This document provides a final evaluation and analysis of the author's photography project focused on portraying youth subcultures. The author found that candid, unstaged photos were most successful. Their strongest shoots used documentary style to capture subjects spontaneously in public locations like a skate park and graffiti tunnel. Through experimenting with different techniques across multiple shoots, the author determined that documentary photography best conveyed their intended stereotypes of youth culture, rather than staged images. Their final portfolio cohesively features their most powerful documentary images while exploring techniques like blur, noise and black and white editing.

1. Final Evaluation…
As a whole, I have found that my most successfulshoots had a candid
style rather than a staged effect, set up shoots. For exampleI really
liked my shoot 1 as a way of showing the differenceswithin the
fashion of youth culture, yet when choosing my finalimages, I only
ended up usingtwo of these images because I found the
others onesdidn’twork as well as a whole series, they
stood outtoo muchbeing the counter stereotypes.
Furthermore, for the ones I ended up choosingwere the
photos which I used someonepassingby in college and I
asked them if I could take their photo (I saw what they
were wearingand I thought that it worked wellwith my
project); although now lookingback at this shoot, I believe
it would havebeen better if I had taken the photos with out them
posing-getting photos of them just walking by.
For my second shoot, I had aimed to capture images of different
peoplesmokingusing a candid style. However dueto a limited
access, I ran out of time before I could take this shoot, as I would
class myself as someonewho doesn’tappear to fit the stereotype, I
didn’twantto putmyself in a situation such as the smokingshelter in
order to gain photos. Yet I have still kept my image bank and shoot
analysisin order to display whatI wasaiming for and tryingto
achieve if I had moretime.
I personally found thatmy mostsuccessful shoots
are the four taken in the locations of South Bank
skate-park and London LeakeStreet graffiti tunnel;
Shoot Four, Shoot Five, Shoot Eleven, Shoot
Thirteen. This is because these shoots are purely
taken in documentary/candid style, noneof these
images were staged as I purely used my surroundingsto my
advantageand at the same time was able to usethe work of Henri-
Cartier Bresson and the decisive moment.
Alongsidethis I have found that the style of
these shoots work really well in displaying
how my research helped inspiremy work;
for example the photographersthat mainly
inspired shoot five and thirteen was Marc
Vallee and Dan Bolton who also helped
inspiremy shoots four and eleven. Within my shoot 5 I experimented
with the medium of animated GIFs, yet I found becauseI didn’thave
access to a tripod and the skate-park was very busy, it was quite hard

2. for me to get a GIFfocusingon oneperson. Yet when I decided to
return to South bank skate-park there were fewer peoplebecause I
wenton New Years day so was able to experimentpurely of the
angles and buildinga rapportwith my subjects. Even though I find
shoot four oneof my most successful, I decided to go back to Leake
Street in order to create shoot eleven because in
shoot four Ifocused more on the subjects which I
travelled with- whereas shoot eleven captured
mainly the graffiti on the wall. The main reason I
find these four shoots my most successfuland
strongest shoots is because I find that they comply
and representthe youthstereotype really clearly,
which wasmy main intention for this project.
However, I found that my weakest shoot was shoot seven, because
even though my intention for this shoot conformed to the stereotype
of youthvandalism and the London riots, duea lack of access to “real-
life” documentation of a riot scene I used the factor of fire, yet I do
not think the finalimages worked aswell as I had intended and
therefore didn’tuse this shoot when choosing my finalimages for my
portfolio.
When creating my finalportfolio, I separated my Prezi, with all the
black and white images together and then the onesin colour
together. The reason I decided to do this wasbecause I really liked
my skateboarding shoots in black and white and some of the Leake
Street in black and white yet when it came to my shoots all about the
graffiti, I didn’tfind it worked in black and white so I didn’twantto
create a whole portfolio in black and white. I ended up choosing the
images that I did because I find these are my most successfulimages
in displayingthe youthstereotype, but I also find that they all work
as documentary photography, asa whole I didn’tlike the images
which weremore staged because it didn’tlook right, it looked too
fake so therefore decided not to includethose images. Personally I
believe my final portfolio reveals a cohesive body of work because I
purposely chooseimages that fitted together. Yet when looking at my
shoots as a whole, you can see that I experimented with different
techniques; for exampleshoot ninewas taken within the studio to
capturesilhouettes, even though I found this successfulin displaying
a youth stereotype, as a whole is didn’tconform to the rest of my
work, so I ended up choosing the images which were taken on
location.

