Final Evaluation

Final Evaluation
I chose to do the project of self identity for a multitude of reasons. The main reason being that it is a very personal topic to me and I want to look back and analyse how I got to where I am today. I also chose this project as I could have executed it in a multitude of different ways; through fashion, a documentary style or through portraits. I further wanted to tell my story through an art form and felt that this project was the best way to do so and therefore this project was created in a personal manner.

Looking at my work overall, within every photography project, I feel that I have done well in responding to what I was asked to do within every project; Especially with later projects in Component 1, Component 2 and the Exam itself. I feel that I have successfully created creative images and with that connotations that link to the provided subject matters.

My research into other photographers has helped in inspiration for many of my shoots within Component 2 and the Exam tremendously. Especially the two Photographers Mathu Andersen and Samuel Fosso. Both of these artist's work battles stereotypes and enforces self identity and the importance of embracing who you are as a person. Their work has been a huge inspiration to mine and to me as a person in a multitude of ways; Mathu Andersen's especially. I took the content and connotations of his work and altered it to suit me as a person. I combined it with my visual composition and through this many of my shoots for Component 2 were inspired. I also took inspiration from one particular image of Samuel Fosso's as it was very colourful and stood out to me - This piece was called "The Liberated American Woman of the 70's, 1997" from the Deutsche Bank Collection. Both of these photographers also link to the fashion and beauty world and therefore make for the perfect inspirations for my personal project of self identity through fashion and beauty. There were not many other photographers who inspired me to chose the self identity project. However, there are photographers who my work links to. Some of these photographers are: Gillian Wearing and Vivian Maier. By researching these photographers, I also came to find out about their backgrounds and their work background and discovered that Mathu Andersen works within the fashion and beauty world as a photographer, makeup artist and fashion designer which, again, inspired me to further pursue the self identity project.
My preparatory shoots helped me come up with ideas that I would execute within the exam. The content of Shoot 1 was not inspired by any of my preparatory shoots however the editing of the images was. I chose to have a different approach of self identity in the exam and to avoid the fashion and beauty aspect of self identity with the story of Shoot 1. I wanted to do this so that I had a varied approach on self identity as a whole. Shoot 2 however was inspired by Shoot 2 of Component 2 where I used objects to express who I am and to also help myself and the audience find out who I am. I took the idea of using objects and changed the way the images were visually and contextually composed to have differences between the shoots but to also still have a connection.

I have learnt a range of different things through Component 2 and the Exam about photography, camera techniuqes and self identity itself. The main thing I have learned through the course is that there are a large range of ways to take and compose images with different camera settings etc. All of these aspects depend on what you want to portray within your images. For example, I wanted to have a range of different images that had different moods within them. Within Component 2 and the Exam, you can see different moods being portrayed with the use of different lighting which connotes different ideas and emotions within self identity. I further learnt that by using longer shutter speeds, you can capture movement within images. This is shown within Shoot 5 of Component 2 and also Shoot 1 of the Exam.
Through this learning process, my work and my photography knowledge and skills have improved immensely. I now know how to capture movement trails within a single image for example. My work is the thing that has majorly been effected through the learning process. Within Component 2 and the Exam I have a large range of differently composed images and also a lot of connotations within all of my shoots. This has improved the quality and the rate of interest within my work which causes audiences to become more interested by my work and may also be inspired or gain guidance into identifying themselves within their own self identity. Similar to how I was inspired by Mathu Andersen.
The ways that I've presented my work has stayed the same throughout Component 1, 2 and the Exam Project. The overall layout is similar and also the type of photography that I do has also stayed the same, but also slightly differed, in ways of Composition, content, connotations etc.

Overall, my response to the exam paper, I believe, was successful. The exam paper was asking to express self-identity through the means of photography. I could add a personal touch to my work or make the project about people in general. I chose to make the project personal but despite this, my work also links to the self-identity of others. This meant that I created a relationship with my audience and allowed them to be able to connect to my work with the visual and connotative aspects of my work.
I feel like the most successful parts of my shoot were the fashion shoots within Component 2 (Shoots 1, 3 and 4). These shoots really expressed the self-identity of me and told a story very easily. All of the images within these shoots were also perfectly composed and linked to the subject matter perfectly. The images within these shoots were also my favourite as I got to express my self-identity through my work easily and effectively.
Despite the many positives to my work, I do feel like Shoot 2 in Component 2 was my weakest. This is because of the way that the images were composed and edited. The connotations and the content of the images were perfectly linking to the subject matter despite the flaws in composure however. When composing the images I could have used a more seamless background and I feel that some of the wrinkles in the background may be distracting to the content. I could have also perfected the images even more by adding an additional editing step into the images - This step being fixing of the lighting using curves.
In the exam, I feel like both shoot 1 and 2 were successful in the aspect of content, composure and relevance to the exam paper. However, I feel like I could have done a little more to the images or even made another final edit to further express the connotations. I could have also featured the items used in previous shoots from Component 2 to link the exam images back to Component 2 directly and clearly. Despite this, I wanted to express self-identity through multiple ways and the experimentation of image composure and editing in the exam helped me to do this.
Overall, I feel like I have successfully expressed self-identity through Component 2 and the exam in many ways despite the few flaws there are.

Universally, this entire project was a lot of fun to execute. I feel like the majority of my images are very successful and effective; some even political with the counteraction of stereotypes. All of my work is very personal and helped me identify who I am as a person and hopefully also helps others discover who they are and give them confidence to be who they are - That is the reason I chose this project, to not only help myself but to also help others.