First shoot-Work record

Pre-shoot planning-
 For my first exam shoot i am planning to conduct a shoot on my brother who has been the main model for the majority of my preparatory shoots. I thought that  having him as the subject of my first shoot would be the most revenant to my previous shoot. This shoot would take place on the 24th april around 3pm in my house and around the area of my house. For example i would go to the local park as i would like to try and have multiple locations not just my house, this would the allow me to take a wider variation of photos of my brother as he would be able to cary more of his everyday activities in and outside of my house. Also in this shoot i would like to try and improve some of the photos that could've have been better on my preparatory shoot of Alex. And i would to try and be a bit more experimental with my angles, for example i prefer angles from below, so i would be looking up to my brother and i would capture some activities that he carries out that i didn't capture before. With this shoot i would like to try and capture Alex in the style of Colie james, so where everything is almost perfect and Alex would just be completely relaxed with me taking photos of him. Instead of some of the other photographers who do capture the down moments, but i just want this shoot to capture the good, happy and playful side of my brother. I would also take the photos in quite bright lighting so that if the background is colourful it looks bright and so the colours are saturated, as i associate children with happiness and brightness, so then that meaning would be reflected in the photographs. Within this shoot too, like my preparatory shoot on Alex i would take some photos of his toys to us as breakers between the rest of the photos that he is the subject of

.Evaluation of shoot-
For my first shoot, i spent a total of 2 hours and 15 minuets taking photos. For this 2 hours and 15 minuets i spent the whole time following my brother whilst he was doing his activities, which were mostly playing and sometimes eating and drinking. For this shoot i did want to capture this side of him, so playful and happy however when i mum did come home from work alex did change his mood and he started crying so i did capture some photos of him in distress, but I'm not using them as the whole point of this shoot was for him to show his happy side. At some points during the shoot Alex did stop playing and he just sat there so i had to try and engage him with toys whilst trying to take the photos which was a bit difficult, and he just kept on playing with the same toys, but i wanted to show him doing a variety if activities. Whilst i was moving around the house, i did find it hard to keep changing the settings of my camera according to the different lighting in the house, i tried to keep most of the lighting natural as that was the easiest to achieve the best photos, as i dint have to dramatically change the aperture, also as alex plays quite fast i had to always change my shutter speed, but i mostly used the p setting as that used the best aperture and shutter speed. Towards the end of the shoot it started to get a bit darker as it around 6/7 so i kept on changing my aperture but nothing was going right, so i started raising the iso which then made a lot of my photos appear grainy, which has then spoilt a lot of the photos which could've been better. However overall i think that the shoot went well as i got a variety of different activities Alex was doing, but i would go back again and try and capture the same photos as the ones that towards the end of hr shoot that were very grainy and slightly dark. During the shoot i did have ten minuet breaks when Alex wasn't really doing anything and when he was being un corporative because he does get annoyed when i do take photos of him, so the shoot wasn't a consistent 2 hours and 15 minuets.

Photos that went well

I really like this photo because of how it’s all natural because of all the mess in the photo, so it really conveys the everyday life aspect, and how it’s similar to photos of him in the preparatory shoots watching his iPad, as this shows that it really is a day to day activity. The framing of the photo is okay, as the right amount of Alex is visible but I would crop the window sill out because you can’t see the whole sill and it joins in half way of the photo, but because it’s so close to Alex’s head not all of it would go. The lighting in the photo is good too, but I didn’t consider this photo for a straight image because of the really light areas that were from water stains on my lens which I hadn’t realised before this photo, so I had to clean it afterwards and I was fine. However, this photo would be a lot better if the lens was clean as there wouldn’t be those areas on the photo.

I wanted this photo to be in my straight images too but I don’t think that the execution of the photo was good enough for a straight image as my mum is slightly blurry because she was moving, making the area around her blurry too. Also, the framing of the photo is off, as it would look better if my mums hand under Alex wasn’t visible and if they were in the middle so that the background is equally distributed around them. However, saying that, this photo is still good in terms of what it captures, as its showing the love of a mother and her child, as opposed to Alex playing and they are both in good focus but the far background isn’t as the photo has a shallow depth of field. And the lighting in the photo is at a good level, nothing over exposed or too dark or grainy.

This is the third photo on my work record, I didn’t put this photo in my straight images because even thought I like the idea of the photo and I think the actual outcome of the photo is good, in terms of the lighting and focus as it had a bit of a shallow depth of field so the background is a bit out of focus which then adds to the importance of the subject of the photo being Alex and so shows a lot of the detail and his hair and face, also it had motion blur because of his hand and the cup. However, I think that the photo would look better if I had zoomed out slightly so that all of his head was in the framing and I think that my mums shoulder looks a bit odd in the photo, so I could’ve tried to not get the photo of just capture more of her body.

For this photo, I used different setting to the other photos as I would just normally use shutter speed priority or Manuel, but for this photo I used P but as I have never used that setting before I didn’t quite know what it would do, but I found out that it maximises the lighting to its best for the photo. So, in this photo I found that the lighting is really good, especially with Alex as it shows a lot of the shadows in highlights like his face, even though in his room its artificial. The photo also has a mid-depth of field so even though Alex is more in the middle of the photo he’s still in focus and behind him isn’t. However, this photo isn’t a straight image as he slightly blurry on his bottom half because my mum as pulling him. Also the context of this photo is different to the majority as in this he’s in distress as opposed to being happy, as he’s having he’s nappy changed but he doesn’t like it.

Photos that need improving

The outcome of this photo isn’t quite how I wanted it to be, as the amount of light in the photo isn’t perfect some areas are too dark, like my brother’s hand, and the clouds are slightly over exposed. Also, even thought the angle of the photo is good, you can see what he’s looking at and still his face, the fact that the curtain behind him is visible annoys me and I couldn’t really crop it properly as it’s too close to Alex. However, I still think that this photo is good but to improve it the f-stop just needs a small amount of adjusting and the curtain needs to be cropped out.

This photo was quite hard to capture but I still wanted it to be seen as I think that the idea of the photo is good, as it shows Alex being independent and doing something rather than playing. I had to set this photo up by asking Alex to put his cup in the sink but he kept on just throwing the photo in the sink and he wasn’t waiting for me so I had to take the photo quickly which is why there’s a bit of blur and I think that the photo is slightly grainy because of the iso again, as I was in the sitting room previously which is a lot darker than the kitchen and as I had to rush I had no time to change the settings. So to improve this photo I would first adjust the settings to what I needed and just ask Alex to do it again.

This photo also has bad lighting a some of the areas are darker than their true lighting, like the centre of the photo where the plant is and my mums hand. This would have just been caused by the aperture of the photo rather than the iso as the photo isn’t grainy in anyway just too dark making some of the photo slightly yellow. And because Alex was moving as he was annoyed at me taking photos its cause some of his body to blur but my mum is in good focus accept from her arm that was moving too. However I still think that idea and what’s actually happening in the photo is good and different to the majority of photos, as it has my mother in it, and I just like how she’s happy but Alex is frustrated.

Further improvements of the shoot-

To furrther improve this shoot, I would try and do the shoot at an earlier time so that I wouldn't have to change around the camera settings too much, in terms of the apature, shutter speed or ISO, because if I had done it earlier then the change in light wouldn't of been so durastuc towards the end. Which would then end up in not having any grain in photos as I wouldn't of had to rush and just change the ISO. I would also take photos of Alex outside more, as most of the shoot was completed inside my house, and only around 20 minutes was outside but I didn't really get any good photos because of the grain in the photos.