Shoot Seven- Destruction within Youth culture- Work Diary

For this shoot my main aim was to show the destruction that youth commit, as shown in my Image bank, through researching the London Riots, I wanted to gain a set of images involving bold fire being the main factor in the photo. To complete this shoot, I decided to invite a couple friends round my house on Bonfire night- 5th November to have a bonfire and take photos of them.

My favourite image from this shoot:

I find this image really interesting because the main focus is the fire- the way I wanted yet either side of the frame we see the arms of my subjects which I really like. The reason I wanted to frame the "over the shoulder" shot in this sense because the audience can see my subjects watching the flames- watching the destruction they have created (it was my mum who actually done the fire yet without context the audience would be unable to tell this. Another aspect I like about this photo is the glare on the subjects fur of her hood. Furthermore the subject on the right has patches on her coat which I find interesting because it counter stereotypes the meaning behind this shoot- destruction is associated with the "typical" youth/ teenager, someone looking for trouble yet this view stems an image in the audience mind of a hooded youth, however through the use of a patch shows how it isn't just "hooded Louts" who cause this. Another reason I have chosen this photo for my strongest image in this shoot is because the camera setting I used (a long shutter speed) created the strong strip of flame across the centre of the image- showing the small sparks that come out connected into a line.

My least favourite image from this shoot:

This photo was taken very early on in the evening- the fire had only just recently started so the glare of flames is limited. Even though the audience are still aware that this is fire; it would have been a better photo if the flames were more visual. Furthermore, this image shows my subejcts, yet they do not appear to be happy in being there- them standing far away from eachother suggests a lack of friendship which isn't what I wanted for this shoot. Furthermore, I find this one of my weakest images due to the camera settings resulting in a darker photo- even though you can make out the subjects, it is hard to see them as it's dark.

Overall:

Overall with this shoot i am not really happy with it as I do not think it work as well as I had hoped it to. I do not think the view of a stereotypical youth culture representation. I think to improve this shoot it would have been better with a tripod because then I would have been able to control my camera settings.