Shoot Eleven- Graffiti 2- Work Diary

This is my second shoot of my second trip back to Leake Street. As shown in my Shoot 10 and Shoot 12, I split up my focus on this trip capturing different aspect. This Shoot 11 was focused on the actual graffiti and the messages it can hold. Much like Shoot 10, this shoot wasn't aimed at capturing subjects as such, just the work they leave behind because I believe that the emotions of youth can be represented just as well through the artwork of graffiti than the body language of a physical subject. Even though this is very similar to a different shoot regarding graffiti, I decided to go back to Leake Street anyway because every time you go, there will always be new graffiti, a new perspective, a new canvas every time you visit. I therefore believe Leake Street in general was a good location for this photography project.

My favourite photo from this shoot:

I find this image really interesting because for the main reason of the bold colour of red being contrasted with white writing. I also find there is satire and irony within this photo. This is because the use of child theme of the child toy logo of LEGO implying a fun atmosphere, however when you read the writing underneath the graffiti, the artist has written "So until we find a cure for cancer... Lets Dance", which could be classed as satire because it is finding humour in something as dark as cancer. But on the other hand it could be suggested this artist is trying to "make the best out of a bad situation". Using the LEGO figurine of Ziggy Stardust/ David Bowie as a tribute drawing the audeinces eye. The strong meaning behind this image is the main reason why I have chosen this photo for my favourite image from this shoot.

My least favourite photo from this shoot:

Due to the framing of this image, I do not think it was as successful as it could have been/ than the other images within this shoot. This is because it is a clear strip of graffiti yet I have captured it at a strange angle which doesn't work very well. A way I could have improved this image would have been to position this part of the graffiti in the middle of the frame and also as straight as possible. The image above and this one links really though despite this because they were both done by the same person, across the whole tunnel the sign of PAD came up a lot suggesting this person had a running theme. In the image shown above, it is near the beginning of the text, yet this one was nearer the end so we are seeing more names.Another aspect to this image which I do not think works as well as the one above is the lighting, where the one above stands out, I do not think this image draws the audience eye as much as it could have. This could have therefore been improved by using my flash on my camera so the characters drawn would have been clearer. Additionally, I took this image quite quickily and therefore didn't take as much thought into the actual framing of the graffiti as I should have. For example, I should have chosen more carefully the part of graffiti which I wished to capture ad therefore add just that section and perhaps moved across the work, this way it would have meant I wouldn't have characters arms at the edges of the beginning of a new part of graffiti. This is a key reason why I do not like this image as much as the other images within this shoot because it cuts out other aspects.

Overall...

Overall I am really happy with the outcome of this this shoot because even though there isn't as much grittiness displayed within my images here in this shoot, I still believe it complies really well with the stereotypical youth representation. Furthermore, as much as I was happy with the Shoot Four Graffiti shoot, I believe this one worked much better because I planned to take photos of the graffiti more, even though shoot four does work really well with the gritty side and it is more documentary, I think that Shoot 4 was a really good inspiration for this shoot because due to the success of that shoot it gave me the idea of exploring this location further.