Robert Bennett

London based photographer, 21, studying at LSBU

[robertbennettphotography]

Major Project

Mounting 

Before starting the process of physically mounting my work, I printed out my images so that they were ready to be mounted as soon as I had the correct material. As part of the printing process I printed test prints of each image so that I could see how the final image would look when printed and see if there were any last minute adjustments I wanted to make.

The image taken outside of the night club came out perfect and looked even more consistent with the others than it had on screen. The image taken in a tunnel only required another small curves adjustment layer to be added to brighten it up as the shadows in the image were still coming out very dark on paper.

It is thanks to the idea of printing test prints that I was able to see that the orange light in the bus stop image was far too intense. This is something that I had worried about in the editing process and had tried to neutralise it slightly, however it was when I saw the image in print that I decided I must take a far stronger approach with it for the image to remain consistent with the other two images in the set.

With these changes in mind I feel that the prints came out looking great and work well together a lot better than they would have if it were not for the test prints I had done.

As I have previously stated in an earlier post, I have planned to mount my photos on boards and then hang them in the gallery. When I had last considered the way I was going to mount my images I was trying to decide between using foam board or MDF wood. After printing my images I decided that it would be more practical for me to mount on foam board as this is something that I have done before. 

After deciding on using foam board my next decision was whether I wanted to use either black or white foam board. This will make a difference in the gallery as the edges of the board will be on show. To see all of the different thicknesses and types of foam board on offer, I visited the London Graphic Centre in Covent Garden as I was already aware of their extensive range of mounting goods.

After looking through the different boards the LGC had on offer I decided to choose a black foam board as this should blend nicely with the edges of all of my images as I used a vignette with them all that will darken the edges. Using white foam board would mean that if someone views my photos from the side then there would be an obvious frame around the image and I think that this would distract from the detail around the edge of my photos.

Now I had both prints and board in hand, I planned to use the vacuum press to mount my images onto the board. The vacuum press uses both heat and a vacuum to stick the images to the foam board with the help of mounting tissue, a thin layer of paper that has a film of glue on both sides which becomes wet when heated by the press.

After I took the first two of my images out of the press I realised that on one of them the board had started to bend and the glue beneath had been evaporated by the heat of the press. I think this must have been a problem with this individual type of board rather than anything else as the other board was mostly fine. My other image has bent upwards slightly in two of the corners but this van be fixed when I mount it to the wall when setting up the gallery.

To fix the problem of the board losing its glue under the heat of the press I decided to stick my third image to its board with the use of double sided tape. This provides the same effect as using the vacuum press but takes longer and there was a chance I may not get the image completely flat. Mounting my third image by using tape worked well, and following my return to LGC tomorrow to get a new foam board for the image that bent, I will be taping that one to the board as well.

I had originally planned to attach D hooks to the backs of my prints to hang them on the wires available at the gallery however now that one of them has bent corners, I intend to use pins to stick them flush to the wall as this should stop any apparent bending from happening whilst they are on display.

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Major Project

Narrowing Down Choices

Below are the three images which I believe were the strongest from the shoot. Below was my favourite out of all of the shots of the back of the jacket. Although there is more detail that makes the jacket unique on the back of the jacket, I feel that in this image, unlike the first image I edited, it is detracting from the photo by not being able to see the front. 

I like the fact that the woman on the left is clearly visible as this makes it look as though the nightclub has plenty of people around it, as it would on a night out. If this image was meant to be documenting the club and the people within it I would have aimed to get more distinguishable people in shot, however as it is more fashion orientated I feel that having the woman there will distract people from the clothing as they start to talk about her instead.

The image below reminds me of many billboard advertisements I have seen for fashion brands, both in the light falling on the model and the way he is posed. Compared to the other two photos I have singled out, the lighting on the model’s face is very similar to how I would want it if I were to have used external lights while on location. 

Unlike the first image, the people in the background of this photo are not distracting as there is nothing too distinguishable about them. In this sense they work as props to add context to the narrative rather than a focal point.

I chose the image below as I want to experiment slightly with image crop for the exhibition. In my initial plans I had all of the images orientated the same way but having shot some portraits I really like how it could show off the whole of the jacket as well as capturing a lot of the important detail from the background. This image will be presented in the middle of the trio in the gallery so if I am going to have one sole portrait photo then it will be best suited to this one for symmetrical reasons. 

