Final Evaluation

Final Evaluation 

     For my exam I chose the title 'transformations', this exam brief gave me the idea to follow the work of Abelardo Morell, a camera obscura photographer. This technique is what my whole project has been based around, creating dark rooms in my house and photographing the results. Within this I decided to use a subject to add a narrative which presented the viewer with an insight to this persons living environment and personality. 

     I have been majorly influenced by two photographers throughout this project, Abelardo Morell and Marja Pirila. Both photographers work with the camera obscura technique and produce amazing pieces of work that have guided by throughout my project. Abelardo concentrates his work around primarily the landscape and the way it fits into the room. He has taken photographs all around the world and worked with amazing views of famous landscapes projected into interesting rooms. The main aspect I took from Abelardo's work was the way it is composed, so carefully that it fits into the room like it's supposed to be there. Within his images you can see the way the landscape weaves its way around furniture but never obscures detail or becomes distorted. I have really tried to do this in my project by paying close attention to what furniture and room I use the landscape in. 

Marja Pirila was also a huge influence in my work as when I started studying her I realised the importance of using a subject. Marja's work largely focuses around the narrative behind the setting, whose room and view is shown in the camera obscura. Therefore, she includes the person or people who actually belong there. I think this is really powerful as it gives the viewer an insight into the life of a stranger, showing their living environment, who they are and their personality which is often shown through style. After I had seen the work of Marja I started to use people in my own work, hence why my shoots are based upon what the subject is doing. I feel this made my work develop massively as it went from just the room to experimenting with they way a subject would fit into the image. 

     From the preparatory shoots to my exam a lot has changed. Firstly, my technique has improved massively from the first camera obscura I done to the ones I have done in his examination, the images are much sharper and better exposed. I have altered my camera settings and the set-up of the dark room in order to achieve this, by figuring out what worked best and what needed to be improved through my preparatory shoots I was able to produce good work with only little adjustments for the exam shoots. Secondly, my idea has progressed from the preparatory shoots to the exam. At first I didn't know what to do with my subjects so just had them somewhere in the setting without any meaning. However in the examination shoots my aim as to show what the subject does within their room, therefore they were carrying out activities that were personal to them and reflected their personality. 

      I have learnt a lot throughout both the preparatory section and the exam. One of the most useful tips I have picked up is using the 'time' selection on my camera as my shutter speed. In my first shoot I thought I was limited to 30 seconds as the longest exposure time however I discovered for my next shoot that by selecting 'time' I could let the camera shoot for as long as I needed it too. I have also learnt a lot about the settings on my camera such as 'auto-flash' and 'auto-focus', both of these were settings I had to turn off. During my shoots I had difficulty with my camera taking the image, it wouldn't focus on anything as it was too dark. Therefore I had to research how to overcome his and I found out that by turning the focus to 'manual' the camera would shoot without having a focus point. In terms of aesthetics I have worked on my composition a lot, especially after looking at the work of Abelardo Morell. He doesn't do anything special but has the landscape and the camera in exactly he right position so that everything fits into place. I focused on having a piece of furniture off centre like he does where the landscape subtly interacts with it. I feel that during the exam I have also looked at my colours more. Not just saturation but the way colours work together and the feeling they give the photograph. Both of my shoots work with muted and natural tones from the landscape therefore I didn't want to over work these in photoshop and risk the photo looking unrealistic. Instead I stuck with the natural beauty of them and enhanced that. 

      Despite the fact that this project went well on the most part, there are still some things I would have changed if I had the chance. The first one, being able to shoot on sunny, bright days. Due to the limited amount of days I had available to shoot some of them were overcast and cloudy, in fact only one was bright sunshine. The difference this brightness made to the darkroom was extraordinary as the detail could be seen as clear as day in the room not just through the camera. Therefore if I could change when I was able to shoot I would have done the shoots every time it was sunny. Another aspect of the project I wish I could change is the blur that is evident on some of my shoots. It wasn't until her the end of the project that I realised I should be shooting subjects as 30 seconds and allowing the ISO and aperture to pick up the rest of the light that was lacking. This would have eliminated so much of the blur and improved a lot of my photographs. However some of the images that do have blur are still useable and look good, in fact in some of Marja Pirila's images her subjects have slight movement. This shows the reality of the camera obscura technique. 

     Throughout this project I have had fun learning an amazing and original technique that I love to photograph. It is completely different to any work I have produced before as it shows a creative side of my photography not just technical. I feel that this project has been a success especially in relation to my exam brief, 'transformations'. My main aim for the shoots was to transform a room into something spectacular and I have done just that through the use of camera obscura.