Mid-Project Evaluation

When I first started this project, I had the intention of focusing more so on just food photography. I wanted to experiment with a variety of food and drinks in my work, until I discovered some versatile advertising photographers. I found a man called David Gilliver, who photographs food products, but adds miniature people to the composition. I found this surreal movement to be extremely inspiring and something that I then wanted to employ into my work. I then found a photographer called Josh Caudwell. He photographed products such as bags and people's personal belongings along with nail polishes etc. His style is neat and precise, quite sophisticated, which is also something that I liked when carrying out my photographer research. After this I'd decided that I didn't want to just focus on food and drink, because advertising is so much more than that. I wanted to provide myself with a large window of opportunity in this project instead of a one way street down the food route alone. 

I have already explored different topics in advertising, starting from perfume bottles, developing onto locations, food, and drinks. I now want to develop onto books and reading, as this is a hobby of mine that I am passionate about and therefore want to explore in my project. I will be exploring the surreal movement more so with this topic as I feel as though it could work extremely effectively if done right. 

I have already learnt many Photoshop techniques so far in this project which I have enjoyed experimenting with, such as overlapping two photographs together, selective colour, multiple imagery, multiple exposure and the effect posterize. It has been fun experimenting with Photoshop, and is something that I want to continue exploring. I will be using the splatter tool at some point in this project as well as this was successful last year. In Shoot 1 of this project is where I experimented with gel lighting. This method added glow to a picture, which is effective in beauty photography. As beauty isn't a theme I've wanted to focus on in advertising, I haven't developed this gel technique with models, even though I did find it extremely successful. I did however develop this technique in Shoot 2, where I added pink and yellow gels to the lights that were shining down on perfume bottles - resulting in one of the most successful shoots so far.

The majority of my photographs have been captured whilst using a tripod, as this creates a still frame if I was to have a shaky hand. I will continue using a tripod for this reason. I have experimented with a few backgrounds so far, but not enough, so this is a goal I am setting for myself in future shoots. 

Overall, the first half of my project has been a successful one, with many experiments being carried out and lots of developments. In order to excel my skill in Photography, I will need to complete the recommended shoots, which is 10. As I am near to finishing the majority of the theory work, it is the practical I now need to work harder on.