Assignment Five – Two comparisons found recently

Two interesting pieces of work have become known to me over the weekend, both of which offer some comparison with my work for Assignment Five.

The first arose when I received my copy of ‘Behind the Image’ by Anna Fox & Natasha Caruana, the next in the Basics of Creative Photography Series published by AVA Publishing. I havn’t looked at the book in any detail at all yet but, flicking through, my eye was caught on Page 127 by a Karen Knorr image – ‘Those who fear ...’ from the ‘Gentlemen’ series, made in the 80s.  What caught my eye was the square format portrait of a man, with centre-justified text below; text that was clearly more than a caption but part of the ‘art’ she was creating.  A bit of internet research revealed that she had produced two other series, ‘Belgravia’ and ‘Country Life’, both of which are made up of images in a similar format.  This is a link to the ‘Belgravia’ series - 'Belgravia' - Karen Knorr.  Her arrangement of text and image is very similar to my original arrangement; and the principle of the combination is also interesting, especially when I note what she says about it in the notes accompanying ‘Belgravia’.  She says:

“The meaning of the work can be found in the space between the image and text: neither the text nor the image illustrate each other, but create a ‘third meaning’ to be completed by the spectator.  The text slows down the viewing process as we study the text and return to re-evaluate the image in light of what we have read.”

Karen Knorr, in notes accompanying her series ‘Belgravia’,

I wish I’d read that before or during the work I was doing.  It both informs and articulates what I have been attempting to do with the image/text combination.  I also note what she says about her subjects performing their identities “... in a collaborative fashion ...” with her; and that there is “... real complicity between us.”  I don’t think I got as far as being able to claim that of my series, but it was true in a number of cases; partially true in most; and with a bit more practice and development, might be true of other work in the future.  I certainly like the principle.

In contrast, and related to the principle behind my own series, is a more recent piece of work from Italian photographer, Gabriele Galimberti, which appeared in The Times Magazine last Saturday 26^th May 2012.  This is Galimberti’s website - Gabriele Galimberti – and this is the series that was featured - Toy Stories.  The series shows children from all over the world, photographed with their toys.  The accompanying notes on the site say “Who doesn’t remember a favourite childhood toy?” – and there is the obvious comparison to my own images of mature adults with items, often toys, that they still retain from their childhood.  The notes are written by Arianna Rinaldo, and she goes on to say of one’s favourite toy – “The one that sometime, dozens of years later, we find at the bottom of the closet.  And we let a tear drop.”  A touch of sentimentality creeping in there, perhaps – but we’re into the same emotional area at least – memory of childhood; the links between childhood experience and the adult; the feelings evoked by the physical manifestation of a childhood experience in the form of a toy/possession still there in adulthood.

I am a little puzzled by one aspect of Galimberti’s work.  He does, it seems from the notes and from the article in The Times Magazine, collaborate with both parents and child in creating the image.  It would be hard not to when photographing young children, of course.  But it seems that he seeks to organise the ‘set’ into what are perhaps best described as ‘formal’ patterns.  This one of a boy with his Lego is a good example - example.  The formality of that presentation seems to be more about the photographer than about boy, which puzzles me, as I say.  Would Niko, aged 5, choose to lay out his Lego in that way?  And what does the portrait tell us if that order and formality is, presumably, being imposed on him and his favourite toy?  I’m not sure.  Still, an interesting series and it makes for a useful comparison to the work that I have been doing for Assignment Five.

Assignment Five: Some post-feedback reflections & the final images

This assignment has, as mentioned above, been to my tutor and I’ve had his feedback & made a few amendments as a result.  This note is to pull together my experience and record some reflections.

·         The tutor feedback is good, with positive comments on the time and care I’ve taken to plan, make images, write up etc, plus the development that this assignment demonstrates compared with where I started out on the module.

·         There were some comments and questions for consideration.