3. My research resulted in having a high impact on my
final project. The detailed photographersresearch
helped because it enabled me to look further into the
context of the images of work by photographers
such as William Eggleston and Gavin Watson. I find
that even though I haven’t taken photos directly the
same as these photographers the useof symbolism
and editing to form a gritty series of images is
presented within my project. Furthermore, the
research which I donefor each shoot- the image banks, helped
further my work which is represented within my computer
experimentposts, for example this work showed me photographers
such as Baldessari who edited their images with circles over the
subjects faces hidingtheir identity. The work
donein my research Log further influenced the
creation of my personalproject because I
analysed work of photographers such as Marc
Vallee, Dan Bolton, Richard Sandler and Sophie
Days. I found that not only did the contentof the
photos inspireme but also the variety of different
techniques (e.g. Blur)and editing(e.g. noise) is presentwithin my
work.
When I originally set out to do this project, in my mind all my photos
being of the stereotypical workingclass youngmale, in black hoodies,
yet through the progression in my projectI learntthat my subjects do
not have to alwayswear hoodies in order to portray the youth
stereotype. Furthermore, in my project proposal, Iwanted to
originally use locations such as local parks and estates capturing
photos of peopledrinkinghowever, throughthe creation of my
shoots, I found thiscreated too muchof staged images which didn’t
work as well. Furthermore, my main aim was purely to gain a series
of images of the stereotypical youth, to stage these images, yet now
I’m endingmy project, I can see how this wouldn’thaveworked and
that therefore shows this project has taught me the best way to
capturea representation of youth is through documentary
photography rather than techniques such as fashion photography,
which my first shoot does actually show.
As shown across my project, I think along these 10 weeks my work
has massively improved, atfirst I was justtaking images, yet now I

4. believe my images have contextual intentionsand
can symbolise the youth subculturemuchstronger.
For example, when I decided to go back to Leake
Street, I not only looked out for subjects, I also
looked for factors which can create symbolic
meaningin further helping me portray the
stereotypical youththeme. I also find that on a
whole, my finalseries of images communicatesthe
stereotype of youth subculturereally well because
the useof blur and noisehas create grittiness in my
skating and spray paintingshoots then on the colourfulimages, the
symbolism of the colourfulgraffiticonveysthe stereotypeof youths
priorities are placed with spendingmoney on vandalisingpublic
spaces rather than spendingmoney to further their education of
saving it. As a whole, I find that my finalportfolio conveysa main
technique of documentary styleand also blur and noise/ grain
through the editing style of black and white.
Across my whole shoot, I would say that I have
displayed arange of experimentation through
the useof techniques, resources and locations,
yet when looking just at my final portfolio, the
techniques are all similar as used my strongest
style of gain a cohesive series. For example, in
my first shoot, I experimented the use of fashion
photography usingtechniques such as close up
in a variety of differentlocations, yet I
subsequently found thisto be too staged. Then
in my third shoot I experimented withthe
location of an underground train and theediting style of a small
collage- includingonestudio image of
one of my subjects then in comparison
have a location image with friends.
However I didn’tthink this worked well
together at all, it also didn’tfit in with
the stereotypeas muchas I had wanted
it to. My forth shoot then consisted in
experimentingthe editing style of black and white and addingthe
noise, I found thisreally successfulin conveyingthe correct
stereotype of youth cultureand therefor continued usingthe this
style in the rest of my work. In this shoot I also experimented with
the location of Leake Street that as a whole I found really successful.

5. My fifth shoot showed experimentation through the useof animated
GIFs on photo-shop of peopleskateboardingat South Bank skate-
park; this additionally helps convey how the work donepreviously
looking at techniques helped the creation of
my project. Even though I found this an
interesting way on portrayingmy work in a
differentstyle of medium, I didn’tusea
tripod so it isn’t as smooth as I would have
liked it to be. Furthermore, I didn’tchoose
to reshoot GIFS/ usethem in my finalseries
as I didn’tthink it worked in comparison to the other images. In my
sixth shoot, I decided to experimentwith the counter stereotypes of
youththrough the use of differentinterests, within this shoot I used
to location of my friendsbedroom and a vintage market
in Brick Lane, however in comparison to my other
shoots I consider this to be oneof my weaker shoot
because without explanation, I do not find that it
continues/fits wellwith my stereotypical images.
Within my shoot seven, I decided to experiment
through the use of using newsissues; the London riots,
in order to convey the vandalism stereotype, however I
found that as I didn’thave access to any “real-life” riot
settings, I wasunable to properly documentthem and
therefore find this experimentation too staged for my
liking. Furthermore, my eighth shoot shows that I
experimented with the location of Brick Lane whilst using a variety of
differenttechniques such as portraits, however I found this
connected much moreto my first “fashion” shoot rather than the
stereotypes as the images appear be quite staged. However within
this shoot, the images I gained of the graffiti and passingof the public
were usingfor my final project. As previously mentioned, my Ninth
shoot showsmy use of experimentation of studio work creating
silhouettes, which I do find really interesting in creating the youth
stereotype but as a series of images, I found they didn’tconnect
because all my other shoot involveworkingon location; If I wereto
have taken my other shoots within the studio, I believe it would have
worked muchbetter. My shoots of ten- twelve showshow I took the
experimentation in my shoot four of the location of Leake Street and
wanted to further explorethrough experimentingwith looking at
differentaspects other than subjects; spray cans, artists and the
graffiti itself. Finally, my thirteenth shoot wastaken back as South
Bank skate-park dueto the successfulof shoot five, I wanted to

6. further my work through experimentingdifferentanglesthrough
documentary photography.
If I had moretime, I would wantto develop my projectthrough
gaining a shoot includingsubjects smokingand developingmy work
through the use of photographer Dan Bolton, going back to the South
Bank skate-park and take close up of my subjects, asking them to
take portraits of them. Furthermore, I bought a disposablecamera to
take my smokingshoot on and I took some images from my second
south bank shoot however I ran out of time so weren’table to include
them in my project.