Assignment Reports.

As I am preparing to submit my application for the formal assessment of TAOP I have been re-reading and re-editing some of the photos that I had submitted. This has been an interesting process. First of all there has been a gradual shift from paper to screen. By this I mean that at the start of my course I had tried to keep a paper learning log however I switched to a blog. The blog is much better and easier to keep. The other thing that has happened is that I submitted assignment 1 to 4 on paper and the final one by e-mail. I think this is similar to the recent times in photography.

Also I have to say that at the time, when I received the feedback I always read and reviewed them. I did not realise that it was advisable to re-shoot them as advised on the report. Now that I have done this I see the wisdom in this and in all future courses I will be allowing time for this. I have picked up a couple of things that I consistently fall down on.

In several of the example I had allowed distractions to creep into the frame. A lot of the times I could have removed them at the editing stage. This has included graphic elements and bright spots in the wrong areas.

Focus. Sometimes I have either focused on the wrong element in the frame. Either for instance by focusing on the nose instead of the eyes with the camera or with the lighting.

On the later assignments I was weak on the narrative linking of shots. I fell back onto taking nice aesthetic photos when this happened, too much detail.

Overall I need to take more time to critique my own submissions before they land on the tutors report. All of the above mistakes are easy to spot.

I need to take more time editing. I tend to spend a lot of time shooting and looking for shots and then feel under pressure, rush last and most important stage of the process to meet the deadline. I think editing as I go and printing off a contact sheet could help.

All in all I have enjoyed the course and have already signed up to P & P and DPP and I will take these lessons on board and imply them.