ZedSothBunney - EPP

Continuing the journey on this brief I was thinking about not only how I appreciated the concept of this project, but how attainable it was, considering the circumstances we were in, finding ideas became a little more difficult under the COVID restrictions.

Going into the shoot I had a vision of what I wanted the images to look like but I didn't want to over-plan the method of shooting, because most times I feel like that adds unnecessary pressure during the shoot. One key thing I had to consider is the lighting. I have never been the type of photographer to use flash or soft boxes for my shoots as I have a tendency to prefer natural lighting, one because I prefer a simpler process and two because I prefer the way the images look! Not to say that preference will never change, as I do like experimenting with different styles and technicalities of shooting.

The Shoot

Once it came to it, the weather, as always in the UK was pretty overcast, however clear sunlight wasn't completely necessary, as long as I had some sort of brightness coming through the windows. Going into the shoot I used my usual 4000D camera and 50mm prime lens. I rarely change the lens I shoot with purely because I love the way the 50mm makes my images look, especially with the wide aperture, I knew I could achieve the whimsical feel that I was looking for. In the end I had 3 frames planned for my typology, so I went straight into setting them up and hopefully as I got my creative juices flowing, I could even it out and think of a 4th image.

The plan:

• a closeup of an art piece I have done, could be finished or unfinished (showing my artistic/creative side)

• a detail shot of me in a dress (the way someone dresses could tell you a lot about someone, so I thought this was important for me, especially because I'm in interested in fashion)

• a flat lay/birds eye view shot of a bible and a coffee (depicting my faith, and that I enjoy a cup of coffee)

• TBD! (scroll to find out what I decided on)

I shot the images, sat down and thought, what else could I add to this? Then I had the idea of shooting my reflection, but through someone else's eyes, of course that would of been quite unrealistic with the lens I had, so I got my partner to use glasses, and maybe try and see if I could get a clear shot of my refection through them.

After the shoot was the editing process, which I enjoy because I get to see the images on a bigger screen and bring them to life. Before I edited them I narrowed down the images and picked the best shots out of the bunch and then went ahead and used photoshop as my choice of post production software-although its probably more complex than Lightroom, I feel like I can do a lot more to my images on the program, and have the freedom to make them look just how I want them to! My biggest priority for editing the images was to make sure they were all consistent in tones and lighting, so I edited them all pretty much the same way depending on the lighting of the image.

The Final Images

ZedSothBunney 2020

Teamwork

Working as a team for this project pushed me to work outside the usual frame of work that I do, and allowed me to explore different styles and concepts of photography. Making the project flow depends greatly on how well you can work as a team, and making sure everyone turns up and gives their full potential into the craft. The two people I worked with fortunately added substance into this project and made images that ultimately complimented all of our work, making the final piece a multi dimensional body of work.

Communication throughout this brief has been essential in what we as a team were looking for in this project. We would often send each other the ongoing work we would shoot for it and then with some reviewing here and there we would build on that, and eventually end up with something we were all content with. Without the consistency of exchanging information and staying in contact I think we would fail to produce something that was objectively meant to be one subject matter.

In the end I was satisfied with the final result, however wasn't compelled by the reflection one. Personally it wasn't as strong as the others and artistically, wasn't very clear on the intentions behind it. Other than that, it was a fun project to be a part of. Stay tuned for more!