At the start of this course, I was quite concerned about how well I would pick up and adapt my learning on the subject of photography, having studied it already for a year during a levels. However, I immediately felt on the same level as everybody else, as the course was taught in a way that assumed the student didn’t know anything about photography in the first place. I remember learning the basic settings of a DSLR Camera, which would obviously become extremely useful later on in the course, right up to this day. I do not think I would have predicted, at the start of this course, the majority of shoots that I have taken part in over the past two years. This is mainly because a lot of the shoots I did were using photography techniques that I was not even aware of before the start of this course. It is quite amusing to look back and realise how little I knew about the subject, and comparing it to nowadays where I am much more knowledgeable when it comes to taking a good photograph.
I’ve thought for a while now that the concept and main aim of my Final Major Project could be to describe and display the progression of my knowledge, skills and overall ability as a photographer. This links to my earlier statement about looking back at the difference between being a beginner photographer, to being far more skilful nowadays. This would be done via a photomontage of sorts, quite like a collage, of photographs that I have taken and been proud of over the past two years in this college course. This idea would require Photoshop, or any other post-production programme that can be found on computers. I would also need access to the internet in order to gain access to these specific photographs, but I should be able to access both Photoshop and the internet using utilities found free at the college. I do not think there is any such budget or even any required models for my final shoot, though this may come into play when I begin experimental practice shoots for the final image.
As always, the blogging website WordPress will be where I document my research, practice shoots, various experiments, project proposals, plans, evaluations, and anything else that I need to complete the Final Major Project. I intend to document the majority of what happened during my Final Major Project within my Final Evaluation, which I will do right at the end of my project, reflecting upon what I did, what went well, what could have been improved and whether I find it to be a worthy project which reflects my progression as an artist and a photography student in general.
dylanmannhazell 