Surrealism - Evaluation

When I first started this project, reading through the brief I felt a little lost because we had full control on what we did for our final major project and I personally like having that structure already put in place for me or a starting point already there. After doing 'the day in a life of' I started thinking of possible ideas that I could do. I thought about fashion but I wanted something I could really get my teeth in too and keep me busy for the next few weeks. I got inspiration from people watching while I was at work and thought about exploring social identity through surrealism. Psychology has always been something to interest me so I thought combining psychology and photography would work well for me. I started researching in to different social identity theory's and trying to work out how I could this through surrealism but I came to a dead end. So my next step was to just start researching surrealism, I looked at different types of surrealism abstraction and figurative and took it from there. I came across many different photographers/ artists who explored surrealism in different ways which was a big inspiration to me.

Because of that fact the first couple weeks I was throwing around ideas and went from looking in to social identity, abstraction and finally my final idea that was based around emotions shown through surrealism I had to do a wide range of research which did change my idea along the way. All my practice images developed and linked to the last and I think it's quite clear what my images represent but at the same time it also depends on how you few things around you. The research that went into my images helps to communicate what it's about and why I did it. While doing this project I came across hard patches while editing the images, I had to look at a lot of tutorials to get ideas from as well as different websites to try and learn from them to help myself. I had to make decisions that I thought would work well and not always take the easy option with it. I found that once I found a certain edit that I liked doing I carried on developing with it and having that starting point there is when I really got in to the project and knew where I wanted to go with my work. At points throughout this project I have been stressed, but talking to my lectures and putting a plan in place really helped me to stay calm and focused and move forward with my work instead of leaving it all to the last minute where it becomes more stressful and harder to keep up with.

All of my deadlines were met and I think my work was up to standard when handed in. I kept up to date with my time management , and I think this is the first project where I didn't fall behind with my work and I put in a great deal of effort with my blog posts and research. I'm proud of what i've achieved with in this project, I enjoyed having control towards the end and being able to go in to college with a plan of what I was doing. I also enjoyed using Photoshop and expanding my skills on the computer that I can use in future projects. I came across various problems but were easy to solve with skills I already had, and the help off of others around me. A lot of experimentation went in to my work as well as the research that went beside it, so I know that along the way I have learnt a great deal.

I'll admit at the start of this project I wasn't to productive with my work, I thought because I had so long to do it that it wouldn't matter but before I put my time management plan in to place I was freaking out on where to start, and which was the best way to go around the project. But the last 6\7 weeks I got really on top of what I was doing, kept myself motivated with my work and the final outcome has come out better than I could of imagined. All my work was set in order, and put on my blog clearly and I managed to keep things flowing on from one blog post to another. What helped me the most was the english skills we did on a Tuesday, it's help me to be able to analysis my own work and images and I've found writing up on my blog posts a lot easier than I did when If first started this course.

I did a lot of practice edits before going on to do my final piece, I wanted to be sure I was able to make my image look affective. With my final image I found I was able to show off my main skills and what I can do best as a photographer. Seeing my final image up on the wall looking all professional at the exhibition was a really nice moment and it showed that all my hard work has paid off and that I was able to achieve something I could be proud of to show off to other people. It was also nice looking at what others had done and stuck up on the wall because as a group from our first exhibition to this exhibition we have all come so far.

With the progression task, It was quite scary to think i'm already half way through the course and I now need to start thinking of what direction I want to go in after I finish this course next year. I've looked at courses in the Art college as well as looking in London and in Bath so that I can put myself out there and have a wide range of opportunities in work areas in the creative industry. Also I have now learnt how to write a professional CV which is important as I want to be taken seriously when applying for a job. I also think by doing this it has helped me to decided what direction I would like to go in, it's made me research and think carefully and be realistic about my future plans.

Overall this has been my favourite project that I have done on the course so far, at the start I wasn't sure but I have really enjoyed myself these past couple weeks. There have been many high and low points when it comes to the work, some of my ideas didn't turn out as great as I was hoping for them too but at the same time it was all a learning point and it directed me in the direction that I went and I wouldn't change my final image at all.