The document provides an evaluation of a fantasy photography project. The student enjoyed exploring a wide range of fantasy-related ideas including fairy tales, nightmares, and darker concepts. They found their shoot recreating the horrors of Auschwitz to be the most interesting and difficult. For their exam, the student chose to focus on fairy tales and put their own twist on classic tales like Alice in Wonderland by depicting the Queen of Hearts bathing in blood. The student aimed to tell deeper visual stories through their shoots and found that forest locations worked well for conveying fairy tale themes. Overall, the project allowed the student to gain new skills and explore creative ideas in photography.

1. Project Evaluation
I have really enjoyed this Fantasy project as it has
allowed me to be very creative, and explore a range of
different ideas. What I really liked about this was how
versatile the term is, as it can range from real life
fantasies to nightmares and fairy tales and I have
explored most avenues of the term to see how I could
represent the ideas. In some ways I have built on
previous work that has lent towards the fantasy area, in
terms of looking into portraying darker ideas. However
this is not that evident as I wanted to explore new
ideas.
I looked at different extremities in this project, from
conventional fairy tale ideas, through to real life
nightmares such as Auschwitz. My Auschwitz shoot I
feel was most likely the most interesting, and hardest shoot I done as I wanted to show
people what I saw in the realest way, and incorporate into the images the history of what
took place. These shoot was powerful on a personal
level and to those who saw the images, for me I
found it hard comprehending the situation and
editing the images with that in mind, and for the
viewers they found it hard to take in the horrors of
what happened at Auschwitz.
After doing a few shoots, I decided that the area I
wanted to work on and explore in depth was the
idea of fairy tales. What my focus during this topic
turned out to be in this unit was constructing a visual story depicting an idea, for example
my exam shoot visually representing the classic fairy tale of Alice in wonderland with my
own twist. One this I made sure I don’t during this topic was put my own spin on ideas,
manipulating existing fairy tale ideas so I was not just reshowing what they are but showing
them with a twist. This then creates a new idea rather than just copying existing ones.
This is most evident during my third exam shoot
based on the well know Queen of Hearts from Alice
in Wonderland – a children’s fairy tale that has been
represented in various different ways. I chose to
follow a darker path with this shoot and when
recreating the character. Influenced by dark
vampire myths I had the Queen of Hearts bathing in
blood. This created a more morbid, sinister
character while still showing that it was based on
Alice in Wonderland.

2. One thing I generally wanted to do across all my ideas was
explore the use of location more to expand upon the ideas I
was showing and create a deeper story. This is something I
achieved. I used the forest location for a lot of my shoots
which worked well as forest settings are closely linked to
most fairy tales and therefore worked out well for me. In
some cases, the studio worked better as I could construct
the image more precisely in terms of background and
lighting, which worked best for
my fashion shoot as it kept the
focus solely on the model and I
could experiment with different
lighting. The difference
between using studio and a
location is evident in my very first shoot showing the idea of
fairy tale princesses which took place in studio and forest, with
the forest images telling more of a story.
One thing I found difficult was representing certain ideas
exactly how I wanted them, and that in some cases prevented
me from shooting them. For example, I wanted to shoot a
Enchanted inspired shoot, but I could not find anyone willing to
walk around London in a princess ball gown. Another thing I found difficult was picking a
direction in which to take my project in terms of
the exam after experimenting with different
ideas. I knew I wanted to focus on fairy tales but
there was a few different ways I wanted to
interpret them. I them end, I combined them all
together, the morbid take, the eccentric themes
and the classic ideas. This worked out really well
for me, and allowed me to be very creative and
manipulate the Alice in Wonderland story
however I wanted.
Overall, I really have enjoyed working on this
topic, and it has allowed me to gain new
techniques and given me the opportunity to
explore various new ideas and look at more
eccentric, fantasy based photographers and look
to them for inspiration. As I did not have the time
to look even deeper into the topic, it is
something I may do in the future.