Callum Mcentevy Shoots work around the Pittville Park Tree Trail for the Personal Portfolio Module.
13th June 2023
For this module, we were set a brief in which we had to create a portfolio of work based around our own chosen area of specialisation, appropriately titled “The Personal Portfolio”. The area of specialisation I chose was nature photography or though more specifically speaking in my case photographing Trees.
A lot of experimentation was employed during this project with questions on whether I should experiment with pinhole photography and what angles I should shoot the trees from and whether I wanted to shoot in monochrome, Black & white or Colour. So, before I started shooting, I began by researching different photographers within my chosen area and came across great examples but the ones that stood out to me the most were John Sexton and his book “listen to the Trees” and Richard Billingham and his book “Landscapes 2001-2003”.
Sextons’ use of framing his work like paintings and Billingham’s use of angles and black & white photography both provide a truly stunning and impressive body of work and demonstrated in their own ways how to deliver their images within a narrative.
Now informed by my research I started taking pictures of trees and although I was finding promising results, I struggled to find an application for them within an advertising or editorial application that I felt was appropriate. This was when I decided to use the nature section at our library and look at different styles of tree publications before falling upon an old booklet titled “Pittville Park Tree Trail” published in 1980, I then decided after reading through to create an updated version using my photos.
After many trips around Pittville Park focusing in the end on peak daylight and golden hour times of the respective day, I had collected a wide range of photos to choose from before deciding upon the 11 I used.
My final step was designing my book layout, I had a few variations before deciding that a full bleed was necessary for each image as it allowed them to stand out more and demonstrate the detail, I had worked so hard to capture. Because of this to maintain the informative nature of the book that inspired me I decided to mock it up as a Woodland Trust-associated product having a QR code at the start to their tree dictionary and one halfway through to their tree health awareness campaigns.
With my book design completed and images chosen, I had completed the brief and demonstrated a use within advertising. Overall, I am very happy with what I produced for this “personal portfolio” and I’m looking forward to furthering my studies within this area and planning some new shoots for the near future.