Photography 1

Brief

To produce a photographic essay exploring a subject comprising of 10-20 images. The purpose of the images can be to entertain, educate, or inform the audience. Show evidence of progression of the project with thought given to planning, preparation and experimentation.

Proposal

For my photography project, I have chosen to show a day in the life of a teenage girl. Each photograph will portray different emotions; this will be achieved through the experimentation of different camera settings in manual mode and image manipulation in Adobe Photoshop.

Research

In order to advance with my chosen idea, I had to carry out some research on what I wanted my images to look like and what to include in the images. I used Photobucket to search for some colourful photography to decide on my intended outcome of my own photographs. Here are two images which inspired me.

Picture of some brightly patterned shoes

I used my own Kodak camera for the project and I gathered together lots of colourful objects which could be associated with teenage girls to use in the photographs; most of which came from my sister's bedroom. Because I am a female myself, I wasn't required to carry out any research on female's interests.

Planning

At the very beginning of the project, I produced a mind map of ideas on what I wanted the subject of my project to be. I also drew some quick sketches to show how I wanted the photographs to look so that I had some idea of how to take them.

I have now chosen the theme of my project, which is going to be teenage girls, so now I need to decide how I am going to show the different moods within each image and which camera settings would be appropriate for each photograph.

For the first photograph, I want to show a close-up of a girl's diary with song lyrics about love written in it. I think that a black and white photo would be appropriate because the diary shows hidden thoughts and secrets. I also want to show depth of field in this photograph with one of the pages blurred in the foreground, focusing in on the "I love you" in the background because this is the key part of the image.

The second photograph is going to show a girl wearing a pair of bright shoes with lots of shoes surrounding her. For this photo, I want the shoes to look brighter to show that they are the perfect pair and are making the girl happy. In order to achieve this, I will make the picture black and white excluding the shoes which will be left in colour. This can be done using vector masks and layers in Adobe Photoshop.

I want the third photograph to be of my sister dressed in pink fairy wings with a tiara on her head. I will take this photo against a pink wall to add to the overall femininity of the photo.

The fourth photo will be of a girl trying on dresses ready to go out with her friends. The girl will be holding the dress on the coathanger against herself, looking down on it to see if it looks okay. I want this photo to be all brown colours apart from the dress because this is the main focal point in the photograph.

Makeup will be in the foreground of the fifth picture, with two teenage girls getting ready to go out reflected in the mirror in the background. I want to exaggerate the brightness of the colours in this picture to show happiness. Again, this can be done using vector masks and changing the hue of the picture on each layer.

The sixth picture will be of two girls chatting or looking at a mobile phone. I will take this photo against a pink wall and the girls will be wearing dresses to make the photo look very feminine.

I want to show the girls having fun in the seventh picture so I will get them to play around outside and take some pictures of it because I want this picture to look very natural. I want this picture to be taken at night time because teenagers like to stay up very late, having fun with their friends.

I will arrange a box of tissues, some romance DVD's and a remote control for the eighth photograph to show that a stereotypical female is sensitive and is not afraid to display her feelings. I am not sure exactly how I want the colours to be in this but I want to lighting to be soft so I will play around in Photoshop with this image until I achieve a result I am happy with.

My ninth image will be of a teenage girl's bed covered in teddy bears and showing a pair of pyjamas, some face wipes and maybe some other beauty products. This will show the girl's nightly routine before she goes to sleep. I want certain objects to stand out in this picture so I shall use vector masks and different hues to create this effect.

The final photo will be similar to the first image but with a lot more colour to show the contrast in emotions when each diary entry was written. The bright colours will reflect the happy mood she is in after spending time with her friends.

Final photographs

Click on the thumbnails to view the full size images.

Review

Overall, my photos worked well and went to plan. However, I encountered a few difficulties throughout the project.

It was difficult to get the girls to pose how I wanted them to because they kept laughing so one of the photos, the photograph of the clothes, had to be taken without them in it. The image of the girls playing around outside didn't work exactly as planned; this is because I had the camera set to use a slow shutter speed in order to get the background lights in the photo and a slow shutter speed created blur when the girls moved. I managed to get only one photo of the girls which wasn't very blurred.

I made a few unplanned changes to the photographs whilst experimenting in Photoshop. I added a soft glow to the image of my sister dressed as a fairy because it made the picture look more feminine and fairytale-like. I was not required to edit a couple of the photos, photos seven and nine, because I was happy with the outcome.

In the picture of the DVD’s, the light was reflecting from the covers which made the photo look unprofessional. If I took the photo again, I would choose a different location to shoot the photos to avoid unwanted light from shining on the objects.

In future photography projects, I will use a tripod with the camera when setting it to slow shutter speeds to avoid blurring in the picture.