§  He suggests, rightly, that the rationale for the ‘front-facing’ pose was probably not as fully explained in my supporting notes as it might have been.  For me, in the context of this assignment, it is about presenting my subjects to the viewer in a natural and collaborative manner that acknowledges what we are doing and their involvement in it.  My subjects look the viewer in the eye; they acknowledge that they are being viewed with their childhood possession; they present themselves openly and directly to the viewers’ gaze.  The question of ‘the pose’ is a complex one, of course.  I have done some reading on it here and there, which I’m not going to attempt to analyse here; but I did not want to go down the (what I feel is) unnatural route of asking them to look at some imaginary point off-camera.  Why would they be doing that with these objects in their hands?  Creating a sort of ‘narrative’ was one option that I considered – have them pose as if preoccupied with the object in some way.  On the one hand, that would, I believe, have been harder for the subjects to achieve successfully, but more importantly, we are then, as viewers, seeming to observe them occupied in some task, absorbed in their activity, when we all know, in the context of this project, that they are posing for a photograph.  Of course, these images are, in the end, no more honest or real than any others, but they do at least, to my mind, present open collaboration and involvement, which adds a ‘layer of reality’ to the outcome that makes them more accessible to the viewer.

§  Another, related factor, again raised quite rightly by my tutor, is that some of my subjects don’t look entirely comfortable in front of the camera.  Since the brief I was working to suggested that these images were to be used in the context of a promotional campaign by a children’s charity, might that slight air of discomfiture work against the objectives of the campaign.  I think that the truth is that it might indeed have that effect.  I don’t suppose I’m the first person to have become more interested in capturing something about my subjects than in perfectly fulfilling the brief.  In a commercial context, that would have been a dangerous route to go; but hopefully, in the context of a creative arts course, the exploration of something subtle in these subjects’ character through my portraits is a little more acceptable.

§  There were some technical comments, notably that I might need to consider some slight adjustments to the skin tones in some of the images – again, valid points that I have taken on board.

§  My tutor agreed that the landscape format works better than the portrait format, with text below the image.  Consequently, I have changed them all to that arrangement.  I think it evens the balance between the image and the text.  Text placed below felt too much like a caption, a subsidiary add-on; and moving the eye up and down between image and text feels less comfortable than the natural side to side moves that we make, when reading a book, for example.  I have also looked at the font and its size.  This is an area where one might seek design input if following the project through; but I’ve chosen to keep it simple for now – though I have changed from Arial to Tahoma and reduced the font size a little.

The final versions are here.



·         One thing my tutor commented on that has also been in my mind is the size and resolution on these images in the context they would be used if this were a real advertising campaign.  The original 10 megapixel D80 images, cropped to this square format, would not be good enough, I suspect, for a large poster campaign, for example.  I have experimented with one of them at A3, which works fine, but I suspect going much beyond that would be difficult – and one of the images was quite a tight crop from the original – something I had already acknowledged in my notes.  Clearly, in a true commercial assignment, one might be using medium format or some other higher resolution equipment.

So, looking back, what have I got out of this assignment?

·         A much better understanding of, and confidence with, some basic principles in makig portrait images with photography;

·         A small set of images that demonstrate I can take a concept; research, plan, prepare, execute, and follow through to a conclusion that hangs together as apersonal expression/exploration of that concept;

·         A starting point for something that I can continue to explore;

·         Some further sound practice in processing images and photo-editing; these are nowhere near perfect but I’ve done things in the context of this assignment that I could never have done before. (Need to learn more about the use of Curves in Photoshop.)

·         Some enjoyable, productive and creative interaction with people – especially my subjects, of course, to whom I’m indebted, but it has also been interesting to pick up feedback from other people – fellow students (thanks!); tutor(s) (thanks!); and then almost everyone with whom I’ve discussed the project ... it gets very positive interest from everyone.

I have only scratched the surface of people photography, and I don’t know whether or not it is something I’ll do much more of.  Certainly the first assignment of my new module, Progressing with Digital Photography - here – has no people in it at all!  So, maybe not!  But, I would like to follow through with the concept underlying this assignment so, truth is, I’d be very disappointed if I don’t end up exploring people photography quite a bit more.

