The theme for my project was Forces, the project had to include some sort of 'force'. The three ideas I chose to expand off the topic were decay, speed and Nature. The idea of decay was aimed at the breaking down of materials, including places, buildings and objects. I also wanted to include the rusting of machinery. In the idea 'Nature' I wanted to include how Nature is taking over man-made elements, such as an overgrowing building, or tree roots cracking a path. I wanted to show the force of Nature acting on the force of human elements. Finally speed, I wanted to present the force of speed with motion photography and the resultant of traveling fast in different environments, such as a car with mud around the wheel, or snow flowing out beneath a fast rally car. I felt I could expand further off these three ideas well.
As time went on I developed the three ideas, mainly with test shots. I found that I was most happy with the results in 'decay' over the others, which I'd found in inspiring photographer and was collecting more ideas to expand further, than I had of the others. I also expanded on Nature, finding an interesting photographer and also taking some shots I was pleased with such as with macro mode and close-ups on plants. I was also happy with the Idea of Nature taking over man-made elements, which my photos were supporting. With the idea of 'speed' I found I expanded less on this idea, taking quite a few test shots and doing some experiments with motion blur, but I found the concept to be slightly tricky to take interesting photos from, that presented forces well. There was also limited ideas and photography online, to research and back up the idea.
I feel I have found quite a reasonable amount of photographer research and ideas online, they have supported and given me more Ideas on how to expand the three ideas. It possibly would have been better to expand more on 'speed' with more secondary research but the idea was slightly narrow of expanding. The photographers I was inspired by were Matthew Merrett, who captures decaying places. His idea was to 'capture places before they are wiped out in the development cycle' and 'places no one would ever notice'. This was a very interesting and inspiring concept to support my idea by, and I successfully based some of my project on his photos. Another photographer was Nature photographer John Shaw, who has captured for some of the leading wildlife organisations. He had some extraordinary photos of Nature and I especially liked the strong, vibrant colours of his work.
After having some thought decided that the idea of 'decay' was the most strongest, in presenting research and the most test shots. It also had a wide variety of interesting ideas and unique concepts that I wanted to use, seeing other people's work and experimenting myself with test shots. In order to capture 'decay' I wanted to shoot mainly objects and buildings, providing that I found them. I wanted to capture some sort of texture, such as rust or peeling paint, something with strong detail, such as machinery or cracks and a building/place which was isolated and showed decay of wearing down. I had many thoughts of where I would find interesting decaying elements, as they can be quite rare.
During my project I went on holiday, and visited many places. I was very happy with what i'd found after thinking it would be hard. This included of everything i'd wanted, like a building and peeling paint etc. When visiting these each individual decaying elements I wanted to capture them at an interesting angle, making the photo more unique rather than just looking more like an average photo of an object/place. I was happy with some of the angles and experimented with everything I came across using different angles.
When selecting the final photos from all i'd taken, I was happy with the overall selection. They included textures, detail and I was happy with the angles they'd been taken at. The next step was photoshop manipulation, which brightened up the colours and strengthened the contrast in each photo, this really helped to present precise details such as with the photos taken with macro. I also decided to make a couple of the photos black and white, to create an 'old and isolated' effect, it also made the selection vary with each individual photo, what I aimed for.
Overall the mounting for the final work turned out well, created with different shapes of card mounted to create a 'brick wall' and machinery' effect. The concept is simple and reliable, so pieces aren't really delicate and fall off. The mounting turned out better than I expected with the shapes being neatly alined to create the concept, although when sticking the photos the space was slightly limited for all 7 due to the size, and some of the parts had to be overlapped, but I didn't think this turned out to be much of an issue. I was overall happy with the project and Ideas i'd used which i was interested in without doubt. The photos were printed and produced well without any problems.
If I were to improve in the future, i'd possibly focus more on places and find more variety of machinery, such as old abandoned trains for instance, or the inside of a decaying building. I found that many people's interesting work was of places and large machines, which I didn't really come across during photo shoots. . I'd also possibly explore further techniques using the camera, and different settings for different environments which make photos more eye catching. I may also of considered something physically decaying to include in the final mounting, such as rusting metal or a decaying object, although I was more pleased than I thought with the concept I made. It would have been interesting to also explore different decaying environments, such as underwater.
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