Major Project Evaluation

Major Project Evaluation

The major project began in October, spanning almost the entire year. Before it began, we were all sent on a mini project to discover what sort of image we would find on the front of a newspaper, without giving it an explanation as to why. I chose to photograph the decommissioned Battersea Power Station, and at the time there were many stories coming out about renovating it to become a shopping and hotel complex. But it soon kicked off a tangent of focus upon energy creation here in Britain. From here on I decided delve more into looking at coal power stations, the lack of green energy, and the damage that these facilities have on our environment.

I went on to do many photoshoots in Dungeness, Grain, Oxford, Derby, and many other places. My focus soon started to turn towards the nature that surrounded these commissioned and decommissioned energy facilities, as I thought it was a notable that the foliage within the area was overpowered by streams of smoke and visually distracting grey buildings. After this, I decided to name my project Energy vs Nature. This was something I concentrated on heavily, producing macro photos of delicate plants next to huge behemoth cooling towers and pylons. I feel that this became a comment of where we had come as a society, that these facilities were a distraction. The irony of their existence being that they create energy to sustain life, whilst being bad for the environment and killing life - or at least aiding the process of killing it.

This focus felt like the right path to take as it meant I could explore macro photography in comparison to longer landscape photography. This naturally developed into a project incorporating diptychs, as it was obvious to many that I should compare subject against another. Energy vs Nature focuses heavily on the comparison of these industrial energy facilities and their visual distractions towards the delicate and intricate beauty found within the nature surrounding them. It aims to make a salient consideration for the reckless effect these man-made structures have on the general environment around them. This project highlights the distinct differences and aesthetic similarities we have inadvertently created between these opposing subjects.

I feel that my time management and continuous photographic testing was very successful in the sense that I did shoot after shoot to get the right imagery that both I and my tutor agreed upon, and best represented the project idea at hand. I do however feel that I could have tried a few more locations even still, as I could have expanded it even further by visiting an even greater collection of places. If I had to do this again in the future, I would choose to shoot on a higher-grade professional camera, full frame rather than a camera with a crop sensor. Overall I am extremely happy with my project, and hope that it comes across as strong as I feel it is.

Career Plan

Since starting this photography course, I have been on an incredibly explorational journey. My first year was riddled with difficulties of learning film-based photography, distracted by the fears of ruining the processes of developing the film itself rather than concentrating on the important matters of becoming a photographer with a signature style; a recognisable pattern of images that were intrinsically linked by style and structure. I think I finally started to find my feet within the weeks commencing my second year, through which I was given more creative freedom to explore and construct my own photographic concepts. This was fuelled by the success of my first project in second year which consisted of a moving image piece (and self-composed audio) which I worked upon with Daniel Metcalfe, a fellow student. He and I both enjoyed the idea of timelapses, and I found it to be a great experience of working with somebody else on a project. The second semester of my second year involved delving into my professional practice branding; a design for a logo, business cards, CV, and many more relevant forms. These items have since been updated, but it has got me to think about what’s next. Personally I feel the urge to present myself for who I am; a photographer who wishes to show imagery that the world will enjoy, photography that will captivate them and spark conversation. I want to be a freelance photographer, and to create desire towards my pieces of artwork, and anything that has my style linked to it - this is the overarching aim for my career as it currently stands.

Being an aspiring freelance photographer, I would naturally wish to sell work that I present on my website, at gallery spaces, and any other markets that will have me. Anything that will aid in getting my name out there will be useful towards bettering my career. Photography is what I love; showing the world is a passion, not a duty. I do not feel the same inclination towards exposing worldly threats or documenting fragmented culture. I simply have an eye for the world aesthetically, and I want others to see what I see. In my third and final year, I had two projects which were defining stepping stones in pushing me towards what I wanted to do, but not in a way that you would expect. The Brief Project was fun, I essentially visually advertised this location within France called Lens using a special macro lens to capture intricate detailed and minute areas of beauty. This was almost certainly Fine Art photography in my eyes, and I enjoyed knowing that. I have been on many field trips (or personal trips I should say) to many locations and it’s taught me the importance of photographic gear - which is something I will be saving up for over the next year. I also have had a few work placements/commissions involving graphic design, which is a small passion on the side which I like to upkeep by making myself available for graphical services. This has generally included logo design or application software design as opposed to large-scale website design. As a photographer, I developed my Major Project to be a more environmentally challenging concept, something that would certainly go transpire successfully with tutors and students alike upon reveal, as it can be heavily discussed and measured in accordance to the data and knowledge surrounding the subject matter. But this was due in part to the hesitance to experiment with Fine Art for such a large body of work. I do wish to continue heading into creating visually compelling work that ultimately people will want to buy; be it downloads or prints. Both are viable in the modern market of today.

