Today we looked at three previous students’ final major projects. We were given the task to mark their work, referring back to the grade criteria.

We wrote comments for each past student on context, research, problem solving, planning, practical skills, evaluation, and presentation.

The first student achieved a Merit for their final major project. Just from viewing his word press account, it was clear that he had created a lot of blog posts. His initial idea was to explore the documentary side of the Southern Kollectiv car club, this was his mood board:

Reflecting back to the grade criteria exemplification, these were the comments and grades that I gave.

• Context: Pass – doesn’t explain much about what the Southern Kollectiv actually is.
• Research: Merit – Plenty of artist research but not much that’s relevant.
• Problem Solving: Pass.
• Planning and production: Merit – some evidence of skills and techniques used (eg. panning)
• Practical skills: Merit – Plenty of reference to how the camera was used, shows camera settings for each image/shoot.
• Evaluation and reflection: Merit – set targets or improvements for self after each shoot and explained in artist research how they could incorporate ideas into their own work.
• Presentation: Pass.
• Overall Grade: Merit.

The next students work that we viewed achieved a Distinction for her final major project. Again, whilst looking through her word press account, it was clear that she has created many blog posts in preparation for her final major project. Her initial idea was to create a fake brand along with a catalogue to explore how the commercial market affects today’s buyers. I thought that this was a great original idea. This was her mood board:

For her final piece, she created a catalogue, as well as a 42-inch large print and  3 A3 prints.

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Comparing her final images to her original mood board, it is evident that she stuck to her plan throughout this project. Her final work is very similar to what she originally wanted to produce, I believe that this project was very successful. These were the comments that I made for each aspect of the grade criterea:

• Context: distinction.
• Research: Merit/ Distinction-Thorough research, lots of artist talk, research is throughout project.
• Problem Solving: Pass/Merit- Limited evidence of solving problems apart from evaluating and changing shoot ideas.
• Planning and production: Distinction- Lots of planning, time plan, budgeting, being cost effective.
• Practical skills: Distinction-Range of skills shown and extensive development into successful ideas.
• Evaluation and reflection: Distinction- Evaluation of shoots and write ups, very professional. Lots of maturity and reflection.
• Presentation: Distinction- Presented very well, with a set colour scheme and great organisation.
• Overall Grade: Distinction.

The final previous student that we looked at achieved a pass for their final major project. It was clear just from his blog that he had not completed as many posts as the other students. When reading his blog posts, I noticed that that majority of them consisted of very little information. I could also not find a mood board on this students blog.

This student’s initial idea was to create a documentary about youth culture. In particular, looking at why young photographers chose to do photography and what it means to them. However, as his project progressed, he decided to change this idea. He explained that he will now be researching small fashion clothing companies and then photographing them. I think that changing his idea and including it into his blog was a great way to test his planning skills and overcome problems.

He explained in his blog that he created four A2 prints which were frame less and mounted on foam board. These were hung up in the summer show but he did not include any photographic evidence of this. However, here are a few of his final images which I found on his evaluation blog posts.

• Context: Pass.
• Research: Pass/Plenty of relevant research but not thorough.
• Problem Solving: Pass- No evidence of problem solving or shoot development.
• Planning and production: Pass – ideas seem to jump all over the place. Blog posts are very short and explain little to nothing.
• Practical skills: Pass – Almost no mention of technical skills, camera settings or equipment used.
• Evaluation and reflection: Pass- Some reflection done after shoots but not enough.
• Presentation: Pass – Fine grammar and overall presentation for each blog post. Some of them are out of chronological order.
• Overall Grade: Pass.

I found that doing viewing past students work and grading them ourselves was really helpful for our own work. I now have more of an understanding of how to achieve the grade that I want and a greater understanding of what we get marked on. I can compare these students work to my own to understand what I need to do in order to improve.