College Project

So I have been extremely busy with college work hence why I have not had chance to update my blog. For my first project I have been creating Landscape images for Plymouth College of Art to use on their website, prospectus and other printed media. I have found this project very difficult for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because I wish we had more time. Secondly, because I have found landscape work a challenge not just technically but also because of the weather. The weather has not been brilliant and it has rained a lot but that’s because of the time of the year.

I believe that I have achieved what I set out to and I have created some eye catching landscape shots. Which images - if any - the college chooses to use is up to them. I believe I have fulfilled all the learning objectives, even though I have definitely had my struggles I think I have achieved quite a lot in the given time frame. Shooting landscapes is definitely not as easy as I first thought and I am glad that I narrowed it down to shooting in two places rather than three as the work load to successfully shoot in two places was a challenge on its own never mind adding elsewhere to the equation. Saying that, I do intend to carry on shooting landscapes as I think it is great to document places and I have enjoyed being in the outdoors even though I have had to suffer the elements!

I think my biggest weakness with this project is that I didn’t know anything about shooting at night, but I have learnt how to do this now with practice. I believe I have improved a lot and I am now able to shoot at night successfully. I also knew nothing about landscape photography before but I have spent some time reading about it in landscape magazines and I believe this helped to improve my work. I have learnt that time management is key to client work. Even though I have found this difficult my project will be in on time and I will have achieved my project proposal. I believe this is because of sheer determination. If I had the chance to do this project again I would have started shooting a lot earlier and also spoken to the client a lot earlier in the process so that I would be sure I was capturing what they wanted. 

I am worried that I have kept the pictures how I want them and maybe this isn’t a good idea. Maybe I should have had more tutorials when I started to edit the photographs to make the images more uniformed, rather than them being in my ‘style’ the way I wanted them to look. However the brief did state that we should ‘develop a personal style of work within the constraints of an externally set brief’ I believe editing the images how I wish is helping me to develop my own style even though I am still unsure of what exactly this is.

It took me quite a while to narrow down the images and I believe I have done so effectively. I have included both landscape and portrait views of the locations so the college are able to use either depending on what they need the images for. I have attached the appropriate metadata to the images on disc and I have tried to keep all my work to a professional standard and I think I have achieved this. I was pleased to get good client feedback and I am looking forward to getting our results as I feel that I have put a lot into this project and I have definitely improved from last year.