Evaluation

In this project I have tried to capture the natural innocence of children while they are playing. Where I live the street is always full of children running about and my series try's to show the different children who are there over the course of a day. My single image try's to convey the memory of seeing family and the connection between family members.

Major influences in my work have been Sally Mann and her book Immediate Family as she works with children, I have been influenced by her because she captures the children while playing and also poses them. Another influence has been Diane Arbus an her photograph 'crying child' as she captured the child naturally showing emotions.

In my opinion this project has not been successful because I struggled to find an idea to photograph as I did not understand the narrative could be something very simple and I over complicated my work by thinking too deeply.

I think my work could be improved by continuing to shoot because a few of the children felt and look awkward infront of the camera, I think this could be resolved by continuing to photograph them so that they become more relaxed. I am also going to work on keeping my ideas simple so that I can start photographing from as soon as I get the briefing for the project.

All of my images have been taken on a canon DSLR. I took a studio light home for a shoot and although I have not used any of the images using this lighting set up I enjoyed working in a natural setting with a flash. All of the images I have used for my final set have been taking natural lighting.

The only major problem I have encountered has been that I do not have confidence in my ability and I found that this has held me back in exploring different ideas and being able to find a sequence of images that I am happy with presenting.

I do not feel like I have developed any new skills but that I have continued to develop and practice skills that I already had.

During this project I have shown my work in two different crits, I feel as though as I have received constructive criticism that is going to help me improve my work in future projects. These crits made me realise that I need to be careful how I frame my images and to ask somebody that has not seen my work to evaluate them so that I can see if the connotations are what I am aiming for.

This project has challenged my ability to work on location and to be able to make good photographs without being able to pose and style the image. I do feel as though I could challenge myself further and I will try to do this in further projects.

If I were to do this project again then I would start by keeping my idea simple and easy to work with, and try pushing myself out of my safety zone as it has held me back in photographing new models as I was very nervous behind the camera.