Signs of Life- Final Image & Evalutaion

This is my final image for my Signs of Life assignment. It's my favourite image that I took for this assignment. This image wasn't my intended final image, I had wanted to photograph the veins in leaves under a strong light so that they stood out but I couldn't seem to get that to work for me, so I sat down to sulk when my eyes landed on these wicker reeds up the corner of my living room. I thought that they fit the description of many of the words on our assignment brief, "Dead, Fragile, Delicate, Old, Structure" I used natural light from the windows in my living room and decided that I liked them better when they were silhouetted. I played around with appeture until I settled on F 9.0 at a shutter speed of 1/25. I decided that it gave me the best results. Things that I could have improved on were time management. I left this assignment right up until the last minute which is why I panicked when my initial idea didn't work, I lucked out this time when my random unplanned idea worked but I think I will try to make sure I have time to replan should I need to in the future. I have found some new photographers that I liked, usually I find artist research pointless and tedious but this time I really felt good about the artists I studied and that they linked in with my final image too. I feel that the beads on the reeds tie in with the repetative use of Peas and Pods that Olivia Parker uses and also the dying feel they seem to give off, and I feel that the curing structure of the reeds ties in with Karl Blossfelts images of the plants.
Overall I am really pleased with my final image and would be quite happy to put this image in my portfolio because I am not familiar with still life photography but I found that I quite enjoyed it.