Evaluation
In the beginning of the ‘Still Life’ Studio Practice module, I changed the concept of my idea from the visual transformation of working men’s clubs to appeal to different generations instead of the typical older audience. Although, the idea changed to a more in depth study of the clubs, specialising on individual items depicted inside, as the concept felt too broad. A study into memorabilia on display in my local working men’s club, allowing the project to relate more towards me personally by showcasing the 1984 Miners Strike as my concept. I felt the Miners Strike related more towards me personally than the working men’s club, my family and community was affected badly by the miners strike, and it is an issue I feel sensitive about. The Pit Lamp doesn’t only symbolise the devastation of the Miners Strike from the dramatic lighting reflecting the atmosphere and emotion in the issue, but it also represents my heritage and hometown through an inanimate historical object. I avoided lighting the lamp, as while it isn’t lit, there’s a sense of absence that relates conceptually to the events – the light is gone, so is the strike.
I enjoyed working on this project, I did find the 5x4 camera particularly time consuming and generally hard to use, however, once I got the hang of it I felt I was more in control of my images to use the technicalities to represent issues related to my concept. I purposely stated at the beginning of the brief that technical abilities of Still Life photography can be undermined due to the minimalism of the image, however, I wanted each aspect of the image to relate together to increase the overall significance and the only way I could do this was to adjust the 5x4’s technical aspects in order for the visuals to portray the concept. I am happy with the final result of my 5x4 transparency and edit, I believe the exposure is perfect for the image, any darker or lighter would remove the focus of the atmosphere. The snoot and honeycomb light modifiers allowed me to capture these aspects by isolating the lamp in a direct soft light from above whilst projecting minimal light from the left of the lamp to shape the dimensions of the lamp. The secondary light allowed me to remove and cast a shadow around the lamp revealing detail and developing a three-dimensional perspective of the lamp. I believe the final outcome communicates the concept of the brief effectively, through the innocent subject matter of the image relating to the oppressed voices in the struggle during the Miners Strike. If I were to do this project again, I would take a simple direction in the ideas and concept generation and build upon the idea from there. I felt that in this project I rushed into an idea without thinking it through, hence the reason why the practice shoot didn’t work for the working men’s clubs, and that I couldn’t take images outside of the studio anyway.














