Creative Intentions guidance - Unit 09 A.P1

Creative intentions

 Most of you up till now would have taken ‘Snapshots’ with your phones and DSLR’s, with little or no thought to the ‘Creative intention’. Now that you’ve signed up for a level 3 course in photography you now have to work with a ‘Creative Intention’. Your first assignment is ‘Cardboard camera’ and you’ll be making your own camera out of junk and taking pictures with it.

The theme/subject for the cardboard camera assignment is ‘Sinister’. Therefore the ‘Creative intention’ is that you’re going to make pictures that are sinister.

You now have to think about aspects such as design. You have to design your images so that when the viewer looks at them is able to see that your creative intention was to make the images looks sinister.

 You’ve been given two artists who’s work has a sinister aspect to them. This sinister aspect is a result of the way the images have been designed and comes about through a whole range of different attributes that the photographer has considered and incorporated. These decisions about what is in the image and what is not, is a part of the creative intention process and is something you need to write about when deconstructing and analysing the image in your research.

Photographers design their images, they don’t just happen and they’re not snapshots, their images come about through a series of conscious decisions where they construct and design all of the visual elements. These visual elements include designing and making decisions about…

·         Where you take the pictures

·         When you take the pictures

·         What’s in the background

·         Who or what the picture is of.

·         What props are used in the images.

·         How body language is used

·         How facial expressions are used

·         How hair and make-up is used

·         How big the subject is in the frame

·         How much negative space is in the image

·         What is used in the image to create mood

·         Shape

·         Line

·         Form

·         Texture

·         Colour or black and white

·         Contrast

·         Tonality

·         What camera you use

·         What film you use

·         What process you use

·         What post-production you apply

·         How the image is cropped and framed

·         How the images are styled

·         How narrative is used

·         Whether the message is conveyed through the use one or more images

 All these elements are components of your ‘Creative Intention’.

The research for first assignment ‘Cardboard camera’ (Summer research project) requires that you…

“Explain how photographic materials, techniques and processes are used to communicate creative intentions”. (A.P1)

Therefore the majority of what you write for the summer research project involves all the above. 

Going forwards...

Once you get to college and you start making images you need to start to consider all of these things when you make your images. The other Creative Intention aspects you need to think about in more depth are...

• What purpose might my images be used for? 
• What type of images are they (Fine art - Editorial - Advertising/commercial) most of the work you'll do over the 2 years falls into the Fine art and Editorial category.
• Where might my work be used or seen in a professional context?
• What is the message/meaning that I'm trying to convey through the images?
• Who will the audience be - what demographic do they belong to?
• Is there a narrative/story being conveyed and how is this done?
• Do I need to sum up the whole meaning/narrative in one image or am i going to use several?

This term "Creative Intentions' comes up again in other units and you should aim to use it when producing your work in the future to clarify what your intention is when you're making your own images. Ideally this is discussed in your analysis, reflective work and final evaluations.