diary

1. Production Diary
By Fintan Sedgwick

2. Week 1
• For the first week of Pre-production I began by researching into my subject which would be fashion photography,
which I started looking at different kinds of people who influenced me into choosing this for my FMP, for example
with the photography I chose Arnaldo Anaya-Lucca and Ben Cunningham who are both very individual
photographers in their own style. The reason I chose these two would be that they are very different because one
use random timed shots and the other use black and white photography, I think that I need to research more into
this because I haven’t talked about colours and layouts because I don’t know I want to show exactly as I am only 1
week in. Although I haven’t finished my research I decided I wanted to move onto the proposal because I know that
it wasn’t very hard and I knew that it was something which could be done in a very short amount of time and I
wanted to explain some of the ideas which I wanted to make for my FMP. When I was writing my proposal I felt
correct about the things which I was putting down for example my concept because it was similar to last year but I
wanted to go into more detail and also make it more professional. But one thing which I think I could improve when
it comes to my proposal would have to be the section which talked about the mediums because I don't think that I
went into enough detail as in the beginning I didn’t understand the question and also I loosely talked about the
reason behind photography because I mentioned that I am not naturally talented in photography and I wanted to
improve my ability throughout this FMP. Over all for this week I think that I could improve the research by going
through different kind of subjects including the right way to use a camera and the best settings because this could
really help my photography as I want to have the best outcome when it comes to my photos. A few pieces of
knowledge which I have learnt during my research would have to be the fact that there are so many different types
of photography such as fashion, nature and wildlife because I though they all came under the same category and
also different lenses which are use for certain photography , for example prime lenses which produce sharper images
and also zoom lenses which are useful for long distance shots, I think that I am just going to use a standard lense
because It is fairly expensive for a lenses and the quality of the camera which we are given are good enough for this
type of photography.

3. Week 2/3
To start the second week of pre-production we began by continuing our research into primary and secondary sources for
example with primary I went through different kinds of books/magazine talking about what they do well and what I dislike
about and how I could use them to my FMP. By doing this I got to see the best ways to present my work whether that being
the layout or the photos to chose from, this has helped my project highly because talking about how they used certain
pieces of work to stand out to their audience such as colouring. Also during this week I sent off a survey to a select amount
of people so that I had a very niche audience which I know are interesting in this subject matter, I sent it our via both Email
and also reddit but as I have found on reddit would be that it had been taken down minutes after I had published it due to
strange reasons, so the only way I go answers back would be email because I know that the people I sent it to would reply
my survey, by reducing my audience I am left with people I know and not strangers who may have different on this subject
in comparison to people it know. For example the age difference may change the ability for the person to be a consumer of
clothing which would really change the feedback which I would get. Other pieces of research which I think I need to do
would have to be look through feedback/reviews on existing products because it will give me an insight into their opinions
whether positive or negative, also another thing which I will need to research would have to be the audience research
because this will give a really good idea what people like and dislike and what they are drawn to such as the clothing brand
or what they look forward to in a magazine and photography. This section of my research has changed the way I approach
my project because I have seen things which work and don’t work, and also what they look like. By looking through
something which I plan to take from this would be to have many different styles in one individual magazine because I will
be catering to many different audiences which will put my work out to the world. In this section of my research something
which I don’t think that worked very well would have to be talking about the style of photography as I have done this
already in the previous week and it felt like it was saying the same things over and over again about the style of
photography and what meanings they have on the audience.

