Edinburgh College

HN1 Photography

Unit Evaluation 

Summative Assessment

Name: Jill Barnett

Class Group: B

Unit: Still Life

Introduction

There was a total of four briefs for this image;

• Shoot an image for a Sunday supplement illustrating a recipe

I chose to do a Roast dinner; it was Autumn and I wanted something home made looking and giving a warm cosy feel. I bought all the ingredients and half cooked most of it, so it was looking its best. The chicken was raw, and I painted it with dark oak wood stain as I read that was a good way of preparing chicken for photographs. I shot it in a roasting tin using a tripod and studio lighting, shooting from above. I used hessian as a background. I had underestimated the amount of veg the tin would hold so I filled one half of the tray full of veg and the other side was empty, I got my shots and then kept the settings the same but moved the veg from one side to the other and shot again. This gave a full look to the food, it looked much better. 

• Shoot a front and back cover for an annual report for a Glassware company

For this task I photographed a bottle from above and straight on and used masking to duplicate them several times each and arrange them in an interesting way and coloured them green. I wanted to do something a bit different and work on my Photoshop skills for this. There was a bit of a bend in the glass, so I duplicated half the bottle, flipped it vertically and matched it so the bottle was exactly symmetrical.

• Produce a Flemish Still Life image

I bought a dead rabbit and pheasant from the butcher’s shop. I researched Flemish Still Life quite a bit and read all the meanings of different foods, books, candles etc being in the shot and bought what I wanted in it. I arranged the dead animals on the table first on hessian, folded as informed by the Flemish techniques. I arranged everything else around them as that was the easiest way (They took up a lot of room. I used my black backdrop for the background and used an LED torch and a long exposure to do light painting for the photos. I used 5 or 6 different images concentrating on different areas and masked the layers in to make one whole properly lit image.

• Freestyle Image to tie in with Architecture and Portraits 

This shoot was in my brother-in-law’s pub. I took an Architecture shot, two portraits of pints being poured etc so thought a good idea was to set the Pint of Tennents up on the pool table with the light coming nicely through the glass and the pool balls, chalk etc to set the scene. I used Bowens lights from the studio which I took to Larbert with me for the shoot. I really liked the Tennents shot. It looked refreshing and also got a ‘like’ from Tennents on Instagram!

Positive Aspects

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this unit, I enjoyed the careful nature of it, everything being very precise and taking time to get everything perfect. I found there was a lot of work went into it, especially the Flemish and the Recipe. The Flemish one cost quite a bit of money, even though I scoured the charity shops for most of the items in it. The rabbit and pheasant were about the cheapest things there! I didn’t mind and thought it was totally worth it for the shot although handling the animals felt a bit grim. Light painting was fun. It’s good that you can control exactly how much light goes on to certain areas so there is no over-exposure on highlights etc. I really liked the Flemish one and the Tennents. I think the colour palettes were good and the pint looked good in it. Thankfully I was getting them topped up for free!

Areas for Improvement

I would say out of all the images my least favourite was the Glassware one. I just wasn’t inspired, and I think it probably shows, I put all my effort into the other ones. I took several shots and had a good idea of what I wanted to do, and at first I was happy with it but the more I see it the less I like it. I think possibly if I took the opacity of the colour hue layer down so it wasn’t as heavy, I would prefer it. I think I looked at it too long when processing it and kept tweaking what didn’t need tweaked so by the end I just wanted it done with. In future I will take more of a step back, I can get quite caught up in processing then overdo it. I need to take a rest and go back to it, not just keep doing more and more.

Evaluation of Learning

It was worth all the researching the Dutch Masters and Flemish style and techniques. I learned a lot from that and found it interesting. It means I know about what’s in my image and what each item represents. I spent so much time on this unit and feel it has helped me improve my skills not only in Still Life but in general. It required thought, decision making, planning, creativity, patience and so much attention to detail. The post-production was varied, some pictures were layered together, some needed hardly and processing ie. the Lager and others like the Recipe and Glassware needed a lot done so those skills have also improved too.