Final evaluation…

Final Evaluation…As a whole, I have found that my most successful shoot where of the documentary style rather than the staged, set up shoots. For example I really liked my shoot 1 as a way of showing the differences within the fashion of youth culture, yet when choosing my final images, I only ended up using two of these image because I found the others ones didn’t work as a whole series, they stood out too much being the counter stereotypes. Furthermore, for the ones I ended up choosing the images where I used someone passing by in college and I asked them if I could take their photo; although now looking back at this shoot, I believe it would have been better if I had taken the photos with out them posing- getting photos of them just walking by. For my second shoot, I had aimed to capture images of different people smoking using the documentary style. However due to a limited access, I ran out of time before I could take this shoot, as I would class myself as someone who doesn’t appear to fit the stereotype, I didn’t want to put myself in a situation such as the smoking shelter in order to gain photos. Yet I have still kept my image bank and shoot analysis in order to display what I was aiming for and trying to achieve if I had more time.

I personally found that my most successful shoots are the four taken in the location of South Bank skate-park and London Leake Street graffiti tunnel; Shoot Four, Shoot Five, Shoot Eleven, Shoot Thirteen. This is because these shoots are purely taken with the documentary style, none of this images were staged as I purely used my surroundings to my advantage and at the same time was able to use the work of Henri-

Cartier Bresson and the decisive moment. Alongside this I have found that the style of these shoots work really well in displaying how my research helped inspire my work; for example the photographers that mainly inspired shoot five and thirteen was Marc Vallee and Dan Bolton who also helped

inspire my shoots four and eleven. Within my shoot 5 I experimented with the medium of animated GIFs, yet I found because I didn’t have access to a tripod and the skate-park was very busy, it was quite hard for me to get a GIF focusing on one person. Yet when I decided to

return to South bank skate-park there were fewer people because I went on New Years day so was able to experiment purely of the angles and building a rapport with my subjects. Even though I find shoot four one of my most successful, I decided to go back to Leake Street in order to create shoot eleven because in shoot four I focused more on the subjects which I travelled with- whereas shoot eleven captured mainly the graffiti on the wall. The main reason I find these four shoot my most successful and strongest shoots is because I find that they comply and represent the youth stereotype really clearly, which was my main intention for this project.

However, I found that my weak shoot was shoot seven, because even though my intention for this shoot conformed to the stereotype of youth vandalism and the London riots, due a lack of access to “real-life” documentation of a riot scene I used the factor of fire, yet I do not think the final images worked as well as I had intended and therefore didn’t use this shoot when choosing my final images for my portfolio.

When creating my final portfolio, I separated my Prezi, with all the black and white images together and then the ones in colour together. The reason I decided to do this was because I really liked my skateboarding shoots in black and white and some of the Leake Street in black and white yet when it came to my shoots all about the graffiti, I didn’t find it work in black and white so I didn’t want to create a whole portfolio in black and white. I ended up choosing the images that I did because I find these are my most successful images in displaying the youth stereotype, but I also find that they all work as documentary photography, as a whole I didn’t like the images which were more staged because it didn’t look right, it looked too fake so therefore decided not to include those images. Personally I believe my final portfolio reveals a cohesive body of work because I purposely choose images that fitted together. Yet when looking at my shoots as a whole, you can see that I experimented with different techniques; for example shoot nine was taken within the studio to capture silhouettes, even though I found this successful in displaying a youth stereotype, as a whole is didn’t conform to the rest of my work, so I ended up choosing the images which were taken on location.

My research resulted in having a high impact on my final project. The detailed photographers research helped because it enabled me to look further into the context of the images of work by photographers such as William Eggleston and Gavin Watson. I find that even though I haven’t taken photos directly the same as these photographers the use of symbolism and editing to form a gritty series of images is presented within my project. Furthermore, the research which

I done for each shoot- the image banks, helped further my work which is represented within my computer experiment posts, for example this work showed me photographers such as Baldessari who edited their images with circles over the subjects faces hiding their identity. The work done in my research Log further influenced the creation of my personal project because I analysed work of photographers such as Marc Vallee, Dan Bolton, Richard Sandler and Sophie Days. I found that not only did the content of the photos inspire me but also the variety of different techniques (e.g. Blur) and editing (e.g. noise) is present within my work.

