Sunday 17 November 2013

Assignment 1 planning (part 1)

Email from me to my tutor dated 9-Nov-2013

Good morning,
I hope you are fit and well and appreciating the change in the weather.
I'm writing to tell you that I am getting on with the course and have completed up to exercise 4. Unfortunately, without this email you couldn't possibly know this because my access to the Internet, via BT Infinity, is nonexistent. I have recommended to BT that they rename their service BT Infinitesimal! The 'technician' on the other end of the phone didn't think this was at all funny.
Currently I'm not at all sure what I'm going to do for assignment 1, but have a couple of ideas:
  • The local market, we have some real characters and normally with a bit of discussion they are prepared to have their photographs taken.
  • The project team at work, significantly more challenging because they don't want their photographs taken, but in terms of situational portraits its a real opportunity.
  • The street, I live in the 'village', it is a single row of ex-tied miners cottages and a number of the residents are still miners (from the open cast pit); I would love to be able to do this, but I think it will take longer to set up than I have for this assignment. I'm hoping with a bit of lateral thinking and some further development of my image ideas I may be able to use this for assignment 3.
In terms of assignment 4, I think it must be something about Walton and his transparency of pictures - for some reason I have taken a very strong dislike to the utter drivel he has written in the particular paper! At the same time I also find myself a fan of Bazin.
Initially, I found Walton's paper very difficult to understand, so I dissected it paragraph by paragraph, by the end of which I had written (albeit) a very emotional and negative two and a half thousand word response. Currently, my response only references Bazin (in order to defend him), but I think with the inclusion of other people (references) and a more balanced discussion around transparency, it has the legs to work for the 'critical review'. However, at this stage I have no thoughts as to what my personal project would be and how I would link it back to my critical review.

Referring to your email, in terms of the kind of documentary I would like to do, I don't know.
Work I like - Atget, Meyerowitz, Crewdson. I find the images considered and clever, they have an eye for an image that you can't always immediately pin-point.
Work that's ok - Parr and Gliden. Again clever images, but with a certain edginess derived from the less salubrious side of our lives. I always feel glad that they've never photographed me...
Work that's not me - Goldin (older work), Billingham, it's a long list. Great documentary images, but very much from the other side of life. I come from a great home and a very loving family and, more and more frequently, I truly appreciate how lucky I am. At the same time, I'm struggling with the idea that my background makes me an inferior photographer. In our current world, it appears that only those of the tortured-soul persuasion are the ones with enough pain to be truly artistic...
Response from my tutor dated 10-Nov-2013

Hi,
Good to hear from you - and currently sheltering from the rather cold conditions! I share your frustrations with the internet - we have BT at work and it regularly drops out.
Firstly I have just returned from OCA HQ so thought I would give some initial feedback with regard to blogs.
Do take care that your blog is very easy to navigate. You want to have links that take the reader straight to the assignments. Also a separate heading for all research posts. Lastly the main learning log posts should be easy to navigate through. I have had a look again at your People and Place blog and this doesn't quite have this ease of navigation. Having more categories would be better to be able to find different sections. For level 2 there is a much greater requirement for recording your progress and by reflecting on your work and relating to the work of others. Please don't worry about changing/updating past blogs BUT do take care in the layout for this one.
I will try and answer the points you raise - but if I have missed anything do let me know.
Critical Review - I would hold on this until you get settled into the course and see what direction your work is going.
Future assignments
Again it is good that you are thinking ahead but do not commit to anything. The work on the course should be organic and the sequence of assignments should allow you to develop your work from one to the next. The assignments are not set in stone - and there is great flexibility for you to take an idea and run with it, in negotiation with a tutor. More important then answering the brief is your reaction, discussion and production of work.

Assignment 1
For this assignment choose a subject that is easy to manage. I think you want to make a start on the course so it is key to be able to turn it around.
The other thing is that you want to be able to shoot, review images and then reshoot. The market does seem to be a feasible subject for this matter.

Do think about how you push the images further - at level 2 you want to be able to move this on visually from images of stall holders behind their stalls. This is where some research comes in. It should be easy to find some traditional images of markets and market traders - I'm sure Flickr can provide some examples. Look at the images - it can be good here to annotate them. Look at the similarities in image style, can you see repetitions in photographic approach. Now think how you can build on this.

Good photographers to look at would be Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange. Although shooting in the 1930s they were able to identify with the subjects in a way that their images are still visually interesting to us today.

John Londei's project 'Shutting Up Shop' is a more contemporary project to look at.
Photographic Style
You will find that your taste into photographers changes over time - you can appreciate a photographers work without liking them particularly. Level 2 courses should be seen as an opportunity to experiment with different styles of working (this is exactly what students on the second year of a degree course would be encouraged to do).

I have written a lot here - do come back to me with any queries.
So, in summary - good ideas, keep on thinking, but don't go dashing off down any specific road without speaking to me.
Next steps:
  1. Look at Flickr and identify 'market' images I like and don't like
  2. Check out John Londei's project, plus any others I may find
  3. Get out and take some images, start to find my own feet...

No comments:

Post a Comment