Portfolio reviews.

To finish off the Creative Exchange Week, we had the opportunity to have portfolio reviews from 7 individuals. I decided to have reviews with 4 out of the 7 that I felt were relevant to my practice and would have knowledge within the area I want to go into in the future.

I decided to choose Sophie Abbott, Tom Duffield, Nicole Jopek and Laura Patrick. I wanted to see as many people as I could as I thought this would be beneficial to me in developing my work and receiving as many different viewpoints as possible. I took in 2 images from my Final Major Project - 2 images which were very similar in look and subject matter but were focused in different ways and used different colours, and some fashion images that I also wanted some feedback on. These are the images I took in with me to show:

Laura Patrick:
For her final major project Laura photographed paper sculptures she had made and lit them so beautifully, but this is something that pushed her out of her comfort zone. She pushed herself as she knew about the technical aspects of photography, but wanted to create something different as she planned to shoot product for her final year. She is now a freelance photography assistant, and does a little bit of fashion in her work. I wanted to talk to Laura because it is clear that she knows her way around lighting and I wanted some feedback on my work in relation to this. Also, as she isn't a fashion photographer mainly, I felt like she could give me feedback on my work that would be different to feedback from someone who does fashion.

When talking to Laura, she said that she thought my final major project was really interesting, but thought that I needed to think more about what I am photographing and why I am doing so. She also mentioned that overall the lighting was good, but that it was too bright on the arms of the model - she suggested maybe using a diffuser to reduce the harsh light or maybe blocking the light from a certain point and reducing it on the model's arm. For my fashion work, she said that they were really good and again that she could see that I knew how to work with light. She mentioned that on two of the images, the models' hands looked a bit odd within the frame or the pose which, after looking at what she was saying, I completely agreed with. For the other fashion pictures she said that a reflector might have helped make them slightly better. 3 of the images were shot with fashion students and the other 2 were taken for my own portfolio and she said that the styling worked with the collaborative imagery, but the connection I had with the other 2 models in the images I took for myself worked because it added depth and people could see the connection between the photographer and model. If I were to combine both of these things, I think my images could look a lot better - I am thinking for any future shoots I do with models to ask a fashion student to help with the styling to boost the aesthetics of the images.

To help with my final major project, we had a little brainstorm and wrote some ideas down, which I think will be super helpful:

Nicole Jopek:

I wanted to see Nicole because she had been into university before and given a talk on the type of imagery she creates and I thought it was so beautifully made and, as she works within fashion, I felt she could give me some really good feedback. 

She mentioned that the colours I had used within my final major project looked really pleasing to the eye and that this is something I should carry on with - I was really happy with this as this is the aspect within my project that I love the most. She also commented on the minimalism within the images being really nice and how, in one of the images, the model's clothing and nails matched - this is a really small detail but it is also something that I am happy works. For my fashion images she instantly said how she thought they were made really well which really caught me off guard as it wasn't something I expected to hear.

Tom Duffield:

I wanted to speak to Tom about my work because he is someone I know is really good at photography as I have seen a lot of his work in the past. I also wanted to speak to Tom because he doesn't do a lot of fashion work and I felt this would be an interesting viewpoint from someone who doesn't necessarily create similar work.

He really liked the colours in my final major project and when I mentioned using colour theory to develop my work, he said that he was unsure whether it was relevant to the project and that he thinks I should just use colours that look good within the image. He said that the images may develop if I used a model and I agree with this as I feel a model would know how to pose themselves for the camera and would make the photographs stronger. His main advice was to simply keep shooting and just experiment whilst I can, which I plan to do. I then showed him my fashion images to see if he had any advice on these and he said that he thinks I really know my way around lighting as he didn't have anything negative to say about that, and that the images look really aesthetically pleasing. I was really happy with this as lighting is something that I often struggle with but I keep trying with it whilst I'm in the studio and I am really glad that my hard work is paying off.

Sophie Abbott:

As the head retoucher at Boohoo, I felt like seeing Sophie would be really beneficial because she sees a lot of fashion images all of the time and therefore would maybe have some helpful criticism for me to help develop my work.

For my final major project, Sophie mentioned how the colours I used reminded her of pop art, and how the colours could be associated with particular moods dependent on the way they are used. She said that for the way they could be displayed, that diptychs could work which I thought was interesting as I hadn't considered this. One thing she picked up on was the way the images for my final major project had different focus points and she thought this would be an interesting thing to play with - the uneasiness of how, if the full image was in focus, it would throw off the viewer. She mentioned some artists to look at which the work reminded her of, and I will include these below:

Nikki S. Lee - "Parts":

Although not similar visually or in terms of the subject matter, this project has similarities to my work. Within this work, Nikki takes photographs of herself with another person and then cuts this person out of the images - this relates to my work because I am essentially cutting out aspects of the person within my images.

William Eggleston - "Untitled":

Again this image is not anything like my work visually but the way it is photographed illustrates an uneasiness in the subject matter, the colour and the framing of the image.

Nan Goldin - "Amanda In The Mirror", "Joey In My Mirror" and "Joey In My Mirror":

This work is very similar to the images I am taking because of the fact they are all shot in mirrors, but the difference is they are taken at a much wider angle - my images are much more focused in on the mirror and the subject.

When showing Sophie my fashion work, one thing she said was that there is a clear different between the way I shoot for university projects and the way I shoot fashion; she mentioned that the fashion work I shoot is something that I would earn money for and my final major project is something that I would create for myself to create meaning behind images. She also said that the image I took on location in natural light is something that the industry is looking for at the minute as it is very raw - I thought this was interesting because I really enjoyed the shoot and so I plan on creating more imagery similar to that.