A3—Tutor’s feedback

I received my tutor’s feedback in writing for this assignment. I appreciate the circumstances that made a video / audio conversation difficult, but I find that a live exchange is much more effective for learning than reading a response in text. A live chat lets me ask whether I have understood properly and to ask questions—the back-and-forth exchange can be quite quick. Text does not really allow for much conversation and it is possible to read too much or too little into a sentence or two of commentary.

In spite of all that, the feedback was helpful although it left me scratching my head at first. R. writes that “visually I’d like to see you take this further” but, when you think you’ve already taken it farther than you’ve been before, where do you go next? So, I had to chew on his words a bit more:

Contact sheets too small: I’m not sure what the problem is, because they seem to expand to the same size as the sheets I’ve posted before. I’ll check. Nice to hear that they “look like aesthetic objects in their own right,” though. Perhaps I should just have submitted the contact sheets! (I’m kidding, of course.)
Location uninspiring: fair enough. Our back room doesn’t always inspire me, either, but I needed somewhere to work in the evening, out of the cold. I also agree with not cutting off my feet, smoothing out my shirt and making sure items like electrical outlets are not visible. These are all legitimate points about the imagery and I got too caught up in the fact that I was pushing myself to do a self-portrait and approximate dancing.
R.’s next points were very helpful to me as I reflected on them:
- “we’re looking for something visually improbable/unknown.”
- “Can you take your iPod out somewhere? The figure in location has so much potential, a lot of people are working on this at the moment. You need to choose your location with care, it’s hugely important what you, the photographer, see in it. It’s not a backdrop, the relationship is between the figure and the environment.”
And his assessment of areas for development really caught my attention: “Think visually, I feel you’re emphasising the ideas more than the visual realisation at the moment.”

I thought this last point was particularly fair and that visual payoff of my work was not as effective as it could be. If I hadn’t told you that I was disliked having my picture taken and that I was afraid of dancing, you would not have known it from the four images I presented. After thinking about all this, I decided to go back to what I wrote in my presentation of A3 and a single phrase caught my attention: “…ask me to put music and movement together in front of other people and I turn white with cold fear” (https://alancandn.home.blog/2019/11/19/a3-rethinking/).

It occurred to me that “I turn white cold with fear” is not just a vivid description of a feeling, but of an image, and that is the picture I need to show the viewer.

And so I have re-shot A3 to tell a more effective visual story, keeping in mind both my narrative and the need to draw on an interesting context that supports the narrative.

A2—Tutor’s feedback

I had my follow-up tutorial to A2 on October 8 and found some parts of it fairly challenging. The meeting got off to a rough start because I was at work and our firewall did not want to cooperate with the Zoom connection—in the end, we had to settle for a phone conversation.

Technical issues aside, I found that I didn’t always have answers ready for my tutor’s questions. Some were relatively straightforward and easily answered (Why did you approach the assignment this way? Have you thought of adding more text?), but others had to do more with the concept itself. I got the sense that I had produced a credible response to the brief (the written follow-up later confirmed this), but that my tutor was looking for… more. I took away the idea that, if I was going to propose a concept then I should push it. More than once I was encouraged to be “more extreme,” both for this assignment and for what I talked about for A3. I was concerned that the A2 images are a bit mundane (and that was the point), but my tutor countered with the following: mundane images can work if the concept is particularly strong, or vice versa (ideally both).

Following on this theme, I was encouraged to look for more narrative potential within the series of images and to look for something out of the ordinary that would affect people. If the pictures were to convey a sense of alienation, then I should go for it, either with a more extreme “museum-y” approach or more sense of loss. I should continue to develop the imaginary potential of the images.

I will re-shoot A2 before I submit CAN for assessment next year. I think I can make a tighter series by swapping out some of the artefacts (I’ll drop the cutlery service add another book or perhaps a medallion), increasing the museum-y aspects (perhaps with some more descriptive text) and making sure that all images in the series are consistent (I departed from the open/shut views with the cigarette case and will fix this).

All told, a challenging tutorial but one that I am willing to take on. I usually find that I learn more from hard questions—they are not always fun at the time, but they push me to new places. And that’s why I began the OCA program in the first place.

A1—Discussion with tutor

I had a good discussion with my tutor following submission of Assignment 1. Although he will send me a written summary of his feedback, I am doing this write-up based on the notes I took during our chat. Robert’s comments about the assignment were positive and I found them both encouraging and an opportunity for further reflection.

