Self Evaluation

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.