With a tighter crop I think that this image could work very well as I like the way the model is posed looking out of frame. This is something that I asked my model to focus on a lot during the shoot as it is one of the key factors in photographs and films that I have noticed makes characters more believable. No one should ever be looking directly at the camera. The problem I have with his pose is there is nothing of note in the direction he is looking, meanwhile we can tell from the background that on his right the path carries on.

After looking through these three images I have chosen the second image. This is the mage that I feel works strongest within an editorial perspective and still maintains the level of narrative that I want for this project. When I start editing the image I will be experimenting with a portrait crop as this is something that I liked about the third image and I think could make the work look more interesting as a whole set.

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Major Project

Photo Shoot

For my final idea for this project I had originally planned to gain access to the inside of a nightclub and use this as the setting for my image, however due to restrictions by most clubs this was not possible. I instead decided to keep the context of the club by moving the shoot outside, allowing the audience to see that the clothing is related to nightclubs without me needing the necessary access.

As with my other shoots I tried to keep my model reasonably static, but trying to show the intent of movement, pretending he may be outside the club waiting for his friends, or walking towards the queue. I didn’t want too much movement to be involved as clothes like this are normally seen on catwalks and photographed in a very static manner. 

The club I chose to use as my location was Electric Brixton. This is a club I have been to myself regularly so I knew that the lighting outside would be bright enough for me to shoot easily in. Due to me being familiar with the location I was aware that to would give the amount of context I felt the shoot needed as well.

In the above contact sheet is my selection of images after one round of eliminating images I think would not work. Remaining are various poses of the front and back of the jacket, the item that I am making the focal point of the shoot, but also images that I thought had a good angle so that the background was clearly visible as well.

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Major Project

Finishing the Image

Below is a screenshot of the final image after I had completed all of the dodging and burning and colour work. The main focus of my second day of editing was colour corrections. Although the various different lights are what originally drew me to choose this image, I soon regretted this when trying to adjust the colours so that the image felt balanced. The orange hues in this image are very strong, with little to no detail remaining in the store sign in the background or parts of the highlight on my model’s face. 

After finishing my preliminary editing of this second image, I compared it with the first image I completed so that I could try and make them look consistent with each other. Despite the different models, clothing and location, it will still be possible to make these images look part of a set and it is important that I manage this correctly if they are to work well together on the wall at the gallery.

When comparing the images, the first thing that was very noticeable to me was the difference in amount of colour in the image. This is not something that I can easily change, due to the lighting at the bus stop but to try and add an almost clinical feel to the background I used a couple of curves layers and brushed them in gently so that there were parts of the background which were almost completely grey.

Looking at my first image again, it seems very dark compared to my new image so I used a curves layer to brighten up the whole image very slightly. If the level of brightness in the images are drastically different then this will draw attention to the more well lit images, especially as there is a high chance the gallery may not be very well lit in certain areas.

After editing both of these images slightly due to the comparison of them, this is definitely something that I will have to look at again after editing my third and final image as I can then compare the images as a trio and mock up what they will roughly look like in the gallery.

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Major Project

Starting Editing

Without Jarek to help me mark up this image with faults that need to be corrected, I was as meticulous as I could be to make sure that I marked anything I found to be a distraction when viewing the image. I didn’t bother to mark up every piece of dirt on the bus stop windows as I may as well have coloured the entire thing in red.

In a similar vein to how I started editing my first image, the first step to successful post production is doing all of the physical image manipulation before starting to move onto dodging and burning. Using the clone stamp, healing brush and liquify tools, I corrected the shape of the clothing so that it looked tidier and got rid of any big noticeable smudges, as well as the grime along the bottom of the map. I want my images to retain their original grit but it is possible to do this without keeping all of the dirt and grime which makes the image look unclean.

After finishing the general retouching, I moved on to dodging, burning and colour correction. Above is a screenshot of the image after I had been working on it for roughly 8 hours on the first day of editing. I had not anticipated just how long cleaning up the bus stop windows would take, as this required not only dodge and burn but I had to basically paint in background details which were not clear in the original image. This is most noticeable on the bottom right pane, where parts of the background were completely obscured. I had to imagine what may have been behind that smear and draw it, making sure that it fit in well with the depth of field used in the original capture as well. 

