Weekly Log:

Week starting the 16th April: I shall start the project this week. I will create and finish the Project proposal by Friday, and I will also aim to have started 2 photographer research. Over the weekend I hope to take a test shoot of a landscape with some props I have found around my house. This will help me to determine if I need to buy anything to help me with the project.

I have managed to get one photographer research done this week. This was less than I had hoped to have finished but I have made it up with one extra test shoot and I have reflected on one of the shoots as well which means there will be slightly less work for me to do in the future weeks. On Monday and Tuesday I did a research article on a landscape photographer, this gave me some inspiration for my shoots. The first shoot I did was with my iPhone to see what type of light painting it gave. On Saturday I went to Mote Park to shoot at around 8:45pm. We didn't get many pictures because it was too busy and I wanted more peace and quiet so that I could shoot. We then went to an alley down boxley hill and we were set up to shoot the first image when I noticed that people were trying to scrap my dads car for parts so we could not stay there. I will need to factor that in for my other shoots because I need to find a place that is quieter.

Week starting 23rd April: This week I hope to have at least 1 test shoot that I can analyse and gather some feedback to then do another test shoot in this week as well. I hope to have a more solid idea on what styles I shall do the portraits and the landscapes in by then.

This week I got a lot of test shoots done. I focused on portraits this week because I got some fibre optics and some torches to use with them. I looked at one portrait photographer which gave me the inspiration to use fibre optics in my shoots. I also visited one exhibition and when I was there I managed to find some good locations to shoot in. I also visited the library on Wednesday the 25th and got some more inspiration for places to shoot as well. On Sunday I shot some portraits but I encountered a problem with my images because they kept coming out blurry, I am not sure what caused this but I am going to shoot again during next week (Monday) to see if I can fix my blur problem. I also gave a presentation and got some feedback which will help me to alter parts of my project, I have added some depth to my project which now explains my initial research in more detail.

Week starting 30th April: In this week I hope to do three more shoots that will hopefully have some final images that I will be able to edit. I should have an idea on the styles that I would like to shoot in and will have gathered all of the equipment that I need. On Tuesday 1st May I am going to spend the first period shooting, I had originally planned to shoot yesterday however there were other people in there who were using the lights and I needed it to be pitch black so i didn't get their ambient light in any of my images. On friday 4th May I am going to spend the day finishing up work that I have left over the past few weeks. In the first period I am going to write up my questionnaires that I created last week.

I shot my first set of portraits in the morning session on Tuesday. I got the images done however not as many as I had planned because I had to help out with other shoots. I have also reflected and edited two of them which I thought represented my theme well. On Friday I spent the day finishing up certain parts of work that I needed to finish from the past weeks. In the first two periods I wrote up my questionnaires that I conducted last week. I also wrote up some feedback that I received about my whole project. In the third lesson, I created the presentation for next Tuesday, which includes my research and test shoots so people can see how my project is going and give me constructive criticism which will help me to begin changing some of my images to make them suit my audience more thoroughly. In the last period I have researched one portrait photographer to collect some different ideas for poses that I can use in my final images.

Week starting 7th May: I will do the final three shoots that will give me all of the final images that I need. I will also reflect on the shoots and then edit them throughout the week.

Above was my previous plan, I have now changed this because we have been given extra time to work on the project so I am going to start my final shoots this week and then edit then over the next two weeks.

On Tuesday I am going to present my interim presentation, this is a presentation showing some of my test shoots and some of my research that I have done in my project so far. I will also create a questionnaire on Tuesday which will give me some feedback about what my audience think about my shoots and my presentation skills. I will also write it up on Tuesday and analyse how I can change my project. On Friday the 11th May, during the first period I am going to write up my plan for tomorrow. This will take the whole period as I am going to write up about my equipment and where I am going to go. In the second period, I am going to collect some feedback from lee, primarily about my planning and see how I can improve certain areas of my project. Over the weekend I would like to finish up everything that has been left undone on my project so that over the next week I can focus solely on the shoot that I am going to do on friday/saturday without needing to do anything else.