4. Week 4
• A potential issue which I have came across so far during this project would have to be the amount of actors/models
which I have so far because I only have 1 which is a major concern as I cannot make a magazine around 1 person
when I'm doing clothing, this a problem which could affect my entire Project as I cannot find people who are willing
to work with I am going to either fail or get a really poor grade due to an unfinished FMP, It was a problem because I
asked an audience which I am fond of and I thought that everyone would be willing to model for my work but some
people are not very camera confident which isn’t something I can change and I don’t want to go against their wishes
and try and force them to do it. A way in which I am going around to solve this issue would be that I have emailed a
few other models who could work for me and I hopefully should hear back from them within this week or next
week, I have decided to open up to a wider group of people because I need to push myself out of my comfort zone
otherwise I wont get what I need for my work, also another way in which I am going to try and solve this issue would
have to be ask people who I know like modelling as they would be willing to help me with this because it is
something which they like. This problem solving process has influenced my work because it has taught me that you
cannot rely on people in your friend group for everything and putting yourself out to people who you are not
common with because even if they say no I have put myself out there to people who I didn’t know what there
answer was going to be. A practical thing which I can do to solve this problem would be to ask them in person but
this Is something which I may not do as I am quite shy so asking people who I have never talked to before is quite a
task but I know it is something which I need to learn how to do for in the future as I will not always have people I
know at my disposal to help me with my work, and I will have to go out and find people who I don’t know and have
no clue who I am. The in which I will record my solution will be by screenshotting the answers which I have which
say no and then I will take other screenshots of the both the people and question which I ask to other people and if
they say yes or no because it will be about trying new things. I think that I am fairly decent at solving problems but
there is a lot which I think I need to do to become very good at this process because overcoming problems is a key
feature when it comes to this business as you need to know what could go wrong and how you could change them
or not run into them because each problem which you have will effect you and also every single person will
encounter problems no matter what.

5. Week 5
• To start the second week of problem solving I began by doing experiments as I have completed all of the
problems which where necessary, so start the week I began by collecting photos to edit at look at on
Photoshop and light room, the photos which I took varied because some of them where fairly decent and
other where absolute rubbish because either the angle in which I took didn’t work or they where completely
out of focus which I tried to do when I got help working out the ins and outs of the camera, so I think that I
may need to get more shots which are of a higher quality and a way in which I do this will be by taking more
time doing photography instead of using a short period to take a few photos. The problems which I talked
about during the photography experiments where very minor and could be easily fixed by taking more photos
or trying to use Photoshop to fix the angle in I shot the photo because some of them have a slight tilt which
can be changed by using the perspective tool which gives you the ability to change the angle so that it is
straight, another issue with the photos would have to be focus of the photos which cannot be fixed because
they is not way on making them clear so a way to get around this would have to be take more photos and
make sure the settings on the camera are correct so that the camera speed isn’t incorrect which could cause it
to become out of focus. When it comes to the camera I learnt how to change some of the important settings
such as the ISO and the DOF/Aperture and also how to focus the lens but I tend to use auto focus which makes
my job easier, I had to learn these skills again as I haven’t used a camera since last years FMP which made it so
that I need to know everything about it If I where to make a fashion photography booklet. I think that I am
ready for planning for the week after the break up because I will have time to complete everything which I
need to catch up on because I am behind on a few things which would include my research and a small part of
my problem solving because I haven’t talked a lot about my production experiments. My website is up to date
but not everything on there is up to date because I haven’t replaced them with the most recent saves which I
need to do before I get my results for each of my PowerPoints.

6. Week 6/7
For the 6th week of our FMP we started planning and production, which so far has
gone alright because I have looked at something which will help me decide on
different things for my FMP, the main one being the locations in which I shoot my
model because as I have gone for a more street style which the location will
determine the mood of the photo because if shoot it a very high class area the
clothing style wouldn’t match which would seem out of place. One location which I
have chose for my shoot would me outside of the train station which look quite
rough which in my opinion would look very nice with the clothing. An issue which I
have come across so far during my planning would have to be that the location will
effect the amount of time which I would have to shoot because the model may need
to get somewhere else which would seriously effect the amount of photos I could
take of them and also I think that I may take quite a while to get to these separate
locations because they are really far away from college which is quite a challenge for
people who live quite far away, a way to organise this would be to get the right
person for each location because that way I will know when they can get there

