Evaluation

With this project, I do feel disappointed with myself for not embracing it with the confidence and enthusiasm I should have. I spent a lot of time unsure of what to do, and thinking about what it meant to have a 'personal view', and such being the case that I only came up with a solid enough project so late in the project that I only managed to do it to a satisfactory level. I do feel like I have wasted an opportunity with this project to do something that would actually have meaning beyond the obvious, however, I do feel it has be satisfactory, but nothing special. Towards the end of the project I did have a spurt of enthusiasm for my idea, but because I had left it too late, not much of the enthusiasm came to fruition.

The things I feel I did well are that I did, eventually come up with an interesting a personal idea, but part of the reason it was a late idea is because I had felt from the start that I didn't want to do a project about myself and was reluctant I let myself get into anything where I would have to discuss and put on a public platform, my own feelings and thoughts. I also feel that I got quite a variety of pictures of birds for me to use, so that I had a good selection to make an edit from. I, personally, think that the pictures were at a reasonable level of quality, at least the bird ones were, as this is something I really enjoy doing. I feel my final edit works well together as a group, which was hard to decide on because i wanted them to have the same atmosphere, namely the same quality of light near enough, so there pictures which may have been better, such as the very bright Green Finch picture, which just wouldn't have worked with the more muted pictures I had wanted to use. I also felt that others, such as the Flamingo picture (which I consider one my of best), would not have fit in either as it is not a native bird to great Britain, so didn't go with the theme of my own interest in bird watching, as I would never feasibly see one in the wild.

If I did this project again, I would definitely consider a personal project from the start, as I felt I only started to feel like it had direction once I finally settled on it. I would also keep a more regular flow of photographing, as I wish I had taken more pictures, if not for anything else but the practise. I think that one of my main issues, generally, is my lack of confidence in my own ideas and images, which then leads to lack of motivation, I just need to find something else to motivate me to try and do better and not just trundle along at the same level I was when I started.

This is a very obvious picture, but maybe that would work in a set, to have a kind of narrative. I don't think I would use it purely because it is a very obvious idea, and I want more abstract pictures to accompany my bird ones, as I think this would give the audience something to think about, as they would fit in with my introduction, but there's some space for interpretation as to what means what to me and to other people.

I like this having my feet on the location, as it's saying this is where I go, and travelling there is some thing I enjoy and find to be part of the whole experience for me. I think it would be better to have it at a different place, somewhere more interesting than just grass.

I like this one beter, as it is a bit more interesting what with the water and changes in texture, though my shoes don't stand out as much as with the grass.

I like this because of the light, which is lovely and soft, and gentle, which is the kind of atmosphere I wanted to show. I don't know if it's really interesting enough in itself to be able to work, because I want them to stand out individually, but to look nice together, and I think the very graphic pattern might stand out to much against the natural shapes in the bird pictures.

I want to use this ne because it is a bit odd, which would work well with ones such as the duck one and if I used the aeroplane one, but it also says about how I like to almost treat myself with a glass bottle of orange juice. This brings back nostalgia of glass milk bottles and how getting orange juice in one was pretty exciting when your under 10. This also ties in with my own nostalgia around birds and bird watching because it was something I did with my dad when I still lived with him when I was young.

pictures I could use

This one is nice because it's about seeing things which other may over look or not think twice about. It also is quite a funny picture, because it's not like a small plane, it's a big one, and it just looks so out of place. Though if you consider it had to come from somewhere, there's a kid out there who lost they're giant toy plane

I thought ones like this may be good because I enjoy getting up early and being able to see places in the early morning sunshine, if it's a nice day, bit of haze, and some nice greenery, you get some really lovely views.

Like this one, which has a lovely haze, which gives it that dreamy morning feel I hoped for in my pictures, but I don't feel like it would fit in with alot of the other pictures, i.e the ones of birds as it is a landscape but the others are pretty close up, so a wide shot like this wouldn't really work in a group of very cropped pictures.

I do feel, however, that a landscape type picture like this which is a bit closer to something, and has a clear center of focus would work much better. It's also showing my want to lure birds into my garden, by putting fat balls out, but it's not being terribly successful. I think this would be a really nice picture to have because it has that morning feel to it  and would fit in with the pictures of bird because of the obvious connection. I don't think I'd want all the pictures concerning me to be connected so explicitly, some more abstract ideas may have more impact, and just give the set a little something extra.

Ideas

I would like to change my idea again, looking into my own personal interest in bird watching, keeping it about me, but not including me. So everything would be suggestive of myself, more specifically what I enjoy about birds and birdwatching.

Ideas

Some mock ups of some pages which I might do.

I quite like having the scan of the bird book, as it gives the information about the bird, but I'm not sure if it has alot of relevance in the context.

I like having the picture quite big, but i'm not sure whether to have it full bleed and have the caption on the opposite page, or maybe the captions don't have to go with the pictures, especially if they're quotes.

There's been a mix up of ideas, and after some talk with Antony, I've decided to move away from the sparrow thing, and look more to a personalised take on birds. I don't think I want to put myself in the project that much, so I would like to have quotes from other people who like birds, maybe what kind of birds they like or how they feel about conservation and stuff like that. I think this would also make it a little more of a personal view, which is the project. Though this is a change from my idea and it's quite late in the project, I don't think i'll have too many issues with getting it together.

More studies

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1474-919x.2005.00427.x/abstract

This is another article, but it's an online one, which I think there is a hard copy in the library, and it's looking more at the statistics than the reasons behind it. I think, if I can find the journal this article is in so I can have a proper look and read of it, it would be good for the more technical side of my project, statistics and such.

More studies

http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15368370701410558

This is a summery of a study into the theory that electromagnetic radiation from radiation, from phone antennae, either on it's own or as a part of a combination of other things, potentially affecting sparrow population. This makes sense if you consider the theory that birds navigate using electromagnetic waves from the planet, or maybe it's interfering with they're brains because of the small size (as electromagnetic radiation affects ours). This is something interesting to think about, even though I don't have access to the whole article, and it shows that there are a lot of theories about the decline, and some very obscure ones.

More studies

http://www.springerlink.com/content/g451880j47nx3h70/
This is an extract from a review on the status of the urban House Sparrow, specifically in north-western Europe as this is the more built up area. One interesting thing it says (which I have read in other studies) is that the change from using horse to cars and tractors ect must have had an impact, what with the amount of seeds from feed which would have been ,particularly with house sparrows which have always had a close relationship with humans, a substantial part of they're diet, as well as the increasing amount of dangerous gases in the air (though this was in the 20s and 30s, it may have been a breaking point in the population of rural sparrows). When considering the urban decline there are less clear cut explanations, as the decline is still going and not stabilising like the rural one has. I need to find the whole paper, whether as a hard or digital copy, as it looks like it would consider the reasons as well as the current state of the population.

A study on urban house sparrow decline

This is primarily looking at nestling survival rate, depending mostly on the types of food fed to them and the amount of nitrogen in the air.

http://www.katevincent.org/parentpage1.htm

Sparrow links off RSPB

The RSPB is a really good resource for the basic information on birds (funnily enough) and it also has a red, amber and green rating on the population of bird breeds, red meaning alot of concern and dramatic decline in the last 50 years and green basically meaning no concern. Both of the British Sparrow breeds are category red. What I want to look at is the reasons behind this.

House Sparrow
Tree Sparrow

Some pictures

 Sparrow

Sparrow

 Blue Tit

 Sparrow

 Sparrow (and collared Dove)

Chafinch