Interim Evaluation

I researched a number of still life photographers throughout my research logs and image bank, which I feel have greatly influence my shoots. I looked at the composition and framing of photographers such as Andre Kertesz, who often captured everyday objects such as cutlery. From Kertesz, I learned about the use of tone based upon shadows and lighting, and how this can help you create a duotone effect. I tried to take inspiration from this in my third shoot, in which I shot plates and bowls left out in the kitchen from high angles to attempt to cast hard shadows in my images. Another photographer that influenced my shoots from my research is Laurens Kaldeway, from which I learned of using the rule of thirds composition rule effectively. I tried to incorporate this into my second shoot, positioning the post it notes that I was photographing in a way that your eye is immediately drawn to that area of the image.

Over the course of this project, I have learned a number of new technical and aesthetic techniques which I may be able to use in the future. One technical aspect I developed was the use of macro in my close up images; creating a narrow depth of field in order to make my images appear larger than life, which creates a sense of the object being the main focus of the image and removes distractions from the image. A photoshop technique that I developed throughout my project is white balance correction; due to the dim lighting in a lot of my shoot locations, as well as my unwillingness to use a flash as this would often make the lighting too high key, my white balance was often too warm. I developed a method of fixing this in Photoshop, involving finding the blackpoint of the image and adjusting the levels. This allowed me to create a neutral colour balance, meaning my tonal range is increased.

For the remaining three shoots, I intend to incorporate all of the techniques that I have discovered across my project. My three shoots will involve macro photographs capturing the objects in each room of my house from a very close up perspective, in order to make them appear larger than life. I also want to incorporate both wide angle and panorama shots of sections of the room with lots of objects concentrated into one place, which I hope will create a sense of narrative and bear a central theme personal to the person who put them there. My first shoot will involve the kitchen and the living room, my second shoot the two bedrooms and the third shoot the bathroom and hallway, and I hope to create a collage of each shoot; a snapshot of the objects around my house, in a sense.