From your Personal Investigation based on IDENTITY & COMMUNITY write an overview of what you learned so far (both as Yr 12 and Yr 13 student) and how you intend to develop your Personal Study.
1. Describe which themes, medium (photography, film), approaches (documentary, tableaux, conceptual), artists (incl contextual references to art history, movements and isms) and photographic skills, processes, techniques and methods (incl learning new software) inspired you the most and why.
themes of family and culture were the most important to me , we have explored this a lot through our subtopic of identity an community. I prefer to use the medium of film as its what I am most comfortable with making and also allows me to express my work more clearly by using music and visual effects. I really like the work of Vin and Omi who I studied when doing my most recent mock exam. As fashion designers they are not who I would usually gain inspiration for artist reference from however the clothes they make really resonated with my ideas of fast fashion. I loved how brightly coloured this project was as it really stood out from previously black and white or low mood photography which I felt allowed me to have much more creative control and more experimentation. Throughout my A level course my photography skills have progressed as I came onto the course with no skills in photography and could barely take a picture. Although I have massively improved I am still cautious with trying new photography techniques and rely heavily on automated settings on my camera. I hope to use this personal project as an excuse to learn more about my camera and move to a more advanced level of photography.
2. Include examples of both previous and current experiments and imagery to illustrate your thinking
The first big independent study of photography I had was my photography mock focusing on the theme, ‘identity and place’. Before this project I would not take many photo’s when out on a shoot which left my contact sheets lacking in images which resulted in me having limited choice in editing which in turn made my projects not so good. This was the first time I took lots of photos so I had plenty to choose from, allowing me to make my best final project at the time. This taught me the importance of taking an abundance of photos as well as showing me the difference it can make when there is lots of choice. The project also allowed me to obtain more skills in photoshop which I was, at the time, struggling with.
After this project as completed I was interested in editing my images further outside of the brief. I used lightroom to create a multicoloured montage that I used to try and emulated both Andy Warhol and the 2000s pop movement
Out of this small mini-project this was my favourite final image. It may in fact be my favourite image I have created throughout my entire photography course. I love how the bright yellow has created a synthetic almost latex effect reminiscent of Britney Spears outfit from the music video of ‘Oops I did it again’
Doing creative projects like this has reaffirmed my love of brightly coloured photography which I continue in other subjects such as Media and Film Studies as well as having a firm link into pop culture which I also love.