My
final project is named ‘Italian Life’. This is because I was inspired by the
local people living in Italy. Within this project I tried to capture natural
shots of people in and around Naples and Sorrento, the
places I visited on my week long trip to Naples. I found Naples a very
inspiring city to visit, considering everywhere I went was new and exciting to
me and I saw a lot of interesting photographic opportunities while I explored
Naples throughout the course of the week. In order to successfully complete this project
I had to view Naples as a photographer instead of a tourist which at first was
a challenge. I tried to focus on the areas of study given and photograph what
was real for me and not what was a distraction from my work. I feel I did this well
as I have a large selection of photographs, which I feel hit the briefs given. The
areas of study I had to look at were portraits, spaces or details. When I was in Naples on location I was unsure
of which project brief to choose so I decided to try out each one, then I could
decide which images turned out the most successfully after the trip. I’m glad
that I did this as it meant I could experiment with the camera settings which
was helpful for me in getting to know how to use my camera. The first brief I decided to focus on was space,
for this I was inspired by the vibrancy and textural quality of the buildings with
the contrast of the blue sky so I tried to incorporate this into each photo. I
found this a difficult subject to focus on, as the idea of it was so broad,
also it was easy to take tourist style photos with the street photography
aspect which I tried to avoid.
The
more I got to know Naples, the more comfortable I became in being there so I
decided for the next brief, portraiture that I would ask people if I could take
their photos. I did enjoy doing this and I was successful in doing so but I
found that the portraits I came out with looked posed and not natural. I found
my most effective ones to be the natural shots where the subject didn’t know I
was taking the photo so I tried to be subtle and zoomed the camera in to get
shots from further away. My favourite photo was taken at the market in Naples
on the final day. I wanted to go into the market and try to subtly take photos
but this was difficult. I like this particular picture of market life mainly
because of a lady stood in the centre of the photo; she is stood smiling
directly at the camera and looks out of place in comparison to the people being
busy around her. I also love how the photograph is so vibrant and colourful
which works well because of all the happy looking characters who are a part of
it.
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