Now – there’s an outcome from this module!  I would never have said that eighteen months ago when I started out!

Assignment Five – Submission & Feedback

Assignment Five has been completed; sent to my tutor; and feedback received.  The feedback is positive, with some useful suggestions for improvements, which I will take on board, more or less without exception.  This is the set of images that I submitted, with the text incorporated.

I did make one change after sending off the submission to my tutor.  It suddenly dawned on me that there was an alternative and perhaps better way of combining the image and the text.  I can’t work out why it hadn’t occurred to me before, but a landscape presentation, with the text beside the image rather than below it, seems to work better.  I’m sure it has to do with ‘reading’ the relationship side-to-side as more equal.  Below the image, it’s hard not to see the text as a caption, whereas the arrangement below is more ‘democratic’.  I send this to my tutor after the initial submission, and he agreed that it works better.  Actually, this also uses a different font.

This version of this particular image also includes a bit of work on the skin tones, as suggested in the feedback.  There is a bit more work to do on all the images in that respect, I think, before submission for assessment; and I will adjust them all to a ‘landscape format’.  All in all, though, the feedback is that I don’t need to do a huge amount more to get this assignment ready for submission.  I will post the final versions on here when they are done.

I’ve definitely got a lot out of this assignment, as I’ve said in previous posts.

Assignment Five – The last two images

I finished the shooting for Assignment Five last weekend and have processed the two images, on and off, over the last week.  I’m happy with the outcomes, overall, though I have a ‘technical’ regret over the first one, which is below.

My concern is to do with the eyes.  It was a cloudy but bright day and, with hindsight, I might have done better to use the reflector to get more light into the eyes and therefore more of a highlight.  The basic ‘information’ is there, and I’ve done quite a bit of work in Lightroom & Photoshop to make something of it – but using the reflector would have helped.  That said, it works successfully and is another good narrative.  The trophy is the first of many that Lance won playing football, and the envelope contains an invitation for a trial with a First Division football club back in 1955 – and indeed an invitation to play for their youth team.  There’s more behind the story as well, but not relevant here.  There might be a question mark over the way I’ve framed the image, with the positioning of the goalposts behind his shoulders & neck.  The first thing to say is that Lance chose the position he stood, precisely where he would have been for the kick-off when playing at ‘left half’.  I liked that – it made him part of the process of making the image.  With that position determined, I chose to make the goalposts very much a prominent part of the background – deliberately slightly off centre from his body/head, but still boldly part of the story.  I think it works fine, but I guess some people might have made a different choice.

The second image from last week is below.

I had the same issue with light and eyes here, but to a lesser extent.  This image was made in a much more public place – a busy high street, with passing shoppers and cars.  It’s a narrow street, and we’re actually working across the road from the shop, just into the top of a narrow private alleyway that is more or less opposite.  It isn’t necessarily very comfortable for the subject to have to pose, in public, and it was somewhat chilly, too.  So, I decided not to further complicate things by having someone standing with a reflector as well.  There are some challenges in photographing a black doll with a shiny head in the open air on a day with lots of white reflected light!  However, putting all those things to one side, I’m pleased with the outcome on this one, too.  The ‘story’ is another good one – Elaine was born in the house in the background; her mother bought her the black doll when she was a little girl; and her mother crocheted the dress that it still wears.  There isn’t any significance in the house being No 13 – at least I don’t think so – but it’s another little twist to the tale, as is the bright pink signage that now publicises the shop.

With the last two images ready, I’m now at the stage of writing up the assignment for submission to my tutor.  I said I’d try and do it by the end of March; 7^th April today; so not too bad.

