Andy Hughes is an artist based in Cornwall and he investigates the relationships between consumption, plastic waste and the defilement of the land and sea. Hughes is interested in radical conceptions of materialism and the implications this has for politics, ecology and the everyday way we think of ourselves, others, and the world.
As preparation, the audience was asked to watch the film Plastic Scoop on Vimeo. There is also a Zine about this film. It is on Issuu.
The FMP Photo Project
Following the viewings above the immediate question must be about the Video Documentary and Video Gamification post that introduced Verdun a successful WW1 game on XBox. There is a possibility of cutting scenes into the photo project. Given the work is about the What and less so about the How, then this could become a diversion. The intent would as always be to contextualise the Abstract Expressionistic images at the core of the project to give the viewer more scope to follow the theme or themes.
Plastic Scoop above is a collaborative effort taking 6 months to create and demonstrates the scope to be largely beyond that of a Final Major Project FMP.
Lecture
A summary is provided here of some of the main points from Andy’s guest lecture and with particular reference to MA Major Project practice.
Early work was in part didactic as a way was sought of helping campaigns. The way an artist works is different though.
The book Novascene (Lovelock, 2019) was given as a recommended reading in terms of the theme connecting the past, present and future. Lovelock is the author of the Gaia Principle.
It was noted that in Aboriginal culture, thinking does not have to be linear as in Western culture. The image below depicts the concentric and a representation of thinking moving in any number of ways.
The area around Castleford which Andy has a childhood connection with transformed from coal mining to businesses’ that feature single-use materials (McDonalds and KFC).
[metaslider id=3584 cssclass=””]
Interest was found in the sport of surfing and this led to an awareness of beach litter. In photographing surfing comparison was drawn between the UK and the classic portrayal of surfing in sun-baked climes.
A new series of work was created using colourful plastic waste.
Also, in travels to the USA an unravelling golf ball was shot and in the background is the menace of a polluting plant.
Work was also made based on the waste found at outdoor events such as Glastonbury.
As an artist, there is a connection with making and so still life photographs of waste were combined with paintings.
Nostalgia was raised as a topic. Nostalgia is popular at the moment as it makes people feel comfortable in uncomfortable times.
At various points, during the presentation, there was a prescience: subjects photographed (e.g. rat, glove, stick) photographed as the same composition decades earlier.
In a comment about carbon usage, it was noted that Photography has in its DNA this thing about travel. So what can be done to limit the carbon footprint?
Working on plastic scoop meant spending 6 months in the studio and that limited travel.
There was work currently close to being exhibited. There is the whole question of how you keep in contact with the curator as there is a balance. Big-name artists can probably call the shots while the lesser-known have to be more patient.
Bibliography
Lovelock, J. and Appleyard, B. (2019) Novascene The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence. Kindle. UK: Penguin Random House. Available at: http://www.penguin.co.uk.
Influenza may have slowly begun to pass but it has left behind a frequent loud cough. Keep on resting and keep away from others until it clears up is the idea for now. Sadly I’ll miss the Bristol trip to MPF and RPS exhibitions.
Written more as a progress report this reflection continues on from Week 6 Research-Driven Practice. This self-directed activity ran across Week 7 and Week 8.
As blogged earlier the research is being opened out in a number of areas.
After the last module Surfaces and Strategies, emergent themes are being researched to identify areas of contextualisation:
This work deals with the emergence of ghosts, historic places and inner or outer spaces. These are recurring outcomes when healing images are abstracted.
Further contextualisation taken or taking place include:
video documentaries concerning molecular biology around genetics and DNA and
a research trip to the Wellcome Museum and Library.
(Instagram: foto_graphical or michaelturnercrj.blog for photo updates)
There is a catalogue of archive photographs recovered relating to the family maternal lines (mainly) linked to mitochondrial DNA. The stability of common mitochondria is the basis for time collapsing into a moment and creating the experience of identification. Finally, there is the unchanging flora of the Scottish lands and coastal areas of concern and again a metaphor for collapsing time into a single moment.
Really, there are lots of strands here that need to be brought into a consistent theme. The abstract visuals in the project have a strong element of randomness – results are hard to have any control over.
Lots of new healing sites have been photographed.but these need to be processed for glow and then be sorted through. Until this is done it won’t be known if there are enough good images to use in a publication edit. The best public work at present would likely result from taking selected abstracts from previous portfolios alongside new work.
It is a slow burn process at the moment and hopefully well matched to the current stage of the Final Major Project FMP.
Following my 1-2-1 Final Proposal Review, I planned to visit the Wellcome Library and Museum. There are regular Insights Sessions held.
There is a useful Blog that has an older item from 2018 from the Broadcasting Health and Disease Conference.
A successful visit was made during the Being Human exhibition.
Wellcome Library Reading Rooms
[metaslider id=3466 cssclass=””]
“Glass Microbiology” Luke Jerram, 2014
l-r “Ebola”, “Giardia”, “MRSA”
photographs Michael Turner
These glass sculptures “challenge the virulent artificially-coloured depictions of bacteria and viruses seen in the media and popular culture.” Examples of the media representations with colour can be found in (Salter, 2017)
There is an ongoing tendency to fall into engaging conversations with artists and others. On this occasion, it was a certain Patricia who engaged in conversation around arts, whilst setting out easels for a class as I photographed the above. Subject matter ranged widely across subjects such as contextualisation, the so-called, death of the author, and Portrait Gallery open sketching sessions (my first ever portrait black paper white pencil):
Sketch from National Portrait Gallery (Patricia asked to see a photo of this (if anyone wondered why it is reproduced here))
The Being Human Permanent Exhibition – Genetics
Here on display was a CRISPR gene-editing kit. CRISPR allows cost-effective gene editing or even biohacking. Alongside is a portable gene sequencer as a smartphone app and attachment. Since the human genome was sequenced at the turn of the millennium, gene editing and sequencing has become portable and cost-effective. Devices have come out of the specialist laboratory and are entering the public consciousness. Such images lend to the genetic contextualisation of the abstract photo project.
[metaslider id=3480 cssclass=””]
A number of references were identified.
Trauma (in relation to close relatives, of victims of war, who withdrew emotionally) (Kolk, 2015)
Art in Science (in relation to the photo project visual contextualisation) (Salter, 2017)
Bibliography
Kolk, B. Van Der (2015) The Body Keeps the Score Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma. Penguin. Great Britain: Penguin Random House UK. Available at: http://www.greenpenguin.co.uk.
Salter, C. (2017) science is beautiful disease and medicine under the microscope. London, [England]: Batsford. Available at: http://www.pavilionbooks.com.
Photographs Michael Turner 2019 unless work is otherwise attributed
The website has a shop portal with items that can be purchased. There is also an image of the week blog which Laura endeavours to update each Thursday or best she can.
Laura is an artist whose work is based on portraiture. At first, there appears to be no overlap with the photo project, yet when archive images are included for contextualisation, then there the overlap may become apparent. Laura makes her own portraits of course, where those with a connection to the photo project are from the family archive.
The introduction – a social documentary photographer, producing self-initiated, private projects for Laura.
Two questions – how do we make work? Why do we make work? Laura’s work is Fine Art, Social Documentary.
She was encouraged to try every genre while studying at university. Having a younger sister enabled Laura to explore an interest in teenagers especially given there was access. Noted characteristics of teenagers were awareness and lack of self-awareness.
Laura is engaged in commissioned artworks and short term projects. She always has a desire to learn about her subjects. Consideration is given to “what is it that interests me about the subject?” Working on a commission means working to a deadline, which depending on the individual, can be really useful. It has often led to good research done on time and the commission ensures work is completed.
One commission Digital Self Esteem, Selfies and self-worth, related to the selfie culture and was produced for the Saatchi Gallery. This used two-way mirrors and allowed the teen to settle their gaze on themselves for 20 minutes for each shot. Another commission Separation, What does Brexit mean for love, was for the BJP. The first thing was to realise a limitation over politics of not being well-read enough or intellectual enough. It made sense to go back to what the artist knew and the work rested on relationships and love. Tests were made using a latex screen in a studio. Photographs depicted couples likely to be torn apart by one of them having to return to their country of origin. The chosen approach was not too controversial.
Working Methods
In determining the working method, there are the following: what’s your voice? What is your sense of style?
Sometimes it is a relief to not to think too deeply, but normally Laura does research long and hard.
Searching for a sense of style
We were challenged to think about our sense of style and comment on what our signature style is.
Sometimes you can look at an artist’s work and recognise the style. You then may wonder if they will ever break out and do something dramatically different, do something really wild.
Hockney was able to paint on an iPad and was able to take the risk. HE can do this as he has done everything else so well.
People
Sometimes it has been a case of learning the hard way. You need to be clear about your reason for approaching people.
Portfolio Reviews
Portfolio reviews are an excellent way of gaining feedback and need to be structured: what is your reaction to this and why, then how can improvement?
Young British naturists was a long term project and involved an immense amount of relationship building, organising and planning. The personal project gave the opportunity to take control. “We’ll be shooting over here if you can gather”. Then when a shot seemed likely, the lighting was set-up.
Over a two week shoot, 36 rolls of film were used, but due to a camera fault, only one image was salvaged. A great deal of care was taken to adjust the positions because of the nudity.
Purity
Purity ran over eight years. The intent was to bring out love, family, traditions and femininity within the Jewish community. Preparation included working in local clubs to get into the community. However, barriers remained – Jewish women did not want to be photographed. The work initially focused on three families but this reduced down (or was reduced to) just one. Photographing meant going back to the same room every time.
Youth Without Age, An exploration of the fragility of life derived from a sense of age slowly advancing. Sketchbooks were kept. The subjects also sketched. Old Romanian films and theatre productions were watched. Cynically, perhaps other artists work was analysed e.g Alec Soth and his use of water.
Just be with people and shoot. A voice in the back of the head kept asking, “Why are you shooting”.
Projects in General
Some projects ran over 8 or 9 years, while with others it was a case of just shoot.
A visual notebook is kept with images stored on Dropbox. Here they are always available for inspiration. This is useful when making new commissions.
One project involved selecting a railway destination at random i.e. selected with eyes closed. A day would be spent shooting at the selected location. The weekly image blog is updated every Thursday with one picture with a reason why.
This research arises from a connection established with a geneticist. The value here is in the development of visual language for contextualisation of the photo project.
Mitotic Division is examined by augmented reality with the following app and educational workbook:
Note: Select English under the triple bar menu
The emphasis moved closer towards an interest in mitochondria explored in another recent blog post. While there is an abundance of archive images that explore the matriarchal lines of family, the visual context around genetics is being developed having been more restricted materially and in terms of ideas, which are constantly being expanded.
Use
The pdf says to print off the guidance – the app seems to work when reading the graphics directly from the screen graphics when Adobe Acrobat (or another reader is used).
Students are able to join the AOP. I met Nick at the 2018 Birmingham Photography Show. The guest lecture is well-timed as the Forth cohort begin to take their work public.
Your pictures your copyright
Copyright automatically belongs to you. Exceptions exist for images used in the US which need to be registered with the US Copyright Office USCO.
Cover exists for 70 years from the end of the year the author survives.
Assign is like selling your house. License is like rent.
Copyright exceptions:
employment (full-time salaried staff)
incidental inclusion
criticism and review
research and private study
Other exceptions:
parody
private use
orphan works
Edges are not clearly defined and funny is subjective.
If you blew up a Crewdson print and put it on your wall, you’d have to safeguard it from anyone else seeing it. That would be difficult to get away with.
A fee can be paid to the IPO for orphan work in case there is a later challenge,
Different ways of contracting exist in different areas.
Advertising, Design and Corporate sector
Media
Territory
Time
… are the basis of charging
Exclusivity
Base Usage Rate
BUR wants to start at a daily rate. You’ll never negotiate up from a low figure but may wish to negotiate down from a higher figure.
Editorial Markets
There are many titles and only a few publishers. They may offer you a contract. It is not an employment contract.
First British Serial Rights FSBR would say cover one issue and thereafter the photographer regains the copyright for Second British Serial Rights. Check if Syndication is mentioned as this could cause your work to be reused. Check if a fee is mentioned and whether or not the fee level is acceptable.
If versions of paperwork appear then check and refute anything that is out of line. Anything issued once the work has started is post-contract and not acceptable.
Moral rights
Assert your moral right to be credited as the creator of your own work. Assert in writing. They are obliged to give you credit. You may have knocked off a percentage of the fee for this so it would be a loss.
You have a right to prevent derogatory use of your work, for example with a portrait if they resize an image to fit a box or crop an edge off and it makes your work look amateurish. Similarly, you do not want someone else’s work to be attributed as yours as it may affect your professionalism and stop a client from hiring you.
There is a right of the commissioner to prevent publication. A newly married couple could return from honeymoon to find their wedding photos all over social media before they have even seen the photographs.
Moral right cannot be sold but can be wavered.
Put a statement on your website to assert your moral rights.
When a contract is given to you it may be boilerplate and not be suited to your contract. Rebut if it is wrong. The person issuing the contract typically has a second, third and fourth version where you cannot agree.
Read everything in a contract before you agree or sign. Send copies of your terms to different departments as finance may never talk to the creative group. If you give them a PDF include a layer to remind them of the terms of use. Otherwise, include a terms file with the JPEG.
Software plug-ins
These plug into Lightroom. There is a plugin to populate an image with meta-data. Another to track and manage image use.
Due to catching influenza (twice now since Unseen Amsterdam) there will be a brief reflection given here and more detailed account in Week 8. This makes sense as research was continuous throughout the fortnight period.
On reflection, it was interesting to see how much ground was covered as self-directed study/research and other coursework.
Week 7 blog posts
Wellcome Museum and Library Reading Room visit. There is a bit more visual research to write-up relating to stained colour images although the point is made succinctly in the text.
Omnis Cellula ex Cellula presents a visual app on Genetics viewed through Augmented Reality AR. There were other independently found smartphone apps and a recheck shows there to be an extensive list.
Some apps look as if they might support rather well, the binge in video watching on genetics. Binge-watching is far from a normal practice but tied in with resting with flu.
Guest Lecture with Nick Dunmur AoP. We were given cause to seriously review our Critical Research Journal contents as the blog face out to the public.
In pursuing a World War 1 theme, or having done so, it would make sense to expand on the photo projects context by building a stock of images and other research. This was done earlier at IWM Duxford (IWM, 2019) and The Black Watch Castle and Museum Perth. These visits proved useful in contextualising abstract work.
Options have recently been generated to expand themes in new directions in other words, other than military. In the interests of keeping shooting, it would be useful to visit a number of sites.
The topic is an odd strand of research concerning how if at all, images from a gaming platform could be considered for use within an MA project. A look-see reveals a YouTube review. (Zommin, 2016)
Take-away points from this research are:
The most brutal war didn’t get much attention in gaming.
When it is represented, there is an element of caricature borrowed from gaming
Of the few games, there are rendering WW 1; the tendency is towards flying and air combat.
An early technology implementation of one flying game was put forward for crowdfunding but failed to raise sufficient funds
One game stands out as a modern technology representation, and that is The Battle of Verdun France, in the video game Verdun. (Blackmill Games, 2017) Pursuing Verdun as a game on XBox video console is likely to be unfruitful. Rather than be critical and halt the further investigation of video gaming, it would make sense to at least experience the game and see what can be found in the visuals. Already found is a reminder of the quote “You will be home by Christmas”.
Verdun as a video game proved relatively unpopular and can be taken as an indicator of the dying interest at least amongst the game-playing public.
Perhaps implied is an only minor public interest in the theme of WW 1. The observation is reflected in comments received during a review and again at an external presentation. For many current generations, there is no personal experience or recollection of WW1. It is a play on memory loss that caused the project to be taken up. Dry data records are transformed into tangible memories of people, of the remote family, before living contact is lost, and all that remains is data, certificates, files and the like with nothing to connect the these into a story.
The emphasis on flying for a publicly accessible game probably says something about a lower interest in land warfare. Thinking this through also expands the idea to other more standard forms of broadcast video as evidenced by various series of documentary programmes.
Video Documentary
Reference broadcast television.
World at War
They Shall Not Grow Old (Jackson, 2018)
The latter has helped address a problem of why close relatives did not mention their loss.
An assumption is challenged as to the cause being an immense sense of loss and need to protect well being and that of others. From the quotations below, the light is shone on the demobbed soldiers reports on the attitudes of civilians:
People never talked about the war. It was the thing that had no conversational value at all.
Most people were absolutely disinterested.
When I got home my mother and father didn’t seem the least interested in what had happened. They hadn’t any conception of what it was like.
There was no reason anyone of a million of us should get a thank you for getting a little bit muddy and having lost touch with good manners.
On occasions when I did talk about it, my father would argue points of fact that he couldn’t possibly have known about because he wasn’t there.
Every soldier I’ve spoken to has experienced the same thing. We were a race apart from these civilians and you could speak to your comrades and they understood but with civilians, it was just a waste of time.
However nice and sympathetic they were. The attempts of well-meaning people simply reflected the fact they didn’t really understand at all.
I thin the magnitude was just beyond there comprehension.
They didn’t understand that people you’d known and played football with were just killed beside you.
My friend who enlisted with me just lay there like a sack of rags until he went black before anyone thought to bury him.
They knew that people came back covered in mud and live. But they didn’t know the strain of sitting in a trench waiting for something to drop on one’s head.
You couldn’t convey the awful state of things where you lived like animals and behaved like animals.
People didn’t seem to realise what a terrible thing that war was. I think they felt that the war was one continual cavalry charge. They hadn’t any conception, and how could they?
It started off in a reasonable manner but with horseback with swords but they didn’t know it developed into something ghastly. People don’t realise the potential of military equipment.
A man’s life wasn’t worth anything at the end of the war.
None of us were heroes you know. We didn’t like this business of being killed at all.
We were talking amongst ourselves. We used to say Christ we won’t have any more wars like this.
How did we endure it? The answer must be partly the fear of fear. The fear of being found afraid. Another is a belief in human beings and colleagues and of not letting him down.
There may be right on both sides, but I think war is horrible. Everything should be done to avoid war.
I still can’t see the justification for it. It was all really rather horrible.
I think history will decide in the end it was not worthwhile.
The only thing that really did annoy me was when I went back to work after I got demobilised. I went down the stores and the bloke behind the counter was a bloke who I knew. He said where have you been? On nights?
From: They Shall Not Grow Old (Jackson, 2018)
Summary
The issues and the ethics of incorporating other work within a photographic project come to the fore. Balancing this is:
Acceptance that family archive material may be incorporated
This strand of research has lost out in the competition for resource during the course catch-up phase.
There is a theme that emerges from showing work. If the abstract images within the project that are the core of the work, are not understood by viewers, then there arises a need for the abstract images to be carried by archive figurative images.
Strands of research interest break down into:
The public visual perception around commercial DNA testing including branding and illustration
Metaphors around stability running parallel to mitochondria: flora and landscape.
Laboratory visual characterisation of chromosomes. Some of the work being done in Brazil by a researcher who has been contacted and given outline permission to use scientific imagery around the photographic project.
Visual language development from the laboratory or from science expands to the chemical expression of genes through epigenetics. This week, Week 5, inspiration was taken from the sourcing of visuals seen in War Primer 2 which uses archive material. It was decided to experiment as follows:
This reading is used to extend research-driven practice into Family Constellations
(Hellinger, 2011) (Ulsamer, no date) (Preiss, 2012)
A Return to Family Constellation Research
Family Constellation is now on the second iteration of research in connection with this photographic practice. When looked at before, the emphasis was on the title word Therapy: Family Constellation Therapy used to describe a group or individual interaction under the guidance of a facilitator. In this sense, it appeared to have a disconnect with Family and mitochondria.
In the interests of promoting the research-driven photographic practice, Family Constellation is now subjected to a more critical appraisal.
First indications are positive. Who we are as a dependance on who we came from, which does connect with the current project. A search for love in these connections is said to satisfy the soul and allow the individual in the present to become free of ant entanglement and give focus to their own life or in other terms from the method, give birth to themselves.
The language does appear unscientific, that of a guru yet on a commercial level selling a product or more accurately a service that works on a psychological basis in a manner perhaps Yoga does for the physical and spiritual.
At a cursory level, it is easy to dismiss Family Constellation unless the reader of it is happy to believe in its principles. Acceptance of approaches to help individuals grow into management roles in a business context is probably very similar and more familiar. Trust in strategies such as Transactional Analysis PAC or Emotional Intelligence EI is normally readily established. Other areas are more difficult to accept for some such as Myers Briggs categorisations which seem to be wholeheartedly accepted or are accepted within a collection of similar strategies, with outlined limitations or in the opposite and quite commonly outright rejected, potentially as a threat of some sort regarding manipulation. And so with Family Constellations, there appears to be the same kind of barriers to acceptance. Not being so well known a technique it may be more difficult for it to gain widespread acceptance. The feeling is there is bound to be and seems to be a body of followers.
If we take the above as an a priori position and set about to prove or disprove, then we have a way of moving forward. More reading is required.
Summary
Going into this research with an open mind is quite revealing. What is clear from (Preiss , 2012) is that a number of family situations documented here could or can be linked to the family narratives of the Photographic Project e.g. Relationships (Preiss, 2012, Loc 3081) with heavy fates. What is offered is a way of maintaining a healthy link to family in the past in such a way as to gain release from entanglement and become free from it and do so in a respectful and healing manner.
From a set on non-academic texts of all things has come a realisation that there can now be a disconnect with the heavy load of the past carried through the project. In fact, in radical terms, it becomes possible to disconnect from the subject matter, which has not been feasible until now.
Already the project has been on a trajectory away from the military endeavours of the past to family photography archive and flora.
Investment and Direction
To take the photo project and stop dead with it would be brave if not risky a move. Such a move would also mean having to write off costly investments relating to the original subject.
If the themes of empathy and loss were to be set aside, there still remains the artistic interest in abstraction as the natural expression of the author and the ever-growing theme around mitochondria, photographing healing and movement into creating art from a science of Biology.
Hear hangs a major decision. A decision needs to be made.
Staying with the methods developed for making abstract work is the decision. More emphasis is beginning to be placed on the mitochondrial theme. Research is also being conducted into the themes of spectres or ghosts and into the weird and eerie to draw out those elements.
The latter is base on the appearance of landscapes, seascapes and consistently but more frequently the appearance of ghost images.
Bibliography
Preiss, I. T. (2012) Family Constellations Revealed. 2nd Editio. Antwerp, Belgium: Indra Torsten Preiss.
Hellinger, B. (2011) Laws of Healing. Bischofswiesen, Germany: Hellinger Publications.
Ulsamer, B. (no date) The Art and Practice of Family Constellations. Edited by C. Beaumont. Kindle Unlimited.
This reading is used to extend research-driven practice into Themes of Politics and History. (Derrida, 1994)
The blog title has been chosen as a phenomenology of personal experience in relation to objects. And the Simulacrum as a means by which the camera creates a version of reality. From the photograph of healing glow a version of reality abstracted in a direction based on personal experience of place and of people.
And so “… to render an account of, the effects of ghosts, of simulacra, of ‘synthetic images’, …” (Derrida, 1994) Page 94.
In discussing exorcism as a means of creating death and its comparison to a Coroner issuing a certificate in which that which was living is no longer alive. “… the dead can often be more powerful than the living …” (Derrida, 1994) Page 60.
There are many references within the text with some connection to the appearance of ghost images amongst the abstract work of the photographic project.
Out of original photographs of healing sites, there appeared from time to time an occasional ghost image. In the previous module, there was a flood of such images. This leads to the question being asked about the appearance of ghosts. There is a strong emotional effect in finding spectres and while they can be seen by the author, they were also clearly spotted by visitors to an exhibition of the work.
Derrida is a renowned philosopher who in writing about the spectre of Marx, yes in a context of the fall of communism, covers throughout the text the theme of apparitions.
In a discussion of the phenomenological and of the simulacrum there appears the following observation:
“For there is no ghost, there is never any becoming-specter of the spirit without at least an appearance of flesh, in a space of invisible visibility, like the dis-appearing of an apparition. For there to be (a) ghost, there must be a return to the body, but to a body that is more abstract than ever” P 157.
The photographic project takes that which may be invisible and makes it visible and does so from flesh and in making an abstract form. As Derrida contemplates the Specters of Marx, then so the project contemplates the spectres of ancestors. The theme thus far has been versed not as those lost but of those who suffered their loss. The mother who lost her son or soldier who lost a brother.
“Mourning always follows a trauma” (Derrida, 1994) Page 121 strikes a chord. On discovering the trauma of those previously not known there followed no doubt a form of mourning, even if displaced from the family it directly impacted onto to those who uncovered the events.
As quoted (ibid) forms of trauma, the classification of which is attributed to Freud include psychological trauma (the power of the unconscious over the conscious ego), and biological trauma. In the photo project, psychological trauma could be linked to the unconscious element of creating abstract imagery including ghost images, while the biological may be responsible for creating identification and the effect on the body. If so, these are powerful creative processes.
On writing on “Time is out of joint”, as Derrida wrestles with an interpretation of “… one time in the past, how would it be valid for all times?” (ibid) Page 61 again one is reminded of the photo project having a theme from mitochondria being unchanged for thousands of years and so of 100 years of history being collapsed into a moment.
