Assignment 2: revisited

This post is just to follow up on my original post for the second assignment, as a chance to reflect upon tutor feedback and consider some alternatives.

As per the first assignment in general the tutor feedback was again very comprehensive, positive and encouraging. There were however some suggestions for improvement and this is what I am considering here.

Image 2

Original image:

From OCA P and P Assignment 2

And an extract from the tutor comments:

You have settled for the easier option of including the backs of the crowd with the subject of their attention. From the position you were in there were very few alternatives. Another approach would have been to go inside the building (I don’t know if that is even possible) and try to capture the expressions of the visitors close up, looking up at the interior.

The building in the background is the Scottish National War Memorial and photography within is strictly forbidden unless special out-of-hours arrangements are made. I did take this shot of someone emerging from the entrance:

From OCA P and P Assignment 2

Photographing the tour groups in other locations was however possible. Here is an alternative of the same group in the same location which avoids the 'backs' problem, being cheeky I shot this from within the group, but I felt it was at the expense of some of the context:

From OCA P and P Assignment 2

I experimented with lots of different approaches, for example here is a completely different viewpoint of the same group, shot from above:

From OCA P and P Assignment 2

Image 3

Original image:

From OCA P and P Assignment 2

And an extract from the tutor comments:

I understand your thinking for including this shot but I find that it does not make a very positive contribution to the selection. You are too far way from the subject to involve the viewer and there is nothing in it to indicate what has attracted their attention, which is what a viewer might be interested in.

I did in fact take some images where the audio 'station' was in shot, here for example is "No 10 - Foog's Gate" but I didn't find the postures of the people as appealing.

From OCA P and P Assignment 2

Image 6

Original image:

From OCA P and P Assignment 2

And an extract from the tutor comments:

The remit for this assignment is quite specific when it states, “the same person …. or group of persons”, renders this image ineligible. Obviously it is possible to stretch the tolerance of the assessors but I think it would be too big a risk to leave this one in your selection and suggest that you substitute another image.

Here I had deliberately wanted to show the commercialism by relegating the people to being a secondary element in the image. However I understand the tutors remarks regarding the preferences of the assessors and so will substitute another image (it is not as if I am in any way short of alternatives, in fact I found it quite hard to get down to the required set of 10).

After reviewing the candidate images that didn't quite make the original selection I have picked this one of a tourist on the castle walls looking out over Edinburgh. This is perhaps for me a good example of what Barthes would call Studium and Punctum. The tourist had caught my eye because he was standing on one of the floodlights to get a better view hence the studium - the obvious symbolic meaning of the photograph. There is also the curious detail of a small model airplane propped up against the wall hence the punctum - that which ‘pierces the viewer’.

From OCA P and P Assignment 2