I mentioned that I had changed my original vision for the assignment, which was to have two images of each scene, one with frozen people and the other where the length of exposure meant that traces of people disappeared entirely. I did try this, but I decided that I wanted to leave a trace of movement similar to the way that Alexey Titarenko had done with his series. The reason I did this was not to follow Titarenko, but to avoid confusing viewers who would see every second image with a background and no people at all. I was concerned that this would be “too conceptual” and Robert replied that being conceptual is not a problem in a course like this! To my mind, “too conceptual” means that I would have to explain to viewers what they were looking at, because it would not be at all obvious from the images. I suppose that some of my reaction is because I do not want to produce images that are so conceptually “heavy” they require lengthy written explanations. This is the case for two reasons: 1) if I wanted a description of a concept, I would use words rather than images; and 2) I think I would be embarrassed to produce work that was so precious or clever that it could not be understood without an arty accompanying text. I don’t see me moving from that position in the near future, but I am now better aware of my own discomfort.

All the same, Robert’s view was that my series was conceptually coherent and that I had successfully achieved the concept visually and elegantly.

A couple of minor points on the images themselves, the first pointed out by me and the second by Robert:

the white balance was difficult to correct between the diptychs, but I managed to get close enough in every pair except the ones showing the Millennium Bridge and St. Paul’s (I may have another crack at this before assessment).
the two images showing the casino in Leicester Square are slightly out of register (this will be easier to resolve and I will definitely fix it before assessment).

A more important point, however, was the fact that my series shows a side of the city that most Londoners do not frequent: tourist London. This was not my intent: I had merely wanted to be in places where I was guaranteed a steady pedestrian flow without a tripod slowing commuters down on their way to or from work. The unintended consequence, however, was that the places I chose were all tourist haunts—so the cumulative effect is a series that could very well be ‘read’ as a comment on tourists or tourism, rather than more neutrally on the camera’s exposure of our perception of time and the artificiality of the photographic record. In other words, I wound up ‘saying’ visually more than I meant to. I saw Robert’s point immediately and will make a point of paying more attention to this aspect of my work in future.

The final point we discussed was my use of the term ‘reality.’ I had used it to describe the way that people commonly act as though a photograph gives them some direct experience of the world around them (a “phenomenological” approach; Smith, 2018). I realize that I left my understanding of the term unspoken and will go back to my A1 text to rework it slightly before I submit it for assessment.

All in all, a very positive tutorial and some new points for me to reflect on as I continue developing my approach to building visual narratives.

Reference

Smith, D.W. (2018) ‘Phenomenology’ In: Zalta, E.N. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. At: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/phenomenology/ (Accessed on 23 July 2019)

And we’re off…

Context and Narrative (CAN) is my third course with the Open College of the Arts (OCA) and the first since I decided that I would not follow the Creative Arts pathway but concentrate on Photography.

It was great to begin this morning with a video chat with my new tutor. With the previous two courses I only met with the tutor for discussion of work I had submitted for assignments, so I appreciated the opportunity to get to know one another a bit and get some early direction and feedback on where I might go with CAN.

We discussed my experience of completing EYV and submitting the work for the July 2019 assessment. Robert indicated that A4-sized prints would have been acceptable for Level 1 but that submitting in A3+ was a good indication of confidence. I think it might be more accurate to say that it was an indication of ignorance, but I will hope that the assessors are more inclined to Robert’s view of things. I also mentioned the cost of shipping materials to the UK from Canada (CAD $188 this time) and how the narrow two-week window set by the OCA complicates things: it becomes necessary to choose a more expensive shipping option to ensure that the work arrives neither too early nor too late.

I indicated that I would need to follow a fairly tight schedule for submitting work for this course because I must complete Level 1 by the end of February 2020. This will require some real discipline on my part, but I believe it is doable.

We also talked briefly about what I wanted to concentrate on in CAN: visual storytelling, greater facility with developing concepts and more consistent planning in my work. I am also interested in strengthening my critical approach, particularly in connection with my own photography.

I was pleased to hear that Robert is looking for a sense of enthusiasm and engagement from his students, as well as a desire to share work and enter into dialogue about it. I think I can manage all that. He also encouraged me to engage with writers I like, since positive response could be a sign that those writers are articulating something that I may not have been able to express as yet.

So, with my first CAN tutor discussion under my belt… we’re off and running!