Written Evaluation

To conclude my personal work in response to ‘Environment’, I have produced 4 A4 prints all featuring ballet dancers within their backstage environment. The concept behind my visual practice was to photograph those closest to me within the environment where they feel most content. I felt that by capturing someone in their `safe space’ it makes them vulnerable and evokes a sense of intimacy in the images as the viewer is being let into the subject’s most personal environment. To perpetuate the concept behind each set of images, before photographing my subject I asked them to write down a brief paragraph which sums up their feeling of contentedness in this particular environment. The statements from each subject allow the viewer of the images to connect with the subject and their story as they find out more about them and their environment. The subjects spoke of many topics from anxiety, illness and loneliness evoking feelings of nostalgia and pity.

The idea for my final photo shoot came when I spoke to my friend Annabel who said she feels most content when dancing and in the backstage environment. Originally I planned on just capturing some posed portraits of her in her ballet shoes and costume, but this changed when I attended Ophelia Wynne’s lecture and saw her series ‘Circus Girls’. Wynne captured circus performers backstage using a documentary style. This inspired me to approach my final shoot in a more documentary style so I decided to capture images of Annabel and the other ballerinas backstage before their show.

I chose these particular 4 images to present as my final prints as they worked the most cohesively when presented as a series. In each image, there are 3-4 dancers in the frame meaning that they all are balanced in composition. Although my images are candid, I still thought out my composition carefully. I used the architecture in the theatre to frame and line up my subjects, for example in the bottom left image I used the stair bannister as a leading line to create perspective. Also, in the bottom right image, I have framed the dancers within the door frame.

If I was to redo my project, I would try and shoot in the documentary style sooner. I think that these images and the style I shot them in work well for my project so I wish I shot in this way sooner. Also, if I was to redo this project, I would try and shoot more on film. I did use the Pentax K1000 for a couple of my shoots to provide additional image alongside my digital ones but I didn’t get that many successful images from it. I think I need to practice film photography more and apply this to my project next time, also I didn’t develop some of my rolls of film that I took until near the end so this meant I didn’t have much time to reshoot any that went wrong.