On Tuesday, I presented my first few test shoots and my primary and secondary research. I created a questionnaire in the first period that everyone in the class will fill out and that will allow me to see what people like and dislike about my project so far. I did my presentation in the first period and I wrote up my feedback in the second half of the second period. On friday, I got all of my planning done for the shoot tonight, I also have written up my plan for tonight and tomorrow. In the third lesson I got some feedback from lee. This was helpful to see what I could improve on in my project. I wrote up the feedback that he has given me and made suitable adjustments to my project on Sunday.

Week starting 14th May; I shall reflect on my editing process and then evaluate my final pieces. i shall also gather peer evaluation and see how other peoples opinions on my work is different to my own. I will also spend this week referencing all of my research using the Harvard format.

I have changed my original plan which was above because we have been given extra time to work on this project. On Monday I am going to create the contact sheets and begin writing up how my shoots by the coast went. In the second lesson I am hoping to have made the contact sheets, written up the time plan of what happened, and started picking out shots that I liked. In the last lesson, I am hoping to have started picking out the images that I am going to edit and analysing why I prefer these over some of my other shots. In the last lesson I am hoping to begin editing my images from my contact sheet that I made in the last lesson. On wednesday, I am going to do my final shoot for my portraits. I am hoping that I can spend a few hours on this shoot and try out different model poses, coloured lihgts, and camera positions. I hope that by trying out lots of different variety in the images I will be able to find three final images in this shoot. I would like to combine the light rod that I used in some of my landscapes with the light portraits because I think that will create a cosmic feel with a light form coming from behind. I have planned to do one last landscape shoot underneath maidstone bridge either late at night or very early in the morning. The main risk shooting here however is that it is potentially very dangerous, I am going to minimise this by seeing if my Dads friend is free to come and make sure that no one is around. I aim to shoot on saturday morning so that I can have all of my landscape shoots done by the next week and then focus solely on my portraits and the editing process as well before my presentation next friday. On Thursday, I will buy photoshop. This will help me out as I am near to the end of my project and i am still in need of one or two more shoots so I will be able to better manage my time by being able to edit at home as well as at college. Now I have photoshop, I shall spend the rest of Thursday editing my Saturday morning shots from last week and writing them up on my page. This will allow me to see what else I need to create in my next shoot over the weekend to then have three final images that I am proud of. My original plan for Friday was to edit the images from last week, however I managed to get that done on Thursday so now i can spend my first period doing the contact sheets and the analysis for my shoot on wednesday. Because that shoot was unsuccessful, I am going to gather some feedback from my peers to see how I could improve them because I am going to shoot my final images on friday evening. I will write up how I can improve my next shoot in the first period as well. In the third period, I will edit the images from saturday morning, and begin writing up some more primary research. In the fourth period, I am going to finish up any outstanding work from earlier on in the day and make sure that I am prepared for my next portrait shoot.

On Monday, I began creating my contact sheets for my project. This took a bit longer than I had expected because the files were very large because I shot on NEF and it took the whole lesson and then they did not work so I had to ask Sunni and Joe to help me and we managed to download my files in the last lesson. This meant that I had done less work than I had hoped to get done. On wednesday I shot my portraits. This was very unsuccessful. The images kept coming out blurry and there was not the clarity that i wanted in any of the images. I tried different apertures and shutter speeds but there was no clarity and the images were unimpressive. Following this, I have emailed my tutors Lee and Joe because I have tried what changing the settings which is what I had expected would be at fault as this was the case last time, however it did not work. I hope that they will have some advice that will help me to make some changes to my next shoot. Depending on the outcome, I will try to shoot again over the weekend or I shall book out time in the studio to shoot on Wednesday. I would like to aim to shoot before then because that only leaves me with one day to edit them and there will not be much time to shoot again if they come out blurry again. I have decided to shoot again on Friday night as my final shoot for the portraits. I will be able to go to my dads work where there will be more room to do some light rod work as well as shooting some bigger images than head shots. On Friday, I got all of my edits done for Saturday morning and picked out my favourite images from that shoot as well as analysing them. I then looked at the images that I shot on wednesday and they were more successful than I had thought that they were. I picked out all of the good ones and edited them and analysed them. I wrote down the settings of the successful images so that I have an idea for the next shoots. This will hopefully mean that I spend less time figuring out what settings I need and more time gathering successful images. The failed portrait shoot however gave me some ideas for how I can improve and the sort of light effects that I want in my images so although most of the images cannot be used I did learn a lot from it.

