Open College of the Arts

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Open College of the Arts Tutor report Student name Anne Bryson Student number 507559 Course/Module DPP Assignment number 1 Overall Comments Overall this is a good start to the module.

1 Open College of the Arts Tutor report Student name Anne Bryson Student number Course/Module DPP Assignment number 1 Overall Comments Overall this is a good start to the module. As I haven t been your tutor so far I haven t had any input until now but you are off to a good start. There are a few tweaks I would like to see to your workflow that I have outlined below that should streamline the process somewhat and allow you to concentrate on the important part of the business at hand the making of photographs! It is unfortunate we haven t had a chance to have a chat yet before I offer feedback on your assignment but given the circumstances I felt it best to get right in and get your feedback done to allow you to continue. I should note, and will say in the call, I tend towards the critical in feedback but try to also keep things in perspective I am here to help you become better so whilst I don t always flatter egos I do try to comment on the positive as well as any flaws in photographs submitted. I also have slightly different submission requirements than my predecessor but have overlooked that for this assignment owing to the situation. I will outline my requirements in detail during our call next week. Assessment potential You may want to get credit for your hard work and achievements with the OCA by formally submitting your work for assessment at the end of the module. More and more people are taking the idea of lifelong learning seriously by submitting their work for assessment but it is entirely up to you. We are just as keen to support you whether you study for pleasure or to gain qualifications. Please consider whether you want to put your work forward for assessment and let me know your decision when you submit Assignment 2. I can then give you feedback on how well your work meets the assessment requirements. Feedback on assignment Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity

2 As this assignment is aimed at developing not only your visual skills but more specifically your photographic workflow I will split the feedback into 2 separate parts one to analyse your workflow and the other to offer some critique of your photos Workflow: I ve run through your workflow and broadly find it satisfactory one technique you might find useful is writing a flow chart of all the steps you take; this makes it much easier to navigate and remember each step every time you go to shoot. You quite accurately state that the workflow starts way before the activity of photography itself with checking and cleaning equipment, charging batteries, assessing what gear to carry. I recently came across a video by my old MA tutor that he has made for his current students outlining what is in his bag and have added it to the suggested reading because I feel it is a good way of seeing how a professional goes about choosing what gear to take on each shoot. The shooting part all seems fine, although as I mention, for the purposes of this assignment the writing of a protocol covering everything would have been helpful. The choice of RAW was good and is generally to be considered standard practice. Basic Image Management, Optimisation, Fine Tuning and Output Here is where I think I can help you the most at the moment. For your purposes I would pretty much never open Elements again, reserving it only for when you need to make pretty major corrections to the photograph. Lightroom 4 is an amazingly powerful bit of software and until I tested it myself I would have never believed I would mostly abandon Photoshop for it even six months ago. The workflow I would advise is to Import the photos with Lightroom and then you can edit through them there, adding colour or star ratings as desired (I use red for obvious deletes for instance, and only put one star against those that are looking pretty good). When you have run through them all in the library module you can filter down to your initial selects, click the Develop tab to move to the Develop Module, and then go through using the sliders at the right of the screen to quickly and accurately work through your photographs. Theses edits are all saved as sidecar files (the.xmp files you will see in the folder with the RAW files) so no destructive changes have been made to the photographs. Also, to speed the workflow, you can make changes to one image and if you know others need the exact same edits, say if everything was shot in the same lighting on the same exposure, you can then select the others in the viewer along the base of the screen and hit the Sync button to choose which changes should be applied to all of the selected photographs. This can save lots of repetitive work. Finally, to export as a set of files in whatever format you want you can select the Export button on the bottom left and specify location, size, format, colour space and add a watermark if desired. If you wish to print the files yourself you can also do this through the print module and the sharpening is excellent (much, much easier than from within Photoshop!) When it comes to file naming I used to suggest doing it on import but it can be easier to do it after you have done the initial edit, deleting those that are obviously of no use. After our phone call next week I will send an introductory that contains

