This was my first shoot for my personal project on society. After researching the work of Lauren Greenfield and her project on girl culture, I decided to do something similar, where I can use her techniques and methods in order to produce exciting, symbolic images like hers. This is the reason why I have chosen to focus on boy culture. When planning my shoots, I decided to carry out my first shoot on gang culture, in order to show how boys on estates are easily influenced and have the disadvantage of being part of a gang. I didn't quite know how to do this as approaching gang members would be too dangerous. In the end, I came up with the idea to photograph some estates - by doing this, I will allow myself to explore the different parts of an estate and find different ways in which I could show traces of gangs. Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of signs to show that gangs have been there so I had to improvise and find other ways of showing the rough, violent life boys lead in estates. I was happy with my shoot in the end as the pictures looked really dark and contrast was shown throughout my work but I noticed later on when editing that a tripod could have been used. After discussing my work with my tutor, we both agreed that if a tripod had been used, I would have been able to frame the shot and spend a considerable amount of time trying to figure out what I should or should not include in the scene.
I quite like this picture as I used a blurring technique, creating a mysterious effect. The picture also came out with this sort of red lighting effect due to all the orange/yellow lights in the scene - once again, this creates a mysterious atmosphere and creates excitement in the picture. My subject came out sharp in this image, showing how he is observing everything else around him as time goes past.
This image has a lot of lines, guiding the viewers through the images. The element of depth is also shown here as the corridor gets smaller and smaller as your eyes move through the picture - this allows the viewer to concentrate on the corridor more than the street on the left. The lighting used has also helped with this as the street is barely lit, with the tree covering the lampost, whereas the corridor has lights going down all along it.
This picture is another one of my favourites from the shoot; mostly because the sign has gone all rusty and dirty, almost preventing people from understanding the numbers on it. This gives out the impression that the sign has been there for a long time, giving out elements of tradition. It also shows that the residents who live on the estate are not bothered about cleaning the sign, giving out negative impressions of estates.
On the other hand, I don't think this picture came out as well as I hoped it would. I like the red lighting effect that has been created in front of my subject, symbolic of danger and mystery, daring the subject to enter the estate. However, I don't like how my subject came out so bright, especially his hood, I personally think he distracts the viewer from focusing on the rest of the picture and the more symbolic parts of it.
In the future, I am going to use a tripod. As discussed with my tutor, I would like to see the difference when using a tripod to shoot on the same estate - this will also allow me to experiment with the scene, deciding what I want to include in it and what I don't want to include. This will give me an insight on how to manipulate scenes and how to spend time examining a scene before deciding to shoot it.
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