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Major Project

Choosing an Image

After looking through my contact sheets and narrowing down my selection again and again, I eventually came up with these 3 images, one of which will be the image I choose to edit. I narrowed my selection down to these 3 image as I feel that they provided a wide range of options and were all good images in different aspects.

What drew me to potentially choose this first image was the difference in lighting between the foreground and background. Despite this difference in lighting, the model still fits in well with the background as it is obvious that he is being lit up by light caused by the environment. This gives me a lot to play with when editing as I will have different colours to add in and take away to add atmosphere.

The main aspect of this image that stops me wanting to choose it is the close crop. Having a tight crop already leaves me with very little manoeuvrability when it comes to cropping the image, this means that I do not have too much choice in the final composition of the image. 

This photo drew my attention due to the pose of the model looking as though this image could just be capturing someone as they wait for the bus. There is a very slight movement to him whereas in a lot of the other photos he is very static and still. 

There is a mix of several different light sources in this image which is somewhat that I love as it creates many different gradients and points of interest. The whit light at the top of the bus stop draws the viewers attention to the bus map, giving instant context for the location of the shot, as does the bright orange LED display. 

I like the LED display in this image for two reasons, it both provides context for location but is also the main light source for the body of my model. The way that the light falls on my model in this image reminds me of something that may appear in an image by Gregory Crewdson. The light is gentle yet ties in the model brilliantly with the background.

The thing that I like most about this image is also the thing that is making me wary of choosing this as my image to edit from this shoot: the lack of environmental context. Having a strong narrative between my images is something that I am trying to heavily focus on, and I feel that without the bus stop directly in view it may not be very obvious straight away. I have shown this image to several of my friends and only one was able to work out where it might have been taken. 

This shot was taken with the model taking a slight step behind the bus stop so that he was only lit up by the light coming from the advertising board built into the stop. I love the way that the light falls onto him but with the lack of context for location I feel as though this image would cause confusion for the audience.

The image I am choosing to edit for my final choice is the second image in this post. I feel that out of the three images it has the most potential, although I am worried about the length of time it will take me to clean the panes of glass in the bus stop in Photoshop. I am also thinking about the way that this image will be displayed in the gallery alongside my other images and I think it could look quite nice to have the model in the left hand image facing right, this image on the right facing left and the final image to be more centrally focussed.

[robertbennettphotography]

Major Project

For my latest shoot I headed to Surrey Quays, as this was nearby to where my model lives and I knew that he would know the area well. We headed to a road nearby which had a variety of bus stops so that I would be able to experiment with many different types of lighting and pose, as I was still unsure exactly how I wanted to compose the image when I arrived.

When shooting I decided to focus on two things: use of natural lighting; using scenery as context. By focussing on use of natural lighting I hoped that when editing this will help my images be more consistent with each other. While the lighting in this shoot is not technically natural, the light sources for every image in this shoot were already there, rather than me bringing my own lighting equipment. Making sure that the images contained enough scenery to give the audience context as to where the shoot took place is something that I felt was mandatory. Without context for location, the narrative that I am trying to communicate through this set of images is a lot harder to grasp.

Located above are two contact sheets which contain a selection of the images I took. I had a look through all of the images I had taken and narrowed them down by a substantial amount as this allowed me to cut out any shots which were composed badly, over or under exposed, or if there were too many similar shots from one scene. I will now be going through the contact sheets to narrow down my choices further before deciding which photo I feel works best within the criteria I have set myself.

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Major Project

Exhibiting in a Gallery Setting

The way work is exhibited in a gallery can sometimes be just as important as the way it has been photographed. I have already posted about how I think I would ideally want my work to be exhibited, however this was done with little research into how people with similar projects and ideas have presented their own.

Ewen Spencer - Kick Over The Statues

Ewen Spencer’s Kick Over The Statues exhibition focussed on him taking snapshots of young people along the route used for the annual Notting Hill Carnival, complimenting this with photos of young Liverpudlians as well. Spencer’s work for this project is comprised of photographs of young people in these two locations, some of the subjects he had already arranged due to continuously casting in those areas and the rest were taken due to him approaching someone in the street and introducing himself. 

The project was commissioned for the Brighton Photo Biennial by Photoworks and Fabrica. Spencer stated that he wanted the images to be presented on a large scale as this relates directly to the huge billboards and outside advertisements used to promote events. By bringing something on that scale into a gallery it allows the audience to view something up close which they would only ever see from afar. 

