Lauren is pleased with the progress made in her Unit 3 photography project. While her creativity did not dramatically improve, her Photoshop skills are much better, resulting in a more professional quality and finish. She chose a difficult topic that required in-depth ideas and shoots. Her early shoots were weaker than her later, more planned shoots, showing her progression in organization. Despite challenges finding models and props, she adapted well. Her favorite shoot used fake blood and macro lens to depict dying flowers in an unusual way. Another shoot subtly colored roses but took longer than expected. Through challenges like lighting flashing pumpkin lights, she improved her understanding of the studio setup. Overall she feels she has developed creatively and gained skills for her final unit

1. Lauren Barrett
A2 Photography
Unit 3
Project Evaluation:
I am generally really pleased with the results of my Unit 3 project, especially in comparison
to my Unit’s 1 and 2. Whilst I didn’t have an initial dramatic improvement in terms of creativity, I feel
like my Photoshop skills have definitely improved, leaving the overall quality and finish a lot more
professional, whereas I didn’t pick up on these finer details during my first year in Photography.
However, I feel like I have again chosen a rather difficult topic for myself for this unit. Despite being
a rather broad choice, I had to work even harder in creating in-depth ideas and shoots especially as it
was also one of the choices for the Unit 2 exam. In order for my work to really stand out against
what some of my peers may have created during Unit 2, the ideas that I chose had to be much more
in-depth and the contrasts had to be more intense and represent a sense of psychological thinking
rather than just presenting the contrasts in a visual manner. Overall, I feel like I have also developed
dramatically since the start of this Unit, as I feel that my first few shoots were relatively weaker in
comparison to the last few I have conducted in recent months. The initial shoots were somewhat
less planned than the more recent ones, showing my progression in terms of organisation, and I feel
like the ideas didn’t stand out as well as some of my later shoots, resulting in far less final pieces.
Also, some of the shoots may not have turned out as theatrical as I had planned, as stated in my
Project Proposal, but that was mostly down to struggling to find suitable costumes and props for a
reasonable price, and also finding reliable models who were also free when I needed to shoot.
Despite this, I feel like I have adapted well to this issue, making the most of the studio equipment
and what I could do with small, simple objects as my props.
My absolute favourite shoot of the entire unit was my 10th shoot back in
November, which I titled ‘My Bloody Valentine.’ The focus behind this shoot was
the idea that whilst when humans die, or are injured, blood is usually used to
represent this, and we are also capable of expressing emotion. In contrast to
this, when flowers die they simply wither and despite the fact that they are too
living creatures, they can’t express emotion. This shoot also had a much simpler
message, connoting the contrasts between life and death, as, whilst the flowers were clearly still
healthy and very much alive, they were seen to be ‘bleeding’ symbolising the idea that they had in
fact ‘died’. To further connote the idea of death, I set up two ladders with fine wire tied between the
two, and then hung the flowers upside down from the wire. Although quite creative, this made
shooting more of a challenge as I had to shoot from very specific angles to ensure I captured the
flowers in the composition that I wanted, but I also didn’t want to be able to see the wire as I
wanted it to appear as if the flowers were suspended in the air. This technique was really fun for me,
as I hadn’t done anything like it in any of the shoots I have conducted throughout A Level
Photography and it also gave me an interesting insight into the types of shoots I
should perhaps consider doing when I conduct the next exam unit, Unit 4. I
personally thought that the results looked really effective, and were a great chance
for me to experiment with editing techniques such as selective colour and
animation. The shoot also gave me a chance to use the macro lens for the first time
in a while. As I added more water to the fake blood I was using, it created more of a
‘dripping effect’ off of the flowers which is what I was initially hoping for, which
looked particularly effective under use of the macro lens.

