Evaluation

As it has come to the end of my collaborative project with Penarth, I am going to do an evaluation of what I feel were my strengths, weaknesses, challenges and rewards whilst working on this project.

I would say that my strongest aspect of this project has been my ability to change to a different idea, as my original idea didn’t work out for me. Originally, I wanted to photograph a working farm in Penarth, however when it came to contacting the farms to ask for permission to visit them, not one got back to me. As I couldn’t wait around due to the fact I had 3-4 weeks to complete this project I therefore had to come up with a different idea.  Normally, I would of struggled a lot with changing my idea, however because of my previous projects I think that I was strong enough to deal with the fact that you can’t always have your photography exactly how you initially imagined. I also think that by changing my idea to photographing Penarth pier, it reflected far more on my given title of ‘industry/commerce’ due to the pier being the biggest industry and attraction in Penarth, from which I found out during my research into Penarth.

The biggest challenge that I found was finding relevant photographers that have worked on ‘seaside’ photography but not in a stereotypical ‘holiday maker’ way. Therefore I had to use their techniques mainly as influence such as their compositional framing, computer manipulations and viewpoints. I do think that if I was given more time then I would have been able to experiment far more, however due to the three week deadline for submission I wasn’t able to as much. I do understand that I have to balance my time far better next time, I think that I was just expecting a longer date due to it being my last project for my first year.

Whilst working on this project, I really did enjoy the collaborative side. I think that by working in a group and that group having the same title, you are able to feel far more comfortable, and help each other out with theirs and yours ideas. I was lucky enough to be put into a group with four other girls who were very helpful and interested in what we were all deciding to do.

Working with the town of Penarth was also very rewarding to me. As I have never worked on a collaborative project before, this has made me want to continue working on them as I think that working in a team and creating a good working environment with others is key. Before the project, I had never been to Penarth before and since it has become a favourite place of mine.

The final outcome for this project was a fully up to date blog showing my research and journey throughout my collaborative practice work, I have also got four professional printed images that will be my portfolio to accompany my blog. The images I have chosen are my strongest and I think would work very well as postcards.