Assignment 5 – more portraits

There has been some good progress with the assignment shoots over the last couple of weeks, with four more portraits made.  The two final ones that I need are due to be done next weekend.  I’m reasonable happy with how they are turning out.  I think my confidence in dealing with portrait sessions has developed a little.  I have continued to make a few technical mistakes but nothing that hasn’t been recoverable.  I get annoyed with myself when I forget something simple but there is a lot to think about when you put somebody ‘on the spot’ in front of your camera.  If you persuade someone to make themselves available to you for an hour or so, you have a sense of responsibility to make it come out as something decent; and these are friends, neighbours, relatives etc, not professional models, so you need to help them to be at ease.  I’ve tended to keep to the simple concept, as planned, which means I’m not asking them to do too much, but it takes a bit of care to ensure the subject looks relaxed and natural.  I’ve tried to not rush things; standing to one side of the camera, watching their facial expressions carefully, waiting for the right moment to press the remote release, and being prepared to wait quietly, just saying the odd word of encouragement/direction.  I know it feels odd for the subjects, but I think I’ve eventually got there with all of them – sometimes it’s been one of the first shots, sometimes the last, but I’m learning to be patient and relaxed myself – which helps!

These are the four most recent outcomes.

One thing that is emerging, for me, and it isn’t a surprise, is that these are portraits of the people.  Whatever the pretext, and the presence of the items retained from childhood provides that and a narrative as well, it is something about the subject that I’m really trying to capture.  Whether or not I am succeeding is another matter, but it’s what I find myself looking for.

I’ve also been working some more on the text to go with the images.  Ideally, it should just give enough of a clue to encourage the viewer to read the image, but leave some questions hanging for the reader to think about – a bit of a tall order, but that’s what I’m trying for.  I’m going to include one example in this post, but I might put more in the OCA Flickr group, just to see whether there is any reaction to the principle.  Below is the first of the four images above, but with its text added.  If anyone views/reads this and has any comments whatsoever, I’d be very interested.  The text should be just about readable, I think; if you click on the image.



Assignment Five – Update

Progress remains slow, but it looks as though March will be an active month in the context of this assignment, and might even see it close to completion.  This note is just to pull together a few developments.

·         I made the decision earlier in the year to keep things simple.  In the first shoot, I did experiment with some different poses but came to the conclusion that a straightforward ‘facing the camera’ style was the way to go.  It fits with, for example, the Martin Parr Oxfam examples that I referred to earlier; it fits with what I saw in the Taylor Wessing portrait exhibition; and it takes away one of the variables when dealing with the subjects during a shoot.  As it happens, it’s also the approach that I like best, personally, so I’m not going to worry further about that but just stick to the simple approach.

·         I did, briefly, experiment with the idea of using Google Streetview as a source for the background in the images.  The attractions were a) it could give me complete flexibility of ‘place’ or ‘context’ and b) it could introduce an element of true/false/real/unreal into the narrative and a further question in the mind of the viewer.  I had a go at a self-portrait, with a Newsbook that I kept when I was around 5-6 years old, superimposed onto a Streetview image of the school where I made it.  This was the best version of the outcome.

It took a bit of planning.  I’m kneeling on the floor, in front of a black background, in order to try and get the camera angle somewhere close to that in the Streetview image; and getting the right lighting balance between me and the background, even to this standard, took some doing.  (I’ve aimed at something resembling fill-in flash that would have isolated me from the more distant background, had I actually stood in front of the school.)  It isn’t right – though I’m quietly pleased to have got it this far!  But, as a few people intimated when I shared this will the OCA Flickr group, it is a step too far at this stage – back to the ‘keep it simple’ principle.

·         I have now completed two shoots, and I have enough volunteers in place to complete the assignment, when I can get further sessions organised.  I’m expecting that to be done by the end of March or very early in April.  In an earlier post, I used one of the images from the first shoot to trial the image/text combination, and I expressed some dissatisfaction with the image.  Having looked again at some others from the session, I think this one is certainly usable – less flattering as a portrait, perhaps, but potentially as interesting, if not more so.

This is my chosen image from the second session.

·         The earlier experiment with image and text together suggested that the text needs to be shorter rather than longer – more like 50 words than 100 – which gives me good guidelines for the final format.

