Assignment 4: Reflective Commentary

Overall, Part 4 was super fun for me and allowed me to connect with my passion for this medium. I have always loved photography because I love to capture every beautiful thing I see. When I was younger, I used to say “I wish you could take photos with your eyes” because nothing could compare to the amount of detail the human eye can see, like looking at the moon for example. My nana bought me a DSLR camera for my 16th birthday and I’ve used it ever since. I even used it for my projects in A-level Media to take photos for magazines and posters. This allowed me to gain knowledge of the different kinds of shots and why they are effective, which came in handy for this part of the course.

My favorite part of this course was exploring the deeper meanings of photographs, discovering when photographs and cameras came around and what they looked like. I particularly liked the works of Abelardo Morell, whos uses modern-day camera obscura. He produces amazing photographs of which you can see the inside view and the outside view from a house or building. I also liked the works of Aleksandra Mir, who produced a piece called “First Woman on the Moon”. It was interesting to see the time and effort gone into creating this magnificent photograph, the final piece does look very similar to the moon.

I was especially inspired by movement photography. It is so fascinating to see things in motion and the aftermath effect which the human eye cannot see. For example, Harold Edgerton’s ‘Bullet and Apple’ is very interesting to look at because you can see the bullet going through the apple and out the other side. The human eye would not be able to see this because the bullet moves too quickly.

The assignment was very exciting for me and I enjoyed doing it because I believe David Hockney is a very good artist and photographer in my eyes. We covered him in A-level Art when I was Sixth form but that was more towards his paintings, whereas this assignment allowed me to look at his photographic pieces. I love his photo collages with the polaroids and I will probably give it a go myself in the future.

I didn’t struggle with any parts of the exercises because I am familiar with the use of photography so I was able to put my knowledge to good use. I will continue to take photographs on my iPhone, my DSLR, and my polaroid because one day, those certain things won’t be around and all that will be left are the photographs. Which is why I believe photographs are the most treasured thing in the household.