Evaluation

Peer evaluated photo 5/11/18

I had 3 peers to critique the photo below recording its strengths, weaknesses and possible improvements. The lists below are the results.

Peer 1

Strengths of photo

• Main product in focus
• Clear
• Obvious subject
• Bold background which corresponds with the brand stands out on the photograph

Weaknesses of photo

• Chips are slightly out of focus

How could the photos be improved?

• Take with fries in focus

Peer 2

Strengths of photo

• Colourful
• Red compliments red
• Professional
• Nice contrast

Weaknesses of photo

• Promotes obesity
• Where’s the dominoes?
• Dip?
• Not exactly central

How could the photos be improved?

• Promote healthier food
• Fruit bag?

Peer 3

Strengths of photo

• The red on the bag compliments the red background
• Nice composition on the fries

Weaknesses of photo

• Promotes obesity
• Not centred

How could the photos be improved?

• Centre it
• Use healthier alternative

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Self evaluation of project 5/11/18

In this project I took and edited a series of photos on a subject that is related in some way to me, my personality and/ or interests. My photographic series is a collection of fast food (particularly McDonalds) advertisements that show off my love for fast food and just food in general.

I chose to centre my research around the photographers Nuno Correia, Clinton Hussey and Thomas Hannich because when searching for examples of adverts that demonstrated a similar colour intensity and minimalism to what I envisioned for my collection, their work shared the features I was aiming to replicate. Also, all three photographers are professionals with years of experience and produce professional looking work. Correia’s advertisements inspired me to use vibrant colours and present the product in a minimalist way. Hussey’s vibrant colours inspired me to use similar intensities in my own pieces and pay attention to contrasting colours and use them to my advantage. Hannich’s work shares features of interest with Correia and Hussey, these being high contrasted colours and minimalist presentation. In my final collection I managed to include all of the desirable traits apart from the use of negative space to imply the presence of an absent object, however, I do not feel that my work in anyway suffered because of this. I think that by using the listed traits as a personal checklist for what I believe makes a successful advert (based upon pre-existing examples of official McDonalds adverts) I feel my collection is very effective in fitting into the commercial food photography genre.

When it comes to the planning of individual shots and then shoots in general there was a split in what was and was not followed through with. An example of an idea that I did not follow through with was photographing non-food subjects (fabric/ paper patches simulate burger layers). The reason for this was when testing lighting in my first shoot I featured an idea involving a post-it note, in reviewing the photos I did not like how the subject looked and decided to go down a more straight forward route of photographing just food, as opposed to the more abstract subjects I had planned. I at least attempted many other planned things like the picnic blanket (shoot 2), lighting, location and editing. At the point of planning I had no experience to ground and base my ideas around which lead to ideas or shoots, like shoot 2, that were not achievable or mostly unusable due to shadows, angles and access restrictions where the camera was blocked from getting certain angles. In terms of my plans for editing I was able to carry out shadow, highlight, and colour adjustments according to my liking and the commercial photography genre. Both shoots 1 and 3 were part of my planning and quite straightforward because they did not require a complex composition or much organising as they were just to test what white LED light and warm yellow/orange light looked on camera; it was the results of these 2 shoots which led to me using predominantly white light. This type of lighting was what I used in my 4th shoot and is what enabled me to mirror the professional studio lighting used by Hussey, Correia and Hannich.

Shoots 2 and 4 are part of my execution as I intended to use photos from these sessions in my final collection. In shoot 2 the main hindrances were the shadows due to only using natural light, it was much harder to work around because those shadows couldn’t be eliminated by re-positioning the light source or by using another light source. Also, making sure nothing was in the background was difficult because the patch of grass I was shooting on was very small. Even when taking the photos with the sky as the background I had to avoid phone lines and rooftops getting in frame. Regardless of these hurdles the natural light provided good highlights and colour saturation, which I feel are the stand-out factors of my photos. In shoot 4 accesses became the biggest problem with the light box as there were very few angles where the actual white material of the box wouldn’t show behind the red background, also the camera could only take pictures through a small hole in the top and one open wall because it is an enclosed space making angles very limited. In this shoot I tested out using a blue sheet backdrop combined with a white LED ring light aswell, but the photos I took I felt were unusable. I didn’t use any of the photos in my final collection because the sheet I used for the backdrop had creases which couldn’t be blurred out in editing and the ring light combined with the packaging created very harsh reflective highlights. This part of the shoot was unsuccessful in terms of getting usable photos but it did gain me experience using a ring light and conducting a more complex and elaborate shoot.

Overall, I feel I was successful in achieving the McDonalds advertisement brief I gave myself. Despite my collection being ‘successful’ I feel there are still improvements to be made. The main missed opportunity I feel is the lack of variation in the photos backgrounds; with 3 of 5 being plain red. Another correction would be making sure the product is in focus, because in the picture with the fries on the red background the fries are slightly out of focus. These 2 points are improvements that I will take forward and attempt to correct in my next project. Throughout the 4 shoots I did and the editing process I learnt many things like; white LED lighting is best to use when doing indoor studio-like shoots and increasing contrast is best to brighten and intensify colours in pre-production (this I feel is particularly useful in the commercial photography genre). In the future I would like to do more photos with highly contrasted colours as I feel it makes a photo really stand out.

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Final collection