Evaluation

This project has allowed me to become more conceptual with my work allowing me to give my work more meaning than just what was on the surface. I chose to look into dreams as I feel people overlook how weird yet wonderful dreams can be. Everyone dreams every night for roughly two hours but you forget much as 95% of what you dreamt very quickly after waking up. The purpose behind dreams isn't know yet but it is suspected that it helps to process your emotions. People often say that our dreams are reflection of our true thoughts and feelings which is one of the reasons I chose a mirror to be part of this project.

My initial idea behind the mirror is that it is a portal to your dreams and the cracks represent how fragmented our memories are of our dream. Hence why you can only see their reflection in the mirror. The coloured lights depict their feeling in their dreams.

I chose to add song lyrics as they add more emotion therefore adding more context to the image.

As soon as we got the brief I knew I wanted to base the project around dreams as I think they are really interesting as there is no official reason as to why we do. I quickly came up with the idea of not showing the actual dream because we forget so many of them. I initially struggled to come up with how I was going to represent the dreams. I brainstormed and the main ideas I came up with were:

• looking into insomnia

• mirrors as a portal

• sleep walking (random locations)

• using projectors (maybe to show the dream)

To begin with I didn’t do overly much in-depth research at the beginning of my project which is not good. I only looked at three photographers I think if I had looked into more I wouldn’t have got so stuck when my ideas didn’t work well. I found a lot of photographers that I l liked when I was making my mind map and I really should have gone back to them when I got stuck. I have done a lot of different research for this project, to help my theory, but looking back I think I should have looked thoroughly into a few more.

I looked into Hannah Starkey, Cody William Smith and Kanghee Kim as my initial inspiration. I then looked into Duane Michals but I wasn’t overly keen on his work. I liked Laura El-Tantawy’s work however it didn’t quite fit with how I wanted to continue my project.

Later on, I looked into Gregory Crewdson and Hannah Starkey when doing library research when reading I then revisited ‘Hannah Starkey 1997-2017’ and ‘Art Photography Now’ by Susan Bright.

I decided to start with mirrors as portal as I thought it would be an interesting and slightly surreal perspective. However, my first shoot went really badly as it didn't make sense I put a mirror on the bed then using Photoshop layered different places over the top. This just made it look like a canvas meaning no one would know that it is a dream. I then decided that someone would have to be in the image to show that it is someone’s dream. In a group crit session they helped me come up with the idea of cracking the mirror and having it part reflection, part dream. I really liked this idea, having said that, the idea did not turn out very well. I think it just looked tacky and messy. I did two shoots for this idea the second one the images turned out well but it was just the editing that I hated. As I really liked the images I wanted to still be able use them.

At this point I became uninspired and struggled to think of new ideas. After a fair amount of thought I decided I could use the images from the second shoot without editing them as I didn't want to show the actual dreams anymore because you barely remembered what happen in them. The cracks would represent how fragmented our memories are. I played around with cropping the images in various ways as I decided that I didn't like the frame as it was too distracting so I wanted to get rid a lot of it.

From there I decided to add in the coloured light to add depth and meaning. I really liked these images as they told you a little bit more about the image without giving to much away. After a crit session with Nick White I wanted to get a circle mirror and reshoot however I couldn't find a circle mirror that wasn't really expensive and not shatter proof, I was gutted. I didn't let this deter me. I found a new mirror that had a much smaller frame meaning it was much was much easier to crop and edit out. It was quite a bit later I decided to add in the song lyrics.

I decided to hand make my book rather than get it professionally printed as I wanted to give it a personal touch as dreams are so intimate and personal. I also wanted to learn something new. I have never made a book before and I wanted to take the risk challenge myself. It was quite a big risk as it had to go well as I wouldn't have time to send off for a professionally made one if it didn't go well.

After a bit of trouble, I think my book turned out okay. It could have gone better if I had chosen a different binding method. The covers and pages are too thick to allow the book to open properly. I know the technique isn't a lay flat design but it should be easier to flick through.

I chose to use mount board as the covers as I wanted it to have a sturdy cover. I chose card for the pages as, again, I wanted it to be sturdy and not bend under the weight of the photos. I did all this in hopes that it would look professional but I think I have slightly missed the mark due to the way I have bound it, however I know this for the next time I make a book as I'm sure this will not be the last time as on the most part I enjoyed making it.

All together I am happy with how this project has turned out as I feel I have successfully created a series of images that lead you to think how interesting and confusing dreams are and how therapeutic day dreaming can be.

If I was to do this project again I want to get more people involved so that I can show a bigger range of people’s experiences. If I was to do this I would show less images about each person but have more people to show. I would buy multiple mirrors and try to vary how many cracks are in each mirror to represent how fragmented the memories of the dreams are.

I would also bind my book differently. I would try Coptic binding as it is a lay flat method that allows you to have a chunky front and back covers. I wasn’t bothered about having a lay flat method to begin with but now that I have made my book I think it would give the book a more professional look and allow you to really study each image.

I am defiantly interested in continuing this project as like I said previously I want to photograph more people to get more varied images. I would also want to look into insomnia and other things like that as people who suffer from that struggled dreaming because they have such a lack of sleep.