AS ART AND DESIGN

COMPONENT PERSONAL CREATIVE ENQUIRY

LEARNER STATEMENT
COMPLETION OF THIS FORM IS COMPULSORY

TO BE COMPLETED BY THE CANDIDATE

Centre Name East Norfolk Multi Academy Trust Centre Number 1 8 2 1 2

Candidate
Candidate Name Jack Duggan
Number 2
Critical &
Circle your Art, Craft &
Fine Art Contextual
Textile Graphic
3D Design Photography
entered title Design Design Comm.
Studies

Complete and submit the learner statement with your work as it will be referred to when it is
assessed. To place your submission in a suitable context, use the template below:
Explain the MAIN IDEA(S) for the development of your responses
The main idea for my project is to create a series of photographs intending to show people why we should
be attempting to preserve and protect nature. Nature is beautiful, and I want to photograph nature in as
many ways as possible to show all the varied beauty of Nature, and then compare it to what nature looks
like when it’s destroyed, so that people can truly see the damage they’re causing and want to change for
the better.

The genre of my work is Landscape/Wildlife photography depending on if I find any animals.

Outline your PLAN(S) for the development of your work

My plans for my project are to go to various natural areas around Norfolk (e.g. the beach of Gorleston,
Bluebell Woods, natural parks, etc.) and photograph various areas of the locations, getting the vast beauty
of nature encompassed in many different images. Then, I intend to look for evidence of natural destruction,
where people have destroyed the natural world (deforestation, plastic on the beaches, etc.) and
photograph those for contrast with the beauty of nature.

In terms of transport, I’ll most likely either take a bus or have someone I know drive me to these locations,
and I am not old enough to drive and do not have a driving license.

Some places I can go to include:

• The Broads (Wroxham, Hickling, Horsey)
• Bluebell Woods
• Gorleston Beach
• How Hill (only specific areas)
• Happensburgh
• Cley and Blakey
• Winterton

In terms of wildlife I’m looking for, I’ll be mostly looking for:

• Deer
• Birds
• Foxes (?)
• Rabbits (?)
• Pheasants

For the type of camera I will be using, I intend to use Digital as digital photography has more editing
opportunities in my opinion along with a crisper image. I’ll try and photograph during the golden hours if
possible, but if that isn’t possible I’ll just photograph primarily during mid-day. There will be no people
(except for if people happen to be in the background). For the equipment I will bring, I am likely to bring a
tri-pod and maybe a camouflage cover in order to help with wildlife photography.

Once I’ve got all my images, I intend to display the photographs with contrast in mind; I will cut the photos
in half (left half for the natural photos and right half for the destroyed photos) and put them together to
show the contrast. Then, I’ll slightly burn the destroyed photos to really put the point across that we’re
destroying nature. Once this is done, I can display them in a sketchbook.

Describe the CONTEXT (influences, purposes and meanings) of your work

The context of my work has many different influences, meanings and purposes. The purpose of my work is
to get people to change their act about nature and attempt to stop destroying it, finding alternative ways for
us to survive and make money without having to take advantage of the natural environment. The meaning
of my work is showing the beauty of nature in contrast to how nature looks once humans have destroyed it.
Finally, the influences of my work stem from various parts of the world. Of course, there are natural
photographers who have inspired me (Ansel Adams and Jon Cornforth mostly). However, another
influence for my work is the effects of global warming inspiring me to want to try and do something to get
people to change their ways as I love nature and do not want it to be destroyed.

The reason I’m influenced by a photographer such as Ansel Adams is since Adams was an
environmentalist in his time, and he greatly cared about the nature he photographed. It’s this care for
nature that inspires me to photograph like him, and I’ll be taking his photos into consideration when doing
my own shoot. I’m unlikely to take his black & white style into consideration, but I’ll be using quite a lot of
his wide depth of field for my photos (at least the ones without a main focal point, where I will use lower
depths of field to get a blurry background). Furthermore, Adams’ high contrast in his photos is a great
inspiration and is part of the reason I’m doing the nature vs destruction theme. Finally, a few of Adams’
photos have a lot of movement in them, which further inspires me to potentially use fast shutter speeds in
order to get movement in my picture for things such as running water. I’m influenced by Jon Cornforth as
well due to his love for nature which is like my own. Furthermore, the way that Jon Cornforth photographs
is very similar the way I enjoy photographing. He tends to use very narrow depths of field (unless doing
large landscapes), which is something I’m also a fan of due to the blurry background effect. Furthermore,
the way that Cornforth has framing in a few of his photos creates a nice effect for the main subject, which is
something I’d like to try and emulate in some of my photos. Finally, Cornforth has several interesting
angles in his photographs, such as from low-down on the ground, which is something I could try and
emulate as well.
REFLECT on your work critically as it progresses and on its completion
In general, my work progressed at quite a quick rate. I did make a small error at one point, however, where
I began to do several shoots consecutively without filling out any paperwork or doing any contact sheets in
between each shoot, leaving me with a lot of written work to do after the fact. This made the whole thing
slightly more tedious for me, but I was able to complete almost everything before the deadline. The one
thing I was sadly unable to complete was the sixth shoot, which was due to a combination of me missing
two lessons for a family emergency and the coronavirus impacting my ability to do another shoot.
However, I did complete everything else to what was deemed a great standard.

I feel quite proud of most of the work I did, with professional standard photography in most of the shoots
done (apart from, in my opinion, the shoot done at the park near the Yarmouth roundabout, which I feel
could have been done better and done at a more appropriate time, as the harsh sun created lots of
annoying shadows). I managed to do a lot of photos, reaching over 75 for all my shoots and over 100 for
most of them. The only shoots where I couldn’t breach 100 were the shoots done in smaller locations, such
as the Yarmouth roundabout park or Meadow Park, where the location simply wasn’t big enough to get
many unique shots. Nevertheless, I still got enough photos.

My editing techniques were, in my opinion, not the most drastic but I feel they didn’t need to be. My editing
was very simple and slight, with simple temperature adjustments, dehazing, saturating and occasionally
removing spots from images. I didn’t do much more than that for most of the images, although some of
them involved more editing than others to remove issues on the day (e.g. softening shadows that were too
harsh, making skies more detailed, etc).

Finally, I feel that the layout for my sketchbook was horribly subpar, although this was slightly beyond my
control. When starting the project, I considered my horrible handwriting and my generally bad hand-eye co-
ordination, and decided to do my sketchbook online (with approval from my teacher). I used a website
called ‘Blogger’, which didn’t allow for too much creative influence apart from the design of the blog. Each
individual document didn’t have much freedom.
Candidate Candidate
Jack Duggan Date 2 4 20
Name (Printed) Signature