Review of Practical Work

So far I have really enjoyed shooting for my Unit 2 work. Although I initially found planning shoots a challenge, I am now beginning to pick up more creative ideas through researching inspirational photographers. I personally feel that my practical work has somewhat improved since my first shoot for Unit 2, but I still have plenty of room for improvement with my upcoming shoots. I believe that so far my work with instruments has been my strongest as I feel they are quite easy to work with in the sense that they remain still and you can play about with the positioning and composition to obtain unique and creative results.

With this idea, I plan to go to a local music store at some point to photograph more instruments as I was limited to those that I used when I visited the college's music department. I think doing so will also further improve my confidence when talking to new people as I felt this when I visited the music department for a previous shoot.

I have also found that I am not particularly confident when using the studio, which is why I haven't used it for any of my shoots so far. For this reason, I do hope to complete a shoot in the studio to help me improve my skills and the quality of my shoots, but I'll mostly stick to location work as I am stronger and more confident in this field. I would also like to begin to incorporate models into my work as I haven't used any so far, but this is mostly down to the weather. Hopefully, if the weather begins to warm up (even slightly) I have planned to go out with a model to shoot for a pretend album cover using my own guitar. If not, I will have to book the studio for a time my model is free to re-create my ideas inside instead.

Other broad ideas for the future:

• Go into more detail with the 'songwriter' shoot - people sitting around writing songs on paper, crunched paper on the floor to represent bad ideas etc.
• Audience reaction - people at a concert, having fun etc. dancing, singing, glowsticks etc.
• Recreating famous album covers, music videos....

Shoot 3 - Work Record - Love & Lyrics

Plans for the shoot:

My plan for today's shoot is to explore the emotions a songwriter or musician will go through when they create a new song. Normally, the outcome of a new song is a really happy, and relieved emotion, but the process in building a new song can be quite stressful as the writer or musician struggles to find the perfect balance between music and lyrics. I am going to use sheet music for the main focus of my shoot and use different coloured marker pens to establish the different emotions. I am also planning on using this shoot for the basis of some of my print techniques.

What I hope to achieve:

Today I hope to achieve a set of photos that will deliver a message about the emotions and feelings that come with the responsibility of writing lyrics and music. I also hope to learn a little bit more about documentary photography - a style of photography that looks at taking pictures to document a specific event or lifestyle. I am hoping to get a slight insight into what it would be like to document a musician or songwriters' life in pictures.

What I actually achieved:

Here are a few of the photos I took from today's shoot:

- using lyrics inspired by Ellie Goulding.

My main theme that I followed with this particular shoot is that of love - the vast majority of songs to this day are about love, plus musicians and songwriters will find a strong love and connection with their songs once they are complete. I am pleased with the overall outcome for this shoot, but I am disappointed with the number of photos I actually shot, but this was due to the fact the weather is currently very cold and very windy - the papers would not stay still for the shoot! However, I feel that I have accomplished what I had hoped to do, and I also feel that I have gained more ideas for future shoots. 

What I am going to do next:
Other than further developing this particular shoot, I plan on putting more time and effort into organising shoots in the studio. So far I haven't done any studio work for this Unit and I feel I really should to get a variety of work for my final pieces. I am going to ensure that I find a willing model for the next upcoming weeks who I can use in the studio in order to 'stage' a musical performance. Ideally, I would like to use makeup and styling to re-create a famous, identifiable musician and play with creating promotionally work for the 'artist' such as a poster of CD cover.

Target (22/02/2013)

Today I am going to explore the 'life of a songwriter'. I am going to use plain sheet music to express the emotion which is tied to a songwriter when they create a new song - it could be a sad song, happy, angry, about love? Although a somewhat painful process for a musician or songwriter, creating a song is a key aspect of becoming successful in this particular song - writing something worthless will not only prevent sales, but will also give the musician a bad reputation.

I am going to shoot outside in rustic, natural locations, such as by brick walls, on park benches, against trees etc. to reflect the natural, emotional process of songwriting.

I personally want to practice with macro photography as I want to focus on close-up details of the paper, such as specific words or textures in the paper. I also want to experiment with the black and white filter on the camera to further express emotions in my work.

In between shooting I am also going to edit some of my photos from a previous shoot where I shot my guitar at home.

Shoot 2 - Work Record - College Music Department

Plans for the shoot:

For today's shoot I hope to visit the College's Music Department to see if I can either shoot some of their instruments or even some of the students practising for a performance.

What I hope to achieve:

Ideally I would prefer to shoot the students practising for a performance as this otherwise will be hard for me to take pictures of in another environment - it would mean I would have to go to a real gig/concert/performance or stage my own using the studio. If not, with the photos of the instruments I hope to achieve a set of close-up detailed pictures of various instruments from interesting and unique angles to capture different compartments of the instrument itself.

What I actually achieved:

Here are a few of my favourite shots from today's shoot:

For today's lesson, I used the time to take a camera over to the College's Music Department, where I was given access to one of the studios which contained a keyboard, drum kit and the usual amplifiers and speakers. This shoot was particularly useful for me because not only did I get the opportunity to photograph instruments I wouldn't have been able to on an everyday shoot, but it also gave me the chance to improve my confidence when speaking to other people and building contacts/relationships with people who could become really useful for future shoots. Sadly, none of the music students were practising performances, so I will use upcoming studio sessions to stage music performances with simpler instruments. I now know that I am also welcome to go back at other points during the week to try and catch proper music students practising real performances. 