By pure coincidence the last portfolio exhibited was monochrome with the red of blood – the cover of this book is monochrome and red.
Ghost Dance
Ghost Dance. (McMullen, 1983)” Through the experiences of two women in Paris and London, Ghost Dance offers a stunning analysis of the complexity of our conceptions of ghosts memory and the past.” – IMDB. This arthouse film is available on YouTube and features Jacques Derrida as himself.
This reading is used to extend research-driven practice into Beyond the Unheimlich (Fisher, 2016)
The Weird
A quality of the weird is the presence that does not belong. (Fisher, 2016) Page 61
The subject matter here is uncanny and although it is an essay about literature falling into the categories of the weird or eerie, the text relates to the photo project and the author’s experience. In creating imagery in the abstract, an image, that is strangely familiar emerges. The photograph of healing that translated into a seascape, reminiscent of the mudflats off of the Solway Coast. This place is in the southern Scottish lands, once lived in and where the historic research and photography was conducted. The German unheimlich relates to a feeling of the creepy. Unheimlich is used by Freud as a such creates a bias in meaning. This makes it difficult to focus on variations in the translation, it seems. Unhomely is one preferred example overtaken by Freud’s writing.
An obstruction found by (Fisher, 2016) Page 8 is an association with the genres of Horror and Science Fiction from which the author goes on to write of the common feature of “The strange – not the horrific.” and then to highlight the fascination for what “lies beyond standard perception, cognition and experience.”
Although abstract outputs of the photo project often have a sense of that which is there that would not be expected to be there, the result when colourful creates a sense of pleasure in the viewer as sensed at a recent Exhibition at which additional work, that which did not make the final edit, was shown.
In (Fisher, 2016) Page 39 there is a quotation from Zizek observing a condition of overtaking or “transference to find ourselves at a later point which we have already been.” The photo project, by contrast, collapses time into a moment. The present becomes linked to a past time one hundred years ago. Simultaneously, those from one hundred years ago transfer into the contemporary moment and this is where a psychological identification takes place from the present to those from the past. In this, the dead remain dead but the story that their lives contained becomes present. There is a knowing that their wounds healed by the same source of mitochondria that our connected flesh experience in healing.
(ibid) Page 40. Unlike in the 1969 novella, Behold the Man, the prospect of transporting back 2000 years to live the life of Christ including his crucifixion is barred. The photo project theme is based on common mitochondria passed down the maternal line. There would need to be a connection through the matriarchy back to Mary Magdelaine would never become proven. Such events are of course far beyond the project scope which only has certainty over a recorded history of one hundred years.
As the earlier form of the project had taken shape and images had been made, there was an uncanny Exhibition experience where Rachel Howard’s paintings (Howard, 2018), were seen to have distinct visual similarities. Howard’s paintings carried the Catholic theme of Christ’s crucifixion. This was blogged in a previous module and whilst there was an overwhelming experience of the weird, it was an example of coincidence. Photo image post-processing had a similar effect to an easel based art in which gravity acted on paint. Nevertheless, an unheimlich experience.
In (Fisher, 2016) Page 45 mention is made “There is another type of weird effect that is generated by strange loops”. In human biology, the mitochondria are set apart from the nuclear DNA within the cell. In the inter-spacial region, the mitochondrial DNA form loops, and act as the energy powerhouses of the bodies cells. There they create ATP molecules for energy storage and transfer. The mitochondria have been captured by the human cells and adapted to life there. However, the mitochondria are an ancient form of cellular structure that exists in a bacterial world where they are able to exist independently. (Cowell, 2019) Within the sperm, mitichondria power the race to the unfertilised egg. This endeavour is not rewarded as the egg with its own mitochondria overpower it.
Finally, on the subject of the weird, (Fisher, 2016) Page 58 describes how “we must attend to the strange folds, burrows and passageways of Inland Empire’s weird architectures. Here, there is a crossover into the miniature world of human biology. The loops that mitochondria form, increase the surface area through a crinkled effect of cristae. The outer membrane only is adapted to allow the passage of very small molecules into the mitochondria. Then through the various complex effects enzymes allow glucose to split into carbon components at the surface as the Kleb citric cycle takes place. During the process, an unequal potential is created between the outside and inside of the mitochondria whereupon further enzymes allow some of the processed results to reenter the mitochondria through multiple narrow channels. There is an expiration process, in which carbon dioxide and water are released. What is weird and striking is the architecture of restricted access and limited re-entry and uncanny parallel to the architecture of the fictional world in the Inland Empire.
Again, this is weird or unheimlich.
The Eerie
“The sensation of the eerie clings to certain kinds of physical spaces or landscapes.” (Fisher, 2016) Page 61
In the photo project, as post-processing unfolds, there evolve such spaces or landscapes. As with the eerie cry and its effect on the imagination, there may be a hint of something being missing. In the photo project, the spaces created are devoid of people yet their mark may be found on the landscape.
Update: reading into the eerie recommenced in the Christmas break.
(Fisher, 2016) Page 97″Repeatedly throughout his fiction, Garner points to the eerie power of the landscape, reminding us of the ways in which physical spaces condition perception, and of the ways in which particular terrains are stained by traumatic events” … “the mythic is part of the virtual infrastructure which makes human life as such possible”:
An interesting comment in (Fisher, 2016) Page 109:
“There are ghosts in the machine, and we are they, and they are we.”
Of portrayal in the film Interstellar (Fisher, 2016) Page 121:
“The immediate temptation here is to dismiss this (portrayal) as nothing more than kitsch sentimentality. Part of the power of Interstellar, however, comes from its readiness to take risks appearing to be naive, as well as emotionally and conceptually excessive.”
Clearly, there are potential traps of kitsch etc to be avoided in the photo project.
Fisher, M. (2016) The Weird and the Eerie. London, [England]: Repeater Books. Available at: https://www.repeaterbooks.com.
Howard, R. (2018) Repetition is Truth via Dolorosa. Edited by A. C. Beard Jason. London: Other Criteria Books. Available at: https://www.newportstreetgallery.com.
With the renewed focus called for in today’s Module Leader Group Critique that students drive their work forward as a research-driven practice, then it makes good sense to ramp up on this in the blog.
Research that ran strongly in an earlier module runs a lower level of engagement after a busy period of making and so the time is right to conduct more in-depth analysis.
A recent blog post highlighted areas of research interest, omitted sadly from the proposal by way of four texts.
The Forth cohort attended a group critique, our first.
So to take forward something of the way of telling a story by a compositional layout of three parts or by layering an archive portrait with a glow picture. What feedback would the Module Leader and the audience give?
The PDF attached can be downloaded. It contains two frames, one for each method of interest.
This file displays correctly as two pages: View – Page Display – Two Page View for side by side comparison and to show a two-page spread.
Making a PDF was practice for the 1 May hand-in but at a small scale.
The intention is to obtain a PDF with the best resolution images saved as an Interactive PDF format. InDesign frames also ensured even sizing of the pages which of different dimensions from Word and Photoshop were made consistent.
(TBD Here is the work of the previous module:)
#Advice
Here is the update promised following today’s critique. The idea is to obtain greater clarity and something actionable.
We learned from each other’s presentations as much as our own. Five presentations were made:
Skye rushes
Balloon metaphor
Mitochondria
Book diptychs
Urban regeneration
Reaction to presentation – mitochondria
Preparation for the presentation was done well in advance and meantime it may have answered its questions on the layout options.
There were no audience comments. Module Leader comment went beyond layout, drawing attention to the importance of mitochondria as a theme. Agreed this is the foundation and deserves elevating.
The work could be helped along by adding a family tree. Privacy issues prevent this. However, a generic chart is something I would entertain.
David Fathi did some work concerning the impact on moral actions of using a genetic sample for modelling disease.
The family mitochondria theme does have a historical element as that is what stirs a feeling of identification with family. It is more of a driver or motivator than the actual purpose of the work which is forward-looking in terms of light reemerging as a means of detecting disease. It may be infeasible in the time to go too far with this science as the interest is really in creating art. The art is from the digital sensor capturing glow in a way the eye tends to ignore which given a style of processing can emphasise the hidden.
General learning points
The advice given related to the current point we are at on the course. Our work needs to be research-driven. So back to the books.
Also, no work is ever complete until we present it to the public as the audience. It is then we start to gain feedback.
Practical learning point
The student from the group, three months ahead of us was very informative in terms of their planning. They have already had their exhibition with six weeks to the end of their studies. They had 30 images and proposed editing them down to 20 for their portfolio but add in more for a book. They received interest in their work, and a videographer had even filmed their work.
This was a very useful 1-2-1 session guided by a true professional. Thank you for helping me to progress my work.
During the 1-2-1 there were some exciting and helpful turns, that I’d not expected. Thankfully I was able to address each point.
Referencing
Referencing had been deficient in my proposal. I’d not planned it to be a rushed job, but it was what it was, and I accept the comment. I’d since blogged my references, and was able to show these in my fully refreshed CRJ blog here.
In practice, my work is back on track, I just wasn’t able to assemble and organise references in time for the Proposal submission.
Proposal Organisation – Headings
A comment was made on the Proposal organisation. There was a need for more headings. The proposal was likened to a stream of consciousness, a comment which I love. There is a time and place I accept, but to be recognised as writing in the style of Roland Barthes, has to be an honour, surely?
Evidencing
Some assertions in my Proposal required evidencing. I can rectify the problem now, even if only for my own satisfaction. Points relate to detailing:
A planned Meeting with a Kodak scientist and specialist in digital imaging and medical imaging who works in the cosmetics industry.
A visit to a Digital Imaging Symposium in December – a Kodak scientist I’ve known since 2010 is set to give me an introduction. Note to self, I need to catch up with him on Friday.
My reviewer wanting to know more was encouraging. The project has been moving forward from interpretations of Biology theme and begins to enter a medical world of digital imaging. Why so? This originally was simply to validate a technical point around healing glow and Infrared emissions.
However, this research led me to investigate a bridge between Art and Science. especially following a Symposium back in September.
A further point that required evidencing concerned:
Creativity and the subconscious mind.
Direct evidence is present in the making of my work. The process is experiential. Appreciation of how abstract art is created cannot be assumed for the non-practitioner audience.
In academic terms, this is probably insufficient, or so I now realise. With the formal approach, I reference:
(Kandinsky, no date) Page ii on our spiritual relationship with the primitives, “… these artists sought to express in their work only internal truths, renouncing, in consequence, all considerations of external form”. So too I.
(Scarry 1987) page 21. “The human action of making entails two distinct phases – making up (mental imaging) and making-real (endowing the mental object with a material or verbal form).
Scarry ably described then, what became second nature in my work.
The Critical Review Journal CRJ (this blog)
As I’d shown my updated reference post and this later conjured interest in the CRJ. I was able to show a couple of relevant posts and by navigating to the bottom of the page, demonstrate the organisation:
Tag Cloud
Category selector and
Free text search
Next came the test, to retrieve a Portfolio from a prior module. That worked smoothly and was a testament to the preparations made. The search was a genuine thing as the Portfolio was then displayed and discussed. What followed was a connected piece on the next steps of project development. This at the time was a screen share of a prepared PDF on my computer desktop. Since the 1-2-1 the PDF has been posted here:
Bibliography
Kandinsky, W. (no date) Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Edited by M. Sadlier.
Scarry, E. (1987) The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. New York, London: Oxford University Press-23 978-0-19-504996-1.
The activity was wide-ranging this week and covered the end to end process of the proposal review through, development of the project, research-driven work and some image-making related to contextualisation with a focus on genetics.
In terms of Learning Outcome L06, it is now clear from a reading of (Preiss, 2012) that the photographic project subject matter creates a great deal of entanglement between the author and family ancestors. This entanglement is fundamental to the theme being complicated and difficult to express. A reading of this reference has furnished the tools to disconnect from a deeply personal and difficult subject matter. At first, it seemed that the project could altogether complete as the attachment can now be broken and even a new project undertaken. Reasons now for keeping going are the development of the DNA theme of science as art, and not to mention the level of investment in the project.
The Video section in the list caused thought to be spent on the target audience and in particular highlighted audience limitations – not the younger (game playing) age group in this research.
If research bias is to move towards mitochondria then the visual language contextualization needed to be developed and so the first attempt during the FMP module. A feature of the new approach is there is no travel to southern Scotland for shooting the environment.
It was appropriate to reacquaint with the research skills of a) skim reading, b) scanning and c) close reading. The different reading skills would be essential given the number of reading materials that are currently being dealt with.
Bibliography
Preiss, I. T. (2012) Family Constellations Revealed. 2nd Editio. Antwerp, Belgium: Indra Torsten Preiss.
What are the options I feel might work in presenting my processed images?
From my research (Colberg, 2017) page 46 consideration is given to different groups having different degrees of visual sophistication, and this should shape the concept. As a book publication with the intent of avoiding small edition size, it is appropriate to make a photobook accessible. I should avoid making it overly complicated. I ought to add text that helps the viewer understand it.
This is my first obvious challenge as to date I’ve been aiming at multilayered meaning and have preferred by analogy Shakespeare prose rather than Daily Mirror. What is to be gained by trying to be too clever (and potentially failing at it too)?
(Colberg, 2017) page 47 also draws attention to the “zine form often looking like a sloppily made photobook.” I may have made the point elsewhere that I use the zine as part of my workflow when creating a hand-bound book. It is not a deliverable item in its own right.
Narrative
(Colberg, 2017) page 47 discusses narrative and how it both means “story” (as in what is the story being told here?) and the process or technique of telling a story (as in: how is the story being told?)
I have learned that “it is important to keep these two aspects of a photobook apart: what is the story? How is the story being told?”
Then does there have to be a story. No. Bit most photography os about something so there is probably some sort of story.
I’m going to try and keep these points in mind as I look at some options.
I have these ideas to take into the review this week, Week 6:
Use mixed images where archives and abstracts are somehow layered. Until I try it out I won’t really know how effective this will be.
Take each abstract as the main image and have around it two small related pictures; a family archive photo in one position, a narrative picture of a person or a newspaper quote of them.
The latter translates through the form of a timeline and should be comprehensible. A complication to this is the idea of time collapsed alluded to here. I now explore the metaphor of a ladder where there is the transmission of the gene as an information carrier. In fact the DNA double helix is visually like a ladder. At each rung, of my ladder there is a photographic archive print relating to relatives who share in common biology.
Still running for a book publication:
Use a template approach such as discussed previously by adapting the layout from Rachel Howard’s Repetition is Truth exhibition book.
The structure is:
Interview (including contextualising photos in miniature)
Prose (also the same with contextualising photos in miniature)
The main body of abstract paintings created using the hidden brush of gravity.
A collection of abstract miniatures giving a kind of contact sheet view accompanied by minor captions.
Adopting Howard’s method for me overcomes a problem of wanting to be like this artist and major in abstract imagery. I’m aware of personal significance I had gained from Howard’s exhibition that is not transferable to my audience. Then it is probably too early in the FMP module to bar more considered options.
Bibliography
Colberg, J. (2017) Understanding Photo Books the Form and Content of the Photographic Book. Edited by Taylor and Francis. New York: Focal Press.
I comment here on LO3, LO4, and LO6 as areas of focus. Perhaps I did not communicate these strongly in my Final Proposal.
LO3 Critical Contextualisation of Practice
I contextualise my photography and image creation in terms of healing and art, an earlier identification with suffering, along with the spirituality of connecting with family and our remembrance of them. The following references I associate my with:
Sick Photography Representations of Sickness in Art Photography (Tammi, 2017)
The Body in Pain The Making and Unmaking of the World (Scarry, 1985)
Family is the immediate audience. My work emerged from family as a collaboration.
Our staff and students within the University are audiences. This a step towards going public through assignments, portfolio reviews and critiques.
Accomplished photographers and digital artists I would reach out to as my primary audience.
Clinical photographers and scientist experts in digital and medical imaging are an emerging target audience. At present, I use the scientific community to test theory and assumptions.
Followers of my work, may or may not represent a professional context yet interaction here often brings pleasant surprises. Some from this group are from teaching or an arts and crafts background. They actively express interest in my work and have done so now for several years. Followers have earned special consideration.
There are several tried ways and other potential ways of reaching out. The exhibition has to be the main driving force, as experienced in an earlier module. From this springs the marketing and publicity of reaching a particular milestone. This would lead to a rich media environment and supporting materials and social media campaign.
A book is a recommended outcome for my work having demonstrated strong skills in making in an earlier module. I would create a book dummy and would seek to convert it into a professionally bound work. Numbers of interested parties might tally around ten at a first count. I need to give this more consideration.
Even if I restrict the list to these for now, I klnow from experience there is a whole lot more making:
Video for contextualisation.
Audio recording as for creating atmosphere.
Online gallery
As an emerging digital artist, it would fit to occupy a gallery space in one of the online communities. At present, this has to be aspirational as there is so much more to find out. I’ve participated in virtual world exhibitions several times, explicitly using Linden Second Life, a virtual world.
From an online world perspective creating a gallery is untried for me. I’m sure I would need to involve a virtual world developer. This is exciting, really exciting, even it flies in the face of materiality. I’m thinking through how the name Second Life becomes connected with the theme of my work which is really an aside. However, I see a great connection with the title, as sentiment and as the digital presentation of digital making. This would be a true mark of progress, given ancestors could never have predicted the rise of the internet and the discovery of knowledge of genetics. At some point, I was going to get carried away and here we are. I really need to focus right down on making rather than being distracted by technology. This can be saved for later.
LO6 Written and Oral Skills
My chosen area has been hard to convey to a general audience. This circumstance has been a constant for my time on this MA course and it is only through repeated practice that I hone this skill. The starting position each tome involves a trap. It is always too easy to over-elaborate and justify my work. In subsequent iterations this communication becomes more crisp.
Bibliography
Batchen, G. (2004) Forget me not. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Available at: http://www.papress.com.
Kandinsky, W. (no date) Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Edited by M. Sadlier.
Scarry, E. (1987) The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. New York, London: Oxford University Press-23 978-0-19-504996-1.
Tammi, M. (2017) Sick Photography Representations of Sickness in Art Photography. Edited by M. Tammi. Lahti, Finland: Aalto University Publication- Aalto ARTS Books Helsinki. Available at: https://shop.aalto.fi/.
This has been a week for consolidating and catching-up and a time to start looking forward too. After a poor start to FMP, there is a recovery and so a lot of activity of seven guest lectures. Three on the Photography Hub, four on the FMP Module.
Photographers Researched
Posts have been written on three photographers who were more fully researched:
Susan Hiller – Auras;
Evan Roth, Red Lines; and
David Fathi (also listed in the FMP section below)
I caught up on three Photography Hub Guest Lectures
This was a lot of lectures (seven) that were caught up. This took me away from preparing photographic work. There is more catch-up with, two more Photography Hub guest lectures to write-up (Forrest and Labas) and a forthcoming FMP research lecture featuring Caroline Molloy.
on post-processing from several shoots to catch up on. So a very hectic week ahead. It is just a case of maintaining this level of focus.
Final Proposal
Our Supervisor published the scores for the Final Proposal and I rightly gained a low pass. My excuse is an illness that I’m now over and an unprecedented set of personal circumstances.
Applying for Extenuating Circumstances EC is something offered by the University but I didn’t entertain this. I didn’t anticipate the barrage of further circumstances about to unfold. I wasn’t able to plan and progress my proposal and did not have it reviewed prior to submission.
Overall, there were already too many other activities to catch-up on and EC would only have compounded.
Instead I scraped together a submission and got on with fixing my blog, began advance planning and substantially caught up on coursework and research.
Shoots and Post Processing
Thinking aloud. I’ve managed to keep shooting and even do some practice shooting as circumstances proved favourable. Practice shooting was with local Flora with new techniques I wished to hone before going farther afield, e.g. back to Scotland should this transpire as my method. As yet it is undecided. In a sense, it would be easy enough to arrange to do this, but the purpose and intent need to be clear and robust compared to other approaches I have on the go.
Post-processing, a key element in making a useable image, has only been lightly pursued. Why so? The obvious question of available time but also of needing to know more of the direction I want to take-up. Ideas are still being formed.
e-Zine and Bound Book
On the subject of an eZine, I need to communicate my interpretation of what this is about. My practice is such that when I begin a bookbinding task which of course is only a part of the book publication workflow, I have so far made an eZine using the online tool ISSUU. This is so I can maintain clarity by modeling the book. The vagaries of page imposition are such that the ordering looks completely wrong at every single stage until the printed signatures are assembled in sequence at which point the eZine version and the book-bound version match in page sequence. I’ve been accurate on this so far.
I researched imposition tools and my findings were around expense, software incompatibility and the distraction of learning a third-party application when a direct method in tools I already use would be about as good. There are always refinements to learn including dealing with page creep.
Printing
I did go out and find a print shop and talked to them about book production and would need to go back and sort out PDF image format etc.
Something I discovered from a recent announcement by a camera manufacturer is their flat spread binding offering. There is a special appeal for me in the two-page spread that is continuous across the join. If the claim is true it could work for me depending on what I decide to do. I should probably create a dummy to check this out.
Look ahead
There are several activities scheduled for next week, Week 6.
On Tuesday, I have my final proposal feedback – I said I’d analyze the marks (against the Learning Outcomes, LO3, LO4, LO5, LO6, LO7. These are searchable categories within this CRJ blog. I elaborate in the following blog post.
Bibliography
Colberg, J. (2017) Understanding Photo Books the Form and Content of the Photographic Book. Edited by Taylor and Francis. New York: Focal Press.
I continue evidencing my research with reading that began in an earlier study module that I carry into my FMP.
I’ll return to make my update.
Bibliography
Kandinsky, W. (no date) Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Edited by M. Sadlier.
Kandinsky, W. (1977) Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Dover. Edited by M. Sadler. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. Available at: http://www.doverpublications.com.
I continue evidencing my research with reading that began in an earlier study module that I carry into my FMP.
I’ll return to update this blog.
For now, it is clear to me in my work that making-up is a part of the abstraction process driven by the subconscious mind following a period of deep immersion in the topic lasting now several decades. This is the result of collaborating with a history researcher.
The result though is the print that gives the abstract its material form, and so the tie-in to the following quotation:
“The human action of making entails two distinct phases – making up (mental imaging) and making-real (endowing the mental object with a material or verbal form) …” (Scarry, 1985)
Bibliography
Scarry, E. (1987) The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. New York, London: Oxford University Press-23 978-0-19-504996-1.
This is one of four contextualization blogs I intend to publish in Week 6 and will expand upon later. The post is meant to evidence some earlier research I started in a previous study module and that I carry through into my FMP.
My reading had led to the Aalto University doctoral dissertation 172/2017 as published in the book by this title: Sick Photography Representations of Sickness in Art Photography – Maija Tammi (Tammi, 2017).
This work covers a similar divide to my own, i.e. that between medical science and photographic art.
The publication overlaps into two exhibitions held in Finland.
Keywords: Sickness; disease; illness; art photography; abject; Kristeva; Kleinman
The best description I can offer for this difficult subject is the Author Maija Tammi’s own words from her book abstract which I have wholeheartedly copied below:
“This artistic research scrutinizes how sickness has been represented in art photography and examines the new ways to approach, think about and create photographic art about sickness. This dissertation combines theoretical research and artworks. t\he theoretical part shows that while scholars have concentrated the ethics of what kinds of images of sickness or suffering ought to be shown or on the psychology of why some images of sickness bother viewers, most art photographers have concentrated on depicting personal illness experiences. The research applies anthropologist Arthur Kleinman’s definitions of sickness, illness, and disease in a diagram to examine photographic artworks approach the topic.”
“To understand the functions and the meanings of the different approaches, the research draws especially from Julia Kristeva’s writings on the abject. The main results of the research, artworks Leftover and White Rabbit Fever are intertwined with the theoretical part. Leftover was exhibited at Photographic Gallery Hippolyte in Helsinki in January 2014, and White Rabbit Fever at Gallery Lapinlahti in Helsinki in September 2016. Both bodies of work have also been published as books: Leftover/Removal by Kehrer Verlag in 2014, and White Rabbit Fever by Bromide Book in 2017.”
Quotation
Charles Baudelaire, “… copying nature had nothing to do with art.” (Tammi, 2017) Page 54.
Perspective
Having read this work, it is clear there is a distinction present between the book with sickness, illness and disease versus the photo project and healing as glow. A similarity of sorts is in the book exemplifying the growing and dividing HeLa cells with the progressive colour change of the suspension. Beyond these comparisons the book and photo project are separate subject matters both involving the human body.
Common considerations do exist that have perhaps been down played or given cause to obscure and these relate to:
Ethical and aesthetic problems
Disturbing images
The difficulty of looking – the abject
Difficult photos – aversion; Freud’s uncanny; Misselhorn’s aesthetic of disgust
(Tammi, 2017) Pages 29, 37, 181-204, 215
“… it is not sickness that should be be re-defined or questioned but health.” Page 217 And healing in health is exactly what the photo project does focus upon.
Bibliography
Tammi, M. (2017) Sick Photography Representations of Sickness in Art Photography. Edited by M. Tammi. Lahti, Finland: Aalto University Publication- Aalto ARTS Books Helsinki. Available at: https://shop.aalto.fi/.
My subject blog was being swamped by notes on technical issues. I decided to segregate these to keep the focus on the main blog on FMP Photography.
