Planning and Evaluation
What is a documentary?
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• Using pictures of interviews with people involved in real events to provide a factual report on a particular subject.
• Purpose of a documentary: instruction, education or historical record. • Could consist of landmarks, hobbies, nature, etc.
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What am I doing?
I am creating my own photography documentary about gentrification in Peckham.
Why am I doing this?
I am doing this so that people can see how Peckham has become what it is today and what attracts people to come to the area. Also, to show people how much Peckham has changed due to the new buildings.
What do I hope to achieve by the end of this documentary?
By the end of this documentary, I would have clearly shown photographs that relate to the topic, make sure that the audience has a clear understanding of the topic and can imply many things. On top of this I should be able to show that I’m able to create my own photography documentary to the best of my ability.
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The area in which my photography documentary will be taken place in will be in Peckham in south- east London. My documentary will be about gentrification in the chosen area.
I am planning on vising the area on:
Visit Peckham high street on the 24th October, to take photographs of gentrification.
Visit Peckham high street on the 26th November, to find out why people come to the area and what attracts them (Vox box)
Visit Peckham high street on the 28th November to take more photographs.
On the 29th November, choose my best 20 photographs to include in my documentary.
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Evaluation
Overall, I believe I have understood the definition of “Documentary Photography”. This is because it consists of landmarks and its purpose is historical as Its about how the area which I’ve chosen has become what it is today and how its changed.
I think my final product is okay. This is because I found it hard to find time in order to complete the documentary, my files were lost and/ corrupted therefore I couldn’t access my work. But in the end I managed to complete this assignment. Next time, to improve I would give myself a deadline in order to complete each section of the assignment so that I’m not far behind and gather as much research as possible. By gathering as much information as possible this will show the person that’s marking my work that I know how to find out extra information and that I know what I’m talking about and I’m confident with what I’m doing.
I feel that with my planning I did meet some of my targets. I would say, the only target I didn’t meet was the dates in which I was going to go out and take the photographs due to the fact that I couldn’t find the time to do so. Next time I will choose appropriate dates which I’m free on, to take the pictures. With my research, I did refer to them as Included a landscape picture and a bird’s eye view picture therefore I did refer to my research.
With the contacts, I think they were okay. I think the only problem I had was taking 60 pictures and using 30 as I only have 27pictures for my documentary. I honestly think if I was to do this again I would choose a topic which is more broad where I’m able to take maybe more than 60 pictures and go to many different areas because this documentary was very direct as I have chosen it on a particular area and so I have to focus on that one area to get information and pictures from. As I ran out of time for this assignment, I was only able to edit one photograph. With this edit I think I done really well with enhancing it more. This is because I brightened the picture up so the colours and the background could stand out.
My shoots as a whole improved the second time as the first-time round, I was taking pictures on automatic mode and my second shots were taken on manual mode. This shows that I’m more confident with taking pictures on my camera and I know how to focus it properly to get a good shot.
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