Shoot Two - Work Record

In this shoot I wanted to challenge societies stereotypes surrounding age. In this shoot I decided to photograph one of my elderly neighbours smoking under a street lamp at night, I chose to do this in order to challenge ideas about youth and the elderly, as this activity would usually be associated with younger individuals, not an elderly lady. Moreover, this shoot challenges, and explores the way different people lead their lives, as usually you  wouldn't think that an elderly individual would roam the streets at night; however this is not normality but a mere difference in the way people chose to conduct their lives daily. 
In this shoot I wanted my neighbour to have her hood up, as this would link in the viewers mind to anti-social youths, therefore causing conflict in the viewers mind. 
I photographed this shoot using a tripod, in order to make my images as sharp as I possibly could, I experimented with my images by not using flash, however I found this gave my images a red/orange tone to the photograph due to the street lights- therefore, I believed that the images where I used flash came out better, and clearer as I could capture the wrinkles on my neighbours face, which allowed me to strongly portray to the viewer how old she is. 
Overall, I believe this shoot was a success as in my images there's no shadowing, which I tried hard to eliminate as I believe this makes the images look unrealistic; moreover, I believe the connotation I aimed to portray is done so efficiently as the wrinkles on the ladies face are evident, meanwhile exploring how different people can live.
Inspiration: Mary Ellen Mark inspired me for this shoot with her image of a nine year old girl smoking, this made me question about societal norms, therefore it caused me to want to explore our perceptions of society about how individual's live, therefore in this shoot I chose to challenge societies perceptions of elderly people, therefore I chose to photograph my elderly neighbour smoking on the street in order to challenge the perception we have of people, and how we, as a society, can be extremely judgemental. 

Best image of this shoot:

This image I believe is the most effective from this shoot, as the background is completely black, which allows the viewer to deduct that the subject is outside, alone- this consequently creates questions within the viewers mind as to why she is there, and what she is doing, as it's unusual to see an elderly lady out alone after nightfall; subsequently this relates to the different ways in which individual's chose to live their lives. The cigarette in the individual's hand is a symbol of death, as it's common knowledge that smoking kills, therefore this may be a link to show how the individual is close to death, possibly due to illness or old age? I wanted to capture the individual's hand, as the subject suffers with arthritis in the hands, therefore by capturing her crooked fingers within this image it allowed me to again exploit her age, along with the texture from the wrinkles on her face. Moreover, the individual's glasses exploit another weakness as she cannot see extremely well, therefore this creates conflict in the audience's mind, as if the subject can't see well, then why is she out at night? Furthermore, I chose to convert this image into black and white as I believe that it makes the image appear more edgy, and ambiguous as the viewer cannot see everything clearly (e.g. the background.)

I photographed the above image on the following camera settings: ISO 3200, shutter speed 1/60 and an F stop of 5.6....

Worst image of this shoot:

The above image is the worst from my shoot as there's deep shadowing within the image behind the subject, this is due to me using flash, but not using the correct angle; in my other photographs that I angled from the other side of the subject, no shadowing occurred. Furthermore, the audience cannot see all of the detailing on the viewer's face, which means it's not as easy to work out the age of this individual, therefore making it harder to work out the connotation of the shoot. I photographed this image on the following camera settings: ISO 3200, F 5, and a shutter speed of 1/60, I also used flash within my photograph whilst also using a tripod to reduce any shaking.

 However, I do like the portrait angle of the image, as it allows the viewer to see more details  in this photograph, including the subject's clothing and the brick wall behind. 

If I was to reshoot this image, then I would have positioned myself at the other side of the subjection order to eliminate the shadowing behind the subject. 

Progression:

If I was to conduct this shoot again I would compare my neighbours lifestyle (smoking) to another individual, in order to strongly focus on the two differences that can occur between individuals. More interestingly, I would like to focus on family members, as they would have been raised in similar ways, therefore any differences that exist when they're older are more interesting that any differences between complete strangers, who would have had completely different lives. 

How I edited my photographs:

Firstly in photoshop I opened the image I wished to edit, by clicking 'file' at the top of the screen, then 'open' before clicking on the image I wanted. Next, I moved my cursor to the bottom right hand corner of the screen and selected the button which is in the centre of the panel, which looks like a half moon:

I then selected the black and white option on the panel which pops up:

Another menu will then pop up (as shown below)

Once you have adjusted each colour slider to where you are satisfied then you must go the the 'opacity' option, which is located as shown below:

Then you must drag the slider in order to change how opaque you wish the black and white filter to be, once you have done this your image is complete.