Spencer has said that by bringing these huge billboards into a gallery in the centre of Brighton it has allowed him the chance to recreate the idea of a street within the gallery. With the images being printed at such a huge size, the people within them are almost life size, a very surreal thing to stand next to.

A gallery setting is normally the place we expect big prints the most, however something of this size will always attract attention as it is impossible to walk past without seeing. As I will only have 3 images to exhibit, I want to print them at a big size for this reason. The kind of fashion editorial I am trying to emulate would also commonly be printed at billboard sizes. Printing and mounting at this size is not something that will be possible for this project due to cost and exhibiting with others but I will be trying to make my prints as large as I can.

Cindy Sherman

In 2010 a variety of Cindy Sherman’s projects were shown at the Museum of Modern Arts (MoMA) in New York. Each room of the gallery showed off a different time period of Sherman’s career, with the room I’m particularly focussing on being the room containing Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills.

This series of work is a project that I have already researched recently, however that was to analyse the use of lighting and its ability to tell narrative. By seeing how Sherman’s work has been exhibited I hope to gain a better grasp on how individual narratives can be presented and brought together as a whole project without detracting from the storytelling ability of each photograph. 

By presenting each image in a frame this creates a border around the image which will stop eyes from wandering when observing that particular image. Inside the frame there is also a thick white border, allowing not even the frame to disrupt the original composition of the image. Up close I think that the idea of a frame works well as it creates a boundary between each picture. If all of these images were to be displayed at this size that close to each other it would become a lot harder for the audience to focus on the details of just one and would break the strong narrative that each image creates.

The idea of framing a group of images together is a common theme that ran throughout the entire exhibition, rather than being chosen as a specific way to exhibit this project, this may have been decided due to the gallery’s limitations rather than how Sherman originally intended for them to be seen. 

Seeing the way that these two photographers have chosen to display their works has made me reconsider the way I planned on displaying mine. Originally I had planned to create a mini installation that would involve using both lights and sound, however having thought about it I think that these two items would become a distraction from my images so I have decided instead to mount my work on boards and hang them as they are.

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Major Project

Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper was a 20th century painter who’s work was known for it’s ability to engage the audience instantly with a narrative from a single scene. Similar to Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Still series, Hopper’s work manages to very successfully freeze time in a world created entirely by his own imagination.  His distinct painting style and capture of American life create almost theatrical scenes which look like they have been stolen from a film or book.

Morning Sun (1952)

Hopper’s work seems to create the atmosphere that something is either about to, or just has happened to the characters within each image. By considering each image carefully, a story will start to emerge in the audience’s head about what they feel is going on in each individual realm. In the photo above we see a woman sat on her own, looking out the window at what seems to be the city beneath her. 

The sombre expression on her face makes the atmosphere of the image seem almost sad, emphasised by the cold tones of blue and purple used in the wall and bed sheets. The use of colour outside of her window seems a lot warmer and vibrant, giving the impression that it is being in the room that has caused this negative situation in this woman’s life. 

Hopper’s paintings often contain a variety of different lighting effects and it is the use of harsh lighting shining through the window that causes strong lines of shadow to be cast across this woman’s body, as well as the room. Hopper has created a real sense of tension and emotion in this image through the use of colour and lighting in these images

Gas (1940)

As Gregory Crewdson mentions in a piece he wrote about Hopper for the Tate, Hopper’s images leave the audience with a sense of unresolved emotion. In Morning Sun I get the sense that something terrible has just happened to the woman in question, yet in Gas the world seems still, too still. It seems like an opening scene in a movie when an important event is about to take place. 

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Major Project

Planning Shoot

As I start to plan my next shoot I have started to consider how I would like to compose and light the mage, so I am best prepared for when the time comes. The focus of this shoot will be based round the bus stop location. Thinking about interesting ways to try and photograph this scene I am reminded of one of Cindy Sherman’s images from her Untitled Film Stills project.

Showing the kind of composition I may go use, using Untitled Film Still #48 as inspiration

Sherman’s shots always focus on creating a strong sense of narrative and with no text accompanying these images it is always done almost entirely through the placement of herself and crops. While this image has been shot from further away to allow maximum context for the story, the main focus of my images is still my clothing so I want to try a similar composition but with a much tighter crop.