It is now just a case of completing six more of shoots, hopefully within the next 4-5 weeks.

Edit 29-02-12

Following Clive's very kind & helpful input in the comments, I've done some minor 'tweaking' in PS, with these results.

I havn't changed them dramatically, but I can certainly see an improvement - more in the originals than in the small versions on here, I'd say.

Assignment Five – an example

Writing up my thoughts on the Taylor Wessing exhibition & then reading comments from Clive & Dave made me think that it was time to ‘mock-up’ something from the one portrait session that I have managed to organise, more than a month ago now.

I came away a bit frustrated with myself because I didn’t manage to get things just right, from the technical point of view.  I’m not going to dwell on the specifics too much here, however, I was shooting in a brightly lit motor garage but also felt I needed to use some flash and a wide aperture to avoid a slow shutter (and the noise that results if I start cranking up the ISO setting on the D80).  I did have an assistant, as Clive suggests, and he was holding a large white reflector behind me to bounce the flash rather than have it direct onto the subject. The result isn’t a disaster by any means, but there is some very nasty shadow across the subject’s midriff (from light that did go direct) and the foreground is less in focus than I had intended.  It’s usable but not up to the standard I would have liked.

However, I have added some text, which is what I have in mind for the final submission, and produced this version.  I’ll need to give careful thought to font size & type in the final versions, and also think carefully about just how much text to include.  I feel that it’s important to support the image with enough narrative to encourage the viewer to read it ‘correctly’ but I don’t want the text to take over.  That’s one of the reasons I’ve produced this version now.  I want to test the water, see what it looks/feels like, before doing the rest of the sessions.  My initial reaction is that this amount of text could be a little too much, but I now have something to work with, at least.

(Incidentally, I’ve since experimented with firing the flash through a diffusing layer rather than bouncing it – more ‘soft box’ than ‘umbrella’ – and I think I can get better results that way, if I need to use flash again.  Too late for this session though, unfortunately.)

Assignment Five related – Reflections on Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize Exhibition

Last Thursday, I was able to see the Exhibition of the 60 selected images in the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, at the National Portrait Gallery - Link to Taylor Wessing Prize.  (Other exhibitions seen last week, as well, and further reflections will follow.)  I saw the same exhibition two years ago and observed that it seemed to be populated, mainly, with Djikstra-esque images of young, sickly-looking East European women – a bit unfair, but with a degree of truth!  There was more variety this time, I would say, and I enjoyed it more.  It was also certainly useful in the context of my Assignment Five brief to produce a series of portraits.

The presentation of the prints is worth mentioning.  It was simple, ‘unobtrusive’ and quite ‘traditional’.  Off-white mounts and slim, dark wood frames worked well and tied everything together successfully in an exhibition with 60 different artists.

The outstanding print, for me, was ‘Malega, Surma Boy, Ethiopia, April 2011’ from ‘Faces of Africa’ series by Mario Marino.  I later discovered that it is the front cover of the catalogue, too; though not a prize winner.  There is a beautiful honesty and dignity about the portrait – and indeed, the others in his series, now that I’ve had chance to look further - http://www.mariomarino.com/.  And I particularly like the superb use of tones and textures – brown skin and a brown wall behind – sounds unexciting but looked really, really, good.

The winner has already had plenty of publicity – like last year, a red-haired girl with an animal, but guinea pig rather than horse!  It didn’t especially stand out, for me, but to be fair, it does make great use of the hair colours and there is a tiny ‘punctum’ (!) scratch on her right hand.  Of course, as acknowledged by the Director of the National Portrait Gallery in his Foreword to the exhibition catalogue: “The question of what makes a great photographic portrait is generally considered to be a subjective matter.”  I wouldn’t argue with that.

Overall, though, what do I take from this exhibition, particularly in light of my Assignment Five work?

·         Actually, some encouragement, first of all; I’m capable, I think, of making a decent shot at the portraits I have in mind for the assignment and the sort of subject matter and style that I’m planning could sit perfectly well within this group.  It’s just up to me to execute them to a decent standard.

