Evaluation
In my project for the final production of Reading the Image, I have set out to express emotion and nostalgia to the audience by using still imagery, with the aim of having the audience to relate and connect with the subject in frame. I have intended to do this by evoking the subject so remember a departed loved one, by choosing an image, an item that reminds them of their loved one, and choosing a location that they frequented together or simply brings back nostalgia to them. The photos were then taken at the location chosen, and then a conversation was held with the subject about why they chose the items, and photographs captured. Overall, I believe that I have succeeded to achieve my goals and portray the intended message, whilst successfully connecting with the audience to remember their own loved ones and relate with the subjects in frame.
Through this project I have learnt new strengths and weaknesses, which is a must for one to improve in the art, and to improve overall. Weaknesses are more so important to identify, as if you know your weakness, you may strive to do better in that area. For me, my main weakness that I found holding me back in this project is needing to plan and schedule ahead better, which is critical in similar projects and more so for larger projects which are spread on a longer timeframe. Planning is the backbone of such projects, where a number of people, locations and factors may be involved. If a better plan was made, I could have had the opportunity to re-take one or more of the compositions, resulting in a stronger image and result. On the other hand, I think that documentary style photography and portraiture is becoming a strength, and an art form that I enjoy. I will definitely experiment further with my imagery in this genre of photography.
Although overall I am satisfied with the outcome, there is always way for improvement, and changes that could have been made to make the work better. For this project, since some of the images were taken outdoors, lighting in the background was slightly over exposed causing the highlights in the sky to be blown out, and detail lost. Artificial lighting could have been used to balance out lighting for the subject, but would not have given me the intended result. Nonetheless, experimentation would have been key to get the intended shot. Another solution would have been to use an indoor location with controlled lighting. This would have given me more control over the final image, although it would have defeated the concept of having the photograph taken in the selected location. Something else I could have improved was using larger prints such as 10×12 or even slightly larger, which would have given a closer feel between the audience and the subjects in frame. These would have been of a big improvement to the final project, and the strength of the message portrayed to the audience. Also the text could have been arranged in a better way and more clear to the audience, whilst avoiding it to be too distracting.
The project reaches out and connects with anyone that also has departed loved ones. Naturally we feel nostalgic and relate with grief, and sympathy with fellow humans as we long loved ones. The human emotion is so powerful that with such imagery, we may connect, relate and share grief and sympathy, speaking a thousand words, without the need for words at all, which to me shows how strongly how a well composed and captured image can be.
Although I was assigned to create a project for studies, this project will remain close to me since it is one of the first of its kind that I have worked on and at the same time, the project is timeless, and could be viewed in 1, 5, 10+ years and an audience could still relate and connect to it, which gives another level of satisfaction, and definitely motivates me to work on more projects similar and different to this.
Feedback from the presentation
After presenting my project, feedback was somewhat mixed. It was agreed that the project can be developed further and the overall project can be modified in order to enhance the message portrayed to the audience.