A number of improvements have been made to help manage the technical environment. A purchased WordPress update aligned the Dashboard to the Education version used by and documented by the University. I’d only recently become aware of the version differences which are quite major.
This blog is now much more visual after finding out how to adopt the recommendation to use WordPress plug-in MetaSlider.
Other additions include a Tag cloud, and a category list, to help the reader (or marker) select specific information. Language conversion was nice to have and easily added, as was giving the reader edit capability on their comments. A social network connection is pending decision and likely to be linked to the planned 2020 campaign to take the work to the public.
Backups and File Storage
Blog
The blog has now been set up for automatic back-up using the plug-in Updraft Plus. Some additional storage needed to be purchased.
Archive Catalog
Local Disk to Disk
For my archive catalog, the 32-bit utility Scooter Software Beyond Compare stopped working and has now been updated to 64 bit in a free upgrade to be compatible with the computer OS. I can resume copying the attached disk to a second attached disk.
Attached disk to Cloud
Locally held disk storage really needed an offsite backup. Backblaze has been set-up and is running the first backup, hopefully in under the 22 days first quoted.
The Course Calendar on Smartphone and Computer
Canvas appointments defaulted to no Alert on a smartphone. This is now being hand amended.
The computer calendar had not been synchronizing Canvas entries. This has now been addressed. Planning ahead is now much easier. Unfortunately, the computer-style calendar does not allow you to set Alerts for Canvas appointments. The get-around is to set an alert on the smartphone which then syncs across to the computer.
Oddly, the smartphone started to display double entries. This no longer happened after suppressing on the smartphone one of the many Calendars.
Major update to blog structure
I’m now back on the tracks following the restructuring of this blog for best practice. Introduction of blog Categories and Tags has meant tidying up older posts i.e. those from earlier modules as they begin to appear as public search results (external and marking). The time penalty should hopefully pay off.
During my FMP it is good to start more fully leveraging the power of the blog. This is really powerful from the Admin Dashboard which I’ve recently gained access to (for internal management of posts). From Week 5 on it will be best to only go back to make earlier ad hoc change as and when on an opportunity basis. I do now need to really increase my focus on new content, contextualization and project development.
The basis of my Abstract practice is the healing glow captured by the camera sensor enhanced in post-processing. In my endeavour to research appropriate visual language, I’ve looked towards the scientific and medical communities to determine how such work enters the wider consciousness including the public. Through investigation I’d hope to understand how my images might be viewed and how I might layer in certain types of graphic. For example representations of XY chromosome and DNA test strip.
The latter I’d used to give context to the viewer and I’m looking for creative ways to expand the visuals.
Clinical Photography Guidelines
When photographs of healing are digitally processed I often find expression through highly saturated colours. From the heat camera image below there is a similar palette and so there is a consistency. There is a tendency to work in monochrome which suppresses these colours. My research determines if colour trivialises my work or represents a wider consciousness.
Voluntary adoption of working guidelines of Clinical Photography. (Naylor, 2003) creates an association with medical photography. The method leads to a closer inspection of healing sites and sometimes observations are made which can trigger the curiosity but is sidelined. However, the heat camera article in the newspaper serves to remind that medical observation can follow.
The heat camera item is a newspaper article and doesn’t carry the same weight as funded medical research. The Medical Photography heading though, does have weight. A reading shows there to be a new or emerging science of light in diagnosis. Even as a visual only there is close correspondence to the art images I make within the project.
In conclusion, it seems valid that I should anchor my work to medical science at least on a visual basis. This gives hope that the viewer of abstract art may read and correctly interpret the signs given.
The last item below, In Conversation, brings attention to the crossover between biological sciences and art. I feel this validates my choice of subject of healing glow as it sits at the boundary of art and science.
Commercial Heat Cameras
What has triggered the post were two more coincidences. A newspaper article reported on heat detection of cancer (Parker, 2019)
Bal Gill / PA
Medical Photography
Notice has been sent out regarding How light “of many different colours and flavours” can be used to diagnose disease in a number of remarkable new ways. (Macdonald, 2019)
RPS Medical Group
In the photograph above the red coloured left-hand image is very similar to the appearance I create within my image sets. The structure also has a correspondence with my work. This means the abstract practice is quite well founded in colour and form.
In conversation: Viewing the Invisible
Scientist and artists were brought together to explore the similarities in their working methods in Viewing the Invisible. (NPG, 2019) I was able to talk with a number of scientists about my art perspective on mitochondrial DNA.
Caroline studied Visual Anthropology for her MA. She now teaches (third-year student photographers) and is researching for her PhD.
Two main projects were discussed:
The Untouched Copy and
The Deportment Guide – photographs from a flea market but with identity hidden by hard cropping tops of heads)
[metaslider id=3387 cssclass=””]
The first project shown was about studios based initially in India. On a personal note as a Studio worker, it remains true that the MA Project is conducted outside of the studio environment.
By re-visiting India, to re-photograph what was revealed were the numbers of studios impacted by digital, and how this led to closures. Backgrounds had been traditional Victorian (photography had been a Victorian export to the colony).
The project themes were; studios, the owners, and the transition eventually from photographic film. Some research objectives firmed up during the project. In order to get permission to photograph the studio owner Caroline needed to agree to being photographed. This made the genre Autoethnographic. There were many norms to be learned in making the work. Communication and cultural norms had to be learned.
The work moved from studio to studio, following recommendations. Interviews were to be had with owners, their families. The work spread wider as the story and structure were forming.
Studio owners made a living but may have had to also sell gems or even slippers. There is a clear commercial side to photography in addition to the academic.
Caroline was very open about her work. The work went through a transitional phase and entered a liminal space. She adopted socially engaged conversations.
Cultural aspects mentioned:
Sending a business card with a model’s photo (not her own)
Mother Teresa played down by the official photographer
Owner not wanting to be photographed with flowers
Photograph me I’ll photograph you
A backdrop of English garden scene
Each point involved an unexpected re-interpretation or potential misunderstanding.
While the work was being made and interviews were obtained a notebook was kept that became part of the published work.
As an autoethnographer, it took time to learn. Knowing the kinds of questions to ask is important.
The work went public and was exhibited in Jaipur. Initially, there was a book made on Blurb with a page layout of; photo, photo, notebook, notebook.
After a series of annual trips, it became clear that Autoethnographic communities needed to be more accessible i.e. within walking distance. Carolin’s work turned to the Turkish community in London. This project examines Turkish studio practice, English studio practice and the emerging mix of the two.
Access to the subject is key to our MA students. The work still has to be true to the students’ ambitions and be authentic.
Bibliography
All photographs courtesy Caroline Molloy Autoenthnographer from Falmouth University guest lecture (research).
Early mention was made of this guest lecture in a 121 session blogged here.
David is a scientist breaking free into a world in which he makes art.
As always an important element of these resources is to identify with practice in the Final photo project.
David summarised three projects using these bullets which served as a useful summary:
Project summary – David Fathi
David’s art allows him to take up his interest in the areas of knowledge, politics and science.
Three works are presented: Of these the first two projects, Anecdotal and Wolfgang are books. The next project, The Last Road …” moved on to become an installation.
Book: Anecdotal … nuclear bomb testing on own lands e.g US Nevada
Book: Wolfgang … Pauli Quantum physics, anecdotes of things going wrong, CERN archive
Installation: The Last Road .. Henrietta Lacks archive HeLa cells
In presenting Wolfgang in different contexts, David began to explore the installation as a way of publicly showing “The Last Road …”.
David felt he could have continued on in the vein he started (in some respects poking fun) but he was driven to do more serious work. Whilst earlier did poke fun it was also factual.
The work relating to Henretta Lacks, controlled the viewer experience as the installation layout meant the viewer walked between Dark landscapes with Hela cells opposite Intimidating text. A video played at the exit end in this liminal space. The video comprised film stills with an audio track that played louder closer up.
The migration to installations fell out from presenting Wolfgang creatively in numerous settings. Don’t let the form of archives seduce you. It is a danger. Maintain control. Control also by viewer walking between Dark landscape/Hela cells opposite Intimidating text. Video at the end shows film stills. The music gets louder with proximity.
Examples of stills given included the Film Godzilla as metaphor for the atomic bomb.
The talk highlighted ideas of balanced pairs:
mortality – immortality
personal – political
science – art
#Advice
Some take-away advice was “Don’t let the form of archives seduce you. It is a danger. Maintain control of your work”.
On the subject of abstraction, David quoted an observation by Stanley Kubrick:
Be self-aware of one’s art and the impact it may have. Stay true to one’s intent.
It is important to remain aware that work can transition from a book publication to an installation
A major update has been completed including a retrospective change to posts from the earlier modules that impact on my FMP.
#Advice
A video resource made available showed how the staff of Falmouth University approach a Critical Review Journal and especially during assessment, so it became clearer how I might adapt some details of my own blog.
A second video resource provides an example of one students work.
A result of using the above resources, videos and guidance document is that the FMP blog has now been restructured and is more professional. It should be easier to research as work continues.
At Week 5 the restructuring is basically complete:
tag cloud search is introduced
category filtering is introduced
FMP posts structured and scheduled (use tags and categories)
A video resource made available showed how the staff of Falmouth University approach a Critical Review Journal and especially during assessment, so it became clearer how I might adapt some details of my own blog.
This video was returned to on 16 October. This lecture tunes in to the representation of people through community collaborative practice.
I then relate Judy Harrison’s work to my practice to find out what I can take from it.
Studying at college with what were to become famous names such as Martin Parr and others, Judy was in good company. Judy’s work showed a great deal of social concern around the topic of identity, migration and racism. Her work also featured themes of strong women in farming and in the pottery industry.
Judy’s work showed genuine concern for people as she spent time talking with them. Examples here were the women working on farms. Judy noted the importance of engaging with the women who were her subjects. This was part of slowing down. She did not want to take advantage of her subjects.
An element of rephotography existed as Judy often returned to the original places and so was aware of changes that had occurred.
[metaslider id=3014 cssclass=””]
Judy instigated the setting up of workshops in migrant communities and by lending cameras, and by showing how to use them her subjects were able to document their own identities. This was a lengthy venture in which Judy was involved for 15 years.
The collaborative work toured and exhibited nationally.
[metaslider id=3022 cssclass=””]
Work began to locate in a third space, between shooting indoors and outdoors. Her collaborators were able to bring gestures of performance and create images of self-expression. People were given a voice. She would often go back over the years. The children had grown into adults and now had their own children.
Judy then became concerned to document place, people and school. Her concern was to mend a cultural divide, through a literacy project.
Her work changed to that of the decline in the potteries and she became deeply ingrained in the remaining industry and alludes to the sensory experience in that working environment with the smell of clay and dust.
[metaslider id=3035 cssclass=””]
Judy is an advocate of making work on photographic film as a means of slowing down. This compares with the Final photo project. As a photographer, 35mm film use has been readopted. However, its use is infrequent. The digital practice is unavoidable in the Final photo project where unseen data on the digital sensor is key. Slowing down still occurs but this occurs at the post-processing of image art in the digital darkroom.
#Advice
The work is not about Nostalgia. Is nostalgia a negative?
Obtain a balance between others’ interests and the photographer’s interests.
Collaboration is encouraged by the University. A challenge is knowing how to mark the work. Family archive prints are a newly introduced part of my project as I seek direction in mixing art with photographs others can identify with. If seen as collaboration it is in the context of using historical records.
Bibliography
Photographs – courtesy Judy Harrison from Falmouth University Guest Lecture
These are my reflections on Week 4, the Week in which the Final Project Proposal was submitted to Canvas Assignment.
This is slightly back to front in that the assignment submission was Monday and so the remainder of the week saw other activities take place:
Shoot 4 – a combination of healing and recording family archive images.
WordPress restructuring took place and was a major overhaul.
The P2P meeting was attended on Tuesday.
A 121 meeting has been booked to receive Proposal feedback from my Supervisor and eminent photographer Dr Wendy McMurdo.
Item 1 above was a very significant step forward in the development of new themes for the portfolio visual language and has been blogged here and here. This is the most important take-away point from the previous module, exhibition and portfolio. Acting early is key in order to avoid running out of time after Christmas. Something I reflected on afterwards when contextualising and in particular in following a podcast was the need to avoid, I feel, the move of primary focus towards a theme of NOSTALGIA. This needs unwrapping as it could in one sense become the project’s downfall. However, archive photography has proven its worth too and as well this is a time for experimentation. A second concern is around the idea that women have been portrayed in photography by men. This was pointed out in a podcast discussion with exciting, emerging women photographers Juno Calypso, Maisie Cousins and Sophie Green.
Item 2 WordPress activity became a major undertaking. The inspiration and resources were also blogged.
A direction change is to the revived interest in using the family archive of film prints. Again this is to do with developing my visual language. Initial indications are quite revealing:
Experience in scanning film negatives revived after my visit to the Falmouth University, Institute of Photography IoP. Prior to this, I’d done some archive film scanning of a reasonably low resolution using a portable scanner. This was enough to satisfy my interest at the time. At the IoP some current films were developed: three 35mm films and two 4 by 5 negatives. The film was processed both by hand and on a developing machine. A drum scanner was used to digitize the results.
Based on earlier experience using a portable scanner to create digital versions of a real archive, it seemed that a couple of years elapsed time might be involved in making a comprehensive capture. This had coloured my view on starting to scan another 5 or 6 generations of the family archive.
The estimate, making it infeasible for a full scan during an FMP, unless another approach was considered. What unfolded was a quick look through the archive, and a mass of images was captured on a smartphone in rapid time. This has different effects: it made selecting and using specific photos possible. These were printed photographs as opposed to film. What was clear was the content of pictures I was interested in making the process more focussed. I was looking at specific places: landscape, farms, buildings but also people in the maternal line or closely connected.
The downside of the initial session is to do with a consistent and controlled capture set-up that could be improved. As a first pass, this was highly successful, though. There are options: I can invest time in cleaning up the photographs in digital. My usual preference is digital retouching. I could revisit the archive and make new scans, either in a more controlled fashion or using expensive scanning equipment. A constraint I placed on the activity was the need to engage and have a discussion. It wasn’t a grab but a sensitively handled meeting.
I decided not to separate any of the prints of special interest from the archive for controlled scanning. The thing is that so much can be read from the grouping of prints and their order as it aids discussion when identifying people and places.
In the event, there was an engaging discussion during the inspection of prints and some good scanned results were obtained. Images of specific interest had been picked out and rephotographed. This was a collaborative effort and was quite swift. Another session may be arranged to reconfirm a few identities.
Categories were decided, and these fall into headings related to people and place:
Menfolk,
Women especially mothers,
Children,
Farming, Landscape, and Activities.
[metaslider id=2670 cssclass=””]
My project so far has been portrayed as connecting with the 1900s as I collapse time through an unchanging aspect of Biology, mitochondria.
Further suggestions arising from the Tuesday P2P meetings is to record an oral history. This suggestion related to another revival. From recent experience, it would introduce an atmosphere around any Exhibition and supplement information in taking it to the public as a Project book.
Part of this is the centenary commemoration 2014-2018.
Recent experience has underlined viewer interest in photographs containing people, exactly what these archive images contain. What must not be lost is the role these photographs play in providing supporting context to my main abstract work.
The archive turned up other gems such as a wartime identity card and a really old photograph envelope with markings that urge making extra prints.
I have to date maintained a close focus on a specific branch of the family but am now ready to spread a little wider during my FMP project.
There are several maternal lines. In a sense this makes the work more interesting to make and hopefully to view.
I have a cooling off period as I think through how all this affects my project.
A constraint I address is having enough images to proceed with an edit for an exhibition and for a book. A consequence is this early activity in gathering and taking pictures. I hope to have learned from my previous study module.
Having said this, I have already met distraction especially in restructuring this blog. The cost of doing so should be repaid later as it becomes easier to research from my CRJ.
Howard Rachel (2018) Repetition is truth via Dolorosa. Edited by A. C. Beard Jason. London: Other Criteria Books. Available at: newportstreetgallery.com.
The project direction is such that an alternative figurative image direction is being sought. At the end of PHO703 a resolved body of work was created.
An attempt is is now to be made to move on from Warfare to a theme of place. The purpose is to create new work for an existing practice whose intent is Identification with people and place past.
[metaslider id=2177 cssclass=””]
The place is that of coastal inland where the landscape and seascape will have altered little other than the ruin of abandoned buildings.
So to enhance abstract work using images of the fauna and flora of today as representation of that experienced by ancestors.
Photographs made now span or collapse into a single moment a timespan of over 100 years. This is the same for a Biology of female transmission of the highly stable mitochondrial DNA. The two themes form a parallel, strengthening the identification of specific family members today with specific others in the past.
This was another video in the initial backlog of lectures that had gone unmentioned/undiscovered for reason(s) unknown.
Introduction
Jon Tonks is a British photographer based in the UK. His work focuses on telling stories about people’s lives shaped by history and geography. With an MA in Documentary Photography & Photojournalism from London College of Communication, his work has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, Sunday Times, Telegraph and FT Weekend Magazines, the British Journal of Photography and more. He has been shortlisted for the Taylor Wessing National Portrait Prize three times, twice for the Terry O’Neill Award, and in 2014, Tonks was presented with the Vic Odden Award by the Royal Photographic Society for his first book Empire – a journey across the South Atlantic exploring life on four remote British Overseas Territories. The book was hailed by Martin Parr as one of his best books of the year. His work is now in a number of private collections, both in the UK and abroad, including The Hyman Collection of British photography, and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Texas. https://www.jontonks.com/
Projects discussed:
Empire – this was based around Ascension, Saint Helena then Tristan de Cuna, 2007-2014.
Falklands for which a book was published
South Pacific 2014-2020
Multi-story arts-based charity commissions Magnum photographers. Took part in a project about the Black Country around Sandwell and the Polish and Eastern European migrants.
Vanuatu – a South Pacific island where colonial and missionary influences were rejected. Its people instead identified with the economic strength of the US and awaited the arrival of a white man as US citizen who would bring change.
[metaslider id=3095 cssclass=””]
#Advice
Jon’s work followed on from his photojournalism. He worked for a local newspaper for a while but it was very limiting. At this point, he turned to his study of the lesser-known Empire. Following portfolio review was asked to do something more exciting so went back to revisit. He showed the book dummy at University.
The experience in Jon’s case was he didn’t know what the outcomes might be for his work. Work just snowballed.
It can help to go to Photo Fairs and Portfolio Reviews, but these can be harsh and will reduce some people to tears.
Jon started with simple portraits. One a group of boys and a bicycle was put forward as a Taylor Wessing entry.
Tonks’ Falklands book was published by Dewe Lewis. The layout was of simple two page spreads with a photo on one page with the text opposite. A specialist was used to do the map artwork. Almost by surprise, the Falklands book sold out. A second edition was created, of which there are some left.
Doing the projects again, they’d be done in a slightly different manner.
Projects can take 6 years, 7 years and evolve.
Release forms were used with the Ascension project but this evolved to asking permission and taking contact details if the work was to be used in a commercial sense. What the work does is represent things as what are. Everyone knew why the photographer was there and what he was doing.
Self-funded projects were possible through weddings and some documentary work for the Nokia brand. Tonks relocated from London to cheaper areas. He felt he missed some openings and events.
There is the idea of pitching to a newspaper and building up a relationship. It is difficult to do it with full-time commissions.
The new location in Bath it quite centrally placed. Being local you get to pick up work there.
It is important to realise the kind of photographer you aren’t. Realise what you’re good at and not so good at. Try to remain focussed like an arrow.
Paula is from Spain, studied Law while being mentored in street and documentary photography. She travelled to London to study for a certificate at Central Saint Martins, then she studied her MA at the University of Westminster. She now lectures and is researching for her PhD.
Until taking up academic studies, her work did not have a subject specialism, but it does now.
She described her projects and these have found success.
Free Hope
Homes of political activists in Cuba. The spaces were photographed and pictures published alongside an outtake from the associated interview.
Common Space
When Europe was going through a massive recession, day to day decisions were being made in the European Parliament buildings by faceless people. The work photographs the office spaces where these people operate.
As the furniture of a futuristic style was featured the aluminium prints were made at different sizes to keep the furniture to scale in the photographs. creating a kind of typology.
The work was also published in a newspaper format. This made sense as most people would only be aware of the European Parliament from the newspapers or television.
The newspaper added context around the location of the buildings photographed. Installation shots were made that show the newspaper being read.
[metaslider id=3065 cssclass=””]
Winter Holidays 2011-2013
In Andora in the Pyrenees, there is a transformation being made to a winter holiday resort. The project photographs the human intrusions built into the natural landscape. These are sometimes brutal and generally, look out of place and especially so in the summer.
Alto al Miedo (Ceasefear)
A project photographed in the aftermath of the ETA ceasefire in the Basque region. A thousand people died and there was extortion of small businesses.
The project photographed graphic still life scenes of seafood brutalised in different ways as a metaphor for what had gone on.
Helena 2013
Helena is a muse from Greek literature. She was written about by a man and desired by men who would go crazy over her. The project gave voice to Helena and alls here to respond in an evocative conceptual work.
The Rope 2014
This was the most personal project and most poetic. It is of fragile family memories and the photographs which hide identity, are left unexplained.
Followers Work in Progress 2017
The Followers project uses archive photographs from the Czech secret police archives detailing who a person met, where and what time. There was a style of photography where the camera was not put to the eye. There is a striking similarity to social media profiles where we now give away the information for free so it can be used by the authorities as and when they need to. The work uses 35mm film photography with pictures taken in the secret service style, in the same places but of people photographing themselves on smartphone or tablet.
#Advice
Think about aluminium prints as a publication method.
After the MA the photographer became very busy making numerous projects but has had to slow down during her PhD.
Make interview recordings and include excerpts alongside an exhibition.
When making is Work in Progress, the photographer had already gone public and had the completed work lined up for a group exhibition in May 2020. Being active so is a way of taking an idea to completion.
The following statements are recorded as thinking points rather than being prescriptive advice.
There is a consistent visual language, for work made across a range of different subjects.
For Caterina (our host), during her studies, there was a need to create a consistent visual language as if that was important.
The work evolved organically from Pure Documentary to Conceptual, to Pure Conceptual,
Nigel Ready CRJ here worked on a book on his FMP worked with Victoria.
Introduction
We’re now into the new year 2020 and a good time to have looked back at this video of the making of a book on the landscapes of Seamus Heaney, for now, MA graduate Nigel Ready.
There is more activity with Victoria who is returning to give another talk in her series followed shortly afterwards with a review session which has been ‘booked’.
Addressed during the break has been the limited numbers of pictures available to publish and so this has been worked on. Still not satisfied, there are now more images where each theme has a limited to draw upon. Making a book is going to be a big challenge notwithstanding having hand bound a book already for the course.
Challenges also are cover embossing / cover image as that craft has not been tried out.
Victoria’s Guest Lecture
What follows are some key points and a few images that serve to remind.
[metaslider id=4083 cssclass=””]
Apart from the introductory slide showing some of the scope of Victoria’s work, the others cover: the brief, reply, embossing of cover, the outake with shovel that determined something of the cover design.
Production steps
This outlines some of the points when working with a book designer.
The brief in the slide above was accompanied by a tight edit. The reply slide content widens what the book designer gets to see for the edit.
At the early stage the photographer has cropped in to images and they have a significance that can be lost on the viewer. The scope was quickly reduced to poet Seamus Heaney. Victoria twice used web resources to get a feel of the poet speaking/reading his poetry and of the styles of cover others had used before taking inspiration from Nigel’s photos.
Resolve what you are saying.
Determine emotional response and voice.
Allow wider selection to depict the subtleties of a complex subject. This used 150 photographs. It was only 64 at the start.
Get a feel (YouTube readings).
Work always starts with the photography and cases of two images saying the same thing reduced to one image.
Choose top images in editing down.
Made pairings and made a run (narrative).
Narrative shouldn’t be forced.
Go by the run of the images. Outcomes could be adjust, re-create or reshoot. Probably best is to stick to the run where possible?
Title VERSO inspired by listening to the poet. Digging the earth and turning the soil, turning words and in bookmaking verso is the left had turned page. So a name and a narrative.
Developments led to borders and lines and visual themes.
Some photographs remain personal to the photographer yet fall outside the narrative e.g. being not moody enough. These are separated out.
With a PDF and printed pages, many hours are spent re-arranging pages and tweaking.
Next were design features. The photography informs the design, Accompanied by the Google search of visual language others have used.
Decide on graphics and type to create a mood and tone. The cover design was embossed as ploughed fields with typography inspired by the poet’s gravestone.
Summary in relation to the Motherline project.
The starting position was alluded to at the top of this blog. Book experience has included being published in a group photographic project, and having learned how images are laid out and paired up, along with an awareness of typography being important as well as transitions etc. Finally, rudimentary making has been done by way of a practice book, a dummy and an exhibition pamphlet. A number of other books have been witnessed being reviewed.
In essence, the subject matter of design has many varied parts and practice is neat but fairly elementary, especially compared to what is on the shelves of the bookshop.
An attempt will be made at preparing a piece of work needed for the meeting with Victoria. The base question is whether there is enough image content to fill a book in a consistent manner.
Related activity around a module end and the lead in to a book and an exhibition was an experience gained. The challenge is over what can be done in the available time and being ready.
