Evaluation- Unit 21

In my unit 21 I would like to do photography for my personal project. The reason why I would like to

explore this type of media is because I think that this suits my ability the best because I am better at

doing the written work and explaining why I am doing it then doing a video because my skill on

adobe premiere pro (the software that we use in the

school) is not too great however I think that I am pretty

good with photo shop. I also have lots of creative ideas

that I can contribute towards this topic such as making

something look original and something that might shock

people when they look at it them and hopefully say

‘wow’. Looking at my spider diagram I would like to do a

personal photo. The reason why is because it will be

very interesting for me to explain why I chose that

picture and why I chose the background and effects for

it (for example black and white tint to make it

depressing. An light yellow tint to make it happy and

joyful etc.…) depending on what the photo is and it would be cool comparing the two photos

together and that I could adapt it because I know where they were, why they were took and how we

felt (like what as the situation at the moment in time)

To insert all of pictures in to the photo shop what I did was I

clicked on open the file the I got the correct photo that I

wanted (as shown on the screen grab.

Itill come out llike this. The selectec blue area has a padlock

on the end of it. We need to get rid of it befor we do

anything else so what I did is I double clicked on the

selected area untill this came

up

You need to click on ok so you can move it around and crop

it.

then I dragged it into the next file so it

got moved in to there. This is what it

looks like…

when you get to this stage you need to press “Ctrl+T”

this will enable you to change the size and change the

rotation of the photo. Hold shift so it doesn’t warp the

photo (looks like this)

to make it look more authentic of an amituristic collage put it be hind some other photos and

put a slight til on it aswell so it will look ike this

this will give it its finishing look.i did it this way because I wanted it to look

very authentic andi wanted it to have a messy look, the reason why is

because think that It would look licer then all the photos in a row and it also

show the impression of a normal clooage that abyother family could do

aswell so it also makes a tiny conection to the reader and maybe gives them

some inspiration to go recreaste photos of their own past.

I think that my pre-production went very well and that I almost worked to my full potential lacking

on the research bit (I could of done a more detailed annotations of the photos that I had found).the

time that it took me to finish the final pre-production

I was about 1 week (7 hours a week plus the time

that I stayed behind to do it so the overall time that it

took me to do this was 13 hours). In the power point

the reason why I picked the back ground is because It

reminded me of vintage photos and that the photos

that I am doing are vintage to me (because they were

took when I was younger) so I thought that It fitted

very nicely and it looked like a photo frame so it

suited the photo theme very well.

The photo that I found the most difficult is probably the wedding photo because of all the planning

and buying’s of the fake flowers, the white ties, the fake fringe(sisters hair) and the cleaning of my

mums dress. Also because I had to get the photos perfect because I wouldn’t be able to retake them

another day because my family would have been up to it. Overall we took 19 photos with tiny

differences between them so we could get the best photo possible.

As you can see the spirit of aloha isn’t on my final

piece. This is because I wanted to get it perfect

(get the same clothes and props) however I did

some calculations and I found out that if I paid for

every think I would of exceeded my budget by

£14.50 and I was only going for spending a

maximum £50 so I opted to change it to a picture of

were my mum and dad are on their wedding day

next to the car that they travelled in. I thought that this would a good photo to do because it is a

great convocation piece to have and it would be very fascinating to write and find out about, also I

thought that it would be relatively easy to do because I am already doing a photo where it requires

my mum and dad to be dressed up in their wedding clothes and we already have the car so we can

put it on the top of the garden so its overlooking the fields so it shows the true beauty of the

clothing and the car when the sun is shining due to the nice weather that we are having at the

moment (march).

(the points highlighted in blue are the adjustments that I went back on to improve the final piece so

it makes it more appealing to look at and easier to read as well)

I personally think that it came out better than I expected because when I planned it I

didn’t have the idea of the montage for the background and I was just going to have

the standard back ground of a vintage looking pattern in the background as shown on

the left. The reason why I changed the background is because I thought 1) the that I

showed hardly any relevance to the task apart from it reminding me of old vintage

photos and 2) the background makes the whole 3 page layout look more visually

appealing and that it gives a better technicality look and feeling to the whole project and therefore

giving it a higher mark maybe and a better experience to the audience when they are looking at it

name What they like? What don’t they like?

