TAOP - Assignment 5 - Tutor Feedback

TAOP - Assignment 5 - Tutor Feedback

I have received my Tutor's feedback and I thank him for his comments.

I will detail the feedback below and then annotate this in a different colour with my comments / responses:

Overall Comments

The well-presented assignment you have produced another strong collection of images and they satisfy the brief.

Feedback on assignment

Yet again a well-presented PDF format shows that you care about your work and its presentation.

The reportage project that you set yourself had certain risks; you had only one day and one chance to produce a large body of work. This was a risk that you understood and it has produced a good body of work, but a more extended project would have given you more opportunities to gather material and in fact research the subject & location. Choosing subjects that are family can be very powerful, but to be objective and be a ‘fly on the wall’ is hard when you have a relationship with the subject.

The desaturation of the images as you have pointed out helps hold the body of work together, Its contemporary feel is appropriate to the subject, but if the images were all in full colour they would have worked and maybe have had a more documentary feel. Recent documentary images have been criticized in the media as the desaturation and enhancement has produced added drama and is not a true documentation but exaggerated the visual communication.

This is a debate that does not concern this ‘light’ subject but it is something you need to be aware of.

It was pleasing to receive this feedback. Yes there was risk in this assignment and I did find it difficult from a photographic point of view as in the main I was being reactive to situations to capture images and there was limited time to be creative. I did try but not sure I managed all the composition considerations but ISO changes are becoming almost second nature and the prediction of what is required much more part of my photography. 

True Documentary - This is a very interesting subject and observation for me to consider. Other than the desaturation I have not really photo-shopped the images to add in anything nor taken anything away yet I can see how this adjustment could influence the viewer - conversion to mono of reportage images is the same. I think if one considers general newspaper and magazine reportage I accept these are in colour. However one could argue that cropping for example is altering the image in fact the sensor caught image by the initial framing by the camera could also be argued in a similar way. Use of flash and freezing a scene or catching perhaps an unwary start exiting a nightclub, though perhaps sober may for an instance have an innocent stumble or accidentally pull a misshapen face that the photographer captures and even without narrative could imply the subject was drunk. An interesting area to debate

The ‘cover’ image has a great decisive moment where the balance of the students and their stride all come together at a perfect moment .The turning of the head of the main ‘character’ is also sets the tone for the whole work.

However, could a recrop eliminate the person to the right, that does not have the same ‘energy’ of the group? 

This was my original front page image:

And this is my tutor's suggested crop:

I can see why the suggestion is to crop the person on right as their speed of pace appears slower and so less dynamic. This contrasts with what I feel is a balance of 5 people as opposed to four people and the faster pace / longer stride of Ben at the rear is more notable compared to the people in front. I think I do like both versions but in honesty the suggested crop has grown on on me. I have the dead space at the bottom of my image as this was kept for narrative text as this was the "magazine front page", see below:

Applying the suggested crop with text is the image below:

This does appear a better image and more dynamic - something that is needed for University studying

This crop also adds strength to the main subject?

I agree

The subject matter has many facets, what are the students feeling?

Are they been ‘sold’ the university?

What are the lecturers doing?

This is potentially one of the most important decisions a student makes, his whole life can be affected by which course and university is chosen.

There is a feeling of some of these issues been communicated and the text would explain more if this was a magazine article, appropriate references to the text could be made, but I feel that you have not tackled this as deeply as it could have been. This is understandable as you were there as a parent, not as an objective reportage photographer.

I think perhaps then I may either have not fully embraced the opportunity to do this or perhaps mis-understood the original assignment in some way. However the point is well noted that additional narrative would better explain the images and in hindsight this assignment is called Illustration and Narrative. The key for me is to further review once I have completed what I visualised in terms of further improvement and making a good idea a better solution

The portrait of your son sitting is perhaps the strongest, he seems to be very engaged with the thoughts of his future. This powerful image is well composed, but would it benefit from cropping?

My original image:

My tutor's suggested crop below:

This is a much, much better crop, the distraction of the window on the right has gone and a tighter crop from the bottom; I feel I need some experience / further reading for how to crop people in images as I am reluctant to cut bits off them. Perhaps just reviews of magazines and newspapers will help.

My tutor says "The negative space to his right allows the reader to wonder what he is considering, without the distraction of the seating." This is good advice

You rightly see the captions and signage as been important, but rather than looking for the diagonals to help strengthen the communication, but if the reflection was considered it may have had additional strengths?

My original image and the tutors suggestion below:

Again this is a better crop and focus is given to the words by reducing the distraction at the right of the image. This has inspired me to consider a further crop myself and keep a simple approach to the image whilst keeping an unwritten narrative to the image:

You have produced well-observed images despite the difficult circumstances.

You have had to be sensitive to your subject and not upset the many other students and staff, this may have diluted some images that you may have seen, but were inhibited to execute because of circumstances.

I hope that from this you have learned how difficult great reportage photographers are. Not been seen and yet bringing back the results that communicate.

Generally it seems that rewrapping some of your images, often drastically will improve the communication, You have the observation of what is significant, but you have to eliminate the superfluous to get to ensure the essence of the image is strong.

I thank my tutor for his kind comments but constructively he does raise a very good point in removing the superfluous can create a more simple image and so give a direct message that has a single interpretation.

My tutor has shown me in the images below an example of a better crop:

My original image:

and my tutor's suggestion below:

Again as I mentioned above the image is simplified and the image more powerful because of it - This example creates a more intimate feel to the image, one of giving advice and of careful listening.

The subject matter could be expanded to illustrate the progress of the student through the course to graduation and if you have a willing subject, you may wish to consider this, maybe seeing it as an extended personal project, that will develop into a strong body of work of much greater significance. Long photo studies are important, on a personal level and the recording over many years acquires historic and social images that become important documents. To this end ensure that you archive the material well and naturally in RAW format. This allows re editing much later on. At that point the current post production treatment may be reconsidered

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays

You have annotated well and this needs to be continued as you progress to other modules that I hope you are going to pursue.

Suggested reading/viewing /action

The next stage is to summit for assessment so that you may progress to the next module, that I hope you can do as I feel you have the potential to gain a good degree in photography.

This has been an excellent learning for me both from the planning, taking and post production of the images but I feel I've learnt so much from the cropped examples my tutor has given me and this demonstrates how to make images more effective.

I'm very pleased with the comments that I have the potential for a good degree. I will continue to work hard and I look forward to further learning opportunities so that I can improve my understand of photograph and create better images. I actually feel rather excited by this :)