What I am going to do next:
I would like to take the idea of photographing instruments to a different environment. I know their are a few local music shops in Harlow which I feel I could obtain interesting photos from as they will have a wider variety of instruments available. I also feel that seeing instruments, such as guitars, displayed properly will hopefully create interesting patterns and designs in my images.

Target (15/02/2013)

My target for today is to edit photos from my guitar shoot I completed at home during the week. The aim of the shoot was to individually capture different sections of the guitar in great detail. I may also look into seeing if I can use a photo-joiner technique to reconstruct the guitar. As this shouldn't take me too long, I may continue to experiment with my scrabble letters to spell out other lyrics or other music-related terms, and also experiment with some sheet music as I want to look at the construction side of music musicians have to go through.

 If I have time towards the lesson, I plan to improve on my planning and organisational skills to work out exactly what I want to do for a shoot next Friday, because as it is half term, I want to take advantage of models as they are more likely to be able to make it in. I will also try to bring in some instruments on that day as I am able to go home straight away after the lesson, which should make carrying the instruments more convenient for me.

Shoot 1 - More Edits

Target (12/02//2013)

During today's lesson I am going to start working on my written work for this unit as I learnt with the last unit that I left a lot of my written work until the last minute, which may have potentially effected the quality of my work. I feel like it would be better for me to get a lot of the written work out of the way today so that I am able to focus more on the physical work in the future.

Specifically, today I am going to work on producing a neater version of my mindmaps, completing my image bank and starting my discussion or definition page. I will then also work on editing some more of my photos from last weeks shoot and planning for my next shoot.

Shoot 1 - Work Record - Lyrics and Music

Plans for the shoot:

My plan for this shoot, as stated before in my target for today's lesson, is to use a collection of scrabble pieces to spell out song lyrics to form the main focus of my photos. Although the title of my topic is officially 'Musical Instruments and Musicians', my main argument is that in order to be a successful musician, you need to have meaningful lyrics, which is why I have chosen the theme of lyrics to include in my project.

With this shoot, I want to simply focus on one song/singer in particular, in order for me to experiment. Using too many singers/musicians and songs will possible confuse me, and I want to ensure that the technique is effective enough before I plan other shoots. Because the genre of music I like is mostly indie-music, I want to capture a real quirky, natural and rustic look to my images. For this shoot, I plan to use a lot of amateur tumblr photos as inspiration, using basic backdrops such as brick walls and the grass to contrast with the letters.

What I hope to achieve:

With this shoot, I hope to achieve a set of photos which reflect the natural and quite quirky look I am going for with this theme - something that will hopefully reflect the specific lyrics or even the artist. I also hope to achieve some more knowledge about this specific theme I have chosen to help me with future shoots.

What I actually achieved:

I really enjoyed today's shoot and had some real fun experimenting with some of the different backgrounds and settings I had planned. Here are a few of my favourite photos from today which have also been edited:

Lego House lyrics - Ed Sheeran

Lego House lyrics - Ed Sheeran

The artist/song-writer - Ed Sheeran

I personally feel that this shoot was quite successful considering that it was my first, and at times it was a bit experimental. I am really happy with the results, and I feel that these photos are going to become the 'stepping stones' to show the life of a musician - something of which I hope to show throughout this unit. I particularly like the use of colour in these photos and I think that the idea of using the scrabble pieces will be particularly effective in shoots in the future. However, I feel like I should have perhaps generalised the theme of this shoot a bit more instead of focussing just on the one artist and song. I could in the future prepare better by planning various other well-known quotes and musicians which would work well with the scrabble theme. The only other problem I encountered was that the natural lighting of the sun created a lot of shadows for the scrabble and the grass which interfered with the quality of my work. 

What I am going to do next:

At the moment, I am unsure as to what will do next time I shoot. However, I do have some ideas. I would like to carry forward this idea of using scrabble pieces, but incorporating people into the image to help show the basic life of a musician or singer - I want to show the process they go through to create songs and lyrics. I also have planned to do a shoot with my guitar, but I am unsure of whether I will do this in the studio, or getting creative and use the guitar as a prop during location work.

Target (08/02/2013)

During today's lesson I am planning to start looking at my chosen theme of 'lyrics' for the topic Musical Instruments and Musicians. Lyrics are a big part of a musician's life as they are used to express personal feelings and emotions.

During the course of this topic I plan to explore looking at displaying and producing lyrics in various ways - using different mediums and techniques.

Today I plan to use scrabble pieces to spell out different lyrics in different locations, such as along brick walls, on the field and in notebooks to portray the image of a very natural/indie tone and feel. In preparation for this shoot I am looking to experiment with the layout of the scrabble pieces and also research aproppriate song lyrics to spell out.

My personal target for this shoot is to try and develop my creativity skills - without using too much Photoshop skills/techniques. I have found that in a lot of my previous shoots I over-edit my photos whereas with this shoot I want to shoot the images perfectly.