Final Evaluation

The original intention of this personal investigation was to present a documentary styled portfolio of youthful/millennial culture, using the aspect of romance; inspired by a photo from the photographer Duane Michals. I intended to present my personal relationship in a way that appeared as a tribute to him to express my personal love, following the culture of this current generation. As I gradually experimented with photo compositions and different ways to present certain symbolism, I did research into romance in the past and changed my intentions to create a (still documentary style) portfolio that shows the current youth what love used to be in the past, and how it was so much purer. My research made me realise that this current generation are so influenced by social media and other online outlets when it comes to romance, that everyone is so expecting to find someone straight away and for a relationship to be forever perfect. The generation is full of hopeless romantics that have too high of expectations due to how this society has developed. From this intention change, my style of presentation needed to change; to tribute to the past I needed to make my photos appearances vintage and compositions authentic. Furthermore, I also added another intention to create a short film, I felt this would add to the documentary intention for my final work by creating a montage style film that presented parts of my personal relationship. This short film then inspired me to present my photos in a book form, as though it is a scrapbook; this further strengthening my tribute to old-fashioned romance.

I have now taken all of my shoots, produced my short film, and edited all my final photos. Each shoot had a different intention to experiment, developing how my final photos would be influenced. I wanted to first establish what my composition would be, and with my original intentions, this composition was close-up and modern photography. These photos presented explicit imagery which was to convey the pride and daring side to my relationship; even when my intentions changed I still felt these photos would be a good aspect of the relationship to present because it was authentic and raw. I then moved onto my main composition focus for the photos, portraiture. Never having fully experimented with studio shoots and it being a big interest of mine I wanted to experiment with this and quickly learnt how to perfect it. I feel my most successful shoot was in my fourth work diary where my work was inspired by David Bailey and his contrasting aesthetic in his photos. The photos I produced were clear and met my exact intentions perfectly. I also feel my experimentation into editing my photos inspired by Peter Strain in work record 7 was very successful and was a key point in my progression to my work. The area I feel I struggled most with was practising location portraiture. Though I enjoy the aesthetic of location portraiture and enjoyed the authenticity it created for my work, I found it difficult to create in a high quality composition. I feel this was mainly due to the exposure/lighting difficulties I had; the rooms/locations were at points very dim and the camera settings struggled to capture this with a high resolution. I was fortunately still able to produce some good quality photos that authentically presented my relationship and edit these for my final pieces. When it came to my research, I looked into five photographers/artists; Nastia Cloutier-Ignatiev, David Bailey, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Peter Strain and Duane Michals (also Wim Wenders for video inspiration). I feel all of these photographers/artists' aspects of their work has influenced mine to a large extent, but I would say my main influences were David Bailey and Duane Michals; since when it comes to aesthetic my work appears most like theirs and I felt I succeeded most when using Bailey's aesthetic method.

For my final pieces, I created David Bailey aesthetic inspired photos; where the black and white contrast is deep and vivid (some though have selective colour edits because I felt the colour needed to be presented to create a deeper meaning of commitment). I presented these photos in a photobook to imitate a scrapbook as tribute to the older generation and their pure view on love. On some pages of the photobook I have hand written poems I selected on them, I did this as further tribute to the older romance since it was a common and very romantic thing to write a poem for a loved one; in this current generation it does not appear so common and worshipped anymore. Having the poems hand written also further added authenticity to the book. Furthermore, this writing around the photos was inspired by Duane Michals who used odd quotes and general wording around his photos to create a stronger story. Some photos have been complexly edited by manipulated the photo and having my partner and I revealed by text of our favourite songs. This edit style was inspired by Peter Strain who painted portraits using quotes and lyrics to reveal (typically celebrities) faces. The revealing use of text I felt took a more modern appearance to the photos, but it was symbolic of meaning and passion in the relationship. Using Photoshop, I used layer masking to create these photos. Furthermore, I also further created a short film in a montage structure with a vintage black and white aesthetic, inspired by the filmmaker Wim Wenders. I used Premium Pro CC to create this film. The film was to present a small portion of my relationship with my partner, presented in a almost flashback way to suggest history, furthering linking with my old-fashioned referencing.