The Photostory - Self evaluation

I consider this assignment as the most challenging of this Academic term, it has been the first time for me to develop such a complete piece of work and this is the kind of project that I want to develop during my professional career.

Working on this story pushed me to communicate with people, not only with my subjects but also with all the figures that collaborated with me; in particular the journalist Jane, who, as the charity’s leader, followed me from the beginning to the end.

I also had to deal with publishing formalities, like the permission of release and the privacy policies that are elements you must always take in consideration when working professionally.

For these reasons, I strongly believe that this project can be considered as a key training stage for my future career.

Taking into account my work as a first experience, I am proud of this submission and I believe this is my personal strongest project presented this year.

Obviously, there are many weak points that I could have done better. I think I should have spent more time with my subjects and the technical problems I had with the equipment borrowed from the store would have been completely avoided checking that everything worked properly before going on location.

The images that I decided to use in the magazine layout and the photo film work effectively as a sequence, I have included a range of spaces (indoor and outdoor) as well as still lifes and action shots, close-ups and wide angle pictures. However, I have not covered a very important aspect of Emily’s story, which is the supporting group environment. Even only an extra picture covering this part of her life would have made the story much more complete and effective.

The aesthetic of my magazine spread fits very well the National Geographic, though I believe my story may be suitable for this publication only as a part of a bigger project, for examples covering several young carers or as a long-term piece of work focusing on the same family.

Also producing a movie clip has been something completely new to me, I think I have been able to get very strong material from my interviews, but the registrations and the edited audio of my photo film clearly have some technical issues that affect the quality of the final submission.

In conclusion, considering this project as the first experience of this kind, I am honestly satisfied. Now that I am aware of the mistakes that I made working on this story, I will be much more careful to avoid them in the future. Furthermore, I believe this work has a strong potential development and I am considering to develop it has a long-term project.