1) The student had to change their original documentary project to a storyboarded perfume advert due to lockdown restrictions limiting access to people and resources. They found working from home frustrating and struggled with motivation. 2) They enjoyed the initial planning phase and mood boarding to help visualize their project. Researching vintage magazine covers and the photographer Sam Dameshek inspired them to incorporate vintage aesthetics. 3) Production experiments using their new camera helped them improve photography skills, and they found Lightroom easier to use than Photoshop for editing photos. The limited time and locations during lockdown made photoshoots challenging.

1. FMP Diary

2. Week 1 – Initial Plans / Proposal
• I enjoyed week one as a whole, because it was our first week of lockdown education. It felt weird having to do it at home, not
having a tutor there but I powered through. However, due to the circumstances, I have actually had to rejig my project. For
example, I wanted to make a short documentary to go alongside my print project about teenagers in modern life, but I had to
switch it to a short perfume advert, but even then, I decided just to story board it because I don’t have the people I need to do it.
It is very frustrating having to work from home. My brain has turned to mush and I am struggling to get motivated!!!
• I like doing initial reaction because it means that I can document any idea I had for this project. Before FMP had even officially
started, I started to jot down different ideas that passed through my mind so when it can to write initial reaction, I could look back
at any ideas I potentially had. It is also the most exciting part of the project because it means that you can start looking at things
you want to create, rather then having to do the same as everyone else. It’s the first fully independent project of the course and
you have full control of any aspect of the project, meaning that I could do whatever I wanted.
• I liked doing the mood boards because it meant I could start to visualize my project, giving me insight and reference for the rest of
the project. The first mood board was my favorite because it meant I could research different photographers and study their
techniques and placements of the model which would eventually help me in my project. The thing that interested me about this is
that I looked at new photographers that I had seen from magazines or through Instagram, this meant I could look at a range of
styles of photography, rather then only researching one photographer.
• I really like photographer Sam Dameshek as he uses a vintage aesthetic in his work, using mainly film cameras in his shoots.
Adding in his editing aspect, he really perfects the vintage feel into his photos almost seamlessly – the only thing stopping it would
be modern locations such as buildings, or modern clothing. I like the fact that he also uses vintage cars in his photoshoots. In
reality, I will not be able to do this as I don’t have any sort of access to a car of this sort! Nonetheless, I liked researching his work
as a whole, and his aesthetic will influence my project.

3. Week 2/3 - Research
• These weeks seemed to last forever. Considering we had Easter holidays between, we technically had 4 weeks for
research. It honestly felt never ending. I enjoyed doing research, I liked collected images of the existed products, because
the more I looked at them, the more my product started to form in my head. I started to notice small details in the larger
brand magazines, meaning I could then merge them into my ideas. I think the best part was looking at the vintage Vogue
covers. I love vintage aesthetics – the 80s and 90s in particular – and to see the fashion and culture on the cover really
inspired me to funk up my project, giving it a vintage touch. Looking at photographer Sam Dameshek proved to be
appropriate as I have modern vintage and real vintage resources to look at.
• Before quarantine hit, and even before FMP had begun, I had a big idea to go out and buy a huge range of magazines then
create physical mood boards in a sketchbook, then scan them in. Unfortunately, shops shut before I had time to actually go
out and execute my idea. However, I can still use this idea next year when things are back to normal – I say optimistically.
So I had to adapt my project and just do it on PowerPoint itself and take images from the internet. They were the easiest
things to put together, evaluating them was a bit draining, because fabricating why I chose them turned out to be quite
hard and I knew that ‘I thought they were pretty’ wouldn’t quite hack it. It took me a while to finish, but I managed to get
it in on time!
• The worst part of Research was the Audience Research part. I found it so dull just evaluating the results. I understand that
it is vital to know my audience, but with it being the first few weeks of lockdown, I had no motivation. It took a long time
to get used to lockdown and to be able to find the motivation to do work. I think the best way I have done this is by staying
creative, for example, doing personal projects and simply just grabbing my camera and heading out. But when I did find
motivation, knowing I had to do Audience Research didn’t particularly excite me. I powered through it and managed to get
it finished.

4. Week 4 – Production Experiments
• I liked doing Production Experiments as it meant I could do practical work rather then sit in front of a computer screen all
day. I had a few ideas that I wanted to try before actual production as I had just got a new camera and was getting to know
it. The photoshoots mainly involved me telling my sister to look nice and grabbing my camera and heading out into the
world. When I started doing the photoshoots however, it was when we were only allowed out for an hour a day so I had to
be speedy whilst I worked. It also meant I had limited locations I could use for the shoots. I also started some personal
projects whilst doing Production Experiments as I had so much time on my hands. Usually I would use Photoshop to edit
my pictures but I found that Lightroom was so much better to use. I found it easier to use as you can upload all your
pictures at once and scroll through them and have them all next to each other. It also didn’t falter the quality of the
picture that Photoshop does. Plus it is so much easier to edit and you have the option to move it straight to photoshop if
you wish.
• I liked messing around with different fonts and structures I could use in the final products, although I found it quite hard to
make a unique structure for a magazine cover as they are all quite similar to each other. I did, however, find that the colour
schemes were all very different and I could have fun on Adobe Colour and experiment with different colour schemes. I
could also experiment with my actual camera, as I had only got in February, just before the world shut down. I had tried it
out around my house and on walks in the park in between college or work, but I hadn’t had a chance to use it for proper
work.
• There was a massive improvement in the quality of my pictures as I had gone for quite an old Canon to a modern Fujifilm. I
also found the Fuji had a more professional finish in the pictures – even during live shootings! It also meant that I could
start taking photography more seriously as I now had a better camera and could take much better photos on this camera.

5. Overall
• I think that this project has really given me a perspective of the workload that next years FMP has
in store for me. If all goes the right way, next year I will be able to be in a classroom with a tutor
and be able to go out into the real world and get the products I wanted and create the original
project I wanted to. On the other hand, this situation has shown me how to manage time and
how I can stay creative with free time and use limited resources. This has honestly been great for
me to be able to understand how difficult it is to do work at home and that I shouldn’t take
normal life for granted as it isn’t always guaranteed that I can go to college.
• It has also shown me that I should just suck it up and do my work as soon as I get it! This would
have been so much easier if I actually cracked on and got the work done! Although, I say this, but
it is actually really difficult to be able to get the motivation to do work! However, being able to do
college work at 8:50 pm is really quite helpful, as it turns out, I am way more productive on an
evening or afternoon then on a morning. Mornings don’t really exist anymore, only on a Monday
and Thursday when college lessons are on.
• I probably should have been doing this diary at the end of each week, rather then after I had done
all the PowerPoints, because it would have been so much more accurate and probably less dull to
read.