7. Week 8 For week 8 I began my production which I have been looking forward to for the last
couple of week because I actually get to make things which I enjoy, to begin with I
started my coming up with ideas for the front cover which was fairly difficult because
the Idea which I initially had although works very well I thought that I may need to come
up with a couple of others because I knew 1 would not be enough, so after doing the
main idea which was an X with a circle around it I moved onto the design on the left
which Is a statue which has the glitch effect on it because I thought that this looked
really nice and abstract also I wanted to keep the X design which I decided to add
because it reminded to be of films which theme around violence and crime such as
Purge which they have vandalised and defaced statues and poster which gave me the
inspiration to put it over the face of the statue because it gives you a sense of mystery
which once again works with the naming of my work. The reason why I would be able to
use this piece of work would be because it is a stock image which has no copyright
issues which is helpful for when I want to publish my work and give it to people, After
this piece of work I moved onto another piece which looks very similar to my
experiments which had the minimal design of the logo and text which this has but
instead I have a scribble with the name because it goes with the idea of vandalism
because it is spray paint. I think that this work will appeal to my audience because
graffiti is quite street and urban which works alongside the style of my audience, I think
that I will need to add a few things to my research because I have done something which
I hadn’t mentioned in my research which I may need because it shows that I am working
on my work over and over again so that everything is up to date and if someone reads
my research and then my production then wont think that they are connected because
they are completely different at the moment. A problem which I have hit so that would
be that I have had to wait until Thursday until I could do any kind of photography
because people are doing things on the days before and doing on Thursday allows them
to get ready in the morning.

8. Week 9 This week I went down the same route as last week by making another front cover but I think that I
will be sticking with this one as it fits in with my theme of classified where as in my opinion the week
after it doesn’t fit with what I am going with and what I have made so far after this and the other
week it works better with this one because the colour and defaced look go with my style because it is
street at the same time as being quite mysterious. Something which this front cover design has over
the one is that it is very easy to see what it is because with the other one as there was so much on
the page you couldn’t tell what I was showing the audience, another thing which I really like would be
little bits I have added onto each of the statues being the tape and spray paint because they look
similar to photos which are used in apocalypse style films where everything has gone bad and could
be seen as “classified” somewhere which I took the inspiration would have to be “The Purge: Election
Year” the reason I took inspiration from this would be because they used very powerful and iconic
symbols in the government and completely defaced them and turned them into maniacs which tries
to portray a bad light on these people in some peoples eyes which I thought was a really nice idea so I
wanted to use a similar effect my own work. I think that I will definitely have to add something to my
research because this is the complete opposite to what I had previously thought that I was going to
make which is good and bad because I am going off the topic which I began with but it good because I
have seen that my ideas previously where not very good at all. The next day of this week I began by
going out and collecting to some photos which I could use in my Portfolio style booklet, these images
in my opinion are a lot better than the images which I had previously collected because they are
outside which use other lighting in comparison to fake light which makes the person look better, I
think that so far these have gone better than last week because due to them being inside I couldn’t to
do anything with the background as It was really difficult to remove the subject from the background
because of their hair. A problem which I encountered this week would be that some of the photos
which I thought where really good when it came to looking at them on the computer where
completely out of focus and blurry which really annoyed me but a way around this in the future
would be to make sure to take loads of shots for each angle so I don’t have any problems, or another
Idea would have to be maybe another day going to the same location with either the same model or
another model and making sure that the images which I take are in focus and there is nothing wrong
with them so that I more photos to work with over the week, until the next shoot.

9. Week 10 For the 3rd week of production I began by continuing with by front cover as well as my third page
which I have come up with the idea of it being a CIA style document which is to be destroyed
upon reading it because it gave it a really mysterious feel to it which I like because as I have said
previously this is theme, also with the front cover I changed it every so slightly so that it looks
like a document with the paper clip and top secret writing on the top left hand side. In my own
opinion I think what I have made in this week has been better than previous weeks because it
works with my audience as they are street clothing and some of what I am designing puts a
mysterious feel on the clothing as they have been put as criminals, Something else which I have
done this week would be making fake criminal complaints which go alongside their mugshots
which makes each of the models really dangerous in their aspects because I have made up
reasons for their arrests such as assault and trespassing on government property, I felt like doing
this because there are a lot of things which are kept secret and I wanted to make these people
who are modelling part of this, by doing crimes which would release information for places such
as Area 51. Something which I would say has gone wrong this week would have to be that one of
my models which I have asked didn’t turn which led me to asking someone even though I still
need them for the portfolio, but besides this little bump in the road nothing else this week has
stopped my progression because I have kept to my planning which was to start on the inside
pages of my portfolio.