When I originally set out to do this project, in my mind all my photos being of the stereotypical working class young male, in black hoodies, yet through the progression in my project I learnt that my subjects do not have to always wear hoodies in order to portray the youth stereotype. Furthermore, in my project proposal, I wanted to originally use locations such as local parks and estates capturing photos of people drinking however, through the creation of my shoots, I found this created too much of staged images which didn’t work as well. Furthermore, my main aim was purely to gain a series of images of the stereotypical youth, to stage these images, yet now I’m ending my project, I can see how this wouldn’t have worked and that therefore shows this project has taught me the best way to capture a representation of youth is through documentary photography rather than techniques such as fashion photography, which my first shoot does actually show.

As shown across my project, I think along these 10 weeks my work has massively improved, at first I was just taking images, yet now I believe my images have contextual intentions and can symbolise the youth subculture much stronger. For example, when I decided to go back to Leake Street, I not only looked out for subjects, I also looked for factors which can create symbolic meaning in further helping me portray the stereotypical youth theme. I also find that on a whole, my final series of images communicates the stereotype of youth subculture really well because the use of blur and noise has create grittiness in my skating and spray painting shoots then on the colourful images, the symbolism of the colourful graffiti conveys the stereotype of youths priorities are placed with spending money on vandalising public spaces rather than spending money to further their education of saving it. As a whole, I find that my final portfolio conveys a main technique of documentary style and also blur and noise/ grain through the editing style of black and white.

Across my whole shoot, I would say that I have displayed a range of experimentation through the use of techniques, resources and locations, yet when looking just at my final portfolio, the techniques are all similar as used my strongest style of gain a cohesive series. For example, in my first shoot, I experimented the use of fashion photography using techniques such as close up in a variety of different locations, yet I subsequently found this to be too staged. Then in my third shoot I experimented with the location of an underground train and the editing style of a small

collage- including one studio image of one of my subjects then in comparison have a location image with friends. However I didn’t think this worked well together at all, it also didn’t fit in with the stereotype as much as I had wanted it to. My forth shoot then consisted in

experimenting the editing style of black and white and adding the noise, I found this really successful in conveying the correct stereotype of youth culture and therefor continued using the this

style in the rest of my work. In this shoot I also experimented with the location of Leake Street that as a whole I found really successful. My fifth shoot showed experimentation through the use of animated

GIFs on photo-shop of people skateboarding at South Bank skate-park; this additionally helps convey how the work done previously looking at techniques helped the creation of my project. Even though I found this an interesting way on portraying my work in a different style of medium, I didn’t use a

tripod so it isn’t as smooth as I would have liked it to be. Furthermore, I didn’t choose to reshoot GIFS/ use them in my final series as I didn’t think it worked in comparison to the other images. In my sixth shoot, I decided to experiment with the counter stereotypes of youth through the use of different interests, within this shoot I used to location of my friends bedroom and a vintage market in Brick Lane, however in comparison to my other shoots I consider this to be one of my weaker shoot because without explanation, I do not find that it continues/ fits well with my stereotypical images. Within my shoot seven, I decided to experiment through the use of using news issues; the London riots, in order to convey the vandalism stereotype, however I found that as I didn’t have access to any “real-life” riot settings, I was unable to properly document them and therefore find this experimentation too staged for my liking. Furthermore, my eighth shoot shows that I experimented with the location of Brick Lane whilst using a variety of different techniques such as portraits, however I found this connected much more to my first “fashion” shoot rather than the stereotypes as the images appear be quite staged. However within this shoot, the images I gained of the graffiti and passing of the public were using for my final project. As previously mentioned, my Ninth shoot shows my use of experimentation of studio work creating silhouettes, which I do find really interesting in creating the youth stereotype but as a series of images, I found they didn’t connect because all my other shoot involve working on location; If I were to have taken my other shoots within the studio, I believe it would have worked much better. My shoots of ten- twelve shows how I took the experimentation in my shoot four of the location of Leake Street and wanted to further explore through experimenting with looking at different aspects other than subjects; spray cans, artists and the

graffiti itself. Finally, my thirteenth shoot was taken back as South Bank skate-park due to the successful of shoot five, I wanted to further my work through experimenting different angles through documentary photography.

If I had more time, I would want to develop my project through gaining a shoot including subjects smoking and developing my work through the use of photographer Dan Bolton, going back to the South Bank skate-park and take close up of my subjects, asking them to take portraits of them. Furthermore, I bought a disposable camera to take my smoking shoot on and I took some images from my second south bank shoot however I ran out of time so weren’t able to include them in my project.