Final Major Project Task 3.

Test shots/documenting:

1)

For the first "shoot" I ever did for this project, I was just simply documenting her, trying not to get her face in the images. I was trying to see the different angles and distances I could photograph from and the different effects they had- I wanted to know what worked best for the project I was about to take on and the answer was the closer images and the angles which show the most context and content from them work the best. At this time I had no sources to get inspiration from, I hadn't looked into anyone's work since that very day I thought of it and decided to try it out a few hours later when I was with her so the images are just my thoughts and take on what I think and would like my project to be like.

2) 

 

 

For the second "shoot" I did, I'd looked at Philip Toledano's 'Days With My Father' and it made me think about wether deciding to take the images without her face in without trying it out first was a good idea or not- I decided to try out images with her face in, taking both types of images and seeing which worked best- I thought this would have being a better way to go about it and then I'd make sure I wouldn't be loosing out on emotions or any extra information her face could give off. Toledano's book also feautured images of his fathers house and possesions to help the narrative along, it made me want to experiment with this idea and I documented my subjects room and possestions to see what information it would add- it did add a lot of information to be fair: it shows her ocd side and her attempts at fighting.

3)

 

For the third "shoot", I'd found two sources by then and the second source was a photographer: Felicia Webb who'd sprent three years documenting multiple anoexria sufferers; this was the first source I'd found and analysised in detail that was an eating disordered based project so it was an important find- which did effect the way I was communicating my images and how I shot them. I think it's even visable the changes in the images that I'd made: The images before I was being more interactive and less fly on the wall quite about taking the images: she was more aware in the images before and more contious that I was taking them where as in these images she's more relaxed, still aware but it's become normal and because I wasn't interacting with her as much- the scenes become more like she was by herself and I wasn't even there with her which is what I was after really- for me to become invisable within the context of the images. I was still taking both types of image, with face in and without, I was finding that sometimes it was impossible to not get her face in and other time it would be easy which of course if I use both types of images is fine but if I choose to not use her face in them- may cause a problem at times.

4)

For the fourth "shoot" I wanted to try something that my second source made me want to include within the project or atleast photograph to try it out-photographing the subject outside/in another location other than home; I got up at 6, got myself ready and then started to photograph my subject before she went to work- something that is missing in these images is that you are not told of what time it is, if I wanted to get this information in it would have meant that I included the messy room within the image, and I felt that it was a huge distraction within the image so I choose to not included it even thought it means you don't know what time it is- I did take images with the clock within the frame though. When it got to 7:15 I set off, photographing my subject as she walked to work- another problem with this is that you can't tell where it is she's going and the whole time that these problems of information being missing and not being able to communicate everything I needed to in a single image- I was thinking that maybe using captions would be a good idea: like in source 1 and 2, they've both used captions- maybe captions would be a good idea for my project too.

Mini Critique(in pairs) notes:

Areas for development: Photograph some images where she's wearing less baggy clothes. Photograph when people are eating around her. Photograph her with her boyfriend because at the moment you don't know she has one and do more outside shots and more bed room shots. To make the images look more like a set, take them in colour and mess around with different effects. I think you shouldn't have her face in the images, unless the lighting is dark because having no face in them creates mystery and I prefer the images where you don't have a face in the image.
Whats going well: The aspects/scenes you've photographed so far/ the fact theres a wide variety of activities within the images, the idea behind having the images in a square format, the fact thats lots of photographs to choose from.
Whats not going well: The images looked at as a set communicate some form of eating problem and that its a documentary of her day to day life which is good but looking at the images individually, some of them would need captions in order to communicate the narrative. (this comment was very helpful as it made me think about when I have the images in the book, they will make sense but the images I choose to display at the exhibition, might not make as much sense because I'll only be display about four or five, maybe six soo this has made me see that I need to choose my displayed images carefully if I want the narrative to be understood, before people look at the book and I want them to understand the narrative and then want to see more images/look at the book).