Will Matthews The background is creative and original Evenly spread time phases that are included in this work

The writing is too small on the second page so it makes it hard to read

Luke hall The filter that you have used contrasts with the background nicely

The font is hard to read so your have to concentrate what it says

Nathan bland I like the collage/ background The “double trouble” photo could have been better edited

Sophie Carey I like the tint of the background because it doesn’t distract you from the main focus of the page however you can still see the photos clearly

I don’t think the red banner at the top because it doesn’t suit the page theme

Mr. Drummond I like the complexity and time that it took you to do the background and the positions that you placed them in

With the tint you can’t see the backgrounds properly so it wastes the time and effort that you had put in to making that so I would advise you make a front cover with no tint so you can see them properly

because it may give extra details of wheat we (my family) looked like that the other photos don’t

give so they can really get a proper depth of how much we have changed over the 10+ years.

Strengths Weaknesses

One of my strengths in this project was improvising. What I mean by this is changing items from the original plan (the background) I think that this is a good strength to have because this means that I can improve on my work whenever I can.

One of my weaknesses in this project was staying on time. What I mean by this is it has taken me 3 weeks to take the last photo ( the wedding one) because of lack of communication between my family and I because whenever I planned to do it one of us had make other plans that we couldn’t back out of

Another one of my strengths was getting constructive criticism. What I mean by this is improving the little things (the font, the size of the text etc.…) by asking my peers to give my one good and bad point and looking at them too see if I can improve it better. I think that this is a good strength to have because this meant that you can take the good and bad points of other people’s points of view so you can improve your work as much as you can.

Another weakness that I had was getting side tracked with other things (booking out the camera, editing the photos that I was doing for the background etc.) and also I kept on loosing concentration because I am can get easily distracted.

Another weakness that I had was that I could of edited the photos to make them more retro, like I could of added a tint to it to make it look more authentic and to make it look more genuine so I could maybe capture the essence of the whole project (trying to make them as original as possible) this would of made the final piece better in my opinion because even though it would have been more time consuming it would have been worth the effort.

I think that I came out fairly well because it exceeded my expectations because it of the amount of

detail that went in to it and I am proud that I stood by it and wanted to make it as good as I possibly

can. I could be improved by the quality of the pictures however because I had a budget to stand by

and a dead line to keep to so I couldn’t make it 100% accurate but I do think I did an ok job on

making them fairly similar. If I was to do it again I would

1)organise my time better and write special points on ways to make the process of my time

management easier and how to run it smoother so this would give me a maximum advantage on

how to make the whole project faster, better and easier for me so I would hopefully have more time

to make the photos look better

2) Make communication between the people in the original photos (mainly family) clearer so we can

get the dates and times of when we were going to take the photos because one of the biggest

problems in this unit was getting everyone to do the photos on a free date but everyone was either

busy with school work or out with other family or friends so I would of made it clear to everyone

when we were going to take the pictures

3) do more photos so there is more of them to look at and read about because it could have been

more interesting to read about and analyse when looking at I and seeing the changes that the two

photos have (now and then)(

One of the things that I like the most about

this project is that I like the background and

the tint because it shows a whole depth of

how my family act, live, socialise and it really

shows the bond that we have as a family. I

also think that this really finishes of the

whole project because it is quite unique and

really fits in to the whole project as a whole

because it’s to do with my families younger

years and how I have changed so having pictures of the past as the background gives it another

whole range of depth and meaningfulness also it more interesting then looking a single set colour

canvas background because that would look too boring and basic also it would show a wider range

of skill in this unit.

I also quite like the 3 page spread out because it has a fair amount of work done to it and it also

evens out the reading and pictures so its not to much to do at one time. I was origenly only going to

do one page (the middle one) however because I wanted to write about the photos I made a second

page describing what they are and som extra detail about them. Then when I stated my evaluation I

one of the comments that was said is that they cant see the background due to the pictures on top

and the tint so I then had a suggestion from my teacher to make a front page so the audience can

see all of the photos and I have now turnt it in to a little booklet. This is better then my origenal idea

because it isnt as boring then just one page and that it gives a better look when people are looking

at it.

One thing that im not too keen about

is the colour of the banner because it

looks to plane and that it contrasts too much with the tint of the background. I was going to change

it however there was there was no colour that I really liked so I just left it the same because that was

the only on that looked half decent and I also ran out of time to do something different so If I could

do this project again I would like to do a different tint maybe or do a bit more research on magazine

style banners looking at the colours, edges and the shapes so maybe it would of given me some

inspiration to make it look better.

Over all I think that my unit 21 went well, because I really found it intreresting looking at my family

photos and that I quite liked the over all layout of the whole project. I have learnt how to take

contructive critisism and learning to improve on all of the bad points about the work. I have also

learnt how research plays a massive role when making a media unit because these gives you great

amounts of inspiration and amazing ideas to work with.