2. Lauren Barrett
A2 Photography
Unit 3
I felt more-or-less the same about my 11th shoot, another
one of my favourites from the entire unit. This particular shoot
where I looked at the colouring of roses was one that I looked forward to the most since creating my project proposal, but it
simply took too long for the effect on the roses to take place. What I
did was place a bouquet of white roses in various pots of water that
had different food colourings added to them. These colours were supposed to be absorbed by the
flowers in order to change the colours within the rose petals literally after a few hours, and the
longer you left them, the more vibrant the colours were meant to be come. However, the technique
didn’t seem to work for me, and I believe this was because of the lack of natural sunlight. If I had
done this technique outside in the summertime, it may have worked better. The flowers only
gradually withered, and only picked up very slight colourings. I tried the technique several times,
something I have learnt I may have to do in Photography in order to get the right results, and
eventually settled for roses with very faint yellow and blue colouring as if I had left them for longer,
they could have begun to die and would not have looked as effective. I was relatively surprised when
I shot the flowers, as using the macro lens allowed me to strongly focus on sections of the petals
where the colour was graduating, and afterwards, I found that changing the levels and curves only
added to this effect. Overall, I feel that my resultant images from this
shoot looked quite professional; the hues of the two colours contrasted
really nicely and the vibrancy of these colours help to make my work
stand out really well. I particularly enjoyed the editing of this shoot also
because I was able to play with different techniques I wouldn’t ordinarily
use on my work; for example, I changed the hue and saturation of some
of the edits quite dramatically to create different colour contrasts, and I feel the image on the left
for example has a nice fantasy element to it.
Despite how proud I am of the work I have accomplished in this unit, I am also proud of how
I have developed my skills in the studio, specifically as I experimented with lighting quite a bit. My 4th
personal shoot in particular which involved the pumpkin with the fairy
lights was a real challenge for me, as the lights were on a particular
setting which made them flash on and off, which made photographing the
pumpkin hard and it involved me experimenting a lot with the shutter
speed and the aperture. As I wanted to photograph the lights when they
were on inside of the pumpkin, the studio lighting had to be reduced greatly also as it was then
making the images too bright. It was a struggle, but I had to be persistent and try various
combinations in order to get the results I wanted, and this, I feel, has taught me a lesson about
Photography and working hard to get the results that I want and I also feel that my understanding of
the studio set-up has also improved too, which should benefit me a lot when I come to do my Unit 4
portfolio.
Overall, I feel like this Unit has been a great stepping-stone into my progress into the final
unit. My creativity has definitely developed during Unit 3, as all of my different personal shoots are
unique to me and my topic, and I feel like I certainly haven’t repeated any of my ideas again and
again. I thoroughly enjoyed conducting this unit, like I have enjoyed Photography from the very start,
and despite the challenges which I have slowly overcome, I feel I have produced a strong portfolio
which I can only hope that I will be able to better in Unit 4. From this unit I have learnt that I will

3. Lauren Barrett
A2 Photography
Unit 3
definitely need to really think about the options available to me in Unit 4, and possibly plan a
selection of shoots for each topic to ensure I pick the one that I will enjoy the most, and also the one
that I will be able to produce the best work from. I see from this unit that I do generally struggle to
find people to model for my work – the people that I liked to use, particularly in Unit’s 1 & 2 have
now had their timetables changed and are no longer available at the same times as me, and it is
unfair to continuously use my peers when they have their own work to be getting on with.
Therefore, this suggests to me that I should consider a topic in Unit 4, which will allow me plenty of
ideas that do not involve people, yet would still allow me to be completely independent and
creative. I will also carry forward my good use of time keeping and organisation into Unit 4,
especially for the exam portfolio, as this will be vitally important to me. I felt like the planning stages
of this unit were particularly important to me as they ensured I really understood what I needed to
accomplish during the topic, a great benefit to me, which I will take forward into Unit 4 also. In my
Project Proposal for example, I was able to outline my
initial ideas and where they rooted from, which in turn,
allowed me to develop my own creativity as I conducted
more shoots. I am disappointed that I didn’t get to do all
of the shoots I had planned for, for whatever reason it
may be have been, such as the idea of the Twisted
Princesses inspired by an illustrator on Deviant-Art, but
perhaps I will be able to build some of these ideas into
whichever topic I pick for Unit 4, as I feel they will give me
great diversification across all four of my A-Level
Photography portfolios.