Sean Warman
Advanced
Photographic Practices Evaluation
In the advanced photographic practices module, my aim was to
create a video to show how we like to observe people through the use of the
visual. When observing people, we like to generate ideas and stories in our
heads as to what they are doing, and why.
My first idea was to look at CCTV, and create a video
looking at how CCTV images create a sense of suspicion just by looking at them.
To create this video, I set my camera up to take a photograph a second (similar
to some of the older CCTV systems.) then compiled together a stop motion video in
order to create what looked like a minuet of CCTV footage. Although happy with
my outcome I felt that this was an area of work that had been looked into a lot
in more recent years, and wanted to look into something slightly different.
To achieve my different approach, I returned to film the
high street in Chester, this time focusing both on the high street as a whole
and also focusing down on individuals. He aim of this was to create two videos.
The first of which, the viewers create their own narrative. Then in the video,
the narrative has been created for the viewer. This is supposed to make the viewer aware that
although they can create their own narratives, most things they see are forced
in a way that they see what the producer wants them to see.
I feel that I have been successful in creating body of work
that looks into observation through the use of video. And although there have
been a few changes from my first idea, the work is now stronger and more
developed than I could have hoped at first. Thanks to this experience on the
advanced photographic practices module, I will go on to produce more
photographic based work using video as well as stills. Both mediums compliment
each other well.
Although I am happy with the end product, one way I could
improve my work is by using a higher quality sound recorder, as sound can be
just as important as what you can see when producing a body of work.
