Evaluation

Overall I feel that this brief has been very successful in the fact that the intentions that I set out with have been achieved.

When I started this work I was not 100% sure where I wanted to end up, in fact my initial ideas were to continue on with my previous brief exploring the idea further but using sparkle and glitter as my main themes to represent the glitter of the sea. As I started producing these black and white portraits with glitter and shadows my ideas started to move further and further away from the original sea project. Although I was happy with my portraits I didn’t feel inspired to move my work on further and due to this I decided to step back from that idea and look at something new.

When I had taken a step back I realised that I wanted to take a different route and decided to use aspects of the sea brief but instead of looking at the sea I wanted to focus on identity. I based all my ideas around the theme of carnivals. This was an obvious choice for me as a carnival is very much a way to become a different person, to be who you want to be for just a day.

I took some of the original styling ideas from the sea brief for example the idea of using the glitter however, when using the glitter in the carnival images I used it to signify the magic presence surrounding carnivals. I also decided that I wanted to solely focus on portraits and the representation of the make-up. This in turn led me to thinking more about religions and paganism to be precise. As stated throughout my brief paganism is very much about being one with earth and spirituality. I linked all the work together by focusing on the Birds of Paradise flower representing freedom and exotic nature, the carnival and the make-up showing the identity and paganism tying the two together. I also used colour theory to inform my makeup decisions using white to represent showing all your real identity to the world and I used black to signify wanting to cover up who you really are.

When photographing the models I wanted to take close up macro shots so that the viewer becomes part of the image and feels asif they are actually at the carnival next to the model. I made sure that in the backgrounds of the some of the images there was slight resemblances of the environment to place the model in the location that she would be seen making the image more realistic.

When looking at the images as a whole body of work I am very happy, I think they flow together nicely and work well to create a story for the viewer to follow. If I was to change anything I think I would probably use more models and create a wider variety of makeup so the images all look different but have a similar theme.