The photographer took a series of portraits around Manchester to showcase its diversity. They aimed to use techniques like depth of field and rule of thirds. Feedback indicated the themes came across positively but some photos lacked quality or proper technique. Areas for improvement include focusing skills and ensuring all photos look professionally edited using the same process of cropping and making the background black and white around colored subjects.

1. Unit 57: Photography and
Photographic Practice
Selection of final images & review
(P4, M4, D4)
Image No: 1- 5 Portrait

3. Theme or focus of image & reasons for choice
The theme I wanted to achieve for my portrait photos is to
show the diversity in Manchester. I chose to follow this theme
because I think that the diversity in a city is usually the
biggest selling point of the city. I believe that I achieved this
theme because on my survey I asked if my photos shown
Manchester in a positive way and everyone replied saying
that I have shown Manchester positively.

4. Techniques used
The techniques I have tried to use is both depth of field and
rule of thirds. I think I have achieved depth of field on some
of my photos because the subject is in focus and the
background is out of focus. When I asked people on my
questionnaire weather I have achieved rule of thirds and
depth of field in my photos 85% said that I have and 15% said
I haven’t. I think my third portrait photo hasn’t followed any
of these techniques and as a result of it I don’t think it looks
professional.
Strengths & suggested improvements
I think my strengths on my portrait photos are my camera
angles and my editing skills. On my survey I asked if there was
any areas in which I could improve my portrait shots the
more common response I received was mainly regarding the
quality of the photograph. Two of my final five portrait shots
have come out very out of focus. I think this is an area that I
really need to work on because looking at my landscape
photos as well the quality of some of them are very poor as
well.
Editing details
All my five of my portrait photos have followed the same
editing routine, firstly I used the pentagon tool to crop round
the subject I then made the background black and white
and I just kept the subject in colour. I made it my goal to
follow the same editing routine for each photo because I
think when they are all together it makes my photos look
more professional.
Capture Log
Shutter Speed ISO Aperture
Image 1 –
1/125
Image 1 -
400
Image 1 – f/5
Image 2 -
1/125
Image 2 –
400
Image 2 – f/5
Image 3 –
1/125
Image 3 –
400
Image 3 – f/5
Image 4 –
1/125
Image 4 –
400
Image 4 – f/5
Image 5 –
1/125
Image 5 –
400
Image 5 – f/5