The final project of my Foundation Degree was called "Exhibition" and as the name suggests I had to assign myself a project brief, brainstorm, research and plan an idea, create a set of images and then exhibit them alongside my classmates work at the end of the year in our college's gallery.
Admittedly, I was my own worst nightmare for this project. My classmates were shooting month long projects; documenting football teams or creating elaborate costumes, whereas I didn't even know what I wanted to do.
A week before the deadline I had a panicked chat with my tutor and he suggested a revisit some of my old college projects and reshoot one of them. My favourite project was an Environmental Portrait project called "Unusual Occupation", so I decided to redo this and set out to find an interesting subject.
Luckily, one of my Dad's freinds, works for the Fire Department. So I gave him a call and he arranged a visit for me. I was meant to be shooting an animal rescue drill but when I arrived at the station in the morning, the acting station manager had no idea who I was and he told me that the drill had been cancelled due to a funeral.
However, he agreed to model for my project later in the afternoon so I came back with an assistant and shot for about an hour next to the fire engines. I was using a Nikon D600 with a 18-85mm lens, attached to a battery-powered studio light with a beauty dish. I choose to use a flash because I thought the portraits needed to be a bit more dramatic, however, after only 10 minutes my flash stopped working and I had to finish the shoot just using my backup speed light and natural light.
Despite the issues with the rescue drill and my studio light, I managed to get some great photos that I am really pleased with and the exhibition was a great success. I also got an excellent grade from the project, despite the fact that I did most of the work in days when my classmates did it in weeks.
Overall; a great end to my Foundation Degree.