·         Well over 50% of the 60 exhibited (from 6000+ entrants) are shot with the subject facing the camera and looking into the lens – many in a very simple, standing, frontal pose.  That collaborative, aware, posed-but-not-staged look is what I feel most keen on and most comfortable with for the assignment work.  So, I think I’ll stop worrying about trying to do anything too clever or more emotionally-charged/staged and just get on with it.

·         Many of the subjects are standing holding something – a concept that links directly to my own proposed approach.  Indeed, the winner is a portrait of someone standing, facing the camera, looking into the lens, holding something of significance!

So – glad I found the time to do this and it has encouraged me to follow the direction that seemed right in the first place.  Just need to get some sessions organised!  I’ve spoken to quite a few potential subjects now, but it all needs organising.

Assignment Five – more background & thinking

As I said in the last post, the idea for this project came to me some years ago.  Coincidentally, about six months ago, there was an article on the Guardian website about a project that Martin Parr had done for Oxfam, which has some similarities with what I have in mind.  The article is here.  In Vietnam, he photographed local people with something that they regarded as sufficiently precious to ‘save’ by taking it with them to a higher part of their dwelling when the floods came. This led to a project back in the UK, where he photographed ‘celebrities’ with whatever they would choose to save in the event of a flood.  Not surprisingly, there are interesting differences between the two groups, with the Vietnamese showing a strong preference for identity cards, school books and means of cooking rice, whereas the Celebrities favour laptops, diaries, sketchbooks and the like.  That said; paintings, photographs & other images crop up in both groups.

Of course, my interest in the Parr work is less about what it says and more about the way it goes about saying it.  The style of the portraits is, on the whole, simple – a basic front on pose, standing, facing the camera, usually holding whatever it is they choose to save.  The faces are unsmiling, quite deadpan, not expressing any obvious emotion, but they work as portraits – as simple expressions of these peoples’ personalities and lives, rather less self-conscious in the case of the celebrities, unsurprisingly.  The Vietnamese images look as though they have mostly been shot in natural light whereas the celebrity shots have the characteristic Parr ‘ring-flash’ look (I think).  Very early in this course, I looked at Avedon’s portraits and read about his method.  I think of the famous image of the young boy with a rattlesnake - here - the pose is similar but the outcome is something much harder.  I don’t think I’m in the business of making Avedon-like portraits and the Parr approach is probably a better model for me.  I do, though, want to try and explore the story, the narrative of the emotional link between this person, the object, maybe the place, and certainly the childhood that the object represents.  I’m setting myself a very tough task trying to get all of that into a single portrait – it’s probably impossible, but I feel that it’s worth having a go.  There is something to learn from stretching oneself and looking at what results.

I have also been looking through some of my books for elements of ‘theory’ that might relate to what I’m doing.  One piece that certainly struck a note was in ‘Photography: a Critical Introduction’ ed. Liz Wells.  In Chapter 5 ‘Spectacles and Illusions’, page 221 talks about the ‘Grammar of the Ad’.  It refers to Barthes’ ‘denoted’ and ‘connoted’ messages, and the potential significance of the latter in advertising.  My brief, as I have written it for myself, is to produce images that may be used in advertising and, in any case, the notion that there is communication going on at different levels is an interesting one.  The ‘denoted’ messages, supported by the accompanying text, will be the specific stories of the relationships between these people and their retained objects, but the ‘connoted’ messages, if I do my job effectively, will be to do with the way in which we are all products of our childhood experiences.  In Maria Short’s ‘Context and Narrative’ about which I wrote in here a few weeks ago, there is a chapter on ‘Signs and Symbols’.  Amongst others, it features work by Emma Blaney entitled ‘The Spectre of the Impossible Desire’, in relation to which there is a reference to “... the meaning that is often invested in small everyday objects...” as “... triggers for deeply embedded memories ...”.  Somewhere in here, I feel, is a theoretical context for the work I want to do in this assignment.

