Color Photo Class: Portraiture

I had a 5 hour critique yesterday for my photo class, and I'm sure some art students have been in longer, but that was the longest I've ever had a crit for, and it was long I reassure you. I do like crits because of the helpful feedback I get from my more than qualified instructor who has this valuable insight and also from my classmates.

I'll be honest my project doesn't really have a concept too much behind it. I decided to shoot pictures of people that are somehow involved in my life and it was for the most part candid, trying to catch them in a moment, a snapshot. It was more of an experiment, and I used flash on all the pictures I turned in. I discovered while shooting (at the last minute) that I really like flash and decided to shoot the rest of my pictures using that.

My teacher said that technical wise my flash use was good, but she thought my previous work in previous classes was more imaginative. And I agree with her, I know she's right. I did however, have a few different ideas for this project, some didn't turn out the way I liked when I shot, and the one that I think would have possibly worked, I didn't have time to shoot (yes, because I procrastinated). So I can always resubmit, but it is not like I didn't like my photos. I absolutely do, but conceptually there's not much there. Some questions I need to ask are: How can I use the snapshot form in a different way? Possibly exposing our social tendencies. How should my flash be used? And that I could add more context into my pictures instead of cropping them so closely around the person. So quite a few options to push my work further.