Sketchbook Requirements

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AS Photography Coursework

Sketchbook Contents

For the Photography qualification, you are required to submit a sketchbook that records the progression of your ideas throughout the completion of the coursework. It is important that you explore all your ideas thoroughly and document everything as you are going along. To ensure that you are satisfying the requirements of the exam board, use the following to guide to help you.

1.     Choose one of the ten starting points listed on the blog. (Stage one of the task sheet).

2.     Then move on to stage two of the task sheet. This is:

·       Produce a mindmap of your chosen theme

·       Look up the word in a dictionary and write down the definition

·       Look up the word in a thesaurus and write down all the suggestion

3.     Choose three ideas from your original mindmap that you will research in more depth.

4.     You then need to write a brief paragraph about why you’ve chosen the ideas you have and how you plan to research them.

5.     For each of the three ideas, you must find 3 or 4 images that you will analyse in detail using the guidance on the blog.

6.     You must then write a review of your research, talking about what you learnt from your analyses, how you will use them in the rest of your work and which of the three ideas you will look at further.

7.     When you’ve chosen the idea you want to look at in greater depth, write a brief outline of the idea you think you might want to do. You then need to find additional photos that explore your planned idea further.

8.     You must then write a list of experimentations you’d like to conduct in order to find out about the sorts of techniques you might use in your final photographic piece.  This could be exploring the effect of different lenses or filters; or how framing impacts on the meaning of an image; shutter speed; Photoshop techniques; video etc.

9.     All the experimentations that you undertake must be recorded visually in your sketchbook with annotations.

10.  You must then write a review of your experimentations, talking about what you learnt from them and how you will use them in your final photographic piece.

11.  Before you start on your final piece, you must produce a brief plan of how you will go about shooting and presenting your work.

12.  Finally, you need to write a review of your finished photographic piece, explaining how your initial research and experimentations have been used in its completion.

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REMEMBER, YOU ARE MARKED ACROSS FOUR ASSESSMENT OBJECTIVES (AO):

AO1 – RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

AO2 – EXPERIMENTATIONS AND EXPLANATION

AO3 – RECORDING OF IDEAS, OBSERVATIONS, INTENTIONS AND HOW WORK IS PROGRESSING

AO4 – THE FINAL PIECE AND HOW IT’S BEEN INFLUENCED BY THE RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTATIONS

STUDENTS WHO DID NOT ACHIEVE THE GRADE THEY WANTED HAD NOT DONE ALL THE WORK REQUIRED TO SATISFY THE ASSESSMENT OBJECTIVES AO1, AO2 AND AO3.

Image Analysis Guidance

Throughout the course not only will you need to complete detailed analyses of images taken by established photographers, you will have to analyze the images within your own portfolio of work. Use the following to help you structure any analysis you do:

1.    Write a brief introductory description of the image you are analysing: - ‘This image was taken by the well know photographer Cindy Sherman. It is a self-portrait of the photographer herself taken with a domestic environment’.

2.    Begin the analysis by identifying what you find most striking about the image. Say what it is that particularly makes it stand out for you.

3.    Talk about how the image is framed. Firstly, write about what is included within the camera frame (what you chose to go into the photo when looking through the view finder). Secondly, discuss how objects in the photo itself have been used to direct the viewer’s eye to specific points in the image.

4.    You will need to write about the composition of the photograph. Explain what is in the foreground, mid-ground and background and what impact they have on the image e.g. depth, confinement. This should lead on to depth of field.

5.    You need to discuss how much of the image is in focus. The more of the image that is in focus, the broader the depth of field. A narrow depth of field is when only a small portion of the image is in focus. Light levels directly affect depth of field. The more light the greater the depth of field and vice versa.

6.    You can talk about lighting in different ways – high contrast lighting (extremely dark shadows and really bright light), low contrast lighting (a greater range of tones that subtly change from light to dark) and the amount of warmth created in the photo by the use of colour and diffusion (orange sun set, cold diffusing mist).

7.    You must talk about the quality of the image you are analysing. The more light that is available when a photo is taken, the crisper the photo. Lines between shadow and light will be well defined, colours will be more saturated and the quality will be ‘extremely good. Lower light levels will result in a ‘grainy’ image with objects being less defined from the objects around them. The colours will also be desaturated.

8.    Shots and angles need also to be addressed. What size shot is used? What angle has the image been taken at? What meanings have been created through the use of these shots and angles.

AS Photography Induction Task

AS Photography Induction Task

1.    Conduct research on a photographer of your choice, identifying their style and their influences. This must be in your own words.

2.    Select one image the photographer has taken and analyse it – State why you like the image. What techniques have been used? What is striking about the photo.

3.    Take four – six photos in the style of the photographer you’ve chosen. Print these off.

4.    Write a review of your photos and how they are like those of the photographer you chose.