Self Evaluation: What If...

Group: myself , liam, chloe and craig

I previously investigated: cloud cover

Liam previously investigated: 8

Chloe previously investigated: close-ups

Craig previously investigated: smoking

Missing Link: Melancholy
So after working by ourselves researching some delightful projects. We got together and in turns we went round in groups and wrote down a fact, opinion, a question and a problem to solve, about each others work which was quite a refresher after the intense research. After we put all of our statements onto the wall and after a selection process ended up with one each. Mine was, “clouds make people sad.”
So my group. myself , liam, chloe and craig. We discussed for a while and decided we were all very sad people and chose to look at melancholy and the issue that ‘during the winter months people feel more depressed’.
To gather information fast and to get lots of it we decided to produce some questionnaires to get some useful primary information. This gave us quick results and backed up our claim that people are more depressed during the winter months. The main reasons behind this were the facts that the days are generally shorter from day to day, colds, flu and general illness, lethargic behavior and hunger.
We collected more evidence in other ways as well using the internet, books and our general knowledge.

- Primary Quantitative: Tallied results from questionnaires.
- Primary Qualitative: Questionnaires asking people's opinions, face-to-face discussion.
- Secondary Quantitative: Research into pre-existing statistics on daylight hours, suicide rates and the number of people affected by SAD.
- Secondary Qualitative: Research into SAD, the winter blues, what makes people happy, Gap and Benetton advertising campaigns.

the collection of secondary sourced research was something that I feel we may have lacked, which to me was quite surprising. significantly myself and the rest of the group found it somewhat difficult to sort out the relevant and more informed pieces of information that would actually aid us in the progression of our project. I think however it was important that we stuck to where we were heading and didn’t research for research sake, we sorted out relevant information and that gave us a clearer goal which helped us to find a solution. I think this could have been improved if the time span on which we had to work with was a little longer.
The way I think we approached the design process was a little sparse we didn’t have a lot of information to go on and so looking at select artists was hard in the end one of our own inspirations if you will was the Benetton and gap campaign images which needless to say were fairly simple and effective but offered little area for experimentation. I think if we had taken more time over the design process our imagery could have been spectacular. I do think however that we all produced some spectacular campaign imagery in the end with a semi-professional feel and a message that answered our issue.
If I were to repeat this project:
- develop the idea in a design sense more.
- plan time more carefully and work fairly and equally within the group.
- look at more research into design campaigns etc
- decide exactly where we intend to with the project right from the start so that we do not get lost half way through.- get people in our group motivated and involved.

Five things I have learnt:
- how to operate lighting equipment for a great photoshoot.
- accumulating lots of research is pointless, select relevant reseach and not do research for research sake.- team building is hard work.
- an unclear message means people will not understand what the hell you are saying.
- a picture tells a thousand words and can be a lot more powerful that word alone.

So… after all that we got some fantastic pictures and bonded as a group of friends. And more importantly got closer to becoming better graphic designers.
Merry Christmas.

Light

yes, lighting. moving on from The previous photography workshop today we were looking at the impact of light on our photographs. having looked at this last week i felt confident of producing some good photographs utilizing the lighting effects.

today we were using just the one light, a spotlight. this gave us extremly stark photos with a high contrast which isn't

 always flattering.

 We were using a wall backdrop this time and ended up using a shutter speed of 1/200 with 8 Iso which gave us an optimum of 22 aperture. the first couple of photographs came out really well with little motion blur and great colouring. we then tried a couple of effects such as using a long shutter speed and manipulating the 

light. some of the effects came out really nicely. i would have liked to have stayed around a bit longer and worked with the proper lighting equipment rather than just working with a single light. i think it could have been a lot better if we had two. maybe next time. 

Nine

yes , venturing onto the plane of cloud discovery i have learnt many new things. including people who just have too much time on their hands. i have learnt about the types of clouds, cloud boy in a childrens cartoon books about clouds, weather reporting, the 'sensuality' of clouds though photographer alfred stieglitz, and most importantly about the cloud appreciation society. i'm on cloud nine as it were.

Cloudage

starting again this week with a new brief for a new module, research. we first displayed the photographs that we had taken over the assessment week and divided them into several groupings, word, place, people, objects and textures. bearing in mind some of these clash we had to come up with a way of organising them to which they would fit. there was lots of deliberation and lots of photographs. after this lengthy process we were told to anaylse someone elses photographs in groups of two and arrange them also. the next stage we were asked to disciuss themes of pictures what kind of words sparked from the photos immedietly. we then voted on the most relevant and finally i made the decision to look at cloud cover. i started looking at weather predictions.

Digestive

missing amber dearly, the next stage in visual language is photography with lorenzo.

we were introduced today about the delights of manual photography, we were shown through a basic run through about what effects our camera could achieve and more importantly how light affects our photographs.

we looked first at the 'iso' i believe this to be the sensitivity of the plate or frame which the light is shown onto, less sensitive better picture quite simply. we then looked at the shutter speed, a fairly obvious one but important none the less. aperture which affects the dilation of the opening in which the light shines through. and finally the combining these to give the exposure of the shot.

one thing which i did not know about was the types of filter on my camera, how different filters under different lights can give a more natural effect. This will alter the white balancing of colour to make yellowy warm whites more blue. i think i will practice this further.

we took some photographs in pairs and set off about taking photos manipulating these effects and just having a play about. some of the photographs were really beautiful.