Journal: Reflect on Proposals and Realisations

When I first started drafting out ideas for my Final Major Project, my idea was to create a calendar using photos of key elements from towns in Staffordshire Moorlands and the surrounding area. While this was a nice idea and a way for me to practice new skills in the area of landscape photography, it was brought to my attention during a group crit with Gwen, that this idea would need to have something that made it different. I realised that they were right and that it would be boring and just like any other calendar. So then, while listening to others talk about their ideas for their projects, I was inspired by what they were saying to take photos of areas in Staffordshire and the surrounding area that had a legend or a story attached to them, for example the Mermaid Pool. I decided to create a book with a photo of each place and some text to tell the story.
Originally, I envisioned a published book (through vistaprint or blurb) with a good quality photograph and some text on the adjacent page, or an illustration. However, I came to the realisation that I want to do fine art rather than photography as a career and after this course, so I started experimenting and trying to find ways to combine the two. What also helped confirm this realisation, was when I seeked out feedback on my plain, unedited photos on talkphotography.com - the comments put me down and made me realise that I am making the right choice with choosing fine art.
While experimenting with trying to tell the story just using pictures, I tried printing on acetate and layered it over a collage with the text from the story. This worked really well I thought, so I developed this technique further and did a couple more smaller samples. I got feedback on the samples and was told that you can't really tell what the image on the acetate is of as it is all black (because I used image trace on Illustrator). So I then experimented with putting colour onto the otherwise black images. It didn't work brilliantly so I added a bit more black in, experimented with the cutout effect on Photoshop and the poster edges effect, and found that the poster edges effect worked the best.
A college tutor suggested that I put the text inside the black image so you can see through the writing. this was very effective so I realised that if I combine the poster edges effect with the transparent text, I would have really effective images. I tried it and it worked very well and realised that this is what I'll be doing for my final piece and also, that if I scan the collage and acetate in to publish, the detail will all be lost so I will put them in a physical book, or bind a book myself.