Written Resources for GCSE/ A Level Photography MindMapping Finding ideas for projects can be difficult, always make a visual mind map to help you think creatively. Finding ideas for projects can be difficult, always make a visual mind map to help you think creatively. For Photography think about ……….. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● What does the project title mean? Research words you don’t understand, use dictionary definitions as starting points Include quotes linked to topic Which photographers/ designers/ artists and art movements can you look at for inspiration? Which wider contextual links can you think of? How can your other subjects, hobbies and passions inform your ideas? What techniques might you use? darkroom/ studio/ digital/ drawing with light/ alternative processes/ mixed media etc What genre are you interested in? Do you need to consider lighting and setup? Indoor /outdoor/ models/ props/ lighting/backdrops etc Planning/ time/ preparation. Creating a word mind map. Use:- https://worditout.com/word-cloud/create Mood board example Surrealism Photography Mood board Key websites for researching photographers work Great start points here:https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/photographs https://www.britannica.com/ https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/ Paris gallery websites:http://www.jeudepaume.org/index.php?lang=en https://www.mep-fr.org/english/ British National Media Museum:https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/ Photo Agency. great for searching with a keyword such as 'football':https://www.magnumphotos.com/ Key London Galleries:https://www.npg.org.uk/ https://www.michaelhoppengallery.com/ https://photolondon.org/ https://whitecube.com/ https://www.tate.org.uk/ List of some popular photographers with images, resources and links:https://www.masters-of-photography.com/ Writing about artists/ photographers and their work Including informed and personal opinion about the work of others is essential to developing an independent and personal project. Making clear links with your work and the work of others will help you to refine and develop sophisticated ideas. Sophisticated ideas will enable you to produce independent work and this will significantly help you to achieve good marks. Make sure you always write about the following:● You will need to write a minimum of five sentences to explain: ○ What inspires their work? ○ What equipment, materials and props do they uses to create photographs? ○ What genre could you describe their work to be and explain why ? ○ Include an image from one of their projects and give three reasons why you like this piece. Use specialist vocabulary to analyse this piece using the keywords from the next slide. Include the title and date of the photograph. ○ Explain what ideas you could borrow from their work to create artwork or photographs in a similar style In addition, to develop greater understanding of the work of others and to achieve more marks use the questions on the next slide to expand your ideas and understanding. Analysing an Image/ Photograph Writing Frame 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. What do you see, what is the style, what is in the image? Describe it literally and in detail (as if you are describing the photograph to someone who cannot see it) What does it make you think of, feel, or realise? What so you think the artist/ photographer is trying to communicate? How does the image communicate this message? What emotions are represented? What would you like to know about it? What do you like and dislike about the image/ piece? Why? How do you think it may have been achieved? What ideas can you take from this artwork? And what would you like to use in your own practical work? Visual Language (the top ten things to talk and write about) Depth Colour Composition Contrast Placement Perspective Light Line Movement Space Word Bank (Important words to use for analysing the work of others) Colour Blend, Bright, Clashing, Cold Complimentary, Deep, Dull Glowing, Harmonious, Intense Luminous, Mixed, Opaque Pale, Pastel, Pure, Secondary Translucent, Transparent Vibrant, Warm Composition Asymmetry, Background Blurred, Complex, Confused Distance, Depth of field, Eye line Focus, Foreground, Form Golden Mean, Juxtaposition Leading lines, Middleground Pattern, Perspective Proportions, Rule of thirds Scale, Shape, Symmetry Texture Feeling Awe, Alive, Atmospheric, Chilling Cautious, Delicate, Dignified, Disturbing, Expressive Humorous, Imposing Intimidating, Joyful Jubilant, Limitless, Nostalgic Sad, Sentimental, Sublime Terrified, Tremendous Vexed, Volatile, Wary Welcoming, Warm Style Abstract, Conceptual, Derivative Distorted, Documentary, Editorial Emotional, exaggerated, Exterior Fantasy, Fashion, Figurative Impressionistic, Landscape Portraiture, Religious, Reportage Representational, Still life Surreal. Symbolic Light Artificial, Chiaroscuro, Dark Diffused, Evening, Flash Fierce, Gentle, Harsh Hazy, Highlight, High key Intense, Low Key, Natural Shady, Shadow, Strobe Tungsten, Zone system An example of how to annotate a photograph Include title, photographer, date = Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath, W Eugene Smith, 1971 This is a black and white photograph of two people; a mother and child. She is holding the child in a nurturing position because she is looking down on the child and cradling the child and there is eye contact between the two of them. The background is black, the people are in the middleground and the light is shining on them from a window which is above and behind them on the right - this can be seen because of the shadows which fall on their faces and the reflection on the child’s hand in the water. The two are sitting in a bathtub and the shape suggests that it is a Japanese bath. The photographer has photographed the rectangular bath from one corner this makes it look like a diamond, this suggests that this is a precious situation and a tender moment. The camera angle is looking down on them suggesting that what we see in front of us is a vulnerable situation. Annotating your development work Annotations do not have to be long essays. Short notes or even bullet points can help to get ideas across. Use the following questions to help you and write some answers to these alongside your work as it evolves…. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● How did you create this piece? What media / materials did you use? Were the materials you used successful? Why / why not? What were your experiences making this piece of work? Was it difficult / easy? How might you change your approach if you used this technique again? Why did you try making this piece in this way? What were you aiming for and did you achieve it? What do you like about this work? Why do you like it? What do you dislike about the work? Why do you dislike it? Has this piece changed your ideas? If so how / why? How could this piece have been improved? Most importantly of all – what have you learnt from doing this? How are you going to move forwards as a result? Is there a deeper meaning developing in your work? Students who get the highest marks look for deeper interpretations in their work and try to communicate richer ideas. Using the correct vocabulary is also important. Think about using the words on the previous slide when describing your work……. Please use this handout to help you with your contact sheet annotations When making notes on your contact sheets you should highlight strengths and weaknesses as well as choices that you have intentionally made. Use the following to help structure your notes: Writing a shoot plan It is important to manage your time effectively to ensure that you are able to achieve the visual results that you want. Good plan = good marks ● ● ● ● ● ● ● What will you photograph and why? What links are there to the work of others? Explain the visual, compositional and technical links that you will experiment with What camera techniques will you focus on? (consider the skills you learnt from the Introduction Project) What equipment will you need? What Health and safety considerations will you need to be aware of? Explain what you will do if you have constraints because of weather, timing and/or light conditions (do you have a plan B?) Writing a Shoot Review for Photography ● Did you meet all your aims? ● How well did you plan? Was there anything that you needed to change? ● How do the images link back to the photographers/ artists and research that you have explored? ● Did your technical experimentations work out? If so how? If not what happened and how do you think you could have improved your practice? ● Did you visually achieve what you wanted? If so how? If not what do you think was the difficulty and what would you do next time to improve your result? ● Which were your best images? And why? ● How will this shoot help you to plan for your next photoshoot? And why? Example :- Shoot Review Inspired By Mood Board As this was my first proper experience with expressive portraiture photography, I wanted to practice and get a proper feel for what it was like. As this was my first time doing it I didn’t really know what to expect, so I decided to research different types of portrait photography, however the photographs that really stood out to me were the ones where you could see the clear emotions on the models faces, I thought it was so interesting how the photographer managed to capture exactly what the model was feeling. I spent ages searching the Internet and came across a photographer called Edward Honaker. He uses his photography to document his own depression in powerful self portraits. He has a whole series of photographs in black and white which illustrates his experience with depression and anxiety, indicating that his mental illness sucked all the colour out of his life. However I have noticed that in a lot of his photography Edward Honaker doesn’t use people's faces it’s generally the body and the face is blurred out, although when I attempt to produce my portraits I want to focus mainly on the model's facial expression. I practiced taking photographs of my friends and family in many different locations and with different lighting, I also tried to include some props in order to really enhance my models specific characteristics. For example for my first shoot, my friend and I went to the park, following Edward Honaker I wanted to try and do something along the lines of sadness, as normally people associate the park as a happy fun place. My aim was to create and display a contrast between happiness and sadness. As for the props I instructed my model to use different parts of the park to add to the shoot, e.g the swing, I had my model sit on it then look back and face the camera, this worked really well as sitting on the swing with her hair blowing suggests that she is happy however her facial expression shows she is not. After the shoot I edited some of my pictures into black and white, this was because the whole theme of my shoot was originally based on sadness and depression. I took my inspiration from Honaker in this shoot as I too wanted to demonstrate the emotion sadness and give the sense that this mood sucked the colour and joy out of my models life. At the end of the shoot I felt accomplished in what I had managed to shoot and in a sense created my own version of Honakers work which was my original goal. Reviewing and Evaluating your Final Project What Worked Well (WWW) and Even Better IF (EBI) ● ● ● To develop your project and demonstrate a confident understanding of a range of techniques and processes it is important that you evaluate your work explaining what your aim was and how successful you feel your outcome to the task was. To do this you need to include your opinion of what you think your successes and areas for develop are. To do this you always need to justify your thoughts and opinions. Often you will need to use the word ‘because’ to explain the statement you have written. Try these sentence starters:WWW ● This is my most successful photograph because .............. ● In my opinion this photograph is a good example of ……… because …………. ● This photograph makes strong links to the work of …………. because ……….. ● I am particularly pleased with………...and now I intend to……………. because……… ● My subject matter of …..