While Sherman’s scenes excel at telling a story, part of which is the clothing, my own images will have a much bigger focus on the clothes being worn in the image. I want the fashion to be very noticeable within the image to help give context to the story of the project, but the focus is still primarily showing off the clothes in a way that makes them seem appealing.

I will be going along a bus route attempting to find stops that will offer me a variety of different choices for lighting which would allow me to experiment with exposure and colouring. For my images to work well as a trio I will need to make sure that when exhibited together they all look as though they are part of the same story, meaning they will have to have consistency on certain aspects. The aspects I choose will not be certain until I start on post production as it may involve colours or lighting that I find whilst shooting.

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Major Project

Thinking of Plan B for Photo Shoots

With only 2 weeks to go before my deadline, I have had no response from TfL. I have had one reply from one of the nightclubs I emailed however their response was negative. Given the time I will need to spend editing my images, as well as my own time constraints due to other commitments, I have had to start planning for what kind of shoot I may do as a plan B. 

I am very fortunate in the fact that with the two shoots I planned on doing on location, these locations have locations relevant to them and could imply what I originally wanted to communicate. 

For the club scene I want to try and use the outside of a club as the setting. Similarly to how I used the natural lighting that was caused by all the different fluorescent in the tunnel in my first shoot, I want to try and use the bright light of a club to light up my model again. By using natural lighting rather than my own flash it allows the model/clothing to become part of the scene rather than him being singled out. There is also a venue that I have been to several times before, Great Suffolk Street Warehouse, which is commonly used as a private car park during the day. If I don’t think that I have a usable image from my shoot outside of a club then this will be my next location, as when empty it looks like the kind of location one of these raves would be held.

For my planned shot of my model travelling on a night bus I now intend to do a shoot at various bus stops and see what interesting lighting I can create from this kind of environment. Many bus stops in London have large advertising boards which are heavily lit up at night. This could potentially be used as a giant softbox, while I also want to try using the ambient light shining out from the inside of a bus while it is stopped at the bus stop. 

While the ideas for both of these shoots are not concrete, they allow me much more flexibility in the time I can shoot, as well as the ability to easily reshoot if I find out the idea is good but the photos are just lacking something on reflection. I hope to have at least one of these shoots completed by tuesday so that I can see what everyone thinks about the way they have been shot and if they are consistent enough with my first image.

[robertbennettphotography]

Major Project

Emailing TfL

I was aware that it is not possible to take photographs or film on the underground, however it wasn’t still I started to talk to people I know about my plan to photograph on the buses that I discovered you need a license for that as well. As long as TfL’s press office replies quickly enough I should have enough time to act out my original plan, but if I do not receive a reply in the next couple of days then I will have to find another plan to try and communicate my point in the same way.

[robertbennettphotography]

Major Project

Ewen Spencer

One of the hardest parts of photographing this project so far for me has been trying to find a way to communicate the strong influence of both nightlife and fashion through my images. A photographer who has been successful at blending these two cultures together before is Ewen Spencer. 

I was first introduced to Spencer’s work when he came in as a guest for one of our guest lectures. In this talk, Spencer told us about how he had started off documenting the nightlife around him, specifically the Northern Soul scene. This work is very engaging and allows the audience to clearly see the passion and attention to detail paid to these events by both organisers and attendees. The photos are not elaborately organised but instead an organic composition from Spencer making the most from his surroundings.

Becoming established in any genre of photography will often lead to commissions outside of that specific genre. For Spencer this was not too far afield as he was commissioned to shoot editorials for fashion brands such as Moschino. These brands are not directly linked to nightlife however they share an almost cult following with the genres of music that Spencer would go out and photograph.

The main link between a lot of Spencer’s nightlife and fashion photography is not the composition, but the clothes featured. Many of the revellers in nightclubs Spencer would go on his excursions would be clad in Moschino, Nike, Adidas etc., so when he shot these editorials it still felt as though they were a part of the same world.  

Through my own images I will be trying to link together the underground rave scene and a blend of catwalk and editorial style photography. To be successful I will have to find a way to make sure that my model would not look out of place in either of these categories of photography, be it due to location, his pose or the way I compose the image myself.

