Lewis Stewart Photography

Artist research: For my first shoot, I was unsure of what I wanted to depict within my Final Major Project. I found the work entitled "Velvet" by Nhu Xuan Hua really interesting and therefore decided to start there. Velvet: A lot of these images are very minimalistic, which is something that drew me in and sparked my interest. The image that I was drawn to the most is the one in which there is someone holding a mirror up reflecting someone's face - I feel like this is something that I can use to start my project off and then develop it and experiment in a variety of different ways. I like the use of the block of colour in the background as it is very strong and vibrant - I like using colour in my work and so this is something that I could have some fun with as I could try out a lot of different colours. Contact sheet: These are all of the images that I took in my first shoot back at university, and I know that I could have had a much better

The idea behind this shoot is based upon social media and technology, mobile phones specifically. I was looking at the work of Phillip Lorca diCorcia and his 'Heads' series, and really loved how he lit up specific people surrounded by lots of other people.  This led on to me thinking about how I could use lighting to create an effect in my images, to create a meaning within them. I decided that I seem to see a lot of people on their phones when I walk anywhere (myself included), and they are always looking down at them and not really focusing on the world around them as they are too invested on their phones. I then recalled seeing the work of Antoine Gregor, and how they use phones in the project called 'SUR-FAKE' to resemble how people are obsessed with their phones and go on them instead of appreciating where they are or who they are with. The idea of the images below is to capture the essence of someone being on their phone in the presence of someone

For my fourth shoot, I decided that I wanted to do even more experimentation and try out some new ideas to progress my work; for this I decided to use a prism within some of my photos and also tried combining 2 of the shoots I had already done (using fairy lights and using sunglasses as a reflective material) into one to see if the combination worked and why. These are the images that I took which either didn't work, were images that I accidentally took or did not fit into the theme in one way or another. Some of the images I took were very overexposed due to the day I was shooting on being very sunny and me forgetting to adjust the camera settings for this. The image above is a screenshot of the images that I achieved from this shoot that I am happy with, as I think they all work well and use the things that I wanted to from the day. Below I have put the images together in sets to show their detail a lot better and therefore making it easier to see the images.

Matt Moran takes portraits of people leaving raves in Ukraine, illustrating the nightlife of the country in Eastern Europe. These portraits are very simple and minimalistic within their composition and subject matter, but it is the context that is the most interesting aspect of this series. These are the 14 images within this project, and I think they all work really well together as a collection of images. The use of black and white mixed with colour creates an interesting addition to the project, as it is difficult to tell the time of day of the photographs as you can't see the light easily. These are two of my favourite portraits from this project, and within these portraits it is not clear that they were taken in the early hours of the morning because it looks like the photographer has just taken the images during the daytime due to the bright light. When you realise that the portraits were taken at this time, it makes them look very different to what they originally