The photographs I took to illustrate “My Journey” have really helped me to examine the way the framing and composition of a shot can help to tell a certain story. With a picture certain signifiers can be used, which on their own do not mean much, but when added to something else can mean a great deal.
One of my photographs is of a magic trick being performed. If I had just taken a picture of a pack of cards and the two hands it could have looked like two people were playing a card game or picking up dropped cards, but by introducing the black and white stick “the wand” it signifies that there is, in fact, a magic card trick being performed.
The use of shot sizes and angles can also be used to give a certain meaning. One example from my photographs is a shot of a newspaper with calendar dates on it. I took a few shots of this and decided to use the one I did because I thought the strange angle gave the impression of it being a very confusing and frustrating time for me. I also learnt that colours are also very important in telling a story. In my two Vestas photographs I used different colours to show different emotions. In the first photograph I used bright colours to show happy times, while in the second one I altered the colours to depict a cold, baron and unhappy story. In another photograph with the wedding rings, to show a marriage, I used a plain white background. The white was to signify a pure and happy marriage (the same concept as a white wedding dress) if I had used, for example, a black background it could lead the viewer to perceive the meaning as an unhappy, impure union.
The focus is another thing I worked on to tell a story. Normally I would just focus on the action but concentrating on what is in and out of focus and what the audience’s eyes are going to be drawn to is also a powerful tool. As in the shot with the diploma and the college in the background, I thought the diploma was more important than the building, so I used the shot with the name of the college out of focus rather than one where the college sign is in focus but the diploma was then slightly out.
Also while designing my WordPress site I had to take into account what could be perceived by the viewer. I wanted to design something that looked professional and looking at some of the designs I thought the designs with the main colour being either black or white had a nice clean look to them. Comparing the two I decided that, to me, the white designs looked a little like they were note pads with words and pictures stuck onto them. I decided to use a black design and after trying a few different ones out I decided to use the Sunspot theme. I liked the use of the different shades of Orange for the titles etc against the black background. These orangey shades not only help the titles stand out but give the site a warmer feel to it than just having it all black with grey letters; thus making it more inviting to the sites visitors. The only thing I changed was the shade of the sites main name. Originally it was the same colour as the rest of the headers but I altered it to a slightly darker shade in order for it to be able to stand out more from everything else.
These are all things that I will be thinking about with my future filming projects, looking at what is being signified in the whole piece, whether it is shot size, angle, focus, colour or even what is being said, rather than just focusing on the action that is happening.
Creative Sparks 