I’d given a public talk on Photography in the past, around 2016, where I talked mainly about my focus on Abstract Art. I mention this not just because of the consistency in the practice choice but because more to the point I’d used an automatic slide advance approach to time my talk to an allotted time period.
That was very much like a Pecha Kucha, which differs in having a defined 20-second slide duration, but given I’d practised my talk, it turned out on the evening that apart from fairly blinding lights there was no lighting for my notes and so I proceeded to talk off the cuff. It went surprisingly well and the overall presentation was second perfect.
For the Falmouth FMP, preparation was somewhat different as for a start I’d been overseas, well to Amsterdam at least and with the many distractions of the Unseen exhibition, other exhibitions and travel.
Well, of course, I’d planned ahead and had set about an initial structuring alongside several goes at scripting from various angles to see what might work.
It only needed to be assembled and polished but for a bout of influenza that laid me low for a week, so there against all my plans I found myself cobbling the presentation together at the last moment. What with several confusions over my booking, I ended up with an earlier slot than anticipated. No time to record over audio and file on YouTube but made it in the end for another off the cuff presentation.
Artist Susan Hiller’s work Auras: Homage to Marcel Duchamp 2008 features found portraits of individuals surrounded by clouds of light: ‘metaphors for our selves in the digital age.’ Hiller is alluding to the 1910 Portrait of Dr. Dumouchel by Duchamp (1887–1968), a historical aura portrait in the clairvoyant tradition. (Tate, 2019)
I wouldn’t want clairvoyance to be the dominant visual reading of my project. What I do is create intergenerational identification by gene transmission.
So, the question. Will my intent be taken the wrong way?
Hiller’s colour work Aura’s flows from this portrait of Dr Dumouchel:
Dr Dumouchel – Marcel Duchamp
Auras – Susan Hiller (Homage 2019)
Emanations – Michael Turner
My work could possibly be made to go in this direction as I now have archive portraits as well as a colour abstract. The abstract immediately above is similar to Aura’s.
A summary of Hiller’s career and work exhibited/installed at the Lisson Gallery is presented by the BBC in their Introducing Arts website (BBC 2015). An artist talk is provided on the site.
Sadly Hiller died and her obituary can be found on the BBC website. This contains the heading “Connection, empathy, identification” from which I sense a parallel with my practice as Identification is an underlying theme.
From the obituary (BBC, 2019) there is mention of ghosts, “Ghosts are invisible to most people, but visible to a few.”. There has to be some concern as this year, ghosts began to appear in my abstract work.
Artist 2 Evan Roth – Red Lines
The work of Roth is described at the Artangel website (Roth, 2020).
Connecting you to the landscape of the internet.
Evan Roth: red lines – from the ArtAngel website (Roth, 2019)
A network of mesmerising video landscapes is streamed free to your home or workplace in this pioneering new project by Evan Roth.
Roth has travelled to coastal sites around the world where the cables that make the internet possible emerge from the sea. Filmed in infrared, the same spectrum in which data is transmitted online, the videos reveal another side of the internet, one that moves at the speed of weather, wind, and tide.
Evan Roth – infrared from the ArtAngel website (Roth, 2019)
Red Lines can be experienced by anyone in the world. To join the network, all you need is a device like a smartphone, tablet or laptop, and an internet connection. Devices should ideally be plugged into power and connected to an internet connection with no data limits (check with your service provider) with the browser set to http://p2p.redlines.network.
In summary, the connection to my practice appears to be infrared, computers and landscape through internet transmission. The images are at places where internet cables emerge into the open at the end of a “red line” or connection to another geographic location.
A sentiment behind the work is given by this quote:
(In Maori culture)… your connection to the land you walk on helps shape your very identity. You are who you are because of who came before you; the earth and waters that supported them, now support you. – Janina Matthewson
Artist 3 David Fathi
David Fathi presents his work within the FMP module here. The interest for my work is the crossover between science and art. A blog post expands the research. The connected blog post from Week 5 can be found here.
Discussion as a reminder was about three projects, the first two books then the installation.
Book: Anecdotal … nuclear bomb testing on own lands e,g US Nevada
Book: Wolfgang … Pauli Quantum physics, anecdotes of things going wrong, CERN archive
Installation: The Last Road .. Henrietta Lacks archive HeLa cells
The migration to installations fell out from presenting Wolfgang creatively in numerous settings. Don’t let the form of archives seduce you. Maintain control.
I went back to watch this Guest Lecture video and make observations.
#Advice
Sarah’s many projects are formed though collaboration in the making. The work is very much out in the public domain. This was true of the Pickpocket performance work that used a professional pickpocket to set-up a reverse pickpocket as a means to training artists who are always being asked to contribute their work without a fee.
The many other works were also collaborations, mainly with the emergency services, regarding training for riots or fire, gunfire and explosions. These are dynamic interactions in the real world and end up in print.
An observation Sarah makes is around social coding and stereotyping in the scenes used for practice. Whether this is the type of furniture in a room or being briefed that a mother went to the shops and left her children in the flat where the fire is (an intention being to help stop fire fighters from identifying personally with the circumstances).
[metaslider id=2991 cssclass=””]
Advice included a point about get your work out there and show your work or it will never take off. It will remain under your bed.
The art business is very hierarchical in Britain when it comes to accepting photographic art. You don’t want to fall into the trap of making painterly work. Presumably, this relates to the photographer adapting to the gallery market instead of staying true to the foundations of their work.
The session ends with a call to making physical prints, Even small prints rather than exhibition size. Make them and move them around. This is especially important in an online environment such as our MA course.
Bibliography
Photographs – Sarah Pickering from Falmouth video lecture
Here is the link to the video for this case study.
#Advice
This case study contextualises Gideon’s work which like Lixenburg’s is published over several platforms Exhibition, Film, Publication and Web once public interest had been established. Their work evolved over the longer timeframe.
This gives us the idea that our own work might gain traction and so we have been forewarned. There is also the reality of what we can achieve in 6 months and how we should involve others early to go public with more than one route.
There is quite a lot of useful advice on FMP production given by relating to Gideon Mendels project Djangal (jungle camp in Calais).
His work presented a problem of camp interns being offended by photographers. Instead Gideon decided like in an earlier project on flooding to gather the artefacts left over and rephotograph as well as create an installation.
He made several visits over a few months to do the photography which is consistent with our available time on our FMP.
This sets a standard for Falmouth FMP students, I imagine is the idea. In a sense, the previous module led us to practice and Landings 2019 organising experience also helped. In spite of having not known about this case study at the outset, it was stumbled upon, I was naturally set to propose several publication routes. Had I known of the Case studies in time, I could have watched them before making my proposal as it would have reinforced my ideas.
Interestingly Mendel settled on a floating style with objects photographed in the studio on black or white backgrounds. This is very similar to my newly developed approach in photographing Fauna here.
Bibliography
Photographs – Gideon Mendel from the Falmouth FMP video lecture
Develop your photographic practice through the synthesis of practical work, contextual research and professional activities, and with the integration of other disciplines.
Make personal observations and form critical opinions to analyse and appraise your own work, as well as the work of your peers and other practitioners.
Establish an understanding of the range of professional contexts for the dissemination and consumption of contemporary photographic practice, and identify opportunities to engage with audiences and markets.
Apply a critical awareness of the diversity of contemporary photographic practice to the development of your own work, and inform your practice through historical, philosophical, ethical and economic contextualization.
Exercise discernment in the making, resolution and presentation of practical work, and an ability to communicate ideas through creative visual strategies.
Demonstrate an awareness of a range of photographic and image-making processes, and display accomplishment of photographic skills relevant to your practice specialism.
This video provides a case study of Dana’s work. She started off with a commissioned piece for a newspaper. The quality of the portraiture led to funding to revisit the US over 20 years. The work culminated in a collaboration that resulted in a compelling presentation through the web.
The use of a large format 5 by 4 field camera made Dana’s work special and led to the making of beautiful large scale prints. I don’t think MA students would be expected to accomplish 20 years of success in 6 months remaining. However, it is worthwhile remembering where beautiful portfolio images can lead and so to be both motivated and aware of what can transpire. Our very best work we realise will not happen in a rush at the end of our studies but has to be built up over the months ahead. We need to have already begun.
The use of film would not work for me. At present, the only portraits I have come from the family archive as my work reaches back over a century.
#Advice
Start early with our FMP project work and perhaps aim towards multiple ends: book, exhibition, web, audio, video as appropriate. We need to be focussed on online delivery of our assignments
Following submission of the Surfaces and Strategies module, activity goes on during the Assessment Period prior hopefully to starting the Final Major Project. During this time my solo exhibition ran on and gathered a high quality of feedback.
Three activities conducted during this period aid learning and maintain “fuel in the tank” while the solo exhibition proved a great learning opportunity.
Only as a mention here, I’ve signed up again for competition photography although I prioritise this behind the MA Photography course. I have met with success in this by publishing work in my own inimitable humorous or quirky style but have cut right back on entries only putting in work if I’ve managed to keep up with the studies. There is one area where I’m getting a bit of bother because I’ve not been able to give it enough attention. I won the odd competition I entered but I’ve not done enough for overall success. It is a pain to manage. It will still have to wait though. Maybe during the Assessment Period I can find some time to make bulk entries. It’s not the same though.
Landings 2019 Solo Exhibition – Glow
Here is the Exhibition and Portfolio summary
Inspired by something I saw in a Gallery, I made a Your Comment board with feedback from the solo exhibition.
Your Comments
Gallery and Exhibition Visits
Two visits queued at the moment are in Amsterdam and Bristol
Unseen Amsterdam
Bristol – Martin Parr Foundation and RPS Paintworks
Meanwhile, a number gallery trips have been made. During the Assessment Period I wished to catch up on exhibitions of choice that were due to close in the short term, so I didn’t miss them. Some short term planning resolved this and plans are going in place for the medium and longer term.
For example there’s a Professional Development workshop on exhibition curation I should find useful, either as a means of refining my own work or if my interest remains, in curating other’s work.
The Photographers Gallery
Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Platinum and Gelatin Silver Prints.
The National Portrait Gallery – Cindy Sherman
The Tate Modern – Painter Natalia Goncharova
Here we have a painter working with additive processes as opposed to the photographic subtractive one. However, there is a visual language and there are signs and so an overlap in the visual.
Modernism is present as a theme yet for painting this is different to photography. Van Gogh was seen to be the master of modernism in painting where in photography it was about an honesty in recognising limitations in concentrating on the frame, exaggerating the limitations in colour that painters try to mask, and a defiance of perspective that painters so cleverly introduce to fool the eye into seeing depth in a surface.
It was fascinating to see the hanging plan for groups of work. Compared to my recent triptychs there were width variations (outer paintings uniformly narrower). I had a height variation from my archive image reuse between exhibition catalogue (black) and mounted print.
I identified through my experiences related to the subject matter. I enjoyed the simplicity of the multiportraits. I also, related to the theme of war and it’s dark portrayal as Lithoprints and content of war and religion almost forced together into a tight frame. I noted the uniformity of these images and the signs used and the implied action or movement.
I enjoyed the mixed media for example wall prints, cabinet displayed books and a reading in Russian the latter giving a chance to sense the expression of the voice as the sound of Russian speakers particularly in reflective mood has almost never been heard. I don’t know if that is part of our propaganda like at one time with Irish broadcasts where narration was heard dubbed over the original voice. Russian speakers simply are not presented in a way to empathise with perhaps as an enemy of the state.
<add example photographs from the exhibition as allowed for personal non commercial use including education>
The Tate Modern – Sculptor Takis
Takis – Tate Modern
Reading
Takis’ exhibition book. Not said in the book, that was produced ahead of time, Takis cooperated with the Tate Modern over the presentation of his work in London. Sadly he died in August before seeing the opening.
I reported in Week 11 the learnings from a dry run of my exhibition versus portable facsimile that allows to carry the exhibition to audiences where my work receives almost constant attention in a number of social situations.
Although I sound like I prefer the accessibility of the portable exhibition, I have a full eight day run of studio exhibition to learn more about context. I do have a challenge in managing the building as well as the exhibition.
Announcements have gone out on social media channels to the wider area in which it is taking place. Notices have gone out to two local photography societies, one of which has its own exhibition running that I’ll need to attend. Lets see if it is a clash or a strength – I imagine the two exhibitions will support each other. I was invited to the other.
Of course on social media channels I’ve gone live across Instagram and several Facebook groups.
Here is the shape of the announcement with details:
Landings 2019 exhibition at Amersham Photographic Studios 16 Aug – 24 Aug 2019
I reported in Week 11 the learnings from a dry run of my exhibition versus portable facsimile that allows to carry the exhibition to audiences where my work receives almost constant attention in a number of social situations.
Although I sound like I prefer the accessibility of the portable exhibition, I have a full eight day run of studio exhibition to learn more about context. I do have a challenge in managing the building as well as the exhibition.
Announcements have gone out on social media channels to the wider area in which it is taking place. Notices have gone out to two local photography societies, one of which has its own exhibition running that I’ll need to attend. Lets see if it is a clash or a strength – I imagine the two exhibitions will support each other. I was invited to the other.
Of course on social media channels I’ve gone live across Instagram and several Facebook groups.
Here is the shape of the announcement with details:
Landings 2019 exhibition at Amersham Photographic Studios 16 Aug – 24 Aug 2019
After a delay or mix up in communications (a message I never received), I had not seen some feedback. Given how rapidly my (and others) work has evolved in my case in little more than a week, it proved rather vital. I forever remind of the time and attention that goes into my work being akin to painting.
Anyway, improvements continue as I now separate out from my work the colour work or celebration of life. I’m now focussed down on war and loss and also have a more consistent colour palette, mostly black and white and the red of blood.
There is so much more balance than at any point during the whole 12 weeks of the module. The change was straightforward to implement as it meant reducing to 18 prints, these now I decided to group as triptychs.
I’m sure I will return to my saturated colour work, if that theme takes off in future.
The print in the figure above is a bit small to read so here is the website link. This gives a statement alongside the images.
I found I was never entirely certain as to the bounds of acceptability to the University of mix and presentation of images. It is basically clear. Near the end I overproduced on prints and could tell from a dry run of my Landings 2019 exhibition. This provided interesting interaction especially as my facsimile of the exhibition in a portable box gathered quite a lot of attention.
Learning was about how other photographers read some of the images and the hanging plan. The black and white exhibition catalogue received positive comment.
As it was an informal look at the work I learned it is best to set out the large prints first as a string of one very informed question after another on top of other competing interactions meant I didn’t get as far as a full hanging of either the prints or miniatures. As an impromptu show it was very lively indeed which played to my interests in the social interaction around photography in general.
Given the consolidation down to 18 prints I should be able to show all of the miniatures on a table top, instead of having to actively handle them – not enough hands. I’m undecided on two points. I would like to replicate the miniatures with a back binding, to tie each triptych into a set of three. I’ve had demands for both and I know what works best for me as I get lesser activity while trying to answer questions (binding would suit me). In critique the loose miniatures with some spare images in reserve I find always works better for the reviewer. If I have time I’ll have both. I couldn’t have done this before today due to fixing the narrative line.
I will report back as I gather more learning of gallery versus portable context of how different surfaces work.
As for my abstract re-photography those three images fell out of the mix at this point in time. I couldn’t shoehorn them in without visibly weakening the portfolio.
A case of work ethic versus visual sensitivity and decision making.
A final point, is will I get back to that abstract only world that I truly favour? A case of growing specialisation. I have a increasing number of my colour abstract images and have a growing hints of commercial value to them this past 9 months. I don’t think that can be ignored given the limited returns gained in general photography.
I think of the greatest Scottish landscape photographer and maker of stereograph cards, George Washington Wilson who created a very successful business and reputation before health failed him and the Inland Revenue ravaged the business handed on to his family in a major test case in which almost all was sadly lost then tide and time and technology moved on.
Reflections on Surfaces
There are numerous learning points regarding the making. The intent was to place the surfaces on a trajectory that led to the deliverable assignments for the Surfaces and Strategies module of the MA Photography course.
So how is learning shaping up in terms of the different production methods and contexts I’ve engaged in?
Now I can make publications in dummy form. Additional time and effort would allow many of the finishing touched to be added e.g. page numbers and cover jacket etc.
It has been a real pleasure to take the images from the digital domain and see them in print. I used ZINK 2×3 prints in a portable version of the exhibition, black and white print on matte paper which was also a joy and on gloss paper for the main exhibition.
I had an intent to use backlighting and was halted by the cost of LED light boxes. However, I discoverd that my gloss prints on 280 weight paper allows light to pass through from the back. As a result of this discovery I’ll take two examples and print and mount them for backlighting using studio lights.
During a visit to Arles Les Recontres del la Photographie I recorded many examples of backlighting and hanging and display methods and now have my own accessible and cost effective method.
I plan to use my ready made videos. One is an old vimeo recording that is very short that creates an ambience. The second is the Week 2 Hollywood style trailer I made that [rovides additional context. It’ll be great to see all these parts collected together. I have a feeling of theatre in the making.
What I look forward to is unexpected reactions and comments from and interactions with visitors to the exhibition space. I have to thank my Studio Owner for providing access to the space.
The practicalities of running the the exhibition as staff is that I’ll be overloaded with managing the studio space and fronting the work. It will be a stretch but is going to be exciting.
The exhibition in a box with its new content, I plan to take out on the road. It will go to Bristol for crtique and I have several other venues to go to including groups of walking friends who probably wouldn’t make the journey to the Studio. There is an art interest amongst these folks which I enjoy in conversation and I’m always being asked to show more work. Another visit I’d like to take the box is to a hospital. I can if appropriate interact with someone who has now been a long time there.
I question the culture of gallery exhibition in making the portable version and already I can see how much farther it can reach at the same time as being more tangible than web based presentation.
I have a set of 2×3 prints as handouts or for charitable sale. The mini printer I use and a set of precut cards have been prepared for printing and mounting as orders on demand. I will see how this additional interaction fares – I predict it should go really well although it is another job on top of everything else. It will be very worthwhile.
I’m experimenting with something I was advised to drop, that of pointing a smartphone at an image to play a 15 second video. Were into bells, whistles and I have to work out how well considered this is. Given the biology involved in my work maybe I can get away with the 15 second video of a protein cell research using computational biology. It is easy to pass over, but I think I want to find out how audience reacts.
Image grouping is a late addition to the visual language used. A third gallery template has been selected that nearly works. By dropping the heavy borders that crept in for black and white printing of the exhibition catalogue the web. I’ve taken on board the need for file variants esentially for each surface of display.
The challenge in using Portfoliobox relates to variable sizing as can be see clearly here: WIP Portfolio. The sizing is overcome in the figure below by creating one large summary file of the hanging plan.
Surface – Exhibition
fig: Title: Glow – Hanging Plan for Landings 2019
Artist statement
In this work, the characteristic glow we emit in healing and bodily repair helps identify with ancestors who perished in a Great War. The work is at the intersection of biology, photography and art.
Archive images develop a visual language for the work.
Career experience in analogue, digital and computing technologies is a constant in the subject area of this photographic imagery. Career also placed me in the theatre exploited in this imagery.
Fold-out book of exhibition prints
And so to make a fold-out book of the above hanging plan.
Surface – Publications
I’ve modelled publication four in my series of adventures this module.
practice handbinding of perfect bound block
my book of locks for the Ed Ruscha activity
my exhibition catalogue (black and white)
my exhibition prints as fold-out (colour)
I’ve imposed the page order and structure and printed the folding sheets. It is loose bound at the minute as it is secondary to the assignements and I can see how much time and care is needed to cut and sew and glue.
At this stage I’m pleased with the weight of the assembled printed papers but predict the structure might be unweildy on the binding. Already I’m thinking that I should move to A2 paper and fold that in a more sympathetic manner towards a secure binding. Put it all down to practice and learning experience.
Surface – Presentation
My attempt at using the Pareto or 80:20 principle was an optimistic way of engaging my time. The presentation surface was not exactly culled but has had to progress really informally. I’m bound to get a moment during the exhibition and especially after assignment hand-in.
I have practice at doing this informally in the studio environment and I’ll presenbt as the opportunity warrants. The idea would be to demonstrate an end to end image capture through processing to print.
I’d describe also how I use DNA as my theme of information carrier if there was interest and explain how collaboration can be made to work.
Outreach
Something I want to do when I find the space in my schedule is to longer term look out for others (friends) who specialise in abstract painting and photography and friends who like to make books (or portable exhibitions).
Rather than mingle with a wider general audience, it could be set the world on fire to meet other specialists.
After a delay or mix up in communications (message I never received), I had not seen some feedback. Given how rapidly my (and others) work has evolved in my case in little more than a week, it proved rather vital. I forever remind of the time and attention that goes into my work being akin to painting.
Anyway improvements continue as I now separate out from my work the colour work or celebration of life. I’m now focussed down on war and loss and also have a more consistent colour palette, mostly black and white and the red of blood.
There is so much more balance than at any point during the whole 12 weeks of the module. The change was straightforward to implement as it meant reducing to 18 prints, these now I decided to group as triptychs.
I’m sure I will return to my saturated colour work, if that theme takes off in future.
The print in the figure above is a bit small to read so here is the website link. This gives a statement alongside the images.
I found I was never entirely certain as to the bounds of acceptability to the University of mix and presentation of images. It is basically clear. Near the end I overproduced on prints and could tell from a dry run of my Landings 2019 exhibition. This provided interesting interaction especially as my facsimile of the exhibition in a portable box gathered quite a lot of attention.
Learning was about how other photographers read some of the images and the hanging plan. The black and white exhibition catalogue received positive comment.
As it was an informal look at the work I learned it is best to set out the large prints first as a string of one very informed question after another on top of other competing interactions meant I didn’t get as far as a full hanging of either the prints or miniatures. As an impromptu show it was very lively indeed which played to my interests in the social interaction around photography in general.
Given the consolidation down to 18 prints I should be able to show all of the miniatures on a table top, instead of having to actively handle them – not enough hands. I’m undecided on two points. I would like to replicate the miniatures with a back binding, to tie each triptych into a set of three. I’ve had demands for both and I know what works best for me as I get lesser activity while trying to answer questions (binding would suit me). In critique the loose miniatures with some spare images in reserve I find always works better for the reviewer. If I have time I’ll have both. I couldn’t have done this before today due to fixing the narrative line.
I will report back as I gather more learning of gallery versus portable context of how different surfaces work.
As for my abstract re-photography those three images fell out of the mix at this point in time. I couldn’t shoehorn them in without visibly weakening the portfolio.
A case of work ethic versus visual sensitivity and decision making.
A final point, is will I get back to that abstract only world that I truly favour? A case of growing specialisation. I have a increasing number of my colour abstract images and have a growing hints of commercial value to them this past 9 months. I don’t think that can be ignored given the limited returns gained in general photography.
I think of the greatest Scottish landscape photographer and maker of stereograph cards, George Washington Wilson who created a very successful business and reputation before health failed him and the Inland Revenue ravaged the business handed on to his family in a major test case in which almost all was sadly lost then tide and time and technology moved on.
Reflections on Surfaces
There are numerous learning points regarding the making. The intent was to place the surfaces on a trajectory that led to the deliverable assignments for the Surfaces and Strategies module of the MA Photography course.
So how is learning shaping up in terms of the different production methods and contexts I’ve engaged in?
Now I can make publications in dummy form. Additional time and effort would allow many of the finishing touched to be added e.g. page numbers and cover jacket etc.
It has been a real pleasure to take the images from the digital domain and see them in print. I used ZINK 2×3 prints in a portable version of the exhibition, black and white print on matte paper which was also a joy and on gloss paper for the main exhibition.
I had an intent to use backlighting and was halted by the cost of LED light boxes. However, I discoverd that my gloss prints on 280 weight paper allows light to pass through from the back. As a result of this discovery I’ll take two examples and print and mount them for backlighting using studio lights.
During a visit to Arles Les Recontres del la Photographie I recorded many examples of backlighting and hanging and display methods and now have my own accessible and cost effective method.
I plan to use my ready made videos. One is an old vimeo recording that is very short that creates an ambience. The second is the Week 2 Hollywood style trailer I made that [rovides additional context. It’ll be great to see all these parts collected together. I have a feeling of theatre in the making.
What I look forward to is unexpected reactions and comments from and interactions with visitors to the exhibition space. I have to thank my Studio Owner for providing access to the space.
The practicalities of running the the exhibition as staff is that I’ll be overloaded with managing the studio space and fronting the work. It will be a stretch but is going to be exciting.
The exhibition in a box with its new content, I plan to take out on the road. It will go to Bristol for crtique and I have several other venues to go to including groups of walking friends who probably wouldn’t make the journey to the Studio. There is an art interest amongst these folks which I enjoy in conversation and I’m always being asked to show more work. Another visit I’d like to take the box is to a hospital. I can if appropriate interact with someone who has now been a long time there.
I question the culture of gallery exhibition in making the portable version and already I can see how much farther it can reach at the same time as being more tangible than web based presentation.
I have a set of 2×3 prints as handouts or for charitable sale. The mini printer I use and a set of precut cards have been prepared for printing and mounting as orders on demand. I will see how this additional interaction fares – I predict it should go really well although it is another job on top of everything else. It will be very worthwhile.