[robertbennettphotography]

Major Project

Cindy Sherman

Something that I think gives the image I have completed so far a sense of narrative is the model not facing the camera, instead he is looking out of frame. This adds a sense of mystery to the image and instead of being a plain pose that will make people only focus on the clothing, they instead start to wonder about the story of the image. Why is he staring that way? Why is he not facing the camera at all?  I want my images to tell a story so it is important I look at all the different aspects of what helps an image communicate a narrative.

In Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills series, Sherman has set up a number of images which look as though they would be a freeze frame in a film that stars herself. I’ve heard that the number one rule of acting for film or TV is to make sure you never directly look down the camera because by directly looking the audience in the eye you risk breaking the fourth wall of the bubble surrounding the TV show or film. This is a technique that Sherman follows to great effect, as in none of her images does it feel like she isn’t a part of the world around her. 

Similarly to the way the subject is posed, lighting plays a key factor in the realism of Sherman’s images. The lighting used in Sherman’s images is not only realistic for the context she has placed herself in, but is also interesting enough that she is not just plainly lit up in a typical photographic way. 

Making a world seem full of life and character is part of what makes a great and engaging film, this is true for photographs as well. In this project Sherman has created many different worlds that she has adapted to and become a character in and its important for my images that I am able to create the same feeling within my own photo shoots. Telling a story without words or sound can be very hard but it is not impossible, by analysing different aspects of photographs that I think are successful at showing a story within one image I hope to have a better understanding of composition for my next photo shoots.

[robertbennettphotography]

Major Project

Emailing Venues

As part of my plans for a future shoot I will need the use of a venue during a club night. I am aware that this seems ambitious but I believe that if managed, could really pull my whole set of images together and make it seem like a professional fashion editorial, as this is the kind of big set up they could easily arrange.

I have emailed clubs in a variety of sizes and locations using the template I have written below. I am hoping that by stating that I am a student, as well as that me being there should cause no issue to them or any of their customers, that there will be one club somewhere which will allow me access with my camera.

This is a task that would have been very easy in past years however recently there has been a trend in clubs to discourage the audience from bringing cameras and using their phones as this ruins the atmosphere for the night. I will be following up these emails with a call in a couple of days, to give the recipient time to reply and to follow up and hopefully get a more direct answer.

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Major Project

Elaine Constantine

Elaine Constantine is a photographer and film producer who often focusses the story of her images around the sub cultures of youth. Many of her images contain young models acting as though these images are snapshots from their daily lives. With use of vibrant colours and simple composition, many of these images feel as though they would be placed just as well within a family photo album rather than in a magazine or gallery.

What it is that intrigues me most about Constantine’s work is that the fashion is not the focal point of the image but instead  is a detail that adds to the event of whatever activity is taking place in the photo. When an audience views these images for the first time without context, these are not obviously fashion photographs, instead we become involved in the story of what the subjects of the photograph are doing. 

Working in this way reminds me of a part of my work experience where I assisted a shoot photographing interiors of some newly built flats. When photographing each room we would do two sets of images: one to document how the room looked; another set which focussed on the smaller details and made the room feel as though it was somewhere you could live. This is similar to how I see Constantine photographing the items of clothing in her images, the clothes are not a focus but instead add a level of realism to the image. Seeing photographs of people doing fun things in the clothes makes the audience imagine doing similar activities if they owned them themselves.

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Major Project

David LaChapelle

LaChapelle’s career started when he met Andy Warhol at the age of 17, from there he photographed frequently for Interview magazine as well as other notable publications such as GQ, i-D and Vogue. LaChapelle was told by Warhol to take the images however he wanted, just make sure the people look good, something that has stuck with him his entire career.

LaChapelle’s work is filled with extravagant clothing but the clothing is not always the sole focus. Each image is packed with enough detail that it is possible to tell an entire story within one image, rather than several like many fashion editorials. Despite the amount of detail within each image, LaChapelle’s images normally on focus on one or two models, as this allows us to focus our attention on what they are doing/wearing. If there were many models in the image then the audience would be a lot less likely to focus on what the model is wearing.

What makes LaChapelle’s projects so presentable in a gallery setting is the level of narrative within them. Each image has a story to tell and the audience instantly engages with an image that makes them think and wonder. Although I am presenting my images as a set rather than standalone images, my photos will have to have a similar level of narrative within them for me to consider them working successfully in the exhibition. If I don’t get the story right, people will walk on after glancing at my images rather than understanding what it is I want to show them.