Sample Answer
HND Photography (GG3C 15)
Introduction
This assignment examines the practical and theoretical processes behind a personal photographic project that focuses on narrative portraiture and environmental set pieces. The aim is to demonstrate technical competence, creative intent, reflective evaluation and professional contextual awareness in line with HND learning outcomes. The project brings together research, technical tests, production planning, post-production workflow and exhibition considerations to produce a coherent body of work. Throughout the essay I will justify stylistic decisions, analyse strengths and weaknesses, and reflect on how this practice contributes to broader photographic debates about authorship, representation and audience.
Project Brief and Creative Intention
The project brief I set myself was to create a six-image series that explores identity and place in a post-industrial town. I wanted images that read as both documentary and staged, where the subject and their environment inform each other. The conceptual aim was to use natural and artificial light to sculpt mood, reveal texture and deliver a narrative arc that suggests history, aspiration and everyday ritual.
A concise creative intention guided production: use portraiture and environmental detail to communicate the tensions between continuity and change in communities affected by deindustrialisation. Technical goals included mastering mixed lighting situations, controlling colour balance across locations, and developing a consistent post-production aesthetic that supports the narrative without over-processing.
Research and Context
My research combined historical reading, contemporary photographic practice and local fieldwork. Historically, works such as Sander’s social typologies and Chaloner’s regional studies provided context about photographic portraiture as social record. Contemporary practitioners including Alec Soth and Taryn Simon influenced my approach to staged documentary, while local archive collections and oral histories offered factual material to ground the images.
The research phase informed visual decisions. Soth’s contemplative framing encouraged slow looking and narrative suggestion rather than didactic explanation. Simon’s methodical approach suggested that careful selection and sequencing would be critical. Archive research made me aware of recurring motifs in the town’s visual culture: brick textures, bricked-up windows, and signage. These motifs became recurring visual anchors in my series.
Pre-production and Technical Planning
Pre-production involved location scouting, subject sourcing, and light tests. I selected four principal locations: a derelict mill, a working pub, a council estate courtyard and the high street near a closed factory. Permission and release forms were issued to all participants and venue owners. Risk assessments covered access issues and evening shoots.
Technical planning focused on three lighting strategies: natural golden hour backlight to suggest memory, tungsten-balanced interior lighting to convey intimacy and warmth, and controlled strobe or LED fill to shape faces and highlight textures. Camera kit comprised a full-frame DSLR, a 50mm f/1.4 prime for portraits, a 24–70mm zoom for environmental shots and a 90mm macro for detail studies. Tripod, hand-held LED panels and a portable softbox were included for low-light control.
I tested mixed lighting in a local pub to prototype colour balance decisions. Tests revealed a tendency for tungsten interiors to render skin tones too yellow when combined with window daylight. To solve this I used a warming gel on the LED fill to bridge the temperature shift and shot in RAW to retain white balance flexibility in post.
Production: Making the Images
Production took place over three weeks. Each session began with a short interview to establish rapport and collect narrative detail. The portrait setups were deliberately simple: one key light, a shallow depth of field and minimal props drawn from the subject’s daily life. I aimed to build trust so gestures and expressions could be natural rather than performative.
Image one establishes the subject in front of the mill. I used side lighting from a 45 degree LED panel to carve out cheek and jawline, exposing brick texture. Image two is an interior study in the pub using available tungsten lamps with a soft fill to model face and preserve ambience. Image three is a high street tableau shot at dusk with backlit signage. Image four shows a hands-and-tools detail returned as a macro shot to tie individual labour to place. Sequencing was designed to create a rise and fall in narrative tension, ending on an image that suggests continuity rather than resolution.
