Photography: Brief 2 Thornton Abbey, N. Lincs
The Brief
We were asked to prepare a photography essay based on the topic of our choice, displaying them on our personal websites in appropriate web-ready format. The essay should aim to educate or inform the viewer.
The Proposal
I propose to visit Thornton Abbey, near Thornton Curtis in North Lincolnshire. There I will explore the gatehouse and ruins of the Abbey and aim to take photographs that will give a good overview of the character and history of the location.
Preperation
For preperation, I investigated the Abbey on the Internet, reading the English Heritage website, Wikipedia, and looking at photosets of the Abbey on Flickr.
Final Piece
My photo essay can be found here, on my portfolio website.
Review
Overall, I am pleased with the quality of my photographs, particularly the detail on the images of the gates and grafitti. In the end, I needed an additional trip to supplement my initial visit in order to take more images. From this, I learnt to take a considerable amount more than I expected I would need. I feel I could have tied more of a "narrative" into the essay, but think it gives an insight into a valuable piece of local history.
Technically, I experimented with camera configurations to try and get the most interesting images possible. Taking some over-exposed and some low-light photos (and some using flash), using different tripods and hand positions and lense configurations allowed me a great deal of freedom in taking the photos. Purely through experimentation I feel I learnt a lot about my equipment and taking different types of photos, and hope this has been reflected in my work.