The first step for my career is making monetary avenues electronically available - this involves setting up a fully functional online store, both for selling photographs I deem available for download, or those which I deem available for print - so long as I am equipping it with plenty to buy. This is the first step because it is self-contained and relatively easy to do, so long as you invest in such services initially. The products that will be available will have to be manually inputted, making it worth doing research into which print services I will use and at what costs they will be to me, but this is something I can only focus on once my major project is complete and out of the way. Once this is up and running, the only maintenance it will need will be new content, and obviously preparing/paying/printing/sending any prints that customers order, if they do choose to do so.

After this, the second step would be to locate gallery spaces willing to feature my work and display it for sale, in a way to further a steady stream of sales. This will require buying prints first of all to then give out and get a return, so I must first invest and discover cheap ways to print out a bulk of photographs on canvases and photo paper to put in frames. Aside from looking into featuring my photographs in physical locations, I could see what responses I’d get entering competitions and producing new work that way. This will help me to get recognition and also earn me some money if I am successful in my endeavors to be number one. POPPhoto features many competitions from “Transitional Lenses” to “2014 Photo Challenge” along with monthly “Your Best Shot” competitions. I should and will enter all of these competitions if relevant and applicable.

ACTION PLAN

Summer 2014 - Have an initial retail-like employment to earn money first. Save up some initial money to buy online store services, and invest money into an initial bulk of prints to sell. Speak to contacts within creative reselling.

Autumn 2014 - Buy premium store services and feature work digitally, to buy as prints or downloads. Distribute prints to shops that have agreed to feature my work. Begin saving to invest in a professional-grade camera and lenses.

Winter 2014 - Liaise with contacts to see what items may be selling well and reorder/restock those which are popular. Take a few weeks out to create new compelling imagery.

Spring 2015 - Use extra saved up money to buy new camera and lenses. Go out and shoot new imagery. I will continue to share my business on social networks and make my prints available for anybody to purchase.

2015 - Review current online store services and try to streamline outgoings to create stability, then consider saving enough money for a mortgage deposit.

2016 - Aim to create a stable and lucrative photographic market based on recognition of me as a photographer, this would be for a steady income towards a new home.

SWOT ANALYSIS

Internal

External

Strengths	Weaknesses	Opportunities	Threats
Organised/Punctual Photographically proficient Technologically knowledgeable Creative Hard working	Lacks Confidence Fear of Judgement Worry Sensitive Not settling for the best	The internet provides quick access to competitions Network of Photographers Contacts in the Freelance Industry Supportive family & friends	Lack of local (home) employment listings Lack of Experience Lack of Industry contacts Photography gear not up-to-date and professionally high quality

BUDGET

My budget is purely dependent on money earnt whilst in my short-term retail job which works out at £7.05 an hour, with an average working week of 9 hours. This brings me to a total of £63.45 before tax. At the going rate of 20% tax, this would bring a working week down to £50.76. This would be an absolute minimum, as working hours can drastically vary to many more. After this budget, I will continue to earn initial money putting my name out there by entering competitions and saving up for a newer camera/lenses. So, with roughly £200 minimum earnt monthly, this could be my 3-month initial budget plan:

06/06/2014	Iceland Payment	+ £50.00	£50.00
13/06/2014	Iceland Payment	+ £50.00	£100.00
20/06/2014	Iceland Payment	+ £50.00	£150.00
27/06/2014	Iceland Payment	+ £50.00	£200.00
04/07/2014	Iceland Payment	+ £50.00	£250.00
05/07/2014	Squarespace Upgrade to Professional (Monthly)	- £9.52	£240.48
11/07/2014	Iceland Payment	+ £50.00	£290.48
18/07/2014	Iceland Payment	+ £50.00	£340.48
25/07/2014	Iceland Payment	+ £50.00	£390.48
26/07/2014	10 x (40cm x 30cm) Canvas prints	- £200.00	£190.48
01/08/2014	Iceland Payment	+ £50.00	£240.48
05/08/2014	Squarespace Professional (Monthly)	- £9.52	£230.96
08/08/2014	Iceland Payment	+ £50.00	£280.96
15/08/2014	Iceland Payment	+ £50.00	£330.96
16/08/2014	10 x (40cm x 30cm) Canvas prints	- £200.00	£130.96
22/08/2014	Iceland Payment	+ £50.00	£180.96
23/08/2014	Rent	- £100.00	£80.96
29/08/2014	Iceland Payment	+ £50.00	£130.96
05/09/2014	Squarespace Professional (Monthly)	- £9.52	£121.44

