Final Major Project: Final Evaluation.Planning, Notes, Screen Shots, Image Evidence. Processes.

How I've been editing the majority of my images all the way through the project:  

 1) cropping into 1x1 square format. 

2) Adjusting Brightness and Contrast to amount each image image needs.

 3) Adding a cooling filter, determined by eye most of the time, due to the colours already existing in the image. I didn't want the images to look blue but I wanted that cold effect to add a feel of sadness. 

 4) Adjust the levels. 

5)Smart Sharpen. 

And not every image is the same or taken at the same day/day so each shot tended to need different aspects tweaking but the above adjustments have been made on every image. 

Saturation changes and other aspects was needed to be tweaked on some images, just to get the right feeling, some images where too warm like the one below where as I wanted that cold feeling.

Through the project though I took images in lot of different locations and lightings, sometimes the sun would blow out certain areas of the images and sometimes the images would be a little over exposed due to general unexpected changes in light as I went along with my subject, I had to make a fair few adjustments to some of the outside images I've chosen to use: such as creating multiple masks to bring back the blown out areas. 

There was one images in particular which I did manipulate a lot more than the others, by cloning and healing tool brushing my subjects face out of the image, but I feel it was the right choice since I was trying to not include her face as much as possible, I want to keep her face and identity unknown.

I always masked this image quite a lot because I wanted to bring the background into the picture more, make the sky stand out more and I wanted to create some more definition between the horse and the subject.

 1)Sky. 2)Houses/Hills.

 3) Horse. 4) Hand.

Ideas about the presentation of my exhibition:

Planning book aspects: 

Planning book order, layout and picking which images will be paired.

I picked 73 images to chose from that could possibly be used in my book, Blurb's online book maker made it easier for me to chose which images I wanted to be in the book and what images should be paired together. I have ended up with 36 images to be used in my book, with three images on the side lines that can be used to replace other images within the book. 

Exhibition space chosen& progression:

For the exhibition I've chosen to go with the chairs/sofa, table with my books on it idea but I was thinking that I have the wall space above the sofa which I would hate to waste, so I was noting down some ideas about what I could feature on the wall above the sofa, I first thought taking images of the rooms featured in the book empty, or to single prints of the empty sofa and empty kitchen this was to make the viewers take in the environment in which the book takes place, in which my sister inhabits but I thought people would get confused at the narrative if the first images they saw was of a house, so I thought about just having my front cover as a big single print above the sofa but I wasn't too keen on that idea either, it didn't help the narrative along. The idea that really got me considering it is having old images of my sisters life in frames above the sofa, creating the vibe of a living room and giving the viewers more information about my sisters life before the documentation. 

So I went searching through old photos of hers and picked out these ones below that could possibly be used:

I've chosen these images specifically, wanting to show the veiwers mine and my sisters relationship when we was younger and how it is now- that we was close but now we're not, wanting to show that my sister's graduated univeristy and she had a huge soical life at one point and considering that it's not shown in the book it makes you conclude that she doesnt' have it anymore- which is correct. I wanted to include images of her hiding behind other people and looking uncomortable to show her unhappyness with what weight she was but I also wanted you notice in these old images that she seems happier. And finally the family photographs to highlight how my subject has changed overtime, next to how everyone else has changed which is not very much and they stand as a reminder that this is the same family, the same people it makes you look for the girl that seems to be missing but really she's there, unrecogisable against the familer faces.

Then I went out and bought frames and printed the images I chosen:

 Put them all in the frames and selected an order:

the images go in order of date, so that the viewers can follow the images along to the present time of my book. These images are the only ones that feature my subjects face within them, these images are meant to be a reflection of how the eating disorder has effected her life since it's happened: made her loose her identity(no face within the book) as well as hobbies, social life and change family relationships due to the effects of the eating disorder. 

After I'd framed the images, it took me constant hours of working throughout the night on Blurb's 'BookSmart' programme, it was meant to be the day I'd order the book before I found out that there was no way I could get the book delivered in time for the opening of the exhibition on the 13th of June, I was completely mortified by this discovery, I last thing I did before going to bed was organise my images more  effectively so that when it came to putting the book together again I could do it more easily and quickly, I didn't want another plan to backfire on me.

The next day when I went into college and told my tutor the news, He suggested creating the book at college myself, this idea really appealed to me since that way I can make sure it gets finished in time and not have to worry about it not been delivered on time. I decided to make the book on Photoshop since I'm more comfortable with using it, I found that me organising my images the night before was a very good idea, it helped me get the images ready quickly. I needed help from tutor since I'd never made a book on Photoshop before though we everything went well and hopefully the images will print well. In the second lesson that day I sorted out my front and back cover as it needed printing differently, by the end of the day I had it printed and it felt I a lot more at ease about the book situation.