I’m experimenting with something I was advised to drop, that of pointing a smartphone at an image to play a 15 second video. Were into bells, whistles and I have to work out how well considered this is. Given the biology involved in my work maybe I can get away with the 15 second video of a protein cell research using computational biology. It is easy to pass over, but I think I want to find out how audience reacts.
Image grouping is a late addition to the visual language used. A third gallery template has been selected that nearly works. By dropping the heavy borders that crept in for black and white printing of the exhibition catalogue the web. I’ve taken on board the need for file variants esentially for each surface of display.
The challenge in using Portfoliobox relates to variable sizing as can be see clearly here: WIP Portfolio. The sizing is overcome in the figure below by creating one large summary file of the hanging plan.
Surface – Exhibition
fig: Title: Glow – Hanging Plan for Landings 2019
Artist statement
In this work, the characteristic glow we emit in healing and bodily repair helps identify with ancestors who perished in a Great War. The work is at the intersection of biology, photography and art.
Archive images develop a visual language for the work.
Career experience in analogue, digital and computing technologies is a constant in the subject area of this photographic imagery. Career also placed me in the theatre exploited in this imagery.
Fold-out book of exhibition prints
And so to make a fold-out book of the above hanging plan.
Surface – Publications
I’ve modelled publication four in my series of adventures this module.
practice handbinding of perfect bound block
my book of locks for the Ed Ruscha activity
my exhibition catalogue (black and white)
my exhibition prints as fold-out (colour)
I’ve imposed the page order and structure and printed the folding sheets. It is loose bound at the minute as it is secondary to the assignements and I can see how much time and care is needed to cut and sew and glue.
At this stage I’m pleased with the weight of the assembled printed papers but predict the structure might be unweildy on the binding. Already I’m thinking that I should move to A2 paper and fold that in a more sympathetic manner towards a secure binding. Put it all down to practice and learning experience.
Surface – Presentation
My attempt at using the Pareto or 80:20 principle was an optimistic way of engaging my time. The presentation surface was not exactly culled but has had to progress really informally. I’m bound to get a moment during the exhibition and especially after assignment hand-in.
I have practice at doing this informally in the studio environment and I’ll presenbt as the opportunity warrants. The idea would be to demonstrate an end to end image capture through processing to print.
I’d describe also how I use DNA as my theme of information carrier if there was interest and explain how collaboration can be made to work.
Outreach
Something I want to do when I find the space in my schedule is to longer term look out for others (friends) who specialise in abstract painting and photography and friends who like to make books (or portable exhibitions).
Rather than mingle with a wider general audience, it could be set the world on fire to meet other specialists.
Is it just me that reaches an epiphany so close to the end of each module?
In suddenly getting how to resolve the visual language in my portfolio the concern is I’ve gone too far in introducing archive images.
I’ve avoided costly stock pricing and user licensing issues. I declare reuse of a key image. Archive and abstract imagery intermingle and need to be listed out for marking. I’ll take advice as I’ve noticed a wavering in course advice depending on the content, who you speak to and some inconsistency when clarifying and reclarifying.
Week 10 Individual Tutorial
I’d strengthened my research into the subject of place, the spiritual and in science and art to help contextualise my portfolio.
I saw how context fits in book format especially having looked again at the book (exhibition catalogue) produced for Repetition is Truth Via Dolo Rosa, by painter Rachel Howard. Her photo, an interview and an essay with contextualising black and white images. Then there is the bulk of her abstract paintings and contact sheet layout with some text.
I had something prepared that worked over two portfolio web pages but it needed to be one. This was soon spotted in the discussion and there was an epiphany as an archive image and an abstract were paired. Visually, the images talked. I’ve since gone to an archive source and my project archive processed image style and sequenced a smattering of these throughout the web page and changed the template accordingly. I’ve tried to introduce a rhythmical visual style. If it works there are exciting possibilities for book page layout.
For the usual reasons it is taking a big risk, introducing fresh material this late in the module. The risk has been taken and some scope remains for review and rethink/amendment. I have to work smart to prevent making and remaking of material outputs (new book dummy, exhibition in a box and large prints).
figure: Portfolio 7 Aug 19
The contact sheet is a mix of reworked archive images and modernist abstract expressionistic images. Visually the intention is to provide the viewer with a way into the work.
Week 10 Peer Webinar
In my experience of past modules, peer to peer review works well as an extension of the weekly webinars.
It will be late in the week before I can record a draft Oral Presentation, a review of which would be the most useful thing at the moment.
The portfolio has progressed to having the context added to aid the viewer.
Making is on the plan to be done over the next couple of days (book and remake the exhibition in a box).
Realistically, Monday 13 Aug is best or earliest for me.
I’d be happy to discuss the WIP Portfolio before then.
Week 10 Introduction Keep Going
A summary of my plans for this week.
I began the week making sure I covered off the activities with 3 Aug closing date as this stops the build-up or backlog. It also helped with CRJ maintenance
I started writing for the Oral Presentation, but my mind got challenged over context, decision making and risk. With Abstract practice, it takes time to gather knowledge and gain experience. I resolved a creative block, in making abstract landscapes while also having gone to Arles 2019. Work thankfully started flowing but not soon enough for Landings 2019.
Update on Wednesday
Attend Monday Office Hours. Done. There was an enlightening discussion about built-in pressures of the module. And a helpful mention of decision making and risk-taking which we are encouraged to do.
Priority:
Process enough images to start my edit. Done.
Conclude research/implement (more) visual context to abstract work to aid the viewer. Ready for review.
also
Do some rephotography in the spirit of the module. Done
Read more history of photography and concerning The Spiritual in Art (Kandinsky) to contextualise my work in the abstract (Rexer and MoMA). Ongoing
Is it just me that reaches an epithany so close to the end of each module?
In suddenly getting how to resolve the visual language in my portfolio the concern is I’ve gone too far in introducing archive images.
I’ve avoided costly stock pricing and user licensing issues. I declare reuse of a key image. Archive and abstract imagery intermingle and need to be listed out for marking. I’ll take advice as I’ve noticed a wavering in course advice depending on the content, who you speak to and some inconsistency when clarifying and reclarifying.
Week 10 Individual Tutorial
I’d strengthened my research into the subject of place, the spiritual and in science and art to help contextualise my portfolio.
I saw how context fits in book format especially having looked again at the book (exhibition catalogue) produced for Repetition is Truth Via Dolo Rosa, by painter Rachel Howard. Her photo, an interview and an essay with contextualising black and white images. Then there is the bulk of her abstract paintings and contact sheet layout with some text.
I had something prepared that worked over two portfolio web pages but it needed to be one. This was soon spotted in the discussion and there was an epithany as an archive image and an abstract were paired. Visually, the images talked. I’ve since gone to an archive source and my project archive processed image style and sequenced a smattering of these throughout the web page and changed the template accordingly. I’ve tried to introduce a rhythmical visual style. If it works there are exciting possibilites for book page layout.
For the usual reasons it is taking a big risk, introducing fresh material this late in the module. The risk has been taken and some scope remians for review and rethink/amendment. I have to work smart to prevent making and remaking of material outputs (new book dummy, exhibition in a box and large prints).
figure: Portfolio 7 Aug 19
The contact sheet is a mix of reworked archive images and modernist abstract expressionistic images. Visually the intention is to provide the viewer with a way into the work.
Week 10 Peer Webinar
In my experience of past modules, peer to peer review works well as an extension of the weekly webinars.
It will be late in the week before I can record a draft Oral Presentation, a review of which would be the most useful thing at the moment.
The portfolio has progressed to having the context added to aid the viewer.
Making is on the plan to be done over the next couple of days (book and remake the exhibition in a box).
Realistically, Monday 13 Aug is best or earliest for me.
I’d be happy to discuss the WIP Portfolio before then.
Week 10 Introduction Keep Going
A summary of my plans for this week.
I began the week making sure I covered off the activities with 3 Aug closing date as this stops the build-up or backlog. It also helped with CRJ maintenance
I started writing for the Oral Presentation, but my mind got challenged over context, decision making and risk. With Abstract practice, it takes time to gather knowledge and gain experience. I resolved a creative block, in making abstract landscapes while also having gone to Arles 2019. Work thankfully started flowing but not soon enough for Landings 2019.
Update on Wednesday
Attend Monday Office Hours. Done. There was an enlighting discussion about built-in pressures of the module. And a helpful mention of decision making and risk-taking which we are encouraged to do.
Priority:
Process enough images to start my edit. Done.
Conclude research/implement (more) visual context to abstract work to aid the viewer. Ready for review.
also
Do some rephotography in the spirit of the module. Done
Read more history of photography and concerning The Spiritual in Art (Kandinsky) to contextualise my work in the abstract (Rexer and MoMA). Ongoing
I had considered and finally decided to build an installation in a box and I took it to crit in Arles. It provides a tactile presentation – viewers pick up mounted 2 by 3 Zink prints (Lifeprint Zink links to server and 20sec videos not used at the moment as this is new work and is not yet fully considered.
The viewer unavoidably is exposed to the graphics/visuals of the public for commercially marketed products. This is part of my strategy to bridge to the viewer.
The commercial side of DNA testing is public, we can all participate where it is of interest.
I have waited for results and now have artefacts the viewer can touch. A visual introduction occurs by using the installation box.
First left hand image is of Healing.
Categories installed
Ghost images
Landscape / seascape
Glow images
Inner space / outer space
Week 9 Webinar
I’m resolved to concentrate on making enough abstract work for my WIP Portfolio.
I decided to enrol in two sessions this week, one with my tutor to give an update on visuals progress and making since we met last a fortnight earlier (the Arles visit intervened): then I had a second session this time with our Modernist Abstract photography specialist.
Very recently my work has come under increasing fire from non abstract practitioners. And again the general demands of the course call for finished work ahead of the Final Major Project Modules.
My intent with an abstract portfolio is to work on a plane that crosses over between photography and art. It is more demanding intellectually and naturally more difficult for many to access. Imagine a Shakespeare work being reduced to a boy fancied a girl and their families fell out. Easier to understand yes, but such a loss, I say.
As owners of our work we obviously maintain artistic control over our practice. As for us being increasingly challenged, a springboard diver performing, does not accept a late input from their coach to add a somersault to the run up.
I had considered and finally decided to build an installation in a box and I took it to crit in Arles. It provides a tactile presentation – viewers pick up mounted 2 by 3 Zink prints (Lifeprint Zink links to server and 20sec videos not used at the moment as this is new work and is not yet fully considered.
The viewer unavoidably is exposed to the graphics/visuals of the public for commercially marketed products. This is part of my strategy to bridge to the viewer.
The commercial side of DNA testing is public, we can all participate where it is of interest.
I have waited for results and now have artefacts the viewer can touch. A visual introduction occurs by using the installation box.
First left hand image is of Healing.
Categories installed
Ghost images
Landscape / seascape
Glow images
Inner space / outer space
Week 9 Webinar
I’m resolved to concentrate on making enough abstract work for my WIP Portfolio.
I decided to enrol in two sessions this week, one with my tutor to give an update on visuals progress and making since we met last a fortnight earlier (the Arles visit intervened): then I had a second session this time with our Modernist Abstract photography specialist.
Very recently my work has come under increasing fire from non abstract practitioners. And again the general demands of the course call for finished work ahead of the Final Major Project Modules.
My intent with an abstract portfolio is to work on a plane that crosses over between photography and art. It is more demanding intellectually and naturally more difficult for many to access. Imagine a Shakespeare work being reduced to a boy fancied a girl and their families fell out. Easier to understand yes, but such a loss, I say.
As owners of our work we obviously maintain artistic control over our practice. As for us being increasingly challenged, a springboard diver performing, does not accept a late input from their coach to add a somersault to the run up.
For the upcoming Oral Presentation and as support to the WIP Portfolio, it became clear that an Artist Statement was missing. The normal pitch is succinct and so to a longer statement. I shall edit down from this:
Artist Statement
In this work, I use the characteristic glow we emit in healing and bodily repair to identify with ancestors who perished in a Great War. The work is at the intersection of biology, photography and art.
Archive images I made are used to develop a visual language for the work.
The concept that guides the work is one of exploiting the lens-based digital camera and processing software. I make the invisible, visible and modern capability to identify with a time past.
Landscape portrayal when sought links to my heritage left behind in Scotland, yet ghost images or signs of belief are found in a glow.
Earlier career experience at the sharp end of technology is a constant influence alongside design authority experience in the subject area of my photographic imagery.
Methodology: Challenging the Limits
Three components of light are my interest. Surface reflected light, surface penetration light and my greatest interest, light emanations from the (heat) of the body. I alter the balance between the latter and the former. I consider the environment with the subject, the lens-based digital camera and the digital processing in post as an integrated whole. Taking this together with elements of chance in the data capture and my imagination leads to the final results.
In summary and in line with the thinking of Flusser what I do is subvert the process of image making.
Stage 1
The lens creates a shallow depth of field for the close-up work I do, So I control the lighting for balance and luminance and work at higher DoF, which actually is still quite shallow. I focus stack to bring the contours of my recent work into sharper focus.. Without controlled lighting, I stacked 61 individual photographs which caused me to adapt the lighting and lens aperture. In my portfolio, some images are 6 photographs. The reason I mention this is because I define that as one type of re-photography albeit with a very short time interval between shots. The tripod position is exact. There are correctable and minute differences in perspective as the lens motor is commanded to ever closer position of the glass. This is handled in the automatic software.
Stage 2
Next, I subvert the digital sensor and the associated filter. Sensors readily detect infra-red IR spectrum light and manufacturers install a filter to cut out as much as if practically possible. Filters have technical limitations in a drop off of effectiveness. The fraction of IR passed can be viewed for example in holding a tv controller up to a smartphone camera. The IR is made visible live on screen.
Stage 3
I subvert the processing software. My professional experience has been in algorithm design as well as in more recently in generative digital art. I have a sense of where coded features will break down and readily observe the effects. Analogies might be in television with the style of picture breakup on the original analogue sets and again on modern digital platforms.
Results
There is no surprise that odd things happen to images by chance, but the magical thing for me is that it is the original data in the photograph that drives the final image output, albeit with a high degree of subversion applied by the author.
Unlike glitching techniques, which which are popular with some, I do not undermine file integrity as in searching and replacing bytes to mix it up and potentially break the file. I use the high power of modern computing to create abstracted glow layers I combine.
I apply a level of digital art to enhance the magic of what I can see in the subverted image. Maybe this is characteristic of the photographer as a frustrated painter. I land up with a consistent mix of re-presentations of landscape or seascape or mountains, or simply glow effects, or of inner space and outer space and more recently a growing series of images of ghosts. Something subconscious must drive the outcomes.
Week 10
With enough images made I could now contemplate an edit and apply myself with some seriousness to the viewer and the impact of mixing archive and abstract work.
It took me several steps including examining how the painter Rachel Howard approached the problem in the exhibition guide/book for Repetition is Truth via Dolo Rosa. It is a good example and I can use it in my book, but I need to figure out what to do for my web portfolio of images.
I now have something worth review.
Here on ISSUU is the latest mix of my portfolio work. I’ve introduced archive images to break out the visual language and give an access point for the viewer.
I had a break in productivity by engaging in abstract re-photography.
I took my subject matter for photography, that of healing wounds and with the original person and new healing (from mosquito bites) I recreated the methods of producing saturated colour abstracts of a type from an earlier module.
This gives a stark comparison with my current work is the first thing. The second had to do with recreating steps for what is a destructive editing process. So I got to compare the working method with that in the earlier module.
Commercial Production and Standardisation of Process versus Creativity
What is plain now is how hard I’ve tried to contain the wilder aspects of abstraction bringing technique under control to allow reproducibility. It was great for knocking out sets of images that go together or at least it improved the chances of such. However, I’d forgotten how much freedom I used to express with my earlier imagery and how much of the enjoyment I’d lost. Freedom and joy returned with this attempt at abstract re-photography.
A downside of absolute consistency I have discovered is to do with viewer focus. When they see a stream of consistent work I understand that they might stop looking any further and give up on the work. By being more expressive, I take a chance and reintroduce variety.
Week 8
I had at this stage created a large catalogue of photographs as abstract material. With one foot in photography and another in art, it does take me appreciable time to “paint” from the original.
I needed to work quickly and it seemed a good idea to stop myself from spreading out into too many areas by setting a constraint. I opted to do abstract landscapes, but in the event, inspiration had dried up or I’d lost something on the intuitive selection of the right photographs to work on and maybe through my learning instead of making, I was lacking practice.
It took me a whole week of concentrated effort and finally, I got back the inspiration. Along the way, every other subject type appeared in my week’s work and so I had to use once more a variety of abstract topics.
Time pressure and learning activities and making a book and an exhibition in box were probably the distraction behind this.
My work was still short of images for a portfolio and given the importance of this in the MA Photography marking scheme I had no choice but to continue on. Meanwhile, crits (somehow I fitted in a 5) placed me under increasing pressure to adapt to the viewer and I was being encouraged to task risks. Not quite yet though.
Week 7
Abstract Landscape
Improbabilities and chance (file size, false colour and fringing)
A long term fascination of processing in the abstract for the author concerns the direction obtained on examination of the data within an image. A deliberate engagement in this activity provides eternal fascination and is allied with my other practice as a technologist. With experience, it is possible to pre-visualise then begin to press an image in a given direction. It is about seeking out the effects of non-linearities when working in post. Seen when extracting the red healing glow of the subject matter. Some might view these actions in terms of unintended use.
This week I implemented resolution improvements to my working methods. This was previously avoided but needed to be addressed for large scale print. Why avoided? It is known that standard filters respond less well or not at all with modern higher resolution equipment and resulting images. I don’t use standard filters but nevertheless, the software response holds true. The glow images I seek, through levelling now contain a lot more fine detail and this visual style persists across images that are subject to the new method.
In summary, I began improving my method and unintentionally obtained previously unseen effects and I now observe new branches in visual direction.
Outcomes regularly relate to chance hence my past comments about non-repeatability and my resorting to batch processing to get consistent images within these sets of images. My attempt to get images that go together.
The methods of improving resolution naturally lead to larger file sizes. What I didn’t expect was a 1.2GB layered file of what on the surface amounted to a black tile.
There is scope for rationalising this down to a smaller file by removing layers that can readily be added back. Maybe I need to stage my work by keeping all of the original processing but make a subsidiary flattened file. I’ve not been caused to (forced to) go down this route just yet as machine and network performance can cope. The slightly slower performance is acceptable given the retained flexibility to create (I’m in a phase of exploration of abstract landscapes) retained
I now get images with the look of black sandpaper. What I pre-visualise has more structure, something to lead the viewer’s eye. That has now gone it seems.
I tried downscaling to lower resolution. No success so far.
In my search for abstract landscapes, a colour effect (false colour) and fringing effect (moire) appeared on the screen. The effect was literally that, on-screen. It could not be saved or copied to a layer. The fringing is not present at higher magnification. When visible fringing is fixed at other magnifications. Moire fringing might be expected to produce continually altering patterns not a fixed pattern. Anyway, I need to think about what is going on and meanwhile, I captured the effect by taking a photograph of the screen.
figure: transient fringing effect (magnify to view full effect)
The false colour is not the false colour found in infra-red photography, but more like a selection mask style (without invoking a selection mask and not responding to commands to remove the mask if that is what it is). I’ll investigate. There was a software error that affected an earlier portfolio where a small red rectangle appeared in Lightroom images and persisted. A software update resolved the error in my images. I did take inspiration from the effect as at the time I sought to layer in glyphs and other effects as a visual narrative construction.
Week 6
My work is seen through another lens as I start to churn out work for this module. I’ve sorted through and tagged 310 photographs. These are candidates for processing into abstract landscapes.
I changed or should I say improved my method. Using a more configurable tripod and computer software for a remote live view, I can now obtain even inaccessible shots with improved resolution and focus. I do this in a conflicted situation where I need to be able to scale to very large (art as an experience sized) prints, starting from a small scale subject matter. No one wants or wishes for large scale injury or healing sites. While I know that my methodology calls for removing details in favour of glow. I’m forever destined to be conflicted.
Week 5
Two things have gained influence. Now I’ve created a trailer I realise the importance of imagined landscapes in my work. I also realise how much work there is ahead and so decided to use the Pareto 80 to 20 principle as it should allow me the scope to engage with all three surfaces: Exhibition, Publication and Workshop to gain valuable experience ahead of the FMP modules.
The discussion also grew around the visual language of science. Side by side stereograms has a closer match to my work than red/cyan anaglyphs. The incorporation of photos of some of the apparatus I concocted could be of interest. I’d have to make sure it didn’t dominate. I’m still not resolved as to what to do around glyph layers. I found these quite effective in my last module work. I have been distracted by moving towards then away from text captioning of abstract work. There is resolution required over the narrative.
Collaboration has been present in the background of my work and came to the fore as I created the video trailer. I’ve never seen such excitement. This does have future or should I say immediate scope for inclusion.
Week 4
During this week, I explored the relation of science, the biology I refer to in my work, and this allowed me to explore a new visual language. A side by side stereogram fitted better alongside my work than anaglyphs. For large scale presentation, I would prefer anaglyphs. I do understand that red and cyan edge representation does grate against black and white work.
Where does this leave me? I think I have to be mindful of the facts concerning visual language.
Update: subsequent conversations lead me to unpack my actions (our / student actions) when working between black and white and colour. I also begin to bring to the fore collaboration.
Week 3
The narrative development of my abstract visuals is intended to take on an element of political and social direction as I identify with roots in Scotland I share with brothers Andrew and Richard and others from the soldier ranks who made the greatest sacrifice and go unrecognised for their bravery in the worst of condition that was the Great War.
We are from the same lands where there is a quiet beauty and shared cultural identity and so I look to add something to my work, either as a brief essay or as supporting installation. It is still early in the project development as I have three modules in which to gain resolution. I have yet to figure this out and critique how it fits. Well, it fits, but how so with abstract work?
Introduction
figure Week 3 my first attempt at reestablishing colour in my practice
Having been through a development stage of portraying monochrome images, which I admit support the sombre, my instincts cause me to return to a celebration of life and of course, this brings back colour. For me, it is a respite and is a valid expression of my second narrative (celebration) that has been on hold for a couple of months.
However, monochrome is not dead.
Working with black-and-white, I can confirm, is an important skill and I continue to develop this through:
a. Metering.
b. Camerawork (fine-tuning settings)
c. Post-processing (dodge and burn, contrast enhancement).
I’m currently publishing black and white mainly to Instagram and colour can be found back inside my project.
As mentioned before in my CRJ blog, I continue to process like images together, to get the consistency I seek. Using this with colour is different as it allows me to pick the best of the bunch by this method, then edit groups of colour images. I have to find out how successful this method will be across a portfolio.
Week 2
I have a number of new photographs to process. On this occasion bodily impressions are used. These were originally substituted in the past, for a minor injury and as a technique works as the effect of glow is the same as for minor injury. I need to post-process.
I began looking at my work in wider ways and discussed this in Module Leader Office Hours. I need to be careful that I understand where my work comes from and maintain the resolved nature rather than take my work and cause it to fray at the edges. Resolved means resolved.
Week 1
For me an unexciting start this week. I lack orientation over what the present new module will lead me to. This is my base image process and is at least serves as a baseline for comparison with future weeks. The contact sheet images are in effect part processed. Update: by Week 5 I had elected to create more imaginings of landscapes. In which case I can return to do further layering.
For the upcoming Oral Presentation and as support to the WIP Portfolio, it became clear that an Artist Statement was missing. The normal pitch is succinct and so to a longer statement. I shall edit down from this:
Artist Statement
In this work, I use the characteristic glow we emit in healing and bodily repair to identify with ancestors who perished in a Great War. The work is at the intersection of biology, photography and art.
Archive images I made are used to develop a visual language for the work.
The concept that guides the work is one of exploiting the lens-based digital camera and processing software. I make the invisible, visible and modern capability to identify with a time past.
Landscape portrayal when sought links to my heritage left behind in Scotland, yet ghost images or signs of belief are found in a glow.
Earlier career experience at the sharp end of technology is a constant influence alongside design authority experience in the subject area of my photographic imagery.
Methodology: Challenging the Limits
Three components of light are my interest. Surface reflected light, surface penetration light and my greatest interest, light emanations from the (heat) of the body. I alter the balance between the latter and the former. I consider the envirnoment with subject, the lens based digital camera and the digital processing in post as an integraged whole. Taking this together with elements of chance in the data capture and my imagination, leads to the final results.
In summary and in line with the thinking of Flusser what I do is subvert the process of image making.
Stage 1
The lens creates a shallow depth of field for the close-up work I do, So I control the lighting for balance and luminanace and work at higher DoF, which actually is still quite shallow. I focus stack to bring the contours of my recent work into sharper focus.. Without controlled lighting I stacked 61 individual photographs which caused me to adapt the lighting and lens aperture. In my portfolio some images are 6 photographs. The reason I mention this is because I define that as one type of re-photography albeit with a very short time interval between shots. The tripod position is exact. There are correctable and minute differences in perspective as the lens motor is commanded to ever closer position of the glass.This is handled in the automatic software.