10. Week 11/12
For the last week of production for our Easter holiday I began by getting some photos of
Alex for my mugshot as he wasn’t here for the previous week when I started doing them,
so a way around this would be to do it this was to do in the week after. So began by
editing the photos so that I can get the same effect as the week before, a way to do this
would be duplicated my last file and then replacing the image with the new one I've got
so that it is more simple.
Something else this week which I ran into as a problem would have to be that I was going
to get someone to shoot on Wednesday but I couldn’t as they have to take time of due to
illness. But I bypassed this by getting someone else to shoot for me, and I think that the
person which I chose to replace them for the time being worked really well as they
already knew what kind of photography style and clothing style which I was going for
which has really helped this project so far. But in the next up and coming weeks I am
going to have to knuckle down and get everything done before my deadline and also
other things such as my PowerPoints and word documents because I need to make sure
that I at least pass everything in this course so that I can go to university. Something
which I hope I can make in the next week would have to be a website so that I can show
of all of the work which I produced during the last couple of weeks of production
because I know not all of it will make it to my final piece as they are not as good as each
other. Also by making a website it gives me the ability to make more work and put it on
their instead of my booklet which I only need a few more photos until it is done.

11. Week 13
• This week so far I have gone down the path of getting my website up and running by going through
and doing what I did last year which was put up pieces of work which I liked but didn’t make it to the
final cut. So some of things I added where the following front cover designs, different ideas for
photos and then the copy on some of the pages because I wanted to change them up a little bit. The
reason I wanted to show these pieces of work of to my audience was because I felt like even though I
didn’t think they work up to standard in comparison to what I have I still they good pieces of work
and if It weren’t for this project I feel like they would have fit into something else. Also something
else which is on my website would be a very brief shop which so far has a few articles of clothing but I
plan on having my booklet on there so people could buy if I set it up, by adding these to my website it
shows that I am actually going for a clothing style booklet because with some of the feedback which I
received some of them said they didn’t know what I was trying to sell to my audience which Is a
problem because if they don’t know and they are suppose to be doing similar projects to me, my
audience will have absolutely no idea what I am trying to sell to them because I understand that
some of it is a little hard to get your head around because I don’t say anywhere that this is a clothing
booklet. This week the only problem which I had put myself into would have to be that I didn’t ask
one of my models to do a shoot which would have meant that my booklet would have been
completed, which is completely my fault and something which I should have taken into consideration
when it comes to my own work. Something which I am going to make sure that I do next week would
have to be complete my booklet by doing the photography on the 1st day and I know I will be able to
pretty much complete everything on the Monday as I don’t have a lot of work left to do as I made
sure that I completed the majority of it this week, so after Monday I feel like I will have the entire
week to look back through my improvements which I got told such as my grammar which is
something that I need to make sure is 100% perfect because I don’t want my audience to get
confused, but besides this I think I can go through previous PowerPoints and complete them to a
higher grade as I need to make sure everything at the least is a merit if not a distinction.

12. Week 14
For my final week of production I have completed all of my work on the Monday as I explained
in the previous week which I was going to make sure that I did, so for Wednesday and
Thursday I am going to look at the grammar for copy and then once I have made the
adjustments so there are no mistakes I will start with PowerPoints which I need to improve as
at the moment I am not happy with a lot of them because I didn’t put enough effort into them
at the time because I was really looking forward to starting production which is something I
should have taken into consideration as they are a big part of my final grade. So as this is the
final week before evaluation I'm going to have to make sure that everything is perfect and how
I want It because although the final deadline is the 7th of June I want to make sure everything
is done before then so that I don’t fall behind when it comes to the evaluation section as
although it is something which I am quite good I once again need to make sure that I get that
merit/distinction grade which I am expecting. This week so far I have not encountered an
problems as I have completed all of the work which I needed to.
For the next week I am going to be doing evaluation which the production diaries will play a
massive part in it because I will need to use them to talk about what I did in the coming weeks
before then and also how I managed to do everything in the time which I was given and more
than likely what I would have done if I was given more time to make things.