Crit with professional panel

I was very nervous about showing my work to the professional panel. Thinking they would ask horrible questions and criticise me for everything. However I really didn't have anything to worry about, it was great and I am so glad I attended it. 

They had been very critical with everyone. When I went to show them my portrait I was expecting the same, but they actually had nothing critical to say about it which is a first for me, ever! It was a great feeling and certainly got me motivated for the next unit. Below I have bullet pointed some of their comments...

• Continue making work based around the loss of my mother and the impact it has had on myself and my family. For the next lot of work bring myself into the images by taking self portraits and more of my family such as brother and sisters. Catch their emotions whilst talking about their mother, laughing/crying, etc. 
• Portrait taken well with good colour palette. It looks as if you can touch her face. Red earring added a nice touch to the image also. 
• Indian look about her from the long hair and textured skin... not a bad thing.
• Continue the same colour palette and tones, don't make it gloomy. 
• Lovely idea that I was capturing my mothers death in the sense of celebration. 

No one had a bad word to say, all were really positive comments. I was really surprised because I have never had a situation like that before. Especially for professionals to say that about my work it really did make me think about my future after university. 

The next day after the lecture with them we continued to go through peoples work and see what they had to say. To top off Thursdays positive feedback, Andy came up to me before the session on Friday started and spoke about my work and how we was thinking about it. He told me to continue making work like that as he thought it was such a lovely idea. For him to remember my face and my image was great! 

As we finished early they gave us the chance to show more work if we wanted to. I really wanted to but my nerves were holding me back slightly. But I didn't let them get the best of me and I went up and showed the images that I had put up on Instagram. I wanted some more feedback from them as my other images were quite different to the portrait that I had shown previously. And I am so glad I did... Yes I did get some critical advice but that is exactly what I wanted so I knew where to continue with the next unit as I carry on from the same topic. Below I have bullet pointed some of their comments...

• The black hanger in the images of the shirt doesn't look good. Consider a white cotton hanger to emphasise the importance of the shirt. 
• Look at Lydia Goldblatt's book, Still Here. 
• The image of the grandmother making the bed could be cropped. Red on the left is distracting as are other objects within the frame. Image looks good otherwise with the light spilling in.
• There is no direction with the image of the bedroom with the photo on the wall. The light that cuts in near it is distracting and leads your eye another way. Crop it and zoom in on the photo.
• Image of grandmother and dog is irrelevant. Don't need that.
• Image of the jewellery should be slipped into the photo with other objects not by itself. Perhaps have an individual wearing it.
• Liked the image of the old photos and the composition. 
• Don't like the distracting colours of the messy bed, grandmothers nightie etc not needed. Would have been better without the clothes. 
• Listen to Ed Sheeran: Supermarket Flowers. A song about his mother could give me some ideas. Also the images reminded Emma of that song. 
• (Something that was mentioned to another student that I would like to try)... centre spot filter. Could be quite effective in some of my portraits or small details that I want to capture.