Stage 2
Next I subvert the digital sensor and associated filter. Sensors readily detect infra-red IR spectrum light and manufacturers install a filter to cut out as much as if practically possible. Filters have technical limitations in drop off of effectiveness. The fraction of IR passed can be viewed for example in holding a tv controller up to a smartphone camera. The IR is made visible live on screen.
Stage 3
I subvert the processing software. My professional experience has been in algorithm design as well as in more recently in generative digital art. I have a sense for where coded features will break down and readily observe the effects. Analogies might be in television with the style of picture break up on the original analogue sets and again on modern digital platforms.
Results
There is no surprise that odd things happen to images by chance, but the magical thing for me is that it is the original data in the photograph that drives the final image output, albeit with a high degree of subversion applied by the author.
Unlike glitching techniques, which which are popular with some, I do not undermine file integrity as in searching and replacing bytes to mix it up and potentially break the file. I use the high power of modern computing to create abstracted glow layers I combine.
I apply a level of digital art to enhance the magic of what I can see in the subverted image. Maybe this is characteristic of the photographer as frustrated painter. I land up with a consistent mix of re-presentations of landscape or seascape or mountains, or simple glow effects, or of inner space and outer space and more recently a growing series of images of ghosts. Something subconcious must drive the outcomes.
Week 10
With enough images made I could now contemplate an edit and apply myself with some seriousness to the viewer and the impact of mixing archive and abstract work.
It took me several steps including examining how the painter Rachel Howard approached the problem in the exhibition guide/book for Repetition is Truth via Dolo Rosa. It is a good example and I can use it in my book, but I need to figure out what to do for my web portfolio of images.
I now have something worth review.
Here on ISSUU is the latest mix of my portfolio work. I’ve introduced achive images to break out visual language and give an access point for the viewer.
I had a break in productivity by engaging in abstract re-photography.
I took my subject matter for photography, that of healing wounds and with the original person and new healing (from mosquito bites) I recreated the methods of producing saturated colour abstracts of a type from an earlier module.
This gives stark comparison with my current work is the first thing. The second had to do with recreating steps for what is a destructive editing process. So I got to compare the working method with that in the earlier module.
Commercial Production and Standardisation of Process versus Creativity
What is plain now is how hard I’ve tried to contain the wilder aspects of abstraction bringing technique under control to allow reproducibility. It was great for knocking out sets of images that go together or at least it improved the chances of such. However, I’d forgotten how much freedom I used to express with my earlier imagery and how much of the enjoyment I’d lost. Freedom and joy returned with this attempt at abstract re-photography.
A downside of absolute consistency I have discovered is to do with viewer focus. When they see a stream of consistent work I understand that they might stop looking any further and give up on the work. By being more expressive, I take a chance and reintroduce variety.
Week 8
I had at this stage created a large catalog of photographs as abstract material. With one foot in photography and another in art, it does take me appreciable time to “paint” from the original.
I needed to work quickly and it seemed a good idea to stop myself spreading out into too many areas by setting a constraint. I opted to do abstract landscapes, but in the event inspiration had dried up or I’d lost something on the intuitive selection of the right photographs to work on and maybe through my learning instead of making, I was lacking practice.
It took me a whole week of concentrated effort and finally, I got back the inspiration. Along the way every other subject type appeared in my weeks work and so I had to use once more a variety of abstract topics.
Time pressure and learning activities and making a book and an exhibition in a box wer probably the distraction behind this.
My work was still short of images for a portfolio, and given the importance of this in the MA Photography marking scheme I had no choice but to continue on. Meanwhile crits (somehow I fitted in a 5) placed me under increasing pressure to adapt to the viewer and I was being encouraged to task risks. Not quite yet though.
Week 7
Abstract Landscape
Improbabilities and chance (file size, false colour and fringing)
A long term fascination of processing in the abstract for the author concerns the direction obtained on examination of the data within an image. A deliberate engagement in this activity provides eternal fascination and is allied with my other practice as a technologist. With experience, it is possible to pre-visualise then begin to press an image in a given direction. It is about seeking out the effects of non-linearities when working in post. Seen when extracting the red healing glow of the subject matter. Some might view these actions in terms of unintended use.
This week I implemented resolution improvements to my working methods. This was previously avoided but needed to be addressed for large scale print. Why avoided? It is known that standard filters respond less well or not at all with modern higher resolution equipment and resulting images. I don’t use standard filters but nevertheless, the software response holds true. The glow images I seek, through levelling now contain a lot more fine detail and this visual style persists across images that are subject to the new method.
In summary, I began improving my method and unintentionally obtained previously unseen effects and I now observe new branches in visual direction.
Outcomes regularly relate to chance hence my past comments about non-repeatability and my resorting to batch processing to get consistent images within these sets of images. My attempt to get images that go together.
The methods of improving resolution naturally lead to larger file sizes. What I didn’t expect was a 1.2GB layered file of what on the surface amounted to a black tile.
There is scope for rationalising this down to a smaller file by removing layers that can readily be added back. Maybe I need to stage my work by keeping all of the original processing but make a subsidiary flattened file. I’ve not been caused to (forced to) go down this route just yet as machine and network performance can cope. The slightly slower performance is acceptable given the retained flexibility to create (I’m in a phase of exploration of abstract landscapes) retained
I now get images with the look of black sandpaper. What I pre-visualise has more structure, something to lead the viewers eye. That has now gone is seems.
I tried downscaling to lower resolution. No success so far.
In my search for abstract landscapes, a colour effect (false colour) and fringing effect (moire) appeared on the screen. The effect was literally that, on-screen. It could not be saved or copied to a layer. The fringing is not present at higher magnification. When visible fringing is fixed at other magnifications. Moire fringing might be expected to produce continually altering patterns not a fixed pattern. Anyway, I need to think about what is going on and meanwhile, I captured the effect by taking a photograph of the screen.
figure: transient fringing effect (magnify to view full effect)
The false colour is not the false colour found in infra-red photography, but more like a selection mask style (without invoking a selection mask and not responding to commands to remove the mask if that is what it is). I’ll investigate. There was a software error that affected an earlier portfolio where a small red rectangle appeared in Lightroom images and persisted. A software update resolved the error in my images. I did take inspiration from the effect as at the time I sought to layer in glyphs and other effects as a visual narrative construction.
Week 6
My work is seen through another lens as I start to churn out work for this module. I’ve sorted through and tagged 310 photographs. These are candidates for processing into abstract landscapes.
I changed or should I say improved my method. Using a more configurable tripod and computer software for a remote live view, I can now obtain even inaccessible shots with improved resolution and focus. I do this in a conflicted situation where I need to be able to scale to very large (art as an experience sized) prints, starting from a small scale subject matter. No one wants or wishes for large scale injury or healing sites. While I know that my methodology calls for removing details in favour of glow. I’m forever destined to be conflicted.
Week 5
Two things have gained influence. Now I’ve created a trailer I realise the importance of imagined landscapes in my work. I also realise how much work there is ahead and so decided to use the Pareto 80 to 20 principle as it should allow me the scope to engage with all three surfaces: Exhibition, Publication and Workshop to gain valuable experience ahead of the FMP modules.
The discussion also grew around the visual language of science. Side by side stereograms has a closer match to my work than red/cyan anaglyphs. The incorporation of photos of some of the apparatus I concocted could be of interest. I’d have to make sure it didn’t dominate. I’m still not resolved as to what to do around glyph layers. I found these quite effective in my last module work. I have been distracted by moving towards then away from text captioning of abstract work. There is resolution required over the narrative.
Collaboration has been present in the background of my work and came to the fore as I created the video trailer. I’ve never seen such excitement. This does have future or should I say immediate scope for inclusion.
Week 4
During this week, I explored the relation of science, the biology I refer to in my work, and this allowed me to explore a new visual language. A side by side stereogram fitted better alongside my work than anaglyphs. For large scale presentation, I would prefer anaglyhs. I do understand that red and cyan edge representation does grate against black and white work.
Where does this leave me? I think I have to be mindful of the facts concerning visual language.
Update: subsequent conversations lead me to unpack my actions (our / student actions) when working between black and white and colour. I also begin to bring to the fore collaboration.
Week 3
The narrative development of my abstract visuals, is intended to take on an element of political and social direction as I identify with roots in Scotland I share with brothers Andrew and Richard and others from the soldier ranks who made the greatest sacrifice and go unrecognised for their bravery in the worst of condition that were the Great War.
We are from the same lands where there is a quiet beauty and shared cultural identity and so I look to add something to my work, either as a brief essay or as supporting installation. It is still early in the project development as I have three modules in which to gain resolution. I have yet to figure this out and critique how it fits. Well, it fits, but how so with abstract work?
Introduction
figure Week 3 my first attempt at reestablishing colour in my practice
Having been through a development stage of portraying monochrome images, which I admit support the sombre, my instincts cause me to return to a celebration of life and of course, this brings back colour. For me, it is a respite and is a valid expression of my second narrative (celebration) that has been on hold for a couple of months.
However, monochrome is not dead.
Working with black-and-white, I can confirm, is an important skill and I continue to develop this through:
a. Metering.
b. Camerawork (fine-tuning settings)
c. Post-processing (dodge and burn, contrast enhancement).
I’m currently publishing black and white mainly to Instagram and colour can be found back inside my project.
As mentioned before in my CRJ blog, I continue to process like images together, to get the consistency I seek. Using this with colour is different as it allows me to pick the best of the bunch by this method, then edit groups of colour images. I have to find out how successful this method will be across a portfolio.
Week 2
I have a number of new photographs to process. On this occasion bodily impressions are used. These were originally substituted in the past, for a minor injury and as a technique works as the effect of glow is the same as for minor injury. I need to post-process.
I began looking at my work in wider ways and discussed this in Module Leader Office Hours. I need to be careful that I understand where my work comes from and maintain the resolved nature rather than take my work and cause it to fray at the edges. Resolved means resolved.
Week 1
For me an unexciting start this week. I lack orientation over what the present new module will lead me to. This is my base image process and is at least serves as a baseline for comparison with future weeks. The contact sheet images are in effect part processed. Update: by Week 5 I had elected to create more imaginings of landscapes. In which case I can return to do further layering.
I concentrated on my making of new work for edit as is necessary for follow on activities such as Landings 2019 Exhibition and doing my Work in Progress Portfolio for assessment.
I managed quite late to get the first set of images together, and I built myself an exhibition in a box.
The exhibition in a box and my photobook dummy were taken to Arles for the crits. I benefited from this, and it has done the obvious and generated more work for me to complete! Should have stayed at home? No way, I’d have missed so much valuable input. However, progress on this front has been at the expense of teaching in a workshop.
Week 8 Independent Reflection
The exhibition I made in a box, and my photobook dummy was taken to Arles for the crits. I benefited from this, and it has done the obvious and generated more work for me to complete! Should have stayed at home? No way, I’d have missed so much valuable input. However, progress on this front has been at the expense of teaching in a workshop.
Week 8 Activity Teaching
My preferred approach is informal and takes place in a learning environment. I get to spend time with accomplished pros. It is excellent if an exchange is in response to being quizzed about my photography. When the opportunity arises, then there is already some buy-in, and from there it is down to me to respect others’ time. Similar questions might occur in different contexts, and so I get a chance to be challenged and work out a slick answer.
Another approach is to show interest in others and discover areas of interest that overlap, and then I may get the chance to ask the questions, and so the communication continues. At times I can take other learners particular challenges and relate them to my methods and compare notes, probably on technique. There is a specialist audience for abstract work, but at the same time, there is leeway if people are concerned with mindfulness or photography as therapy, both very popular at the moment.
The subject matter can range across, macro, art photography, portraiture, photographic projects, product photography, light painting, studio lighting, and more besides.
Week 8 Some Considerations
Week 8 Introduction Thinking About Helping Others
Strengths
Working independently and collaboratively
Creative
Problem-solving
Studio lighting
Street photography
Photojournalism
Digital technologies including photoshop (Adobe qualified)
Interacting with people, in public and one to one.
Working with professionals and teams on set.
Weaknesses
Practice at teaching outside the business and technical sphere
I concentrated on my making of new work for an edit as is necessary for follow on activities such as Landings 2019 Exhibition and making my Work in Progress Portfolio for assessment.
I managed quite late to get a first set of images together and I built myself an exhibition in a box.
The exhibition in a box and my photobook dummy were taken to Arles for the crits. I benefited from this and it has done the obvious and generated more work for me to complete! Should have stayed at home? No way, I’d have missed so much valuable input. However, progress on this front has been at the expense of teaching in a workshop.
Week 8 Independent Reflection
The exhibition I made in a box and my photobook dummy were taken to Arles for the crits. I benefited from this and it has done the obvious and generated more work for me to complete! Should have stayed at home? No way, I’d have missed so much valuable input. However, progress on this front has been at the expense of teaching in a workshop.
Week 8 Activity Teaching
My preferred approach is informal and takes place in a learning environment. I get to spend time with accomplished pros. It is excellent if an exchange is in response to being quizzed about my photography. When the opportunity arises, then there is already some buy-in, and from there it is down to me to respect others’ time. Similar questions might occur in different contexts, and so I get a chance to be challenged and work out a slick answer.
Another approach is to show interest in others and discover areas of interest that overlap, and then I may get the chance to ask the questions, and so the communication continues. At times I can take other learners particular challenges and relate them to my methods and compare notes, probably on technique. There is a specialist audience for abstract work, but at the same time, there is leeway if people are concerned with mindfulness or photography as therapy, both very popular at the moment.
The subject matter can range across, macro, art photography, portraiture, photographic projects, product photography, light painting, studio lighting, and more besides.
Week 8 Some Considerations
Week 8 Introduction Thinking About Helping Others
Strengths
Working independently and collaboratively
Creative
Problem solving
Studio lighting
Street photography
Photojournalism
Digital technologies including photoshop (Adobe qualified)
Interacting with people, in public and one to one.
Working with professionals and teams on set.
Weaknesses
Practice at teaching outside business and technical sphere
This is purely for practice as it relates to the earlier Ed Ruscha challenge.
I’m working on the page imposition.
An update: I completed the imposition in Photoshop, having made up a model for the signatures and numbered them by hand. The action gave me a double-sided printing sequence. It was then down to the practical steps of making, which turned out well enough, especially for my first printed book. I haven’t had the heart to slice into the pages to guillotine the edges by hand cutting with a sharp blade. I particularly enjoyed picture matching and have two more of these books to make: one on chains as they form lovely catenary lines and make interesting junctures; the other is of phone entry systems I started to document after poking around Leicester Square hotel night entrances. I’d eventually hope to make a boxed set, for a bit more experience of making. I have to halt myself and get on with the other learnings available to us.
Week 7 Some Considerations
Week 7 Forum Sorting Images
So here I have new work rather than a collection of everything. As I write this, I have a dummy practice book already made, and once my module edit is ready, I will repeat the making exercise. This is an A5 handmade book with kettle stitched signatures, case bound. For an A4 sized book, I would try perfect binding. This would be a good back up position, as it is easier to do the page sequencing (imposition).
My abstract images are halfway between photography and painting so take a while each to craft. This is the bottleneck I have had to contend with over the past several modules, but it has worked for me even if the project activity is backloaded. This can be quite pressured, of course.
Week 7 Introduction Thinking About Pages
Although I’m an advocate of the library online books and other eBooks, my photography pile library is currently taking up room on my studio sofa, leaving insufficient space for rest. Grief, three more outcrops of piled books surround me. There is nothing in these piles to compare with the sort of publication I would make as the constraints of the MA Photography course seem to limit me to pamphlet-sized books.
I love books and have had to meter their use a bit more during the current module. I was starting to sound as if I’d swallowed a photographic dictionary!
This is purely for practice as it relates to the earlier Ed Ruscha challenge.
I’m working on the page imposition.
An update: I completed the imposition in Photoshop, having made up a model for the signatures and numbered them by hand. The action gave me a double-sided printing sequence. It was then down to the practical steps of making, which turned out well enough, especially for my first printed book. I haven’t had the heart to slice into the pages to guillotine the edges by hand cutting with a sharp blade. I particularly enjoyed picture matching and have two more of these books to make: one on chains as they form lovely catenary lines and make interesting junctures; the other is of phone entry systems I started to document after poking around Leicester Square hotel night entrances. I’d eventually hope to make a boxed set, for a bit more experience of making. I have to halt myself and get on with the other learnings available to us.
Week 7 Some Considerations
Week 7 Forum Sorting Images
So here I have new work rather than a collection of everything. As I write this I have a dummy practice book already made and once my module edit is ready I will repeat the making exercise. This is an A5 handmade book with kettle stitched signatures, case bound. For an A4 sized book, I would try perfect binding. This would be a good back up position, as it is easier to do the page sequencing (imposition).
My abstract images are halfway between photography and painting so take a while each to craft. This is the bottleneck I have had to contend with over the past several modules, but it has worked for me even if the project activity is backloaded. This can be quite pressured of course.
Week 7 Introduction Thinking About Pages
Although I’m an advocate of the library online books and other eBooks, my photography pile library is currently taking up room on my studio sofa, leaving insufficient space for rest. Grief, three more outcrops of piled books surround me. There is nothing in these piles to compare with the sort of publication I would make as the constraints of the MA Photography course seem to limit me to pamphlet-sized books.
I love books and have had to meter their use a bit more during the current module. I was starting to sound as if I’d swallowed a photographic dictionary!
I came out of the webinar with a glow perhaps of having been let off lightly. It was a larger group, and all of the other students’ work came under critical scrutiny except mine. Maybe I felt relief. I also felt that there is more to benefit from with sharp critique. Perhaps it was easier to keep on time if the Tutor avoided causing me to respond or explain the visual motives, or maybe I already had been given the right advice in a previous session and needed more time to explore.
As I have come back from Week 7 to update Week 6, the tale did unfold. More of this in my Week 7 reflection.
Week 6 Independent Reflection
The way the course flows at this stage, I can plan the making of an installation/exhibition.
I can (then) take this work forward into the University-sponsored Landings 2019 Exhibition, plus by Week 12 have this flow into my Work in Progress WIP Portfolio.
Perhaps I make some assumptions in this, but I can see a logical flow of work from one activity into the next in an ideal manner.
So what is the issue I uncover here as there is indeed an issue?
First, to look inside where my perceptions and perspectives intervene. Maybe I seek out the ideal or have a strengthening desire to continue to improve my work. As I carry forward my abstraction into a third module, I feel I need to make progress, by refining the work. The abstracts I make need to be right, of course, but better than last time. My technique may have already reached a kind of pinnacle, and so I press for the unobtainable. At this point, factors arise like actually is it possible to keep turning out work I base on chance, on the data recorded in the original photograph. The presence of healing from more serious accidents or incidents would drive this, but for moral reasons cannot happen. There was a severe injury, but it did not manifest externally other than through puffing up. Ligament and cartilage do not have a steady blood supply. Healing is through adaption by building up strength in the surrounding and supporting muscle rather than through biological repair as we have here an example of slow healing.
With events being immediate and severe, my natural reaction triggered to protect and help, rather than act to make a photograph.
I turn to bodily impression as a fallback, where pressure marks react in a similar way to healing before quickly disappearing. My actions were over a spectacular and geometric pressure mark was frustrated. For whatever reason, perhaps to do with cooling of the area the subject matter was not traumatic, and any heat just dissipated. I processed the photo(s), but my technique failed to extract the heat or any signs of glow. Not always perceptible to the eye, a healing site does need to glow my method to work. I passed over this and reflect now on events.
This learning occurred, but time pressure would continue to build the demand for shareable results. Many other students are not displaying work in progress. Maybe my so-called Pareto based decision to engage with three surfaces is driving beyond what is genuinely feasible at Week 6.
Turning to external considerations, I perceive that critiques build in a natural assumption that we show finished work and so it is judged as finished work. What I have learned quite recently is that I need to be open and say what stage of development is with the second year yet to fully unfold.
We need to remain faithful to an expectation that our work ought to adapt and change with the various contexts of the MA Photography course.
The amount of photography I do each Module is slowing. The presence of healing dictates progress but so too does technique improvement.
I started with consistent lighting, then incorporated flash and improved focus of close-up low DoF constraints. On schedule, I have introduced the Focus Stacking technique.
My first attempt stacked 61 images, far too many. I adjusted my settings to get fully in focus results with 4 to 6 pictures stacked.
While it is still summer, I can flood the subject with natural lighting instead of using flash. The environment is something I have reacted to, and I now get to examine the consequences. In a shorter timeframe, a project’s set-ups would be more stable or consistent. With my work running over a two year period variables, in lighting have to be accommodated.
Events cause me to draw a comparison with the conditions of Vincent Van Gogh. He worked in the beautifully consistent light found in Arles. Van Gogh also was prolific, as he turned out vast quantities of paintings in a short period. There are many differences in our circumstances if we compare painting with photography or more precisely with healing glow photography.
Week 6 Activity Models
Rather than the computer of a constructed model, I looked at setting up a live venue. I’m thinking North West London location.
This environment could work as my practice emphasises the glow we emit in healing etc. I’m sure you‘ve me heard me describe this before. I need to explore and unwrap the requirements and benefits.
I have three elements set up here in the image above. There is more latitude than this for mounted print display, lightbox viewing and large screen presentation. Early thoughts are:
Mounted prints hanging from the top wire. Point lights shown can be on at the start, and be switched off for viewing. Maybe hang translucent prints. Already I’m going over the top but why not explore the possibility as the facility is there but try not to waste time on diversions.
IKEA tables and legs shown are in sets: hire lightboxes and lay these out on the tabletops. Print on translucent material – I’d have to check how effective or not this would be. Perhaps arrange tables to display photographs on lightboxes set out as a square (abstract fovea?); draw the cables together and tie in the centre (optic nerve like). Ignore the metaphors of seeing, getting carried away in this first exciting stage.
Large screen present/not present? If present, display related portfolio work or with permission of the Module Leader make a live link to the Landings site as a centrepiece.
Footfall – a drive might bring some folks in. However, as a display of art as an experience, something I aspire to, a video feed could be streamed to the web.
There is scope for an artists talk. Also, the scope must exist to invite a proposal from another student/lecturer. A positive is that alternative works that are taken together ought to enrich the experience.
There’s scope to build a display stand as there are other plain walls. Alternatively, I could contemplate the hire of a set of easels, to mount prints.
Enough for now as there are already many unanswered points to be addressed.
Draw up a plan/ to-do list is next.
Ps already I have some other ideas to try out / to simplify matters.
Week 6 Some Considerations
Week 6 Introduction Thinking About Spaces
It was impossible limiting myself to just one alternative space.
Immediately the mind turns to white wall exhibition spaces. But there is a suggestion of using the shoe – an off the wall suggestion (apologies for the pun)?
(A) What impressed me this last fortnight was the portable exhibition in a box. The idea is this. You make a box about the size of a lever arch folder.
Then inside, you include a collection of photographs and materials related to a project. An accordion fold exhibition of pictures would be the eye-catching piece. Then there might be a hand made book about the making of the show. Other artefacts you include are there to be picked up and examined. Here is a photo of the kind of thing.
(B) Another idea is related to the outside world – thinking outside of the box (stop the puns now). Galleries can be looked on as an exclusive preserve of the few. Why not print on a massive scale on weatherproof material. Hang the exhibition on the outside walls of buildings, such as around a university campus?
Come on Falmouth University, who do we approach for permission?
(C) The technically minded (and well off – I saw some recent costings), might be inclined to procure gallery space in a virtual world. Art curation takes place in Second Life an online space. Sales can be made (I heard somewhere).
(D) There is something starchy and rigid suggested by the term exhibition. Print on material and silk would be another choice. Then the images primarily if abstract, become much more portable and more manageable to store.
(E) Following on from (D) the silk or other material could be in the form of clothing or accessories like a scarf or shawl and of course could be worn.
(F) How about this thought, which I’ve already started to look at for some inexplicable reason. I took a cereal box containing wrapped Shredded Wheat. I carefully unwrapped the contents and gauged the printing area and folds and glue points. With this information, the cereal bars/biscuits can then be re-wrapped in a print jacket. We are talking one step up from tissue paper here. You have to question why and how applicable this is to a given project. I just liked the materiality but not so much the scale. When the exhibition is over, you can grab a bowl and some milk and eat the display contents!
I hope someone on the course takes inspiration from one of the suggestions or at least has fun reading this post.
I came out of the webinar with a glow perhaps of having been let off lightly. It was a larger group, and all of the other students’ work came under critical scrutiny except mine. Maybe I felt relief. I also felt that there is more to benefit from with sharp critique. Perhaps it was easier to keep on time if the Tutor avoided causing me to respond or explain the visual motives, or maybe I already had been given the right advice in a previous session and needed more time to explore.
As I have come back from Week 7 to update Week 6, the tale did unfold. More of this in my Week 7 reflection.
Week 6 Independent Reflection
The way the course flows at this stage, I can plan the making of an installation/exhibition.
I can (then) take this work forward into the University-sponsored Landings 2019 Exhibition, plus by Week 12 have this flow into my Work in Progress WIP Portfolio.
Perhaps I make some assumptions in this, but I can see a logical flow of work from one activity into the next in an ideal manner.
So what is the issue I uncover here as there is indeed an issue?
