This term we have been asked to create an experimental portfolio based upon a genre of our choice. After researching many different genres including landscape, still life and documentary i was required to give a brief presentation on my findings, along with this i included photographs that are relevant to each genre.

For a long time I was unsure as to which genre to adopt. At first I was leaning towards music based photography such as live gigs and musician portraits, however one of my fellow students suggested that they were unsure as to whether that particular genre would be acceptable. Following this advice I decided to experiment with one or two other genres including documentary, street, cityscape and architecture and some still life photography.

I also visited a couple of photography exhibitions such as the "China Through a Lens" Exhibition at Mersyside Maritime Museum, which displayed a large number of glass plate prints, taken by John Thompson during 1868-1872, of his journey though Asia where he set up a professional photographic studio, capturing various images of landscape, people, architecture, street and domestic scenes. He worked especially to capture the culture and traditions of this new world as they fascinated him so much with a fascination with the women and the fashions in which they wore their clothes and hair.

I found this exhibition very interesting as it showed a wide variety of different genres all at once as it basically paved the way for photojournalism. I was surprised by the amount of information that was carried in these images, not only in the way the photographer had labeled each slide with in depth information on the subject, date and location, and without this information we would not have been able to learn so much about the photographers travels and also the history of Asia. But I was also surprised by how much information you got from just looking at the image, events that would have long been forgotten can now be remembered and kept forever.

Another exhibition I attended was Black Britannia held in the National Slavery Museum. This series of photographs by John Ferguson is a collection of portraits of successful black British people taken especially for this exhibition. Ranging from Firemen and Doctors to celebrities such as Lewis Hamilton and Ms Dynamite. The purpose of this exhibition is to celebrate the overcome of prejudice and racism and also to hopefully inspire young black people to see beyond the stereotype, develop a stronger understanding of what they can achieve and to help them find positive role models.

I thoroughly enjoyed this exhibition, each person was well portrayed in their portrait, often showing each person in their working field along with a brief description of why they have been included in the display such as Charlie Williams, the first stand up comedian of African decent, and Samantha Tross, the first black British woman to become a consultant orthopedic surgeon. As well as an impressive display of good quality work i noticed how many of the images had been printed on a silvery paper, creating an unusual light effect on the photos themselves and making them jump out and grab your attention as well as look stylish and unusual. This is something I may bear in mind for the future when displaying my work.