When I started this project I wanted to shoot different subject matter than I did in my 'The Figure in Photography'. In that project I shot primarily architecture and street photography so for initially for Unit X I wanted to focus on photographing people. Firstly I shot street photographs of people doing 'everyday' things such as smoking, reading or looking at their phone, I shot the photographs on 35mm colour film and was reasonably happy with them as they were only suppose to be a start point. I showed the photographs to Alan and he said the idea behind them was too simple and obvious and suggested I head in another direction, we talked about the theme and talked about photographing simple compositions in the room such as chairs against the wall and how different objects go together. From the meeting I felt I needed to photograph something different so I started photograph patterns and shapes within architecture, although I wanted to shoot something other than architecture for the project I was confident I could present it in an interesting and different way than I previously had. I started shooting patterns in rails and various other geometric structures that people see everyday but never really notice. Some of my favorite photographs I created were taken in this early period like the black and white photograph of a hand rail in hard sunlight, the rail had horizontal bars which curved around the composition creating hard shadows which looked interesting. Another photograph from that shoot which stood out to me was a photograph of a wall with a variety of textures that looked a lot like a Rothko painting. After this shoot I decided to focus on more geometric architecture and different patterns and textures within it. Another stand out photograph for me is a photograph taken in the parking structure under the Convention Centre, this was a key location for me as I shot there quite a few times after and ended up photographing the location shooting for my final pieces. There is a stair set in the building that is plain white and had a very 2D geometric form that contrasted well against the brick background. By this point I felt I needed to develop my work into something more intricate and complicated and I had just purchased a Nikon FE which allowed me to shoot double exposures so I decided to do that. This was during Easter break so I went to Birmingham hoping to photograph some interesting looking architecture and found a grotty parking structure with lots of square architecture and metal pipes (quite industrial), the type of place people visit but never take time to study its form. I decided to shoot double exposures of this location overlapping different parts of architecture and pipes. The photographs looked very interesting as they resembled cubist structures and the pieces of architecture were taken out of context and used to create new patterns. I decided this was the right direction to go so I shot more double exposures back in Manchester, I shot in the same format on the same type of film as the previous shoot looked interesting and I wanted to use on of the images as a final piece. I feel my work developed well and I used new techniques I had never previously used and I managed to present architecture in a new way that differs heavily from my previous work.