First, to look inside where my perceptions and perspectives intervene. Maybe I seek out the ideal or have a strengthening desire to continue to improve my work. As I carry forward my abstraction into a third module, I feel I need to make progress, by refining the work. The abstracts I make need to be right, of course, but better than last time. My technique may have already reached a kind of pinnacle, and so I press for the unobtainable. At this point, factors arise like actually is it possible to keep turning out work I base on chance, on the data recorded in the original photograph. The presence of healing from more serious accidents or incidents would drive this, but for moral reasons cannot happen. There was a severe injury, but it did not manifest externally other than through puffing up. Ligament and cartilage do not have a steady blood supply. Healing is through adaption by building up strength in the surrounding and supporting muscle rather than through biological repair as we have here an example of slow healing.
With events being immediate and severe, my natural reaction triggered to protect and help, rather than act to make a photograph.
I turn to bodily impression as a fallback, where pressure marks react in a similar way to healing before quickly disappearing. My actions were over a spectacular and geometric pressure mark was frustrated. For whatever reason, perhaps to do with cooling of the area the subject matter was not traumatic, and any heat just dissipated. I processed the photo(s), but my technique failed to extract the heat or any signs of glow. Not always perceptible to the eye, a healing site does need to glow my method to work. I passed over this and reflect now on events.
This learning occurred, but time pressure would continue to build the demand for shareable results. Many other students are not displaying work in progress. Maybe my so-called Pareto based decision to engage with three surfaces is driving beyond what is genuinely feasible at Week 6.
Turning to external considerations, I perceive that critiques build in a natural assumption that we show finished work and so it is judged as finished work. What I have learned quite recently is that I need to be open and say what stage of development is with the second year yet to fully unfold.
We need to remain faithful to an expectation that our work ought to adapt and change with the various contexts of the MA Photography course.
The amount of photography I do each Module is slowing. The presence of healing dictates progress but so too does technique improvement.
I started with consistent lighting, then incorporated flash and improved focus of close-up low DoF constraints. On schedule, I have introduced the Focus Stacking technique.
My first attempt stacked 61 images, far too many. I adjusted my settings to get fully in focus results with 4 to 6 pictures stacked.
While it is still summer, I can flood the subject with natural lighting instead of using flash. The environment is something I have reacted to, and I now get to examine the consequences. In a shorter timeframe, a project’s set-ups would be more stable or consistent. With my work running over a two year period variables, in lighting have to be accommodated.
Events cause me to draw a comparison with the conditions of Vincent Van Gogh. He worked in the beautifully consistent light found in Arles. Van Gogh also was prolific, as he turned out vast quantities of paintings in a short period. There are many differences in our circumstances if we compare painting with photography or more precisely with healing glow photography.
Week 6 Activity Models
Rather than the computer of a constructed model, I looked at setting up a live venue. I’m thinking North West London location.
This environment could work as my practice emphasises the glow we emit in healing. etc I’m sure you‘ve me heard me describe this before. I need to explore and unwrap the requirements and benefits.
I have three elements set up here in the image above. There is more latitude than this for mounted print display, lightbox viewing and large screen presentation. Early thoughts are:
Mounted prints hanging from the top wire. Point lights shown can be on at the start, and be switched off for viewing. Maybe hang translucent prints. Already I’m going over the top but why not explore the possibility as the facility is there but try not to waste time on diversions.
IKEA tables and legs shown, are in sets: hire lightboxes and lay these out on the tables. Print on translucent material – I’d have to check how effective or not this would be. Perhaps arrange tables to display prints on lightboxes set out as a square (abstract fovea?); draw the cables together and tie in the centre (optic nerve like). Ignore the metaphors of seeing, getting carried away in this first exciting stage.
Large screen present/not present? If present, display related portfolio work or with permission of the Module Leader make a live link to the Landings site as a centrepiece.
Footfall – a drive might bring some folks in. However, as a display of art as an experience, something I aspire to, a video feed could be streamed to the web.
There is scope for an artists talk. Also, the scope must exist to invite a proposal from another student/lecturer. A positive is that alternative works that are taken together ought to enrich the experience.
There’s scope to build a display stand as there are other plain walls. Alternatively, I could contemplate the hire of a set of easels. in order to mount prints.
Enough for now as there are already many unanswered points to be addressed.
Draw up a plan/ to-do list is next.
ps already I have some other ideas to try out / to simplify matters.
Week 6 Some Considerations
Week 6 Introduction Thinking About Spaces
It was impossible limiting myself to just one alternative space.
Immediately the mind turns to white wall exhibition spaces. But there is a suggestion of using the shoe – an off the wall suggestion (apologies for the pun)?
(A) What impressed me this last fortnight was the portable exhibition in a box. The idea is this. You make a box about the size of a lever arch folder.
Then inside, you include a collection of photographs and materials related to a project. An accordion fold exhibition of pictures would be the eye-catching piece. Then there might be a hand made book about the making of the show. Other artefacts you include are there to be picked up and examined. Here is a photo of the kind of thing.
(B) Another idea is related to the outside world – thinking outside of the box (stop the puns now). Galleries can be looked on as an exclusive preserve of the few. Why not print on a massive scale on weatherproof material. Hang the exhibition on the outside walls of buildings, such as around a university campus?
Come on Falmouth University, who do we approach for permission?
(C) The technically minded (and well off – I saw some recent costings), might be inclined to procure gallery space in a virtual world. Art curation takes place in Second Life an online space. Sales can be made (I heard somewhere).
(D) There is something starchy and rigid suggested by the term exhibition. Print on material and silk would be another choice. Then the images primarily if abstract, become much more portable and more manageable to store.
(E) Following on from (D) the silk or other material could be in the form of clothing or accessories like a scarf or shawl and of course could be worn.
(F) How about this thought, which I’ve already started to look at for some inexplicable reason. I took a cereal box containing wrapped Shredded Wheat. I carefully unwrapped the contents and gauged the printing area and folds and glue points. With this information, the cereal bars/biscuits can then be re-wrapped in a print jacket. We are talking one step up from tissue paper here. You have to question why and how applicable this is to a given project. I just liked the materiality but not so much the scale. When the exhibition is over, you can grab a bowl and some milk and eat the display contents!
I hope someone on the course takes inspiration from one of the suggestions or at least has fun reading this post.
In the space of around two working days, I had a fantastic run of three meetings that challenged my thinking and direction and yet in a supportive way.
As these meetings acted together, I draw them together here along with two activities in the same period.
I began with the 24-hour challenge where I’d pre-visualised and had then adapted. In short, an intent to expose photo paper or burn paper under a magnifying glass. The forecast led to a change of plan.
I linked my activity to my project through scientific imagery of biology by appropriating images and mixing them in a way to create a stereogram and some anaglyphs. I had so much enjoyment, I must say. For one day, I loosened the shackles and departed from the structure and intensity of abstract work.
The plan to make a sundial, sketch the gnomon shadow and read out the grid of light and shadow automatically, went ahead.
We had our first meeting, and I listened to the challenge of finding a way to link the scientific how to connect the 24-hour challenge activity to my project. I could include photographs of the apparatus and contraptions I’d used.
Next up, the office hours meeting. The discussion was necessary, and I tried to get a grasp of one area the Workshop task. The task is versed in the practicalities of photographic technique, yet the debate became focussed on pedagogy. I had a few doubts about the delivery intent and became resolved that the weeks to follow would lend clarification. We accepted the advice that allowing ideas to settle can be productive compared to pushing ahead. Finally, I took from the office hours meeting thoughts of a potentially hot topic of faulty intent.
We were advised to carefully unwrap why we might shoot in colour to only to go on and remove the colour from the photograph in post-processing. Be warned. I had earlier considered running with both black and white and colour. At the present stage, I do not yet have to resolve this completely.
And so back to the current topic, and the one to one meeting. The 121 meeting was short though contextualised by all that I’ve written in the above paragraphs. We discussed the black and white or monochrome approach versus colour. The pioneers of photographers used black and white as a means of abstracting the world around them as we see in colour. My return to colour took place based on the theme of the vibrant celebration. I felt I had justified by my actions.
However, I did take the next set of images back to black and white. Perhaps the data in the photos led me in this direction or possibly at heart, I remain soulful and so cannot break free. The conflict continues.
I can rationalise the topic down to lighting or light if rationalising is indeed the correct approach. I’ll adopt the term unpacking and proceed with the analysis. The light in my work is surface, penetrated and emitted, the latter being unique within my digital work. So far as I have learned from my practice, I shoot in colour and reduce it by digital post-processing, although not eliminate tones. I take the tonal element down to allow the emitted light to gain presence. I often refer to the glow of life. I reach back thematically to feel the presence of ancestors never met. Again, I sometimes refer to the handshake with the living being a manifestation of specific others in the past.
So colour is an essential step. Then to the aesthetic and decisions about historical commemoration which suits black and white, the celebration of our lives that suites colour. I conflict this thought with my long term assertion that ancestors worlds get depicted in black and white, yet they lived their lives in colour.
My photographic heritage is an influence. My extended-term career as a digital technologist evolved while I was away from photography. When I returned to photography, I was different from others in being open to breaking the limits in post. Post often leads to discussions of moral issues, but I have no regret because digital-first, is my world. A photograph is a data set. I know modern photography through this lens as being at the intersection of science and art.
Looking ahead to the next six weeks, I stated my intention to self-publish. I’d done some research or reading into the domains of books and exhibitions. I arrived at an intermediate point that intersects the two: an exhibition of say ten identical books. Only the cover colour designates the preferred order and the page number to be displayed.
The intent is several-fold. People rarely experience ten copies displayed. The viewer can then disrupted the exhibition. If a viewer wishes to move from stand to stand to change the pages viewed, they can. I also disrupt the convention of the gallery space of spacing the viewer away from the walls to prevent touch. I invite touch. I am not so precious about my exhibition to want to protect it from contact.
Thinking it through maybe I place prints on the wall with a book in front of each to establish a starting visual structure.
I might need spares. If there is no interaction, so be it. If there is destruction or theft, then the spares can be called upon as replacements. I’d love to timelapse film unfolding events.
I have to realise the risks of the extremes, no viewers or interaction through to over-involvement. There will need to be a definite means of enticement if it is to become a game. On writing that last word, game, I now realise the impact the game would have in undermining the intent that goes into my work. I must avoid gaming books versus exhibition. I’ll save the idea for a more appropriate subject.
Finally, I should consider collaboration, for example of family.
I next set about mixing images of my own with some those of a family member, for my film trailer. This activity was triggered back in week 2.
From the finished film trailer, my collaborator contributed photographs of Highland cattle and one of the birds. We had walked the lands of my ancestors. Apart from learning something new about my work, the trailer generated a lot of enthusiasm and engagement of a level I’d not previously experienced in my practice.
Altogether I have made a lot longer a write up than I ever anticipated. I can justify the length as evidence of the critical unfolding and changing of my work within this MA Photography course. I do switch activity a lot by engaging with the Course. It is so easy for me to be distracted and forget a critical insight. These things are too valuable to lose.
Week 5 Independent Reflection
Well, let’s hope I can manage this optimistic plan. Failing in parts of one or more tasks is not an absolute failure. If I learn from the experiences, and they help towards the ultimate aim of producing successful outcomes in the FMP modules.
What I now need to do has become clear:
Engage with the newly released materials.
Read into the provided references.
Make work on Abstract Landscapes of War, of faded memories.
I’ve done most of my reflecting below and need to make a start.
Week 5 Activity Roadmaps
I’m going to attempt a work called Abstract Landscapes of War. I say attempt as I have to read the data in my photographs and find the means of continuing to abstract landscapes. These have arisen in most unexpected ways and should be feasible, although time estimation will be tricky.
I wrote in my CRJ about scoping work over the next weeks and about how I need to limit to reasonable expectations around the MA. I intend to use the Pareto 80 to 20 principle and by achieving 80% of the defined outputs with 20% of the effort. The total amounts to 60% just for the Exhibition, Publication and Workshop, then there is a further 20% making 80% effort for photography and digital post-processing.
I have other activities such as attending Arles photo festival at a fairly crucial time in the delivery schedule.
My priorities are Book over the Exhibition, over Workshop for my MA Project. I wish to gain from the learning experiences of each to help me progress later in the Final Major Project modules.
I have to shoot continuously throughout the module for a successful abstract landscape edit. Existing photography during the module has been developed to a level that requires further refinement. My abstract landscapes developed through several stages and now at Week 5, I have decided on a theme so I need to revisit already processed abstracts.
The trailer activity highlighted how the landscape and seascape are ingrained in my work, so I would like to explore further. There is a risk as I’d need 20 images to make a successful edit of a final 15.
Week 5 Workshop BriefWeek 5 Publication Brief
Examples of making from RPS Handmade Bookbinding Course
(A) What do you want the publication to say/do?
(B) How do you want it to achieve that?
(C) Do your pictures (critically) support / contradict that intention?
The requirement is to handmake publication material. At the moment, the breadth of what could be published is in its entirety greater than what needs to be in scope. A brainstorming would allow me to consider the full extent.
An illustrated text of commemorated histories
Book for Ed Rusha task
Boxed presentation of three books: locks, chains and entry phones
Pamphlet for exhibition
Catalogue of exhibition prints with an introductory essay and a quote
Leaflets promoting the show alongside social media
Business Cards (consider logo design)
An art book containing abstract images
An electronic version of some of the above items using ISSUU
A boxed portable presentation
An InDesign publication ordered through Blurb
So, not all these are within the scope of the Surface and Strategy tasks, but it is helpful to know the potential extent of work when provisioning tools and materials and when deciding formats.
There are various decisions over softback versus hardback
Cover illustration (can do softback)
Perfect binding versus kettle stitched binding versus stapled saddle stitch.
Quality of materials
Composition tools
Professional printing – already decided I will handmake
Paper type and quality
Cover thickness 2-3mm versus 3-4mm for more substantial work
Size A2/A2+ folded, A3/A3+ folded, A4 folded and possibly smaller for a boxed portable show of work.
Colour versus monochrome – I’d been highly conflicted working in monochrome when it was against my instinct.
At this point, the task has yet to run. The questions A, B and C posed above will then be addressed. I still have some reference reading to do.
For now, suffice it to say that I’d endeavour to exercise taste and demonstrate visual awareness. There will be an opportunity to apply a growing experience. Constraints on cover illustration and branding would direct choices unless I elect to use professional services, especially for cover design.
Week 5 Exhibition Brief
Turning first to the Landings Exhibition 2019, I said I’d keep in mind the Pareto 80 to 20 principle.
A brand new set of work would be fantastic, and there lies the hope.
Maybe I need to think what my project is in the whole and in relating to it see if there is a part I can do and that uses some pre-existing work.
After the Trailer making exercise, I have gained an insight into the content and how I might emphasise place.
I always introduce my practice in two parts: a historical element commemorates bravery in a war; a celebratory feature as an expression of our freedom gained.
Within my work lies the consideration of travel and place. The full scope covers Scotland, Canada, United States, India, France and Belgium.
I had yet to expand photography to overseas locations and currently have placed a brake on travel.
So of place, I have the homeland as representational photography (type A) and the trenches as an abstract battlefield (type B) and home as abstract (type C) captioned as fading memories of home.
I believe these representational and abstract forms would work in an exhibition. My absolute best work is yet to come in the FMP part once the coursework element eases. So for now, Landscape it is.
There is quite a lot of work I need to do. I also need to clarify my use of project work from before the course. My current quest is to resolve visual narrative, something that a representational and abstract combined might ease.
Ultimately, I have two candidate places for an exhibition, but I might want to save these for the FMP. I need to start looking. Perhaps I begin with an online show as I have prepared already for my portfolio. An eZine could work well for the exhibition catalogue.
If I did make an online exhibition, I would still want to make physical objects.
Physical objects have the advantage that I can carry them to reviews. Objects I can keep as a tangible reminder of this critical phase of the development of my project.
At this point, I feel that a physical exhibition has to be preferred. I need to reconsider this for my plan.
Week 5 The Weeks to Come
And so now to consider three surfaces and what to commit to for this module. The idea is to gain experiences ahead of the impending Final Major Project.
If I think about how I might respond to these tasks, there is a natural approach I could take and a more intense planned approach.
The natural approach ultimately is the style that I would be most creative at. I would have time to explore, to read the data contained within the photographs I process and to make something of an edit. I’m thinking here in the first instance of creating a book. A book was on my agenda before I began this MA Photography course and is something I wish to make as part of my collaborative historical work. I have committed to skills development and am ready to practice bookmaking. Already I find there is a minefield of detailed considerations in the editing, layout and making. I gained experience ahead of this point by engaging in the Ed Rusha activity before the module start and which is still ongoing. A primary behavioural consideration for me is being satisfied with knowing without the compulsion to make. I have to plan my activity to prevent my interest from merely moving on to the next big thing. It shouldn’t dictate my actions, though.
A planned approach, however, is a necessary part of photographic practice, and so it is clear that I need to adopt a plan. My enthusiasm in the first instance would lead to the incorporation of three surfaces from the Surfaces and Strategies module. Experience within and beyond the course tells me intuitively that doing all three tasks to a level of perfection is not going to be feasible. The repercussion no doubt will be an immediate rationalisation process kicking in, late in the plan as reality dawns when time runs out on this project.
A solution I like is to adopt the Pareto principle, also known as an 80, 20 rule. You create 80% with 20% effort, and this seems most appropriate to what I have to do at the current stage of my development. Three surfaces are the way forward. By the Pareto method, I’d use a 60% slice of effort. There is more. Add another 20% for continuing my photography, in which I need to invest time, especially when making allowance for digital post-processing activity.
I need to decide how much of each surface activity to do. I ought to state my intended cut-off to make sure I gain a lot of experience both of the making and my response to workload. I could timebox and pull up short on surface tasks. I understand this approach would not be satisfactory for the Final Major Project FMP. The Surfaces and Strategies Module, though, is an introductory module to the FMP and so timeboxing could work. The weakness in timeboxing would be the lack of definition of what the 80% achievement represents. More clarity is required.
In the space of around two working days, I had a fantastic run of three meetings that challenged my thinking and direction and yet in a supportive way.
As these meetings acted together, I draw them together here along with two activities in the same period.
I began with the 24-hour challenge where I’d pre-visualised and had then adapted. In short, an intent to expose photo paper or burn paper under a magnifying glass. The forecast led to a change of plan.
I linked my activity to my project through scientific imagery of biology by appropriating images and mixing them in a way to create a stereogram and some anaglyphs. I had so much enjoyment, I must say. For one day, I loosened the shackles and departed from the structure and intensity of abstract work.
The plan to make a sundial, sketch the gnomon shadow and read out the grid of light and shadow automatically, went ahead.
We had our first meeting, and I listened to the challenge of finding a way to link the scientific how to connect the 24-hour challenge activity to my project. I could include photographs of the apparatus and contraptions I’d used.
Next up, the office hours meeting. The discussion was necessary, and I tried to get a grasp of one area the Workshop task. The task is versed in the practicalities of photographic technique, yet the debate became focussed on pedagogy. I had a few doubts about the delivery intent and became resolved that the weeks to follow would lend clarification. We accepted the advice that allowing ideas to settle can be productive compared to pushing ahead. Finally, I took from the office hours meeting thoughts of a potentially hot topic of faulty intent.
We were advised to carefully unwrap why we might shoot in colour to only to go on and remove the colour from the photograph in post-processing. Be warned. I had earlier considered running with both black and white and colour. At the present stage, I do not yet have to resolve this completely.
And so back to the current topic, and the one to one meeting. The 121 meeting was short though contextualised by all that I’ve written in the above paragraphs. We discussed the black and white or monochrome approach versus colour. The pioneers of photographers used black and white as a means of abstracting the world around them as we see in colour. My return to colour took place based on the theme of the vibrant celebration. I felt I had justified by my actions.
However, I did take the next set of images back to black and white. Perhaps the data in the photos led me in this direction or possibly at heart, I remain soulful and so cannot break free. The conflict continues.
I can rationalise the topic down to lighting or light if rationalising is indeed the correct approach. I’ll adopt the term unpacking and proceed with the analysis. The light in my work is surface, penetrated and emitted, the latter being unique within my digital work. So far as I have learned from my practice, I shoot in colour and reduce it by digital post-processing, although not eliminate tones. I take the tonal element down to allow the emitted light to gain presence. I often refer to the glow of life. I reach back thematically to feel the presence of ancestors never met. Again, I sometimes refer to the handshake with the living being a manifestation of specific others in the past.
So colour is an essential step. Then to the aesthetic and decisions about historical commemoration which suits black and white, the celebration of our lives that suites colour. I conflict this thought with my long term assertion that ancestors worlds get depicted in black and white, yet they lived their lives in colour.
My photographic heritage is an influence. My extended-term career as a digital technologist evolved while I was away from photography. When I returned to photography, I was different from others in being open to breaking the limits in post. Post often leads to discussions of moral issues, but I have no regret because digital-first, is my world. A photograph is a data set. I know modern photography through this lens as being at the intersection of science and art.
Looking ahead to the next six weeks, I stated my intention to self-publish. I’d done some research or reading into the domains of books and exhibitions. I arrived at an intermediate point that intersects the two: an exhibition of say ten identical books. Only the cover colour designates the preferred order and the page number to be displayed.
The intent is several-fold. People rarely experience ten copies displayed. The viewer can then disrupted the exhibition. If a viewer wishes to move from stand to stand to change the pages viewed, they can. I also disrupt the convention of the gallery space of spacing the viewer away from the walls to prevent touch. I invite touch. I am not so precious about my exhibition to want to protect it from contact.
Thinking it through maybe I place prints on the wall with a book in front of each to establish a starting visual structure.
I might need spares. If there is no interaction, so be it. If there is destruction or theft, then the spares can be called upon as replacements. I’d love to timelapse film unfolding events.
I have to realise the risks of the extremes, no viewers or interaction through to over-involvement. There will need to be a definite means of enticement if it is to become a game. On writing that last word, game, I now realise the impact the game would have in undermining the serious intent that goes into my work. I must avoid gaming books versus exhibition. I’ll save the idea for a more appropriate subject.
Finally, I should consider collaboration, for example of family.
I next set about mixing images of my own with some those of a family member, for my film trailer. This activity was triggered back in week 2.
From the finished film trailer, my collaborator contributed photographs of Highland cattle and one of the birds. We had walked the lands of my ancestors. Apart from learning something new about my work, the trailer generated a lot of enthusiasm and engagement of a level I’d not previously experienced in my practice.
Altogether I have made a lot longer a write up than I ever anticipated. I can justify the length as evidence of the critical unfolding and changing of my work within this MA Photography course. I do switch activity a lot by engaging with the Course. It is so easy for me to be distracted and forget a critical insight. These things are too valuable to lose.
Week 5 Independent Reflection
Well, let’s hope I can manage this optimistic plan. Failing in parts of one or more tasks is not an absolute failure. If I learn from the experiences, and they help towards the ultimate aim of producing successful outcomes in the FMP modules.
What I now need to do has become clear:
Engage with the newly released materials.
Read into the provided references.
Make work on Abstract Landscapes of War, of faded memories.
I’ve done most of my reflecting below and need to make a start.
Week 5 Activity Roadmaps
I’m going to attempt a work called Abstract Landscapes of War. I say attempt as I have to read the data in my photographs and find the means of continuing to abstract landscapes. These have arisen in most unexpected ways and should be feasible, although time estimation will be tricky.
I wrote in my CRJ about scoping work over the next weeks and about how I need to limit to reasonable expectations around the MA. I intend to use the Pareto 80 to 20 principle and by achieving 80% of the defined outputs with 20% of the effort. The total amounts to 60% just for the Exhibition, Publication and Workshop, then there is a further 20% making 80% effort for photography and digital post-processing.
I have other activities such as attending Arles photo festival at a fairly crucial time in the delivery schedule.
My priorities are Book over the Exhibition, over Workshop for my MA Project. I wish to gain from the learning experiences of each to help me progress later in the Final Major Project modules.
I have to shoot continuously throughout the module for a successful abstract landscape edit. Existing photography during the module has been developed to a level that requires further refinement. My abstract landscapes developed through several stages and now at Week 5 I have decided on a theme so need to revisit already processed abstracts.
The trailer activity highlighted how the landscape and seascape are ingrained in my work so I would like to explore further. There is a risk as I’d need 20 images to make a successful edit of a final 15.
Week 5 Workshop BriefWeek 5 Publication Brief
Examples of making from RPS Handmade Book binding Course
(A) What do you want the publication to say/do?
(B) How do you want it to achieve that?
(C) Do your pictures (critically) support / contradict that intention?
The requirement is to handmake publication material. At the moment, the breadth of what could be published is in its entirety greater than what needs to be in scope. A brainstorming would allow me to consider the full extent.
An illustrated text of commemorated histories
Book for Ed Rusha task
Boxed presentation of three books: locks, chains and entry phones
Pamphlet for exhibition
Catalogue of exhibition prints with an introductory essay and a quote
Leaflets promoting the show alongside social media
Business Cards (consider logo design)
An art book containing abstract images
An electronic version of some of the above items using ISSUU
A boxed portable presentation
An InDesign publication ordered through Blurb
So, not all these are within the scope of the Surface and Strategy tasks, but it is helpful to know the potential extent of work when provisioning tools and materials and when deciding formats.
There are various decisions over softback versus hardback
Cover illustration (can do softback)
Perfect binding versus kettle stitched binding versus stapled saddle stitch.
