Final evaluation

For the project Souvenirs we had to create ten final postcard sized images relating to the theme. For this we could have our postcards as the actual souvenirs I decided to have souvenirs in my postcards. I created 10 images relating to different destinations around the work these included places like New York City, Japan and Russia amongst others. I feel that some of the postcards may have been a little bit confusing to some people but truly it was quite understandable.

I had originally decided to make a postcard for each destination so get 10 different location shoots, I struggled to this as I couldn't get ahold of the stuff so in then I decided to create two for both Russia and Japan but the remaining six were completely different locations which really helped the diversity of the locations in the postcards.

I think that a lot of the postcards came out really well mainly the simplistic Japanese card, the bottle cap one and the Barbados one are the ones I am most proud of as I feel that despite being very simplistic they do remind me of actual postcards which is exactly what I wanted to go for.

For some people the New York one may have been a little bit confusing but really if it was on sale in New York most people if not all would understand it. The only real thing is that no-one really knows anything about New York so that was a flaw on that part but in the city itself there would be little to no confusion over it whatsoever so I still think it is a good postcard regardless of what others have said about it.

The actual shoots went really well I did main shoots of Japanese and Russian items I got a large range of items for this shoot a lot of these images really helped me when it came to creating the final postcards which means that this photo shoot was vital. It was the main shoot of the assignment and I feel I would have really struggled had I not done this shoot but thankfully I did and it came out really well.

All of the other shoots I did were just compiled one as an evaluation of them as I took one or two images every so often, these were also a main part of the project and a fair few postcards were created by using these images.

Overall I would say that my final images came out really well and that I had no major problems during the project and I would say I enjoyed it and if I did it again I would focus on creating the final images earlier on and not leaving them to the last few days and spend the last couple of days doing the written work instead of the other way round. Anyway I am happy with my final images.

Other items photoshoot

Photoshoots (other items)

My other photo shoots were decent shoots as I managed to a fair few decent images that I could use to create a few postcards from.

 This image was of a Vietnamese cake box, with my photo of a Korean bottle top and some of the Japanese items I could create a postcard of East Asian items. This item gave me the idea of collecting more food related items but instead of East Asian food, Eastern European, except Russia, due to the fact I already have a large selection of Russian items and I don't need anymore.

 This was one of the harder items to take a photo of because my reflection kept getting in shot so I had move away from the reflection in the keyring so that I could get the right image. After I did this I managed to get the image I was looking for without any reflection on the keyring at all. I think that it created a pretty good image in the end one that I could probably work with and be able to create a final image using this image which would be a really good thing to do.

This image is a New York fridge magnet which has been used in a postcard advertising the city. This item wasn't the most difficult to shoot, it did have a small reflection on it but I managed to avoid it when taking the photo of it. Overall looking at these photos and all of the others I took after a little bit of tweaking and changing where I take the photos the actual shoot came out really well and I have used all three of these images for either a final postcard or one of my monoprints so I am really happy with the shoot.

Michael MacGregor

Michael MacGregor is a Scottish photographer who is best know of his photos of the North-West of the Highlands of Scotland which is also has sold as postcards.

This image is of the highlands in Scotland, it reminds me of an area where I was staying recently in Scotland, I looked over some images from that time, it isn't the same place, but is very similar. The hill also reminds me of the mountain in Ansel Adams' 1942 picture The Tetons and the Snake River that I mentioned in a previous artist research. This mountain is more like the one in Adams' photo.

This image also reminds me of somewhere that I have been on holiday whilst in Scotland. It like the others that MacGregor has taken is really spectacular it shows of all the beauty of the highlands of Scotland. It also reminds me of a couple of images that I have taken whilst in this region. I feel that this just simply emphasises my opinions of MacGregor being a great photographer. If I saw this image as a postcard in the shops in Scotland it would be one I would buy and send to someone at home it is a brilliant photograph and as a postcard.

This is another photograph taken by MacGregor that shows off how spectacular the region is and it also shows off Michael's incredible photography skills. This is another image of his that if I saw in a shop as a postcard I would buy without a shadow of a doubt and send home. Just looking over not just these three photographs but all his others prove that he is a brilliant photographer and he knows exactly what sort of image is needed to create a fantastic postcard displaying the pure beauty of the Scottish Highlands.

Mono print

For the next mini task we had to create a mono print of a picture that we had taken during this project. I started off with a couple of simple pictures so I could get to grips with it, after early struggles I managed to get it working fine and I would go on to attempt a difficult couple of images which actually came out a lot better than I thought they would.

After finally completing a print I continued to create more as I enjoyed it so much by the end of the day I ended up doing about five different prints most of which I felt came out really well and a fair few of them I am really proud of. The one that looked the best unfortunately had a mark from a previous one over it, it is quite faint but does really ruin the image, which would have been quite good had the mark not been on there.

Final images

Photoshoots (Japanese & Russian items)

This shoots I did of the collection of Japanese and Russian items was a really successful shoots, for this shoot I had a large and vast range of Japanese and Russian items.

For this shoot I went up to a room and spread out all the items, the way I wanted them to be laid out and then took photos of them, these were moved around so I could try and get the best possible images to create the postcards. This was a very successful shoot I got around 50 or 60 images to work with, this really helped I know that these postcards will be the best as I have so many more from this shoot.

 The selection of Russian items was more military based and it allowed me to take photos of items that I had not only never taken a photo of before, I had never seen with the naked eye before, so it would be interesting to see what sort of images I could get as well. I was also provided with a Russian flag as well for the shoot, this really helped emphasise that these items are Russian because there would be a few people that wouldn't know where these items would be from.

The selection of Japanese items were more varied which allowed me to get more different images to the Russian images, there were a lot more items to work with. The items including bottle caps as demonstrated by the image at the side, there was also CDs, books and clothing. The hardest to work with without a doubt was the CDs this was mainly because the sunlight through the windows reflecting on the CD case so I took several images, moving it around until I managed to get an image that didn't have any sort of reflection on it. Also even without the sunlight on the case, my reflection of taking the image appeared in the images which wasn't helpful, but I managed to move the CD and myself when taking the photos so I was positioned in a place where not only would I still be able to get the image straight on and not get any reflection in the image.

Overall I would say that this shoot was a success and that I will be able to create a couple of really interesting postcards from the images that I managed to collect from this shoot.