The final concept for the project was to create something that you most enjoyed in the course and however you wanted to do it. I developed my idea by deciding to do photography because that’s the thing I most enjoyed and the part of the media that I want to carry on doing. Once I decided I wanted to do photography I chose what I enjoyed to do on the weekends or something, that was theme parks so I decided to do something within theme parks and create my project through that.

Planning:
To make this project work I had to do quite a bit of planning before going out and taking the pictures. I needed to plan what kind of photos I wanted take at the theme parks, I came to the decision that you have quite a lot of adrenaline whilst there so I thought I could get peoples facial expressions, try and get how fast the rides were going through the pictures also the different kind of rides they have in different places. I also needed to plan where and when I wanted to go to get the pictures I wanted. To do this I choose the places I like the most and enjoy the most, so I chose Alton Towers, Thorpe Park and Brighton. I wanted to make sure that I went to each place when the weather was nice and had a good sky so the pictures could turn out better. My project did follow my plan pretty closely, there were a few things I didn’t manage to follow, for example I said I was going to go to Shepherds Bush fairground to get different types of photos but I chose not to and mainly focus on adrenaline and more theme park kind of rides and roll coasters. I also didn’t use a go-pro or tripod like I said I might have done in my plan, this is because I wasn’t allowed to use go-pros in the parks and I found it easier to not use a tripod when I was taking the pictures. Finally, I didn’t take peoples facial expressions when they were on the ride, this is because I thought that they might not want to have photos taken of them and that I would rather focus on the ride itself instead of the people on it. I feel like my plan could’ve gone more smoothly if I had actually planned what kind of photos I wanted to get before I got to each location to make it easier to get the phots, instead of guessing where to take them and then looking around and fining better places to go to get the pictures I wanted to get. One thing that I found hard whilst doing this project was to find the best locations to get the right picture at each of the rides I went to. I also found it hard to make sure that no one would get in the pictures where I didn’t want them, some kept walking right in front so I got the top of their head when I didn’t want to. Finally, I found it hard to edit some of the final pictures I have chosen to make sure they are how I want them to be. One thing that I found easy was choosing the rides I wanted to get photos of, another is what kind of shots I wanted to get and how to show the speed of the rides.

Research:
I done quite a bit of research for my final project, for example I have researched the different types of genres within photography, how other photographers take photos of fast moving objects or things, how to do different kind of edits on the photos, the different locations I will use and what shutter speed was best for the different kind of rides. To do this research I used quite a few different research sources, I used YouTube to help me learn how to do different edits, I used google to help me research about another photographer: Aspland, Marc. (2012). What’s in your kitbag?. Available: https://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/education/technical/whats_in_your_kitbag_marc_aspland.do. Last accessed 23th April 2019. I cam across quite a few good sources of research as well as bad ones. An example of a good research source was this one to help with part of my editing: 

This was a useful and a good video to use to help me because it was really clear on how to do what I wanted to do, it also gave me more than one way to do it and how to create different types of blur for the different part of the picture.

An example of a bad research source is Adobe. (2019). Dodge or burn image areas. Available: https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/photoshop/using/dodge-burn-image-areas.html. Last accessed 16th May 2019. I didn’t like like this website and didn’t find it as useful as it didn’t give much detail on how to use the tools it also doesn’t tell you what the outcome will look like and doesn’t give you an example of the final thing.

Production:
To do this project I didn’t really use that much equipment, I only really used my Nikon P500 camera to take all the pictures I needed. To get my pictures I needed to go to each of the locations first, then walk round the each of the theme parks to see where and what rides I wanted to get photos of, once I had done this I went back to the rollacoasters I wanted to get and get the photos of them. When I had got all of the photos I needed I looked back at them to make sure they were how I wanted them to be and to make sure they weren’t out of focus. Finally, once I had got all of the photos I needed to put them onto my laptop to look at them on a bigger screen to 100% make sure they were what I wanted incase I needed to go back to one of the locations. I did face a few problems whilst doing this, one problem I faced was that I ran out of storage on my camera so I wasn’t able to take any more photos. I fixed this problem by deleting some of the photos that were really blurry and by deleting some of the ones I had taken years ago which are now on my laptop so I could take them off from my camera. Another problem I came across was that one of the rides I wanted to photograph was broken and not running. To solve this I went to other rides that were running and that I could get photos of and went back to that ride later on when it was working again so I was able to get photos of it. One thing that went well was that I managed to get all of the pictures I wanted to get in all of the right angles and places. Another was that I did manage to get to all of the locations I wanted to go to, to get the photos, finally the weather was really nice for all of the days I was shooting so the background of all the pictures were really good and turned out how I wanted them to. One thing that went badly was that some of the positions I wanted to be int o get the photo I wanted, was accessible so I wasn’t able to get the original photo I wanted to get, another was that some of the positions where I wanted to get the photo the sun was right in the way and made the photo really dark so you couldn’t see anything in the photo so I had to move positions to try and get a similar photo that I wanted before. To improve I could’ve gone to each location before I started taking the photos to see what locations at each ride were accessible and where was the best place to get the photo, also to see where the sun was at each part of the day to try and plan what ride to take photos of when instead of wasting time during the days when I was taking my photos.

Post production:
To edit my final photos I used photo shop and the different tools on that there. Some of the tools I used were the brightness, exposure and contrast to change those little details before I do anything bigger and in more detail. I then also used the quick selection tool and the lasso tool to select small bits of a photo if I want to change that part of it. I used the dodge and burn tool to brighten and darken parts of the photo if I feel it’s too much in your face and to much the center of photo. I used the curves, hue/saturation tool to change that part of the photo if I felt like it was necessary to. Finally, if I wanted to add much more detail to a photo and change even more than just the little changes I used the different types of our tools, for example the lens blur, motion blur and radial blur to create different effects on different photos or different parts of the photo.  To present my final photos I decided to print them and create a photo book with them all in. To do this used a website called ‘papier’ to put them all in and decide where in the book I want them and they will print them all of and sent it to me so I can present them. One thing that I found hard was doing some of the edits on the photos as I didn’t quite understand how to do some of the edits I wanted to do. Another was that finding the right company to print all of my photos and creating the book on, this is because there were quite a few really good ones, I managed to choose this one because some of the other ones kept freezing and shutting half way through what I was doing so I kept losing it, also because this was one of the cheaper ones available. One thing that was easy was deciding where I wanted the photos in the book because I knew what kind of ones I wanted on the same page and I knew which ones I wanted as a whole page by itself.

Overall:
I personally think that it is a successful piece of work, this is because all of the photos I wanted to use turned out how I wanted them and the edited version turned out how I liked as well. I also think that it was successful because the photobook turned out how I wanted it to and the pictures are really clear and good to look at. Overall, I am happy with the final piece of work that I have made, I managed to get the photos I wanted to get from each of the locations I went to. I am proud of the final edited photos I have created, also the final photo book as I did have a few problems with that and the delivery of it arriving. If I were to do this project again I might have taken more photos of more different rides and different kind of rollacaosers to show the full adrenaline theme and to show the different kind of adrenaline feelings you could get. I would also go to more different locations to get more the final photos I could’ve used to create a bigger final project to present. Finally if I were to do this again I would make sure that the paper in the photo book is glossy not a matt finish as I feel its better when glossy.