In this piece of work I will be reflecting on Unit 57 – Photography and Photographic Practice. The main part of my reflection will be based on the 10 final photographs I have captured and edited to a professional standard. There is 5 portrait and 5 urban landscape photographs. Throughout the unit, before the final assignment (10 final photographs), I was learning about photography and photography techniques. I learnt and gained a lot more skills and knowledge from studying this unit. I have learnt skills called- rule of thirds, aperture, shutter speed and ISO. I have also learnt how to shoot in RAW helping me achieve the best possible result. Not only have I learnt skills for behind the camera, I have learnt other skills for editing my images. I have learnt: black and white photography, lens flares, masking, cropping, dodging and burning, clone stamp tool and using the lasso tool. I have gain more confidence with using Adobe Photoshop and I have also been introduced to another program called Adobe Lightroom; which is photograph editing software but it is more advanced with more editing features than Photoshop. Learning these skills has helped my photography knowledge and I think I have demonstrated this in my work.

My intentions for my final assignment was to produce photograhs that create a connection or emotion with the audience and my photographs. I will begin with discussing my urban landscape photographs. The place I went to capture my images was Stockport due to the variety of new and old. When I was capturing my images learning the skills of aperture, shutter speed and ISO really paid off as it helped me capture images with great potential when it came to editing. As I captured over 100 images it was hard for me to choose 5 final images. To help me choose, I asked my peers that were around me during the time and they helped me come to a conclusion. I began editing my final 5 images, once I had edited them all, one image really stood out to me and I am still really proud of this image.

When I opened this image on Lightroom I didn’t think it needed that much editing as I thought the image alone is quite powerful. All the different textures, lines and patterns really stand out and it makes me feel trapped in a sense as the building in the photograph, look as though they are closing in. It looks abandoned and as you can see the dirtiness on the walls this proves this. When I captured the image, it was quite a dull day. I added a vignette to make the corners look darker but also add more focus to the centre of the photograph. The composition of this image is centre as if you are trying to look straight through.

Another urban landscape photograph I particularly like this the one below of the lamppost and the trees.

This is one of my favourite pictures I have captured. I love how the lamppost stands out in the picture due to it being lit up. The tree branches in the background with no leaves, also creates a sinister theme. The trees branches also make me feel trapped as though you need to fight your way through to get out but as though the light is a guide. I added vignette to make the lamppost the ‘centre of attention’. When I edited this photograph I burned the light too much, which has resulted in it looking noisy. Overall I am really pleased with this photograph.

Next I will discuss my portrait photographs. I had taken my photographs using the college studio. I wanted my model to create themes and moods by using their facial expressions, body posture and language. When capturing my portrait photos, I thought it would be beneficial to use my knowledge rule of thirds. The photograph below is what I had taken using this technique.

When it came to editing my photograph on Lightroom, I figured that there was too much excess background. It was taking away the emotion from my photograph so I decided to crop my photograph on Photoshop. The facial expression on my model makes her look strong and powerful but on the other hand, in contrast with this having her hood up could make my audience feel vulnerability, when looking at my photograph. I added an effect called ‘sepia’ to completely change the colour of my image and I also added a vignette, to again darken the edges of my image.

As you can see in the post above I asked for some feedback on a social media website called ‘Twitter’. I posted screenshots on my profile on all my final 10 photographs and I asked my followers ‘Please can I have some feedback on my final 10 photographs? Good/bad/improvements, thank you’. I got a few replies and they were all good responses. For example ‘@findingsammi: @hollpayne for your portrait I like the variety of shots and the colours in them all, they look good’. A negative of posting this is that I didn’t receive any bad or improvement type of feedback, so if I was to do this task in the future, I don’t know how I could improve my photos, or improve them in a way in which the audience would like them to look.

In conclusion to this reflection on Unit 57, I have really enjoyed photography and I have felt myself bloom over the couple of months we have studies this. I feel like I have a lot of confidence in photography and I am really happy with how my final assignment for photography has turned out. I feel like I have some very strong photographs and also some weak photographs but, I think having strong and weak photographs presents my development throughout this unit. If I was to do this again I think I would do more research

into both portrait and urban landscape and see the kind of photographs that are taken. For example, with portrait I would research more into the posture of the models to get the right look for my photographs.