Photography Year 1

Since beginning this module, I have gained a lot of experience while learning and sharing new and improving upon skills. Working together as a group has provided me with new knowledge and it has allowed us to support each other’s ideas and opinions. There has also been great difficulty with working collaboratively such as a lot of issues regarding communication and time management complications. This definitely affected how effectively we worked together and how capable we were with collaboratively producing the final outcome. However, despite the challenges that we faced throughout this project, we were all happy with the final piece of work that we had produced and presented.

After initially meeting, we all came up with and agreed on a plan for our project. We first of all agreed and enjoyed the idea that we would create a ‘monopoly’ style board game that would represent Ebrington street. In the meeting, we were all assigned our own job roles to undertake that would help us to get the project completed on time. All of the members of the group were each given tasks to fill out research regarding all the properties that are located on Ebrington street. All of these properties were allocated colours so that we could distribute the research fairly. The use of the colours also meant that the game we designed could look more like monopoly, where all the properties on the board are marked with colours. I took the role of researching food establishments on Ebrington street. The properties that I researched were Jade garden and Aroma wood fired pizza. I found these places initially difficult to research as there was not much information available online. I proceeded to email the restaurants to see what information they could provide me with. This helped me find material that was relevant to our research and that would help us continue this project. Everybody in the group shared their research on a team drive which was useful as we could see what others were contributing to the group. We also all kept in contact using a group chat so communication with one another was always accessible.

After conducting our initial research of Ebrington street, we began to list all the elements that we needed to create our ‘monopoly’ style game. The elements that we felt we would need included: chance cards, property cards, counters and a rule book. I took the role of photographing all of the properties. This was something I felt comfortable doing and it was a role that I felt was a large contribution to the task. This is because the images were going to be used on the board and box design, for the property cards and the booklet. The booklet is something we decided would be a good addition to the board game as it included all of the research and the images laid out in an organised, presentable way. Everyone chose their own role that would help us get the game done in time for the presentation. We all chose roles that we felt we could bring their skills to effectively and that could make the best possible outcome.

One of the members of the group took on a leadership role for the project. This did help us make sure that everybody was contributing something to the project. It also helped divide the roles out between everybody in the group. The approach we took to the project meant that the whole experience was quite organised and planned. The use of the team drive and group chat helped us to keep on top of work and to know what everybody in the group was contributing. All work in the drive was labelled and in individual folders that we all had access to. Despite being organised, we still had some issues with time and communication regarding the making of the game and members of the group not communicating what they were contributing to the project. This made it difficult for me to be involved in some of the making for the game in the project as I was unsure of what was being done at the time.

This experience has provided me with more knowledge and skills than I had before. I also found it quite challenging and intimidating to work in a large group of people as everyone had their own opinions and ideas for the project. Although this was good, it meant that it was difficult to keep on top of everything. Despite me normally enjoying group work, I found the experience to be very overwhelming. However, I did still enjoy this project as it allowed me to use different techniques outside of my practise that I found entertaining. During this project, I have learnt and improved on more leadership and team working skills. This will help me in the future for more collaborative projects. The outcome that we had produced for this project made me realise that everyone’s ideas can work cohesively together.

We felt that this layout was inviting for people to come over and play the game that we created. Everything was presented in a clear way that made it easy for people to understand.

The actual board design was created by the PDP students as they felt it was something that they wanted to contribute to the project. My image was used on the board which helped the game relate more to Ebrington street. The game also helps and allows people to connect with Ebrington street and to learn more about the history and culture.

Amy created the booklet for our project using Indesign. My images and everybody research was included in the booklet. This works well with our project and helps provide context to the game.

Booklet design:

In this project, I took on the role of doing all of the photography. These images would be used for the board and box design as well as the booklet and property cards. I wanted to keep the images simple so that it could work better with the game. I photographed the main overview of the street to go with the board and box and photographed properties head on for the property cards. I did some more ‘creative’ images too for the project.

Examples of some images I contributed:

I was allocated the ‘orange’ properties which meant that I was tasked with researching Jade garden and Aroma wood fired pizza. I completed most of this research online as well as emailing the businesses to see what information they could provide that would be relevant to the game. The research that I did went on a ‘property card’ which fits along with the monopoly inspired game.

‘Property cards’:

The properties along Ebrington street were marked with different colours. The colours were then allocated to different people in the group to research. By doing this, the research is shared fairly between us and allowed us to complete whatever type of research we wished.

The research was to be included in the booklet and also helped us create ‘property values’ for the game.

Colours for the properties:

After having an initial group meeting, we decided that we would create a much simplified version of a ‘monopoly style’ board game that would represent all of the properties located on Ebrington street. We concluded that this would be the best way to go about this project as we could all use our skills collaboratively. For our board game we would design a card for each property that would have similar colours and ranked values much like the ones from Monopoly. We would also create ‘chance’ cards that would have a mix of positive and negative outcomes.

In this meeting we discussed ideas for the project and how we were going to go about completing the work. This meeting gave us a clear idea of how the project was going to go and helped us feel more confident about moving forward.

Notes from the meeting:

I feel that this project was quite successful. I chose a theme that related well to the project title and my images portrayed this effectively. In this project, I think that I could have researched more relevant artists and photographers to help my work progress further. Although I was happy with the outcome, I think that if I spent some more time working with the images, they could have turned out a lot better and more interesting. 

These are the final images that I chose for this project:

When I did this shoot, I had a much clearer picture of how I wanted to portray my idea. The research I did helped me as it made my idea clearer about how I wanted to show my idea. The last shoot was quite successful so I wanted to replicate a few aspects from it into this shoot. 

‘Barriers’ - 2008

Photographed textures of erosion and corrosion of barrier remnants that represent the theme of being lost. He photographed them against the blue Australian sky. 

‘Borders and barriers’

An ongoing project that looks at how separation walls in conflicts contribute to being a physical and psychological barrier to a ‘positive peace’.