·         The memory and emotion triggered in the mature adult by the object that they hold, touch or look at, which they also held, touched and looked at when they were a child;

·         The presentation of that relationship and its emotional implications in the image;

·         The context of the relationship, as presented, which includes:

§  ‘place’; the location or background;

§  The style and physical qualities of the image;

§  Text which will accompany the image;

§  Nature and quality of media;

§  Inevitably, the reading of the signs in the image – by the viewer;

·         And so, the connoted message(s) about childhood experiences and their relationship with the adults; and, in the context of advertising, the resulting action that the advertiser seeks.

When I start analysing the possibilities to that degree, I start to find the whole thing somewhat daunting; but I think I need to keep my feet on the ground here and not try to be too ambitious.  Or at least I need to keep a range of options open.  Back to the Parr work with Oxfam and its relative simplicity – it will perhaps make sense to take at least one version of each portrait that follows this type of simple approach.  That way, if other experiments fail, I at least have the potential for some consistent and usable images.  This also fits with my thinking early on in the course, when I was favouring the contemporary ‘deadpan’ portrait style.  The best option will be, I think, to try out a few versions of each but to always make sure I have at least one that is – front-facing; looking into camera; unsmiling; deadpan; holding the object; etc.  Trouble is – will that explore the emotional aspects that I’ve listed above?  This isn’t going to be easy!

Another angle on what I’m planning in this assignment is the use of text.  Each image will be accompanied by 50-100 words that encapsulate the story.  I am kind of conscious that this could be interpreted as a ‘cop-out’ – the text doing the work that I should have done in the image!  That shouldn’t be the case.  The image must contain enough ‘signs’ for the viewer to form a ‘message’ in their mind and to be drawn to read both itself and the text.  There is a whole chapter in Short’s book on the use of text and I also need to look at Barthes’ ‘The Photographic Message’ where he discusses this relationship.

Above all, though, important as it is to consider the theoretical context of the assignment, I want to produce a piece of work, images and text, that I feel enthused by; something that expresses the interest that I feel in exploring this particular subject area; something, also, that picks up on the interest that has come back from the people with whom I have discussed the project.  I’m actually writing this after completing my first session with a subject, though much of what I’ve said above was going around in my mind before.  The first session has confirmed that getting everything right is going to be a real challenge.  It has even made me question my own ability to carry this off at a technical level.  However, I am keen to see this through, so ‘onwards & upwards’ as they say.

Assignment Five – the background and the brief

I have a direction and a brief for my final assignment.  The course brief is open-ended, of course, but essentially boils down to – writing yourself a realistic client brief; completing the brief by producing 8-12 images; submitting with an appraisal/analysis of what you have done.  I have decided to base it on a photographic project idea that has been in the back of my mind for 2-3 years and which seems to fit very well into this context.  The project actually has the potential to go on developing beyond the assignment as well.

The idea came about when I was studying Introduction to Digital Photography and used part of an old photo of me as a child in the ‘Real or False’ Assignment.  Digging out the old photo, plus some other items from my childhood, led me to think about the type of things we hang onto from our childhood, into adulthood and, sometimes, into later life.  What do we keep?  What does it mean to us and why?  What does it feel like, for example, to hold an object in your hands that you held when you were, say, five years old – maybe even something you created then?  From those kind of thoughts came the idea of making photographic portraits of people in which they were holding (or interacting in some way with) an item that they still have from when they were a child.  I hadn’t done anything about it but when I started out on People & Place and read the open nature of the final assignment, I thought there might be an opportunity.

Of course, the whole idea of the assignment is that it involves creating and responding to a realistic brief.  So I have written one – here:

My tutor has also kindly taken a brief look at it and agrees that it has the potential to fit the bill for this assignment.

I have also given some thought to the theoretical context of the project/assignment, and done some initial research on other comparable photographic work.  But I’ll make that the subject of another blog post.

My first portrait session is organised, too – for the coming weekend!