5)

For my next shoot I acted on peoples comments that they said in the crit, my subject just so happened to be wearing less baggy clothes/more skin showing and also be with her boyfriend so I took the opportunity to shoot them eating together and being around eachother. I was happy with the images I took in this shoot but some of them lacked lighting I wanted with it getting darker outside as I took pictures. This shoot ticked two things off my list off my list of things to photograph which I was pleased with, the only thing that bothered me was the lighting and the fact that most of the images I wasn't able to crop down into square format because I took them too close and it croped out the information I wanted to have in the images which is why I havn't included much with her boyfriend even though it was a factor I wanted to include, I ended up seeing that he confused the narrative and I prefer it when you didn't know she had a boyfriend- I decided this by comparing the image with her sat by herself eating with the images of her sat eating with him- the images just weren't as powerful and didn't convey a strong message compared to the ones without him.

6)

 

This shoot was a big one, it was two days carrying on from one another- the first day's shoot images have my favorite images I've taken so far within them- the images of my subject laying on the coach and then cuddling our dog on the couch- I love the emotion she was giving off with these images, the lighting and colours just worked perfectly with the feel to the images aswell- the feeling of them very personal and emotional: a big win for the project. On this day she felt the need to take a few pictures of herself, without me even saying anything about it- she just asked to take my camera and I thought this would be a good opportunity kind of like Philip Toledano's book when his father took a picture of him- it added another layer of emotion and meaning to his project and I hoped that it would do the same for mine and I think it does add another layer but it also contridicts with having the no face in the images so it properly won't be used.

The next day's shoot, she was working from home- I took images of this and her then eating and taking the dog for a walk with my mum. I felt it was important to document the list she made for work, and the list she made about what food she'd eaten- both showing her OCD and also her anorexia. I felt it was important to get more images of her outside too and also images of her with our mum to show their relationship and also the fact my mums got cruches add another layer of questions and thought process "whats wrong with her mum?" "bet that doesn't help with her eating disorder?" these images will also connect with the images from shoot two which include a "worlds best mum" bag.

7)

With this shoot I ticked off photographing her at work and more outside images too, it was important that I featured her work life within the project because I wanted to document her life so I needed to include everything main part of her life, I also thought it would show that she's just living and working with all these problems and I wanted that feeling of assuming to happen when you see her at work "bet she's thinking about food" "bet she's struggling"

Main Crit Evaluation:

For the crit I made the mistake of printing out images(6), three of colloing filter effect and three of black and white effect because my main problem I needed advise on was what effect to go with, but I didn't really get a fair crit as I needed a lot more of my images rather just three to show what my narrative was, so people's reactions to my images where a bit guessy about that the project was about, which is understandable but because I made the mistake of doing black and white vs cooling filter- my crit wasn't very helpful.

The first person to voice an opinion first thought that my images where documenting someone around the house, she really liked this and loved the square format. However my images weren't of this narrative, it was me not realising I'd chosen all house images because I was only thinking about getting help about the effect I should use. The next person said that the images was documenting her life which is correct and then finally the third guessed correctly too by guessing eating disorder, I admit the images I picked wasn't really helpful at giving clues about the narative but it's hard to show a narrative for my project with only three images.

I then explained to the group why the same images where on the wall twice and what my problem was with the effect dilema,  the group all agreed that my images should be in the cooling filter effect not black and white. I then explained to them that I couldn't really communicate the narrative with just the three images I had and that they had to see more to really understand it as my project is meant to be a learn as you see one, the more images- the more information. My tutor then stated I shoud learn from my mistake and learn to pick better images- even if thats the case and I will definatly learn from this mistake. A person stated that you can see she looks alone and sad which is really effective.

The the group went onto discuss what I needed to do to improve, pick better images was one opinion as stated above, take more images was another(which I already had done, I'd only presented 3 though.) I told them of my captions idea and they told me they think my images don't need any text with them, I should just have a short piece of text at the front of the book instead which I was going to do anyway but the advice about not having text with each image really helped me. Then they said that what I need to be doing now is printing off all the images I have and deciding which will be used in my book.

8)

For this shoot I was just wanting to add extra information and images that are not including her but still tell you information about her by photographing objects,pictures, letters etc like Kaylynn Deveney and Philip Toledano do in their projects I've used as sources. The wool image was too show progession of time aswell, because I've already photographed her knitting in passed shoots and this was to represent that she'd been spending a lot of time doing these things and also wanted to show that time has passed during the process of photographing her. 

 9)

 Front and back cover image: