Final Evaluation

Over all 10 shoots I feel there was a main theme after the first few shoots that started to emerge, and that was generally the theme of youth culture in Britain. 

Shoot 1-

In my first shoot, I wanted to depict a quintessentially British scene in Norfolk, where my family are from, with some of the pictures having my Grandma and Grandad as subjects, therefore age didn't play apart in showing British culture, if anything I wanted to show that British culture is a timeless thing, that ranges through all the era's. This was very much inspired my Martin Parr's series he shoots by the seaside, showing the timeless traditions that Brits partake in on the coast.

Shoot 2-

In my second shoot, I decided to go to Camden town, to shoot another set of images for British culture, despite it being obviously a documentary shoot it's also a good example of location portraiture, in a place that I regularly go to and represents my cultural links due to music and fashion etc, therefore by even going to take images in this culturally diverse place, my series was already starting to become more about me and more representative of my tastes and therefore my age is going to create a series more comprised of youth culture. So this set me on a path for my shoots to become more based around things of my age.

Shoot 3/4-

Shoot 3, definitely set the tone for my subjective interest within British subcultures, since this was a band that I had payed money to go and watch live, I was there out of choice, and so after the result of the of seeing my images, and getting a few good images representative of going to see a live band. For shoot 3 I was very much inspired by Derek Ridgers in his live band images as they're really effective in catching the atmosphere of the moment, I tried to incorporate the same spirit into my images. I decided I wanted to repeat the theme of shooting live music and bands. Both shoot 3 and shoot 4 were captured in the same night, I got to the gig expecting to just take images of the band that were going to be playing but instead I found a group of teenagers about my age, and started socialising due to mutual interests and ended up spending the majority of the night with them. I decided to divide 3 and 4 in to separate shoots because I thought that despite the fact they were linked for obvious reasons, I had so many images and both shoots were so different, shoot 4 really captured teenage socialising, drinking, smoking, partying, enjoying free time in the cultural landscape of London, and shoot 3 was purely of going to see live music. I came to the conclusion that shoot 4 was something I wanted to explore again; the teenage recreational drug taking was a similar topic that I wanted to explore. Shoot 4 was inspired also inspired by Ridgers, as his portraiture is so raw and gritty, depicting subcultures of teens often smoking and posing.

Shoot 5-

Shoot five, was a series of images that I wanted to focus on the mod subculture, this was inspired by the fact that a few of my friends are mods, I play in a mod/britpop band with them, and in terms of influence from other series that I have shot, shoot 4 showed me the importance of shooting people your own age, as it generally reflects your view of what British culture is all about and also shoot 2, as Camden is deep rooted in mod subculture. I was more pleased with the outcome of shoot five than I thought I'd be, for example on the spur of the moment I told Jack to play his guitar; this then linked back to shoot 3 and the art of performing music, and so more links across my shoots were created, making for a strong sense of music and youth subculture, these were definitely the two themes that worked well and were the most effective throughout all my shoots and therefore I wanted to develop more shoots on music and youth in Britain. Gavin Watson was big influence for my shoot on mod culture, as In watson's photography the importance of simple portraiture and what it can say about a person, for example Watson will shoot a skinhead in a setting that he is familiar in, then picture will say everything one needs to know about his subculture and cultural vision. I decided to use this idea, and have shot's of jack wearing his best clothes in his habitat, playing guitar, I think it managed to translate all his interests and cultural connections, with the mod youth subculture. 

Shoot 6-

Shoot number six was inspired by shoot 4 in which I took images of youth my own age smoking, drinking, socialising outside on Hoxton square in London. For shoot 6 I wanted to take the theme of youths being outside getting drunk, socialising and show it  through the theme of smoking cigarettes, I thought this would be an important thing to take pictures of since, not only in youth culture, but British culture, smoking is the most commonly used legal drug in the country. I was happy with the outcome of the images, I didn't want to demonize tobacco or encourage the use of it, but wanted to create a non-biased set of images on smoking by a group of people my age. I thought the shoot fit well in terms of theme against my series and worked well in a cohesive set of shoots. I was heavily influenced by Simon Wheatley's style and concept matter of photography, as he shot a series on urban youth life in London, smoking, socializing, being teenagers, I wanted to take with me the raw documentary style and concept matter and translate it into my photography. 

Shoot 7-

In this shoot I wanted to continue the theme of music, used in other shoots such as number 3 and 5, as I thought that they were effective shoots and that I still had more to explore within British music subculture. Therefore one band practice I decided to take pictures of all the band playing their instruments, practicing for an upcoming gig we had booked. I think the shoot is overall successful in showing band culture in British youth.

Shoot 8-

For shoot eight, I decided to focus on transport in the location of London, I wanted to make a series of images from the nation rail, on to the London underground and the London Buses. My idea behind the shoot was just to show the important role that British transport serves in the everyday lives of the people, serving as a massive part of culture and heritage in the UK. I think I managed to achieve the chaos of London and the role that public transport serves in everyday life, I did this in a documentary style manner. This was a follow on of location from other shoots, as I have shot multiple others in London.

Shoot 9-

In shoot 9, I wanted to focus on my local town, how the shops and surrounding landscape reveals British culture, in terms of heritage and tradition. So I focused on my local high street, with the pub, off licence, chippy, betting shop to show the very a-typical Britishness that we take for granted and don't even notice, that is quite traditional. Despite the fact that this shoot has strayed from youth, sub-culture and music, I think this is still a really successful shoot. I attempted to show how very mundane, ordinary things about British towns, connote deeper significance in overall British culture. In terms of subject matter, for example I took pictures of trains and in terms of the ordinary values of this shoot, it relates to shoot 1 and 8.

Shoot 10-

For shoot ten, I wanted to make a shoot that was composed of multiple elements from my previous shoots. Some of the themes that link to the previous shoots are; the location (in shoot 2 I shot in Camden), the theme of music (in shoots 3, 5, 7), and the mod subculture (shot in 5). The idea behind the shoot  arose when my band were asked to perform at Hawley Arms in Camden, and so I though this would be the perfect opportunity to photograph the experience for shoot 10, as it is a build up of all the different themes of the series so far being different examples of youth culture and music. I knew that for the majority of the shoot I'd be unable to photograph as I'd be playing on stage, and so after studying Nikki S Lee and her technique of portraying a subculture and getting a stranger to photograph her, I wanted to use this technique, I found it was really effective in showing a scope into my world of performing with my band, for the rest of the shoot IE walking round Camden and for the rest of the time we weren't performing, I would always photograph, therefore the shoot has a good mix.

Summary/ Recap over shoots and Project proposal-

Overall I feel as though I have developed my series on British culture and learnt what worked well in the shoots. I believe I made an effective and cohesive body of work, the theme of British culture developed more into Youth culture and music within Britain, however I do think that that was purely due to the reflection on my age, and therefore my subjects were the same age as me generally, because all my shoots are not entirely about youth, and more broadly British sub-cultures, so to conclude my original project proposal to shoot British culture has been successfully achieved. For my project Proposal, I stated that I wanted to shoot in documentary style photography on British culture, I also said how I would love to experiment with film and black and white photography, which I haven't done as I haven't had the access to the sort of resources. Also, I  stated that I would wanted to focus on portraiture as a method for illustrating British culture, I have fulfilled this in shoots like; 1, 4, 5, 6, 7. All the shoots that I use the means of portraiture to show British culture, they are not overtly portrait works but are generally documentary portrait style. In choosing my Portfolio, I purely chose my favourite images from each series, which ones most successfully portrayed British culture in single few images, I wanted to include images from every shoot as I thought it was important to show the development and improvement.