Preparatory Evaluation

So far during my preparatory shoots and research, I have looked into various photographers' work such as Richard Billingham, who presented harsh and contrasted streetlights on the roads of his childhood. Bettina von Zwehl, who presented vivid and personal portraits of women at vulnerable moments. Phillip Lorca Dicorcia, who presented theatrical portraits of people trying and struggling to live the American dream. Brassai, who presented deeply contrasted and suspenseful photos of the empty streets of Paris at its darkest hours. And finally, Victoria Siemer, who presented vibrant landscapes with forlorn pieces of text. I feel that the photographers Phillip Lorca Dicorcia and Victoria Siemer have influenced my final pieces' intentions the most. Dicorcia's work was theatrical and presented a deep complex story for each subject simply by just the positioning of artificial light and the surroundings around them. This made me want to create more of a story in my portraits and have the subject and surroundings create a mysterious story. Siemer's work was vibrant and mysterious with its abandoned landscapes and forlorn and emotional pieces of text. This influenced me to have my photos be more colourful and vivid in expression, while also conveying that emotion with surreal editing such as text. 

From focussing on these photographers and their techniques and aesthetics, I was able to gain skills in a new area by using gels and different light methods such as flashgun use. I learned to use a flashgun for photos and understand the intensity of light needed to create a vibrant photo. I learned the effect that gels have over a photo and how they can create vivid imagery. I also looked into more complex editing processes so the photos can have a surreal appearance to attract the viewers. I have now learned how to create glowing text that merges into a realistic photo to create a surreal photo. Although I have not practiced it yet, I have also found an editing process that makes objects within a photo glow a vibrant colour, and plan to be experimenting with this for my final photos.

Moving forward for my three final shoots, I plan for each shoot to have a different composition and presentation. One of the shoots will solely be close-up portraits that will involve items that will be edited to glow a vibrant colour. Another shoot will also be portraits, but this time involving backgrounds to create a story to the subject, and inserting glowing text and making objects in the photo glow too. For one of the last shoots, it will possibly be just landscapes and inserting glowing text. These shoots will present forlorn pieces of text and create emotional, complex stories to the subjects.