A bit naïve I suppose, either that or a bit simple – maybe a bit of both. There were so many areas where I missed out on assignment two. It seems that I have missed the point on some of the assignment photographs, I had also lacked confidence – with too many shots of people’s backs and had overcomplicated the theme; on the positive side there was one photograph where an alternate perspective wasn’t suggested.
A part of the naivety surrounds my assumption that any editing/manipulation wouldn’t be acceptable, well at least I know now that as long as it isn’t obvious then it is ok. Of course the fact that I had shot in digital and therefore had to convert to monochrome should have made it obvious to me that I had already manipulated the images - mea culpa. There was a suggestion that at least one of the images could have been in colour, well I had been told from another tutor some time ago to keep some consistency with the assignment so I kept them consistent; monochrome. Another mistake - mea culpa.
Where I made the biggest error was in not assuming that capturing the moment meant any moment, even ones that I had constructed by posing the people to be in “a moment”. I had thought that these moments needed to be sought and then captured – naïve or simple, either way, not a result.
There were a couple of suggestions that were made that would have been impossible, not that my tutor would have known as I didn’t explain. I couldn’t for example, go on-stage at the end of the show and take pictures of the players taking their ovations – there simply wasn’t enough room the way the set was built, and anyway I wouldn’t want to “take” away their applause.
The conversation motif was a bit "one-sided", not enough of the audience and, as I tried to depict it, all far too complex.
I have asked about what to do next, I can apparently tweak/edit the set and set out my responses to the feedback. However I feel as if I have missed the point by so much the likely ability to steer the ship back to a sensible course isn’t very likely. I wonder whether I will ever be able to get out of this photographic trench that I’ve dug for myself for the past twenty years or so, or whether I should plough on with what I was doing before.
