Evaluation – Salford Qua ys

For this unit, I had to go out to Salford Quays and then take several photographs around Salford Quays and then edit them in Adobe Photoshop. Having clear understanding of this particular unit and brief set, I have managed to complete the task set which I feel is an excellent standard. I have done then to the point where I think they are effective, different and what I enjoy. I tried to be as professional as I could with the photographs that I was taking; however some of the photographs came out in different qualities. Some were blurry and some were perfect quality, and this gave me the option to define what I did wrong with images as not focusing the camera properly and not fixing the composition all the time correctly. In order to get a steady camera and sort out a proper composition, if I was going to do this project again I would get a tripod which would better composition.

There are two artists who I looked at in order to preform my Photographs or final images and they were Andrew Brooks and Simon Butterworth. They both take landscape photographs and they have taken images of buildings light up at night as well as natural open spaces. The research I did on these artists was effective as I tried to perfect the standards they go through to take their images and make them how they look. Through trying to get to professional standards images, I have edited them in the way I think would be better to present them and different yet bold and outstanding like the artists themselves. Throughout my editing, I have asked for other people’s opinions to see what worked well through the editing process and what didn’t work well and even if they had liked the images I have edited so far and I have sat and spoken about what would work with the image itself by looking at what is in the image and deciding what to do and also what effects/filters would be useful.

The different stages I went through to get my final edited images were all effective. The research helped me decide what I wanted to exactly take images of and how I would like to hopefully edit them. The planning and preparation didn’t go as I thought it would because I didn’t really plan when I was going to do it and the preparation was a last minute thing. If I was to do it again I would plan several day trips to take the images as the weather can also have a big impact on the image being taken from it being sunny or it raining, there will be a different type of atmosphere coming from the image. The time management and the project management have both been all over the place as I started the assignment. As it has gone further down the line, they have both become more into place and I know where I am I know what needs to be done and what hasn’t been done. It has slightly fallen into place as well as the creative ability. Editing the images and recording what I have done to create the final image has been long and difficult as some of the images I had just edited without recording so thinking back on what I had done and thinking about what I need to do to recreate the image wasn’t easy.

My final artwork has just blown out my original intentions as I felt like I wouldn’t create as good of images than I already have done and they wouldn’t turned out to near professional standards. As the images have turned out better than expected, I had chosen a couple of the Salford Quays images to put into my portfolio as I felt they worked well and the editing was great. I had no initial audience for my images however, people who have looked at the final pieces of art work have enjoyed what I have done and either liked or loved the images. I personally love what I have done as I know it’s my work and I am getting to where I want to be with the actual photography, my skills are developing slowly and my Photo Shop skills are becoming more advanced as I know how to use it and what to do with the tools.