FMP

Overall I think my project was a good success. I have produced a set of final images to exhibit in the summer show. I have researched key photographers and critically evaluated their work to help me develop my own work and also evaluated my own work, explaining some choices that I made along the way.  I am very pleased with the final look of my prints. They look very professional, exactly how I imagined them to look. They are very unique prints and I think will stand out from the rest for the right reasons.
 

When beginning my project, I was a bit unsure as to which road to go down, I had two other ideas I had come up with before settling on my final idea. I think I chose the right idea to focus on as I have really enjoyed finding out more a out the airbase as I have worked through this project. I wanted to try something different with this project so I decided to try and give deadpan photography a go.

To begin with I researched key photographers and looked into the history of deadpan to find out exactly what it is. This was great to learn, as it was something I had never experimented with before. The whole idea of shooting landscape images with the subject dead centre, with hardly any emotion or saturation in the images made me really think about how I not only took my photographs, but also how I edited them. I think this was good for me as I usually follow to correct protocol when it comes to photographing landscape image: subject off centre, rule of thirds, high contrast, bright colourful images etc. This new style really challenged me and took me a while to overcome because I was not used to it but it was a good task for this final project.

After editing my images, I realised that there was something missing, they looked too dull and not vibrant enough. I made the decision to ditch the deadpan feel to the images and go old school on the photography and editing. This made me feel a lot more positive about my work and I started to really enjoy it. After I went back to my normal way of photographing landscapes, I was a lot happier with the compositions of my images and they were all in focus and correctly exposed.

To add another dimension to my final project, I purchased a drone to capture some aerial photography. I wanted to do something a bit different for this last project, so I embarked on a different new technique. It did take a while for me to get the hang of being able to fly the drone and then control the camera while flying. Nevertheless I persisted with it and was able to capture some really steady imagery, perfectly showing the scale of the airbase and the remaining outlines of the runaways that you would never normally see from the ground. Although purchasing the drone, immediately bumped the overall cost of the project up, I feel this was a worthwhile purchase as I have some great imagery that really supports my imagery well.

When editing my images in Photoshop, I ran them all through Camera Raw to begin with. I then moved into Photoshop and to convert them all to black and white, I used a new blank layer and filled it with 50% gray. This then meant that I wouldn’t lose any of the clarity or sharpness in my images. I then had the freedom to manually adjust each colour within the images to finely tune the contrast of the blacks and the whites for the overall final effect.

To present my images in the summer show, I am ordering from an external printing and mounting company called WhiteWall, based in Germany. They are a well-respected company, known world wide for their exceptionally high standard prints and unusual materials to print on. I have chosen the print directly onto brushed aluminium. This gives a great textured look to my final images and really goes well with my project. I was looking at the history of the airbase and trying to bring the history to the forefront of the local community. The texture helps with the nostalgia feel to the images and makes it feel like you are there in the image.

This Final Major Project has been a great way to finish the course. It has really brought everything we have learned over the last two years together and we could draw on everything we have learnt. One thing I have learnt is that timing is key for everything and you can never be too prepared for anything. I have really enjoyed being able to have a lot more freedom with where our projects can go. It also felt like there was more support from the tutors as it was something we all really wanted to do so we had a lot more encouragement to follow what we wanted to create.

Overall I am very happy with my final outcomes for my project. My bookwork showcases how I have worked through my project and the images that I have produced that I am very proud of.