Evaluations

Reflections of delivery from my Proposal

&

Critical Evaluation of my Professional Practice

At the beginning of my project I actually had the complete wrong aspect and idea of what I was going to do.  I was so hung up on the idea of producing a set of 4 images in a live brief for an 'Elements' themed shoot, but this was wrong because I had set up a self directed brief which is not what we were asked.  I proposed in my first copy proposal to enter a number of competitions.  One of the competitions being the 'Sony world Photography competition a wide ranged competition I figured I could submit works to that, I also felt like entering the nikon Photo Contest, and Prix de la Photographie.  I proposed to enter all of these just because it is better to do so than not have entered even one for this module, but I can say now that I have only entered into one photographic competitions which was 'theprintspace's' self portrait competition, it was so simple and its a small competition that i can trust.  I would like to enter more photo contests and more often, but for this module I was going to focus on my Live brief more.  

I began, like mentioned above, searching into all these different ideas towards a brief that I did not even realise was a self directed brief, to only get to our photographic life presentations to be told it was wrong.  Looking back now I am actually so pleased that I was told early on that the road I was going down was wrong, otherwise i probably would have worked on it even more than I already had.  But after fully re-reading and understanding the three options for the live brief section, a commissioned brief, development of a business or charitable work, I then knew what routes I should be looking at.  Because I did not have that many options to go down for the other two, I decided to stick with the idea of finally creating and developing on my business idea. I had always wanted to set up my personal photography business for the people around my area in which I live.  I knew that for this it would involve, creating and designing more photographic materials, coming up with a final pricing list for each different shoot and proving how I will show myself as a brand and the values and behaviours I use to do this, and that sounds really exciting as it is something I want to do, but the problem I faced was that I had no images or shoots from the business that I wanted to create.  I have shot weddings before quite a lot and have some examples of wedding photographic images but the business i want to create is not just that genre, it involves more types of photography like couples, engagements, maternity, newborns and children photography, so my problem was that I had only shot wedding before and did not know where to go with this further. 

I then debated trying to find some charitable work to do, because i couldn't see my business development working out just yet If I could not contribute my own photography so I looked into work around the area I live but nothing caught my eye and interested me.  My friend at College is studying a hair and beauty course and had her end of year charity show, she messages me asking If I could be the photographer for the show because their photographer had let them down, but it was at quite short notice and I couldn't make it.  This would have been good to have as some professional and community practice for my brand and business but I still did not think its big enough for a live brief. Then out the blue, I had a call from a potential client. She was calling regarding a photo shoot of her pregnancy. 

This was perfect and exactly what I needed.  The client was called Christine Bright and was pregnant and wanted to fins a photographer who was doing shoots for cheaper than the established maternity photographer, I was well up for the shoot as it would be my first maternity shoot.  As i have written in my previous evaluation for my live brief, this was perfect to solve the problem i had about the business. Doing this maternity shoot is helping me get one step closer to, being able to create the whole business. This maternity shoot was now my live brief, and very live indeed ad she wanted to have the shoots produced when she was nine months pregnant so the baby bump was at its biggest.  I had a briefing session with my client and had talks about ideas and plans for shoot days, I have submitted all of this as posts and in my journal.  The shoots went amazingly well and I am so pleased with the results, its left me wanting to do more, as far as my professional practice shows in this live brief, I was very professional towards my client in every way possible, form handing pricing to constructing the brief well and producing the final edits which my client asked for. The delivery was spot on, as mentioned above, my first proposal was wrong, but I corrected it and have looked back now and my outcomes fir my proposal and the final images are exactly what my client asked in the brief. 

I am so happy that the opportunity arose and planned out so well.  My client christine commented on how relaxed and comfortable she was with me and then proposed that I take the first shoot of her Newborn baby boy when he arrives.  This has also made me extremely happy as I would then have two more shoots that can work greatly in my favour for my business after education. I look forward to planning out and completing more and more live brief's exactly like this one in my future as a Business Photographer.