as we had a residential trip there with the college. These shoots help me become more confident with photograph strangers and doing street photography in general.
As my conceptual shoots went on, I believe that they helped develop my ideas even further. One factor which could be noted, is that mostly all my shoots were very similar in the theme of them, but even though this was the case, I think that there is a clear differentiation between my shoots, from different angles to different locations. During the completion of my conceptual shoots, as I was evaluating them, it greatly helped my decipher what went well and what could be improved for my next shoot.
For the final exhibition, I decided that it would be a better idea to use images from all my conceptual shoots, rather than doing one final shoot. I think that this would be more effective because it showed more variety as I used images from the hot springs in Iceland, from images to strangers just standing at a bus stop. I have decided to present my final images in an interesting way whereby, it comes across that the audience are being watched whilst looking at my images. When the exhibition comes around, I will put a dummy CCTV camera as well as CCTV warning signs which suggests that they are being watched.
I believe that my final major project has been very successful, I portrayed my idea well and I am very pleased with my final outcomes. If I were to improve my project I would have done a few more conceptual shoots to help develop my idea even further, however, due to illness during the time of this project I was not able to. Another idea that I would have like to have done was mimic the creations of other street artists, maybe by exploring street photography in a different way or even just simply copying one of their shoots but with my own spin on it. I did find some of the tasks on this unit quite challenging, but with the help of my peers and my tutor I was able to overcome these. However, what I found difficult with other projects was how I was going to manage my time, but with the use of an action plan, which I had never used before I was able to work productively when in came to finishing my all my work. I believe I have learnt a lot in this final project as I have done things that I have never done before, these being in my technical shoots and also learning about street photography which is a theme of photography that I would love to explore further. Finally, I am looking forward to showcasing all my work in the final exhibition that will take place later this month.
