Evaluation

For this street module I chose to photograph on the streets of Oxford. While there I noticed that the city had a lot of focus around the tourism industry. There was guided tours of sights, open top buses and everything else that comes as part of the tourism industry.

It was this aspect that I decided to create a concept around. I wanted to point the camera back at the tourist as they admired the sights in Oxford. The reason for this is because I noticed that they are all going to return with all very similar photographs as they are all pointing their cameras towards the building or whatever it may be. I noticed that what was interesting was looking back at the people, observing how they behave in the environment and also the idea that none of them were photographing that part of the visit. It was as if there was a gap in the photographic documentation of Oxford.

An issue though was trying to avoid all the photographs looking the same. This came apparent when choosing the edit of 20. It was relatively clear to achieve a final 10 that worked together but then to select 10 more it became difficult to make them completely connected as I didnt have 20 strong photographs of the tourism concept. Instead the others images in the series are related to people waiting, usually at bus stops. The reason I liked photographing that aspect of human life is because it could be seen as very mundane and boring, therefor there isn't any real documentation of that. I actually thought it was fascinating to see people waiting and see there gestures as they wait. Part of it being interesting to photograph is because people are often so inattentive when waiting that they often don't notice you take a photo, this means you often capture then as they're completely unaware.

If I was to do this project again I think I would perhaps choose another city to get a different sense for local people rather than tourists. I would also use flash for some photographs as the light was not always vibrant so this create very low contrast and un saturated photos, a flash would add contrast and bring vibrancy to the colour. It would also be nice to create formal portraits of people on the street, in a sense set up a mini studio with a white back and some portable lighting. It would be great to see so many different people all under the same light and background, the emphasis would just be on their face.