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Rapid Survey Self-assessment

Reflect on the approach you took during the exercise and consider how you might try again.

 

Meeting the objective

Did you take 36 different images?

What method of survey did you consider

You don’t need to be an architect to conduct a survey. Everyday reference points like a clock face offer at least 12 points of rotation. A compass turns 360˚ — 10 times the number we were aiming for.

Add an extra axis to this, like a satellite orbiting the earth and the possibilities are...well, you get the idea!

Did you move the subject

You don’t necessarily need to be moving around. If photographing an object, you may have kept the camera still, and applied the movements to the subject.

If you photographed a person, did he/she freeze for 3mins? Did you direct or gesture a change in position and/or expression? And did you want to? There is no right answer, but you may consider the kind of subjects you feel more comfortable to photograph.

Did you change the scale

Rotation isn’t the only way to survey. Did you also step forwards or back? You could combine your own movements with a change in focal length — if it’s available to you.

Scale can be manipulated through perspective. Landscape photographers do this frequently: Making the stone in the foreground proportionate to the mountain in the background — implying depth and distance.

Did you change the camera settings

Without getting gear conscious, it may be that your variety came not from movement, but from technical possibilities. Did you adjust the aperture, shutter speed or ISO?

You may have also used presets to copy the same image into monochrome, vivid, vintage, or other filter manipulations.

Did time influence the surroundings

You didn’t have time to watch the sunset, but time can be subtle. Was there a temporal interference in your organisation of the image? A cloud rolled in, a person walked through the background.

Or was time part of the subject? A sequence of the subject moving from A to B? Sports, action and journalism shoot hundreds of frames in search of the decisive image, rendering the rest obsolete.

Was there any emotional reaction

From a bottle, or matchstick box? It’s not likely! But emotion can be as simple as your frustration to think openly under pressure.

If your subject was a person you have two sets of emotions to deal with, and everyone is individual. It may help to consider what barriers you have to making someone feel comfortable to be photographed.

What’s next

Having thought about your own results, and what is possible, would you want to try again?