Tutor comms

Hi Dave,

I have read carefully your feedback and provide my reflections on this below.

You are right about the mixed quality of the submission and about frustration with the exercises. That’s the reason I didn’t choose images already taken but thought it would be more interesting to do something from scratch. I believed it would be simple to find the Opposites I needed for the project but in the end I was struggling at Shine. Being a stubborn individual though, I persevered and came up with a couple of questionable opposites. I was conscious of this at the time but I liked some of the images so much that I compromised on the overall project. 1^st learning point – if it don’t work, don’t try to force a result.

Regarding the exposure, is it acceptable to manipulate images before submission, or are you looking for ‘right first time’ camera exposures?

Unfortunately I didn’t own a tripod when took these images. 2^nd learning point – buy the right equipment for the course. Done!

As I said in the submission I was conscious that the Blue and Green chairs might not be the best representation of light and dark. 3^rd learning point – if an issue is obvious at the time of printing, create new images rather than reflect on the shortcoming.

Unfortunately I can’t blame the book printing for the quality of the front cover image. I created the high contrast image myself. 4^th learning point – not everyone likes high contrast B/W and image quality shouldn’t be sacrificed. For the purposes of the course should I be aiming for something that pleases me, or for the most technically ‘correct’ images?

The book is something that I have been using for a few years now as I hate loose prints. I find they never get looked at. I also find that creating a book forces the selection of only the best images. I will of course not do this for future projects but print individual images and provide a CD ROM. To save the planet would you be happy to receive image files via Dropbox? I can easily create a shared folder into which I drop them. BTW, I have already created a book version of my second assessment but I’ll just hold onto this.

As I said on previous emails I have been reading more widely than it appears. 5^th learning point – use by blog for all learnings and not just recording and reflecting on my own images.

I haven’t made the time for visiting the Bradford galleries. 6^th learning point – do so!

Thanks for the constructive feedback Dave,

Mike