Patryk Zarzycki
Self Evaluation Report
This assignment was a great opportunity to find
out a little bit more about big photographic events which take place all around
the world. I realized that it is
important to be active and keen to get involved in photography-related events.
In the first part of the module we worked as a group of four people. We had to
research and choose one photographic festival and I think we cooperated well in
this task. Our chosen festival was the ‘Unseen Photographic Festival’ in
Amsterdam which encourages young both professional and amateur photographers to
exhibit their work.
At the beginning I struggled with a choice of
my theme. My first concept was to create a series of six images presenting a
short movie sequence from early sixties kept in a vintage cinematic style. I
wanted to base this concept on American photographer called Alex Prager whose
work is strongly influenced by films (Hitchcock’s films etc.) As I was quite
sure about the scenario of my series and I was also concerned about the fact
whether it’s feasible in a given time so I decided to change my idea. My new
theme was ‘People and their passions’ and I felt like it is something I really
would like to do as I am passionate about a lot of things this theme in some
way would reflect my personality.
In terms of aesthetic approach my chosen
photographer was Joanna Kustra who is a fashion and beauty photographer based
in London. I’ve been really impressed by the work she produces for a long time
and my aim was to try to emulate those strong vivid colours in my final images.
I’ve done three photoshoots with six models
holding subjects of their own choice which relate to their passions. Before I
started taking my photographs I did a little bit of research about basic studio
lighting setups. To some extent I knew how I wanted my images to look but I had
to find out how to setup my lights in order to get satisfied with the results.
Once I chose my final images I was ready to
start editing them. My additional concept was to make the objects held by my
models look like they are made out of gold to enhance the fact how valuable
they are for them and to show that passion is almost our treasure that we all
have. In terms of photo-manipulation I changed the background in my images to
create a sense of visual continuity. I enhanced a contrast and colours to make
them look vivid and strong. I also used dodge and burn tool as well as a 50%
grey layer set to ‘soft light’ blending mode to enhance shadows and highlights
in my photographs.
