Tattoo Documentary Project

These are the twelve final shots from my documentary project within my photography course. The project was based on tattooing. For the final shots, I had to follow the photo essay structure which had to consist of an establishing shot, which would act as an opening to a story therefore it had to set scene. A medium shot, which is the follow on shot so it would have to bring the viewer closer to the action. A detail shot, which is of course a shot with detail relating to the story or theme. next, was the portrait shot, which is the main character or subject. Afterwards, came the moment shot, which is the peak of the story and the main action/ shot. Finally, the closing shot, which is a natural end to the story. For this project, we had to come up with a message or theme that we had to portray through the images and it had to be consistent throughout the images otherwise it would not be clear what the theme was... the theme for my project was to portray tattooing from the artists point of view as most images relating to tattooing are from the clients perspective or just of the tattoo where as I wanted to try something different. Throughout this project I was able to further develop everything I learnt from the last project and learn new skill such as photographing in a environment out of my control as I have no control over the lighting or the subjects. I found documentary photography really interesting and enjoyable although I think when doing this type of photography the photographer should keep direction to a minimum of which is what I did throughout my time in the tattoo studio. Aslo, I was able to use my imagination alot during this project as I needed shots that where understandable of what the shot was of but I wanted to try to get more abstract and different and more interesting shots rather than obvious shots such as a shot of the studio from the outside for the establishing shot as instead  my establishing shot was of the studios business card with the tattooist in the background but with a shallow depth of field.