Evaluation
I thought it was pretty funny when we received this brief
because most of my group were really dreading this last section because it was
all about the self-portrait but I wasn’t really worried, luckily for me. I
didn’t go into this project with many ideas but once I got a few pieces of
research done and advice from my tutor I felt confident in the direction I was
going. This led me to choose, what I think were two good ideas that had
personal meaning to me and strong links to each other through their lighting and
framing. The last image I had to do was a self-portrait which I struggled a bit
with because I limited myself to black and white, high key lighting and waist
up framing by choosing very similar hero and villain images. I ended up taking
inspiration from a student I used to go to Sixth Form with who produced a
portrait where she overlaid images and morphed body parts to create freaky
mutations of herself.
Starting the project I never thought I would actually
embrace it as much as I did because I knew that it would be really difficult
to try and source all the gear I needed
to wear especially for the John Wayne image, as well as all the abuse I would
get for dressing up as a cowboy by my brother. With all this said it was
probably the most enjoyable project I’ve done this year as well as being the
most educationally rich with the studio lights/equipment and the fact I would
make an awesome gangster, I need to go suit shopping more often, and I need a
twin! However it was a bit of a challenge getting the posture and head position
right which added a great deal of time and stress to the process but I
eventually achieved success without killing anyone.
I think it’s easy to say that my main influence was David Bailey
because I’ve tried to tailor every aspect of my photos to mimic his own work. The
idea of this came from my tutor who first introduced the idea of the Kray Twins
as my villain and then secondly with the idea of using skinny black frames for
the presentation method. This led me to challenge myself to try and recreate in
his style, especially in the lighting department. Strangely in this project I
found a crucial bit inspiration from work I saw years ago that proved to be the
major part of my self-portrait. I think the combination of their work.
Now the project is complete I’m glad the dressing up is over
but I did really get into studio photography again. I think it was the task of
trying to recreate the lighting that gripped me and ultimately made me enjoy
it, however there’s one major thing that I would have done differently if I had
to redo the project. This would have been getting someone to help take the
photos. Even though I managed pretty well on my own it would have allowed me to
focus on my posture etc, therefore making the hardest part of it all easier. Apart
from that the project went smoothly and I’m pleased with the end product.