3 my recommendations for file naming based on the system I learnt when working at Magnum Photos. It is a good system that I recommend as it is infinitely scalable and is tried and tested. Digital Asset Management- As you haven t really delved into this topic yet I will only touch upon it briefly. I have included a link in the Suggested reading to what I feel is the best single book written on the subject and an associated forum run by the author, Peter Krogh. Generally the first step is developing a deliberate workflow just as you have been doing in this assignment, including a file naming system that can work across many series of photographs, and then developing both a back up strategy as well as a method of cataloguing your work to make it easily locatable. Lightroom can do this but is perhaps not ideal and I personally still use a now discontinued piece of software called Expression Media 2 (although it still exists, it is now Phase One Media Pro and I do need to shift to that product one day soon, but as you note, it s a laborious task). I saw no mention of adding metadata to your images in your workflow and this will be key in allowing you to easily find your photographs in a growing catalogue in the future. I keyword very broadly on import and then more specifically when cataloguing the work. The Photographs: The way I prefer to offer feedback is to concentrate more thoroughly on a few specific photographs that I find representative of the whole submission rather than writing a line or two about each I find this a more effective method of offering feedback. However having written quite a lot already on workflow for this assignment I will make some more general comments about the series a whole. Concept: I found it good that you got out there with your camera and shot a very well known event this may appear simple at first as it provides a set subject matter that is very visual it also presents numerous challenges as I m sure you found to do with working around members of the public and working to get the best photographs. The close up crops of the coloured sections of balloon worked very well against the blue sky and whilst I felt the colours were a touch off I am more concerned at this stage in making sure you are seeing in an interesting way, which you are. The technical parts will develop as this module progresses but it is always better to start from a base of good visual skill as this is the most important part of photography. One thing to take away is that I am impressed that you have taken the opportunity to use this assignment to photograph something of interest. This module is fairly technical in nature but that should not prevent a student from using the briefs as a basis from which to explore subjects within photography they find of interest. Establishing shot: As you have shot this as a narrative piece about the Bristol Balloon Festival It would be good to follow the typical method of presenting a photo-story which is to start with an Establishing shot i.e. a photograph that tells the viewer exactly what he/she is looking at for this the gold standard is the evening shot of the glow where the balloons all light up, but obviously if you can t get that shot I would think something like your final shot would be a good choice. Imagine a

4 magazine article about the fiesta the article would almost certainly lead with a double page spread of the balloons either taking off or in the air. Closeness: I realise you weren t allowed in the enclosure and you mention you would like to get access in future I think this would be worth it and add a real dimension to your work. There is an old saying by the late Robert Capa, If your pictures aren t good enough, you aren t close enough. Getting in close to the people preparing would have added an intimacy that would have helped balance the balloon s in flight shots. The long lens shots of preparations lose this closeness somewhat. Focus and colour issues: A few of the pictures were a touch soft (close up of the burner being one example) so it is worth being sure of your focus when shooting. The colour issue could be down to your still getting used to your current workflow or could be a monitor profiling issue. As you progress you should consider investing in a monitor profiling package to ensure the colours on your screen match those on any other profiled monitor. This is also the first step in ensuring colour accurate printing. Sensor Marks: I also noticed you have a speck or two of dirt on your cameras sensor that you should have cleaned. You should as a matter of course inspect files at 100% in Lightroom or Photoshop to ensure file quality and also to make sure the image is free of defects. You can remove dust spots with the spotting tool within Lightroom very easily. Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays Context I had a read through of your log and found it encouraging that you are making a good record of your own experiments and reading around the subject of photography. I noted you have also recorded your thoughts on exhibitions you have visited and noted Catherine s blog she is another of my students as it happens. The one thing I would like to see more of is evidence of your looking around at more of the work of other photographers. Once I get more of an idea of your interests I will advise on various photographers whose work you might like to look at in more depth. Suggested reading/viewing Context Peter Krogh The DAM book website & Forum DJ Clark Video - Fusco, P & McBride, W. (1974). The Photo Essay. London: Thames & Hudson Krogh, P. (2006). The DAM book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers. Sebastopol: O'Reilly.

5 Zwingle, E. and R. Hart (1989). William Albert Allard: The Photographic Essay. Boston, Toronto & London, Bulfinch Press. Pointers for the next assignment Aside for the straight parameters of the assignment I would also like to see you tightening up on technical issues including focus and colour and also start thinking about how a series of photographs works together to form a narrative whole. The assignment requires you to shoot in JPEG rather than RAW with NO post processing so you will really need to concentrate on maintaining the discipline to get the photograph as close as possible to perfect in camera. Tutor name: Dave Wyatt Date 30/11/12 Next assignment due Jan 13 we can confirm over the phone

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