The final evaluation of my project Three Chapters. 

Overall, I think my project had both positive and negative aspects to it. Firstly, the research and planning that went into the project I think was successful, I looked into a diverse range of sources including, websites, books, magazines and newspapers. I think it is important when beginning a new project there must be a comprehensive and thorough investigation into the theme and concept behind the project. Therefore, it was appropriate for the research to heavily influence my original work. The second part to my project is the actual recording and photo-shoots. I began my project by interviewing my grandmother, I wanted to learn more about my grandfather and the best possible person to talk to is his ex wife and best friend. The interview was very interesting and evoked a great deal of emotions from my grandmother, she found it incredibly difficult to talk about my grandfather. This then led me to begin looking at my grandfather’s past, I started looking at archive images that my mother had kept. There was a collection of images that stood out to me, photographs of him with his children, on his wedding day, at his retirement do, holidays, birthdays and normal everyday events. I also thought it was appropriate to look through the box my mother has of some of his belongings. There was lots of condolence letters and cards sent to my family, there was the death certificate, birth certificate of his child Christine Benning who is my mother and there were personal items like his after shave and darts. Other photo-shoots I produced were focused on personal items that I had found, images from interviewing my grandmother, photographs from visiting places that reminded me of him like Green Island beach and Queens Valley Reservoir. I think it was important to include several types of images for example, portraits, landscapes, close-ups and stills. The next aspect of my project was on the experimentation, each photograph was cropped, levelled and adjusted regarding the contrast and brightness. I used the black and white effect on particular images and especially concentrated on Photoshop when arranging the collage I created of my grandfather’s life. However, I do think that I needed to focus on experimentation a great deal more in this project. Therefore, for my next project I will specifically spend more time concentrating on the experimentation of the images I have.

With regards to the essay, I found it difficult to think of a title in the beginning but came up with the title ‘How has Boltanski, Abril and Toroptsov represented the concept of capturing the invisible and reflecting the meaning of memory through the medium of photography?‘ I think it was specific enough but  still allowed me to look at lots of different aspects and include my family’s interpretation as well as my interpretation. I enjoyed writing the essay because it explained the path I was taking regarding my influences from photographers, academics and artists. I found the analysis of images complicated and hard to understand sometimes due to some of the images being more metaphorical and therefore could have multiple meanings.  I wanted my introduction to be more poetic and abstract but I wanted the conclusion to complete the essay, basically finish it off by answering the question simply. I think the design of the book was successful, I researched the designs of books on the Blurb website as well as designs of other photographers both professional and amateur. My book design was a combination of scientific and metaphorical, I wanted my images to contrast and compliment each other. I thought it took a great deal of time to design my own book, especially when designing the essay into my book. I wanted it to look clean and precise but it was not as simple as I initially anticipated. I am happy with my final design for my photo-book, I think the title works really well and the sequencing of the images are strong. But I do think it would of benefited by project if I had started designing my book a lot earlier so that I could experiment with book more, with regards to the layout and order.

I think I have managed to confidently capture the concept of photographing the invisible and the idea of memory. I wanted to explore how the invisible can be made visible. I think the idea was initially quite daunting because it seemed such a complex concept but once I properly looked into it more, I decided the project would work.