A Sense of Place - final selection

In selecting the six images, I have considered the following factors:-
- Photos which illustrate the narrative
- Photos which convey a sense of the place chosen as the subject
- The visual variety and impact of the photos
As mentioned in the introduction, I have not considered page layout requirements or the like. Since commenting that my photos may have too few portrait frame pictures in the set, it did occur to me that for on-line publishing horizontal frames seem to be the most common presentation. Both desktop and laptop screens are horizontal rectangular shapes which tends to encourage landscape shaped images.
My choice of six is set out below.
Image 2: Old and modern offices

Image 5: Friary Bridge and buildings on central traffic island

Image 6: Onslow Bridge

Image 7: Millmead car park

Image 12: Two seater kayak

Image 13: Couple fishing

Four of these images show various aspects of the central riverside area in Guildford, the buildings, the traffic, the bridges and the car parks. This Guildford is not the town that appears in the Guildford Tourist Office publications. The last two pictures illustrate some of the few people who recognize the river as an amenity and make use of it.
I excluded Images 1(Office of bus depot), 3 (Debenhams) and 4 (Theatre) as I felt that the sense of place could be conveyed sufficiently without them. The photos that I have included are more essential to the narrative and in some cases they are stronger images.
I excluded Images 8 (Millbrook car park) and 9 (Pay and Display Millbrook car park) as I felt that this aspect of the narrative is conveyed by Image 7, even though the composition of Image 7 is rather busy.
I excluded Images 10 (Coxed-four turning) and 11 (Preparations for the kayaking competition) because I considered the Images 12 and 13 had stronger composition.
Conclusions
Apart from producing the photographs, the objectives in this assignment were to:

• To show the character of the place and the people.
• To show as much visual variety as possible.
• To take time to get to know the location reasonably well

Character

The characteristic of the central riverside area that I chose as my subject is that it has been developed mainly to satisfy the needs of traffic and commerce. As a result, much of the riverbank area seen by visitors and shoppers is aesthetically unattractive.  Relatively few people make use of the river's amenities. 

Looking at this topic from a visual standpoint, inevitably, the physical environment is the dominant theme. The people will generally be anonymous, providing visual interest to the scene and sometimes providing a sense of activity in the locations. I feel that I made use of human figures where it was reasonably possible to do so.

Visual variety

The final selection of six images included a variety of lighting conditions both during the daytime and at dusk. One of the images uses a portrait oriented frame. Most of the images were taken with a standard view lens, but one was taken with a medium telephoto. I would describe the presentation of the monochrome images as high contrast but somewhat shadowy and low key. I felt that this suited the subject matter far better than a medium or high key treatment. I thought that the general tone of the images should be reasonably consistent one with another. 

Knowledge of location

In planning and executing this assignment, I have not only become familiar with the paths along the riverside, but also I have discovered a variety of potential photographic viewpoints for future projects. 

Did the assignment succeed?

It may only be possible to properly judge the success of a set of images for this photojournalistic type of assignment by putting together text and photographs into a final form, whether for print or web-based media.  However, I was surprised that it was possible to make reasonable pictures of unpromising subjects (the office of a bus depot!!)  with the right choice of lighting and presentation. 

Photographic opportunities that were not available

The main photographic opportunity that I would like to have had, but did not, was an opportunity to take a boat along the river to take photographs from closer to water level. The places which might have been able to provide a boat were closed in December, and furthermore, the full flood condition of the river would probably have prevented this. 

Importance of end result to the project

I found it absolutely essential to have an end result in mind in order to decide what photographs to take and which ones to include in the final selection. Without having the narrative structure to guide me, it is certain that I would have left out some important photographic subjects.