Worked out what size the book was going to be, what size the image where going to be and the border size:

 Resized image and canvas:

Used rulers to create a guild line for cutting out the pages when printed and marked the guidelines with black lines:

We then saved the image and since all the action where recording as an action on photoshop, I did the same thing to all my images.

Then I had to sort out my front cover image and get it printed. 

I gave the cover straight to my tutor without taking a picture, but the next day the book inside prints were ready:

I started to work on my artists statement and finally settled on one: 

NATALIE TOWLER

Foundation Degree Photography at Leeds City College

Peer

Peer is a documentary of my sister's life coping with her eating disorder, anxiety and OCD. Peer reflects my sister's loss of identity, inner conflicts and helplessness viewed from an outside perspective.   

On Tuesday the 11th of June, my book was completely put together and ready for the exhibition, I am really happy with how it came together.

Later on Tuesday I set up my exhibition presentation like below, it didn't go exactly how I hoped it would and ultimately was a let down. 

A rug was added to it.

Evaluation:

On the Exhibition night, I went in early to help tidy up all the rooms and help out with anything that needed doing. The exhibition opened at 6 and it took no less then 5 minutes for me to become stressed! I quickly noticed how no body seemed to see my book on the table, they'd look at the frames on the wall and some read my artists statement as well and they'd walk away confused and unimpressed- I started to panic, a lot because my actual project wasn't getting look at and because of it the images on the wall didn't make sense- I began to see the flaws in my presentation and knew that the way I chose to present it was a huge mistake. I ended up having to get some paper from the library and write two notes telling people that my project book was on the table and they should look. I also noticed that people was not sitting down to read the book, only a few people did and I felt the whole point of having the sofa(which was made out of two chairs) was completely pointless so I made a note that they should feel free to sit as well. Another thing I tried to get people to noticed the book was standing it up, originally it was laid down which would have been fine if people sat down but no one did, so no one noticed until I made signs and stood it up.

All this fiasco made me regret not going with my first idea of presenting it: four + big prints(of images that are in the book) on the wall, and have a stand which held my book up, level with the images. This idea would have been so much better for communication and would have caused less confusion, If I was to do it again, this would be the thing I'd change in a heart beat. I'd also take pictures of the things I wanted to photograph but never did such as: my sister's closed bedroom door, my sister exercising etc. These things we're there for me to photograph and I feel they are important to the narrative but for reasons, I couldn't photograph them or completely forgot to which is silly but over all I'm happy with my book, just unhappy that the presentation meant at first people wasn't looking in it. 

Another problem I had was that I didn't know that they'd be turning off the lights in the room, each art piece had it's own light which made there's see-able and then in the back of the room there was my exhibition with only a small table lamp which was only meant to be for effect but with them turning off the main lights, the room was very dark in my area and it didn't help my situation, my granddad and grandma had to take my book across the room and stand under a light in order to be able to see it. It was crazy how much was going wrong. To make it worse someone had left an empty drink cup on my table as well! on Tuesday I did say I was worried that with my presentation being in a art dominated room that I feared my book wouldn't be seen, or used a coaster which is basically was was happening at the start- My fear of everything dominating my book was correct though, I didn't comprehend how badly it would be dominated until I walked in my room to see a huge wood sculpture in the middle of it, a big cross right next to my presentation and on the other side of it was another big piece of art and next to that another. Basically the room was filled with huge pieces of work, low light and not a chance in hell of anyone seeing my book without a neon sign pointing to it. I wished I'd of known, I'd of picked a different room.

Over all, it wasn't all bad though- just a nasty shock. A lot of people did look at my book and I even got some positive feedback from some people, I just couldn't enjoy the night because of worrying and stressing over something that could have been avoided- but as Michael Dean(one of my teachers) said "it's not a mistake if you learn from it" and that's exactly what I'm going to do; learn from this and I won't make the same mistakes again. 

Another thing I'd like to mention is that, I wanted two books so that more then a few people could look at my exhibtion at a time but with the blurb problem happening I couldn't make two in such short notice so I ended up only having one book, which made the number of people that could see my project at one time fall extremely and with the problem of people not seeing it anyway this didn't help when more than one person did see it but could read the book at the same time and thus resulting in them moving on to someone elses exhibtion work and most likely not coming back.

What I would organise differently next time would be, work on my book planning more during the time I was photographing, and ultimatly get the book sorted earlier than I had done. I would have a back up plan in place and then a second back up plan just in case because the feeling of everything gone wrong is horrible.