….. reflects my interest in……..... because……….. EBI ● ● ● ● ● Be Kind to yourself - you have learnt so much already Try writing two positives and one key area for improvement. This photograph could be developed further by …………… because in this image I think ………………… To improve this photograph I would …………………… because…………. The [INSERT:- top/bottom/foreground/middleground/background] of my image works well because………..however I would like to change…………………..because……….. To improve my work I need to…………because…….. Next time I need to focus on……….because….. Final Evaluation for the Abstraction and Photography Project Through the abstraction hands in the picture and the cropping of the picture, it is impossible to see the original appearance of the hand, which is the abstraction of the original picture. In addition, I used my hand to grab the photo, so that the hands inside and outside of the photo were superimposed, making the whole photo look more abstract, but not lacking in richness. And different photos are captured by different hands and postures. I took advantage of the different directions of the light to shoot, making the light appear more contrast in the photo, just like in the photos I took, I focused on taking photos that tend to be bright and dark. Let the exposure of the picture mainly focus on the left, while the right is used as a part of the background to make the left look brighter. And using the contrast of light can also see the contrast between the real hand and the photo hand. In these pictures, if I make it the same way again, I feel that I can have a more accurate contrast in the light and dark ratio. And when shooting with more angles and different intensity lighting. Let's start with the picture. I wanted to take all the hands and pictures together, but I found that if I put all the pictures together, it was very crowded and confusing. In the end I still took pictures separately. The effect will be more beautiful than before. Each picture has its own focus, and the composition will be more compact. In these pictures, if I do it the same way again, I feel that I can get a more accurate correction in terms of light and dark ratio. And when shooting with more angle and light of different intensity. Let's start with the picture. I wanted to put all my hands and photos together, but I found it very crowded and confusing to put all the photos together. Finally, I'm still taking pictures alone. The effect will be more beautiful than before. Each picture has its own focus, and the composition is more accurate. The model I found had a slim hand, and in some of the photos, I would show my wrists, and the model's hands would be whiter. Contrast with the dark parts of the picture. In order to make the picture look more uniform, has the same characteristics. I changed the background to the same black depth. And I'm using a simpler method of printing out the photos, sticking them to the board, and then cutting them. Because I like hands very much, I put them in my whole project. it's the main element of my project. And holding the photo is just that I used a different way to show the presence of the hand. In this holistic project, I learned how to use light from different angles to form different shadows to shoot. And use different angles of the hand, with different postures. The photos that come out, the feeling is not the same. the colour gel is also used very often in the project. Different colors and different color gels can also form different colors. And in this project, I can learn a lot of different photo formation methods in the dark room. https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/dora-maurer Final Project Review When I first started this project, I knew I wanted to prove that makeup was worn for strength rather than to be sexualised, however I did not realise the discoveries that I would make during it. The most influential person through my research I believe has been Elizabeth Arden and the creation of Lipstick Feminism. I never thought that something as simple as red lipstick had such an important history behind it, especially one that had such a large influence on the second wave of feminism. As well as this, although red lipstick arguably does hold sexual connotations within today’s society, it is still a symbol of strength and independence. In regard to the impact of makeup itself, Rankin’s shoot, Alive: In the face of Death made a profound impact on the rest of my project. It was a direct example, proving that makeup gives people strength. This, along various articles found online consolidates the view that makeup should, and is, worn as a result of personal choice and something to build confidence, not a tool for sexualisation. The shoots themselves were also a really interesting way to learn about makeup in general. Through the project, I have experimented with many different looks and used different techniques to get the image I wanted. For example, the stylised Elizabethan shoot took me two attempts before I realised that less is definitely more, and I could create a look which was just as effective. I am so pleased with how my final piece has turned out. After researching zines themselves, I discovered that although my original aim was to simply do a magazine, a zine was going to fit my project much more; giving me a wider range of layout to choose from without having the editorial restrictions presented by mainstream media. After editing the zine itself to make sure that it included photos which would best present the purpose of my project, I think that it really resembles the entire message I wanted to get across. The fact that makeup is not simply something to be sexualised, or to be looked down upon as submitting to a patriarchal society, it is something to be enjoyed and celebrated for giving people confidence within themselves.