Printing Preparation & Mounting

When it came to printing my images, I had to resize the images due to the fact I would be printing on Epson A2 250gsm Premium Photo Lustre paper, this required me resizing every photo and placing them all onto an A2 canvas ready to print at Uni. All images were put through a process of resizing from their 2:3 ratio layout, into an A3-sized document, and then pasted onto an A2-sized document for when I print them out. Due to the repetitiveness of the whole process, I decide to create an Action:

As you can see, this involves a process which can be automatically selected to "play" out. Simply by pressing the 'new' button, it opens up to rename it. I named mine A3 & 300dpi so they were all the same physical size and had the same dots per inch (just in case they werent). After you've done this, you hit 'Record' and it will record each part of the process that you do as you do it for the first time. Once complete, you press 'Stop' and the Action is complete. This helped me to resize everything exactly the same for printing in the DigiLab at Uni. 

Once they were printed, I headed over to UCA Maidstone to have them measured up and correctly spliced into the right sizes (as some were a little off) and then sticky-back mounted onto foam board. From there, the prints were placed together and packaged up in bubble wrap, ready to be unwrapped for the assessment/graduate show.

Diptych Arrangement (Mock-up)

The layout of each diptych was the next thing to be decided, since I had all the images saved, I went ahead and imported them all together into Photoshop. I then began to draw around arrows etc on the canvas as to which images should go where for the optimal arrangement, without putting similar images too close to each other, to save it from looking repetitive.

After plenty of deliberation (hours and hours of discussion in fact) with other students and my family, I came to a final decision about the placement of the 20 images / 10 diptychs. I went ahead and properly mocked it up in Photoshop to create a general sense of what it will look like when I get around to mounting them in the Graduate Show space:

Final Images (Edited & Paired)

After plenty of photoshopping and messing around, below are my final edited and paired images. As you can see, I've modified the colours below for some and paired up similar shapes for others. Generally I have tried to keep those with similar colour palettes together in the pairing process, whilst also considering the locations they were all shot at. Almost all of the images within their diptych pairs are actually in the same location, which works well for my concept and keeps a consistency throughout the series. Prime examples of successful pairs are the second diptych and fourth diptych - the first matches the colours (only slightly modified), and the second brings in the similar concentric circles for matching shapes. The lighting is fairly consistent throughout, and definitely consistent within their pairs, along with the saturation of colour in each photo in their pairs kept at a relatively similar amount too.

Final Professional Practice Items

All of the design process is complete, and items have been modified for the new/updated/improved graphics. You'll notice that I've added Helvetica for titles where I can, and the logo has changed where possible. The letterhead has been updated and applied to all relevant documents too. So, without further ado, here are all of the items in full completed, edited form:

First of all, this is my business card where I redesigned it for two sides. I have opted for a more linear and rectangular design, mixing in the most prominent colours from my photographs, which happens to be yellow/orange and purple. A nice little touch I gave it was the little yellow triangle in the corner which will be the same corner when you turn it over. This means it grabs attention when it sticks out, either way it's facing.

Here you have the Artist Statement and Call Sheet. All documents will be very similar as it'll be mainly the same text inputted into the documents - the Artist Statement I actually modified for relevance to what I'm doing now.

I attempted to change my CV so it removed the font I was using before, which I was not keen on upon reflection. Century Gothic filled my whole CV before, and it didn't look professional upon revisiting it. The logo has also been changed up (like all the letterhead-based documents).

Image Selection

With my choice of number and size in mind, I have whittled down my vast thousands of images into 20 which can work together in diptychs. These are purely to show off the images in their untouched default form before editing, pairing, cropping and resizing. So in no particular order, consider the slight transformation these images will go through in comparison to the eventual blog post of them in their final diptych form.