On Friday evening, I shot my final portraits. I used my feedback from lee to help me with my problem and I managed to take a lot of successful images. Now with these images I will be able to edit them over next week and then over next wednesday and thursday I will pick out my final six images for the presentation on friday.

Week starting 21st May: On Monday in the first period I am going to create the contact sheets for my portrait shoot and then use that to pick out some of my favourite images from the shoot. I will use the second period to begin editing the images and writing about how the shoot went. I will use the third period in the afternoon to carry on editing and potentially help emma with her last shoot. On Tuesday, I hope to finish my final images. I will select my final images and edit them and then choose which ones will be put towards my final piece. I hope to have all of my editing done in the first period, so that i can spend the second period narrowing down my choices and choosing my favourite portraits and landscapes. Once I have picked out my final six images, I will be able to start my final presentation on Friday. i will then use Wednesday and Thursday to finish off my presentation in preparation for Friday. Over the weekend, I would like to go to the Tate Modern in London. They have a light exhibition there showcasing 100 years of light photography and I think that it will be interesting to see some other types of lighting photography other than light painting.

On monday, I spent the day working on my portrait shoot. I have chosen my favourite images in the first period, made the contact sheets and then I started editing them in the second and third periods. On Tuesday first period, I finished editing my final images and began choosing which images I will have as my final six. I lined up all f my favourite portraits and then all of my favourite landscapes and i asked a few people around the classroom what ones did they prefer and then why did they like them. I challenged their opinions so that I could see why they chose them and then potentially change their opinions based on what other people say and how I felt about how each picture works against the theme and my project. This helped me to choose my final images as I feel that it is important that other people have a view in my work because they are open to interpretation. I think that there are multiple ways that my work fits to the theme and so it is important that other people can make the connection to my images and the theme and not just myself. In the last lesson, I had picked out my final images. I used the TV in Lees classroom to test out how they look because in my previous presentations they had come out very dark and washed out because the projector does not project the colours very well so I tested how they would look before hand so that people could see my work clearly. I then needed to edit my images again because I had edited the light very harshly to make up for the projected, but now they are going to be on the TV I needed to darken them again so that the blacks were strong. On Wednesday, I made the presentation for Friday. I included a summary of all the work that I have done leading up to my final pieces, including primary research and secondary research, test and final shoots, and planning. I finished this of on Friday during the first period. I went to the Tate Modern on Saturday. I arrived there at 10am and I stayed until 3pm. whilst I was there, i looked around all of the free exhibitions, but most importantly, I looked at their "Shape of Light" exhibition which was about 100 years of light photography. Although there was not any light painting there or work similar to what I am doing, it was nice to see other art styles other than photography manipulating light. I was most fascinated by photograms and chemigrams. These are "camera less images" where the artist laid objects on a piece of unexposed film and then exposed it to light dn it created weird abstract shapes where the objects were laying on the film. The chemigram is similar, however they covered the film in wax and other chemical objects which created patterns and textures one exposed to the light. I like this style because it is a very unconventional way of "taking an image" and I enjoyed how they used different materials to create the different patterns.

Week starting 28th May:

Over this last week of the project, I am going to finish all of my incomplete write ups and work that I have left un finished. This will finish strengthening my project and hopefully give it the higher marks. I will spend monday finishing all of the write ups for my editiing process, I will also write up the last week of my blog on what I have done in that week and then what I still have left to do. This will give me a time frame for what needs to be done before the end of the project. I will also conduct an instagram survey on monday about my target audience to go alongside my quetionnaire. On wednesday, I will finish up writing about my instagram survey and what results that I go. I will also start writing up the rest of the books that I have looked up over the course of this project. On saturday, I will write up th Tate Modern exhibition and begin writing the evaluation for my project, to aim to have it done by sunday. I will finish this blog on the last day of the project so that everything is up to date and I will not have amything left to add.

On Monday, I fiinished all of the write ups for the editing process that I had left un finished last week. I then updated the blog and created a list on my phone of tasks I need to do by the deadline. On wednesday, I wrote up the answers to my instagram survey and what this means about the audience of my images. I wrote up the tate exhibition on sunday, along with the risk assessments and model release form for all of my shoots. I have managed to get everything up to date in time for the deadline. I spent monday the 4th june tidying up my website and making sure that I have everything, alongside finishing off the last few sentances on my evaluation.