Quality of materials
Composition tools
Professional printing – already decided I will handmake
Paper type and quality
Cover thickness 2-3mm versus 3-4mm for more substantial work
Size A2/A2+ folded, A3/A3+ folded, A4 folded and possibly smaller for a boxed portable show of work.
Colour versus monochrome – I’d been highly conflicted working in monochrome when it was against my instinct.
At this point, the task has yet to run. The questions A, B and C posed above will then be addressed. I still have some reference reading to do.
For now, suffice it to say that I’d endeavour to exercise taste and demonstrate visual awareness. There will be an opportunity to apply a growing experience. Constraints on cover illustration and branding would direct choices unless I elect to use professional services, especially for cover design.
Week 5 Exhibition Brief
Turning first to the Landings Exhibition 2019, I said I’d keep in mind the Pareto 80 to 20 principle.
A brand new set of work would be fantastic, and there lies the hope.
Maybe I need to think what my project is in the whole and in relating to it see if there is a part I can do and that uses some pre-existing work.
After the Trailer making exercise, I have gained an insight into the content and how I might emphasise place.
I always introduce my practice in two parts: a historical element commemorates bravery in a war; a celebratory feature as an expression of our freedom gained.
Within my work lies the consideration of travel and place. The full scope covers Scotland, Canada, United States, India, France and Belgium.
I had yet to expand photography to overseas locations and currently have placed a brake on travel.
So of place, I have the homeland as representational photography (type A) and the trenches as an abstract battlefield (type B) and home as abstract (type C) captioned as fading memories of home.
I believe these representational and abstract forms would work in an exhibition. My absolute best work is yet to come in the FMP part once the coursework element eases. So for now, Landscape it is.
There is quite a lot of work I need to do. I also need to clarify my use of project work from before the course. My current quest is to resolve visual narrative, something that a representational and abstract combined might ease.
Ultimately, I have two candidate places for an exhibition, but I might want to save these for the FMP. I need to start looking. Perhaps I begin with an online show as I have prepared already for my portfolio. An eZine could work well for the exhibition catalogue.
If I did make an online exhibition, I would still want to make physical objects.
Physical objects have the advantage that I can carry them to reviews. Objects I can keep as a tangible reminder of this critical phase of the development of my project.
At this point, I feel that a physical exhibition has to be preferred. I need to reconsider this for my plan.
Week 5 The Weeks to Come
And so now to consider three surfaces and what to commit to for this module. The idea is to gain experiences ahead of the impending Final Major Project.
If I think about how I might respond to these tasks, there is a natural approach I could take and a more intense planned approach.
The natural approach ultimately is the style that I would be most creative at. I would have time to explore, to read the data contained within the photographs I process and to make something of an edit. I’m thinking here in the first instance of creating a book. A book was on my agenda before I began this MA Photography course and is something I wish to make as part of my collaborative historical work. I have committed to skills development and am ready to practice bookmaking. Already I find there is a minefield of detailed considerations in the editing, layout and making. I gained experience ahead of this point by engaging in the Ed Rusha activity before the module start and which is still ongoing. A primary behavioural consideration for me is being satisfied with knowing without the compulsion to make. I have to plan my activity to prevent my interest from merely moving on to the next big thing. It shouldn’t dictate my actions, though.
A planned approach, however, is a necessary part of photographic practice, and so it is clear that I need to adopt a plan. My enthusiasm in the first instance would lead to the incorporation of three surfaces from the Surfaces and Strategies module. Experience within and beyond the course tells me intuitively that doing all three tasks to a level of perfection is not going to be feasible. The repercussion no doubt will be an immediate rationalisation process kicking in, late in the plan as reality dawns when time runs out on this project.
A solution I like is to adopt the Pareto principle, also known as an 80, 20 rule. You create 80% with 20% effort, and this seems most appropriate to what I have to do at the current stage of my development. Three surfaces are the way forward. By the Pareto method, I’d use a 60% slice of effort. There is more. Add another 20% for continuing my photography, in which I need to invest time, especially when making allowance for digital post-processing activity.
I need to decide how much of each surface activity to do. I ought to state my intended cut-off to make sure I gain a lot of experience both of the making and my response to workload. I could timebox and pull up short on surface tasks. I understand this approach would not be satisfactory for the Final Major Project FMP. The Surfaces and Strategies Module, though, is an introductory module to the FMP and so timeboxing could work. The weakness in timeboxing would be the lack of definition of what the 80% achievement represents. More clarity is required.
I have taken all of the opportunities presented to meet my tutor and other students online. I did so again this week in the context of a 24-hour challenge the course had set for us.
I decided to explore how to supplement the visual narrative of my abstract work and ended up using photographs from the realm of scientific and computational biology and synthesised 3D images.
I had appropriated and mixed ideas in line with course discussion about such practice. I started with an exploration of what the public or viewer might expect to see generally in biological images. How could I expand visual narratives to reach out to the viewer?
I could adopt 3D, although this was not my intention. I’ll think about that. I have time to try out some ideas during the current Surfaces and Strategies Module.
Colour images I make, I envisage being presented as transparencies on lightboxes for best effect. At £33 x 20 that is an expensive option and I still have to establish the feasibility of printing on translucent material. I read somewhere that Epson printer using pigment ink should work although drying takes longer. With this in mind, what I discovered by synthesising 3D for myself was a new effect I liked. The red-cyan anaglyptic images I made presented as if light poured through a transparency layer and cast a shadow on a wall behind.
I shall also be mindful of the science being something separate to the art in my work and try not to let it distract. I learned that I need to exercise care and balance the inter-disciplinary visuals.
My first response to the activity this week failed due to poor weather conditions. As a cameraless approach, I’d wanted to time how long paper took to burn under a magnifying glass. Afterwards, I did go back to this but stopped because the method is exceptionally crude (lacks any finesse), there is a risk of fire and the risk of the bright sun causing eye damage. I stopped that. A mind experiment only.
Pending still is yet another method of recording that doesn’t use a camera. I wanted to make a sundial and sketch the gnomon shadow for different hours. A grid would act like pixels and be light, or under the shadow, they would be dark. A computer would be used to speak the pattern. An update has now been provided immediately below.
Week 4 Independent Reflection
This weeks content has an applied element and helped to develop my practice. Practice explored new visual presentation, which is a development point. I do not appropriate and yet was challenged to, and this made me feel uncomfortable as well as mindful of licensing and permission. I needed to examine visuals for reasons for exploration.
In summary, audio rather than visual output was the result, and I didn’t use a camera.
If you listen to the track, maybe 30 seconds or less is to be advised. It even drives me crazy.
I copied the light and dark squares as text into Adobe Audition and generated speech (Audition – Effect – Generate – Speech). I had previously discovered a Flanger effect called the Crazy Clock of Doom, which sounds a little more exciting, and the name appeals to my sense of humour. (Audition – Effects – Flanger – The Crazy Clock of Doom.
Week 4 Activity Hands Off
I decided to take some media images from the realm of human biology and computational biology and apply some technical methods to obtain 3D visuals. That helps me explore visual themes as my abstract expressionist work uses common DNA as a link to the past.
In 2004 my desktop computer worked away as a part of the World Community Grid. The first thing I chose to support was the then Human Proteome Folding project. My machine is now working on finding Human Cancer Markers.
I did not realise until this week how my photography had gained influence from this field of computational biology.
And so from the Science Museum, I took the model of the famous double helix and used it to create a stereogram pair. I landed on this presentation after trying several different approaches, and this was the best result for such a delicate subject.
I find I can Freeview and get the depth using just my eyes. The London Stereoscopic Company sent me a simple viewer designed by Brian May (of Queen) that cost about £5.
I had seen red and cyan anaglyphs in the past and found today this method worked well on a set of cellular images I grabbed from the World Community Grid facebook group.
A friend gave me a pair of cardboard viewing spectacles, and in trying to get the 3D effect, I stumbled upon a layer visual that took me by surprise. I like it. The result is a wall with the image on it, then a nearer version of the image as if on a transparent surface.
I’m so excited about this because I recently considered using light boxes to display my abstract work.
Until you look at the following with specialised specs, it is hard to gain access. However, there is a more latitude on image size, and that is important in my work as I still have in mind the idea of the viewer looking closeup to become immersed in art as an experience. These are still early days.
I’m glad to have done this activity as it seems like now I make the progress I was seeking to make in starting this new module.
My earlier venture into microscopy took me to x80 magnification which is nowhere near the 3 to 5 Angstrom units of resolution used in scientific research, so for the supporting images, I need to appropriate, and remix the work of someone else. If I go much further, then I need to sort out rights and permissions. The stock images I looked at have a cost of £50 for a base image, and I would still need to create the 3D They are less visually stimulating. The license is a lot when, as a student, you don’t yet know what you’ll end up doing.
I’ve got some more lined up to make the five images by the end of today. At the moment, I’m wrestling with third party images and mixing them to sample the visual language of cellular biology.
Week 4 Presentation 4 Turn Away
When I engage in my photographic practice, I scan for bodily injury/repair and may need to use a mirror to check specific framing and focus. Although I take a photograph, the situation often requires someone else to be a photographer. I created strategies to use in place of a second photographer. When I photograph a family member, the constraint becomes one of acting directly and with speed as the subject is only willing to cooperate a short while.
Week 4 Presentation 3 Force
I do not use force for the satisfaction of exercising power over the medium. Instead, I interpret the data in an image and try to read the direction in which it will go if I process it. With experience, I choose which stills I can work on to make a significant effect. I have had to practice a lot. Ever since my first digital camera and post-processing suite, I have practised, and I continue to do so. I previsualize style or type of outcome but let the image data provide the direction.
I am selective and respond to the data in a photograph.
Others may view my approach as passive. I would ask the question, is aikido passive? Aikido is a martial art and philosophy and is a way of unifying life energy. I would settle for that.
Week 4 Presentation 2 Smuggle
I explained below how I use my intent. The outcome is a visual effect of glow, in the underlying image. I reject the need for a high pixel count in my practice. Medium resolution is better suited to my intent. The photography software I use is passive when there is a lot of detail. Filters no longer have a good effect.
I look at the sensor data for the living glow of repair. Detail of a wound or human hair would be distasteful in my art and would serve as a distraction. I wish to create an experience in looking.
There is a concept of a one-pixel cinema, which I see a parallel to my work. Let me explain what the one-pixel cinema is. It acknowledges how to manage colour in film scenes. It goes beyond the use of LUTs. Films from companies such as Disney deploy a recognisable tone aesthetic that harmonises across the film catalogue. I’ve described what is behind a one-pixel cinema and will now explain how it works. The programmer identifies the dominant colour in each scene. The programmer would reduce each frame in turn, except there are some complications.
Several frames can invoke change and make visual sense by overlaying an original full frame.
The programmer reduces the whole film to a single-pixels that cycle through the dominant colours from the scenes.
I deconstruct my images but not to the extreme just described.
Week 4 Presentation 1 Outwit
I started with the lens to begin with and then thought turned to the camera. I realised that it’s code is designed to read the sensor, but in doing so, it compensated for allowable lens aberration. That way, lens manufacturing can stop short of absolute perfection. I take an integrated view of the apparatus and so thought now turns to the software designed to read the camera files once on a computer. Today this could be a smartphone, tablet, laptop computer, or a workstation. And so I view this as a whole, at least in terms of apparatus.
Photography is, therefore, about the lens, the camera, and the processing software. I then identify the constraints in the processing software, and I will force an algorithm to generate an unintended effect that I can use.
I have designed algorithms and so am tuned to finding limitations that create useful results. For example, I initially mute the effect of colour to give way to the infrared light that the filter inside the camera fails to stop getting through. I get my pictures to glow where there is a source of heat, for example, where the body acts to heal an injury.
I’ve given one example of what I do with the software. I do not de-privilege the apparatus by seeking alternative processes.
I do not advertise my methods so yes there is a black box but may relent once the experimentation matures into a technique, Nothing is firm just yet.
Week 4 Forum Human
I responded to the forum over whether it is possible to have non-human photography.
Movement detection software as an app running in tandem on the pairing of an old smartphone and a new smartphone can auto-trigger and send the user an email containing each snap. This brings into focus a modern dilemma of consumerism, what to do with old equipment that still works. In this example, the first and second apparatuses become linked thanks to the convenience of wifi and the availability of unlimited internet data plans alongside the accessibility of integrated camera and networked computer functionally. This approach is based on machine detection of the moving target and the extension of technological innovation into the field of a machine on machine integration based here on a consequence of a consumerist society.
Week 4 Introduction Playing Against the Camera
I suppose the freedom I experience is a result of knowing that the photography software designed to allow the photographer to improve an image will begin to breakdown at absolute extremes. I seek to find useful ways of breaking the software. I act intuitively with the data the camera has captured, and I test how it responds to my actions.
I do look elsewhere, as I attempt to return to film and photo paper. I do not have the full facilities of a darkroom, but I am gradually building up my expertise and equipment. There is a certain amount of politics at home about turning a space into a darkroom and especially in introducing chemicals into the house. I can force the issue, but there again, I am a digital worker and create lots of exciting challenges without an absolute need to find real alternatives.
I have taken all of the opportunities presented to meet my tutor and other students online. I did so again this week in the context of a 24-hour challenge the course had set for us.
I decided to explore how to supplement the visual narrative of my abstract work and ended up using photographs from the realm of scientific and computational biology and synthesised 3D images.
I had appropriated and mixed ideas in line with course discussion about such practice. I started with an exploration of what the public or viewer might expect to see generally in biological images. How could I expand visual narratives to reach out to the viewer?
I could adopt 3D, although this was not my intention. I’ll think about that. I have time to try out some ideas during the current Surfaces and Strategies Module.
Colour images I make, I envisage being presented as transparencies on lightboxes for best effect. At £33 x 20 that is an expensive option and I still have to establish the feasibility of printing on translucent material. I read somewhere that Epson printer using pigment ink should work although drying takes longer. With this in mind, what I discovered by synthesising 3D for myself was a new effect I liked. The red-cyan anaglyptic images I made presented as if light pourde through a transparency layer and cast a shadow on a wall behind.
I shall also be mindful of the science being something separate to the art in my work and try not to let it distract. I learned that I need to exercise care and balance the inter-disciplinary visuals.
My first response to the activity this week failed due to poor weather conditions. As a cameraless approach, I’d wanted to time how long paper took to burn under a magnifying glass. Afterwards, I did go back to this but stopped because the method is extrememly crude (lacks any finese), there is a risk of fire and the risk of the bright sun causing eye damage. I stopped that. A mind experiment only.
Pending still is yet another method of recording that doesn’t use a camera. I wanted to make a sundial and sketch the gnomon shadow for different hours. A grid would act like pixels and be light, or under the shadow, they would be dark. A computer would be used to speak the pattern. An update has now been provided immediately below.
Week 4 Independent Reflection
This weeks content has an applied element and helped to develop my practice. Practice explored new visual presentation, which is a development point. I do not appropriate and yet was challenged to, and this made me feel uncomfortable as well as mindful of licensing and permission. I needed to examine visuals for reasons for exploration.
In summary, audio rather than visual output was the result, and I didn’t use a camera.
If you listen to the track, maybe 30 seconds or less is to be advised. It even drives me crazy.
I copied the light and dark squares as text into Adobe Audition and generated speech (Audition – Effect – Generate – Speech). I had previously discovered a Flanger effect called the Crazy Clock of Doom, which sounds a little more exciting, and the name appeals to my sense of humour. (Audition – Effects – Flanger – The Crazy Clock of Doom.
Week 4 Activity Hands Off
I decided to take some media images from the realm of human biology and computational biology and apply some technical methods to obtain 3D visuals. That helps me explore visual themes as my abstract expressionist work uses common DNA as a link to the past.
In 2004 my desktop computer worked away as a part of the World Community Grid. The first thing I chose to support was the then Human Proteome Folding project. My machine is now working on finding Human Cancer Markers.
I did not realise until this week how my photography had gained influence from this field of computational biology.
And so from the Science Museum, I took the model of the famous double helix and used it to create a stereogram pair. I landed on this presentation after trying several different approaches, and this was the best result for such a delicate subject.
I find I can Freeview and get the depth using just my eyes. The London Stereoscopic Company sent me a simple viewer designed by Brian May (of Queen) that cost about £5.
I had seen red and cyan anaglyphs in the past and found today this method worked well on a set of cellular images I grabbed from the World Community Grid facebook group.
A friend gave me a pair of cardboard viewing spectacles, and in trying to get the 3D effect, I stumbled upon a layer visual that took me by surprise. I like it. The result is a wall with the image on it, then a nearer version of the image as if on a transparent surface.
I’m so excited about this because I recently considered using light boxes to display my abstract work.
Until you look at the following with specialized specs, it is hard to gain access. However, there is a more latitude on image size, and that is important in my work as I still have in mind the idea of the viewer looking closeup to become immersed in art as an experience. These are still early days.
I’m glad to have done this activity as it seems like now I make the progress I was seeking to make in starting this new module.
My earlier venture into microscopy took me to x80 magnification which is nowhere near the 3 to 5 Angstrom units of resolution used in scientific research, so for the supporting images, I need to appropriate, and remix the work of someone else. If I go much further, then I need to sort out rights and permissions. The stock images I looked at have a cost of £50 for a base image, and I would still need to create the 3D They are less visually stimulating. The license is a lot when, as a student, you don’t yet know what you’ll end up doing.
I’ve got some more lined up to make the five images by the end of today. At the moment, I’m wrestling with third party images and mixing them to sample the visual language of cellular biology.
Week 4 Presentation 4 Turn Away
When I engage in my photographic practice, I scan for bodily injury/repair and may need to use a mirror to check specific framing and focus. Although I take a photograph, the situation often requires someone else to be a photographer. I created strategies to use in place of a second photographer. When I photograph a family member, the constraint becomes one of acting directly and with speed as the subject is only willing to cooperate a short while.
Week 4 Presentation 3 Force
I do not use force for the satisfaction of exercising power over the medium. Instead, I interpret the data in an image and try to read the direction in which it will go if I process it. With experience, I choose which stills I can work on to make a significant effect. I have had to practice a lot. Ever since my first digital camera and post-processing suite, I have practised, and I continue to do so. I previsualize style or type of outcome but let the image data provide the direction.
I am selective and respond to the data in a photograph.
Others may view my approach as passive. I would ask the question, is aikido passive? Aikido is a martial art and philosophy and is a way of unifying life energy. I would settle for that.
Week 4 Presentation 2 Smuggle
I explained below how I use my intent. The outcome is a visual effect of glow, in the underlying image. I reject the need for a high pixel count in my practice. Medium resolution is better suited to my intent. The photography software I use is passive when there is a lot of detail. Filters no longer have a good effect.
I look at the sensor data for the living glow of repair. Detail of a wound or human hair would be distasteful in my art and would serve as a distraction. I wish to create an experience in looking.
There is a concept of a one-pixel cinema, which I see a parallel to my work. Let me explain what the one-pixel cinema is. It acknowledges how to manage colour in film scenes. It goes beyond the use of LUTs. Films from companies such as Disney deploy a recognizable tone aesthetic that harmonizes across the film catalogue. I’ve described what is behind a one-pixel cinema and will now explain how it works. The programmer identifies the dominant colour in each scene. The programmer would reduce each frame in turn, except there are some complications.
Several frames can invoke change and make visual sense by overlaying an original full frame.
The programmer reduces the whole film to a single-pixels that cycle through the dominant colours from the scenes.
I deconstruct my images but not to the extreme just described.
Week 4 Presentation 1 Outwit
I started with the lens to begin with and then thought turned to the camera. I realized that it’s code is designed to read the sensor, but in doing so, it compensated for allowable lens aberration. That way, lens manufacturing can stop short of absolute perfection. I take an integrated view of the apparatus and so thought now turns to the software designed to read the camera files once on a computer. Today this could be a smartphone, tablet, laptop computer, or a workstation. And so I view this as a whole, at least in terms of apparatus.
Photography is, therefore, about the lens, the camera, and the processing software. I then identify the constraints in the processing software, and I will force an algorithm to generate an unintended effect that I can use.
I have designed algorithms and so am tuned to finding limitations that create useful results. For example, I initially mute the effect of colour to give way to the infrared light that the filter inside the camera fails to stop getting through. I get my pictures to glow where there is a source of heat for example, where the body acts to heal an injury.
I’ve given one example of what I do with the software. I do not de-privilege the apparatus by seeking alternative processes.
I do not advertise my methods so yes there is a black box but may relent once the experimentation matures into a technique, Nothing is firm just yet.
Week 4 Forum Human
I responded to the forum over whether it is possible to have non-human photography.
Movement detection software as an app running in tandem on the pairing of an old smartphone and a new smartphone can auto-trigger and send the user an email containing each snap.
This brings into focus a modern dilemma of consumerism, what to do with old equipment that still works. In this example, the first and second apparatuses become linked functionally thanks to the convenience of wifi and availability of unlimited internet data plans alongside the accessibility of integrated camera and networked computer.
This approach is based on machine detection of the moving target and the extension of technological innovation into the field of a machine on machine integration based here on a consequence of a consumerist society.
Week 4 Introduction Playing Against the Camera
I suppose the freedom I experience is a result of knowing that the photography software designed to allow the photographer to improve an image will begin to breakdown at absolute extremes. I seek to find useful ways of breaking the software. I act intuitively with the data the camera has captured, and I test how it responds to my actions.
I do look elsewhere, as I attempt to return to film and photo paper. I do not have the full facilities of a darkroom, but I am gradually building up my expertise and equipment. There is a certain amount of politics at home about turning a space into a darkroom and especially in introducing chemicals into the house. I can force the issue, but there again, I am a digital worker and create lots of exciting challenges without an absolute need to find material alternatives.
I go back to Week 3 (from Week 7) in catch-up on some gaps in my coursework as I’d spent my time helping someone back to their feet so they could get around. Something to do with sports which are meant to be good for us.
Week 3 Resources
Week 3 Independent Reflection
I’m currently in the first phase of my project, and in doing abstract work, I still need to resolve essential issues.
Colour versus black and white I’m conflicted over although this is working itself out.
Visual narratives as they apply to my engagement with the viewer needs further attention too. It was suggested I create a bridge or provide some way into the work.
I tend to finish my Portfolio work with a Title and Captions. I’ve investigated visual language related to science and have been researching commercial visual language around DNA analysis.
An interest in other students works led me to analyse and discover more concerning my work.
(A) I read the SAGE Handbook of visual research and realise I may need to do more with the Integrated Framework. It is not directly applicable to me, I thought. I have now started to build my research on Visual Social Research.
(B) I need to forward think my strategy for engaging a museum and work collaboratively, possibly with funding. The idea is one thing; putting a structure around this is something else.
Week 3 Webinar Opening Up
This week my abstract visual work, that connects to the past through the biology of DNA is beginning an attempted transformation inspired by my ongoing contribution since 2004 to the world community grid and visuals of computational biology originally under the project called Human Proteome Folding phases I and II that completed in 2006.
If I ask why, then this ongoing contribution is now recognised by me as a subtle influence on my making of images that I did not acknowledge until this week of the module and that may help visually direct the narratives in my work that had previously been covered through text captions that ran in a rhythmic call and response alongside hand-drawn glyphs layered into my work.
With the ability of scientific microscopy to resolve down to 3 to 5 angstroms, and the power of supercomputers to model cellular structures then there is a modern world of imagery like those shown below from projects as far-ranging as cancer markers, ziko virus, and many more through to the development of treatments for autism.
Whether to appropriate or license materials to sit amongst or alongside my abstracts or whether possibly unavoidably now, to transform my photographs in these and other visual directions, is the question at the moment.
Fig 1 computational images from World Community Grid
Week 3 Activity Making Zines
If there is going to be a coincidence, there might as well be more than one.
Concept eZine
While an earlier week of the module was running, I’d independently been in communication with the Contemporary Photography world. Having seen the need for an editor for a Contemporary Photography Zine titled Concept, I offered to help, although I wouldn’t be fully available until June 2020, when this MA Photography course should complete for my intake.
Photo chain eZine (the Module group I joined)
The initial idea proposed by one of the students had good uptake, and work commenced right-away on a photo chain. We waited for our turn to respond to a photograph received from a member of the chain.
I took a received image that exhibited the idea of containment of time and moved it further into the surreal by looking within.
London 23-6-2019 21:13:10
Version 1 of the Zine can now be found on Issuu at this link
iPhone Zine – Cranes
In response to an open request to collaborate, the following winter nighttime scene of a crane in the snow, with moon present, was sent in.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this out of camera photograph didn’t make the edit. Being a dark, blurry image, it might not fit in.
Week 3 Presentation 3 Help from the Crowds
(A) How can crowdsourcing aid my project without causing concern?
I’d spawn the template for my work for use with other families. In that sense, we are isolated or disconnected. Later generations of my own family may wish to continue to extend the work as they please. If they obtain genetic results as raw data, they’d need to protect their data. These are early days, and higher analytical power will make connections we might not expect today. Also, the raw data may inadvertently reveal information to third parties about close relatives.
Fortunately, my method does not require DNA testing, per se.
Crowdfunding could aid the ongoing development of my project beyond the current stage of the MA Photography course. I have seen an example of an Army medical museum that allowed in an artist to work with children in creating work under National Lottery funding. I gain encouragement for my next phase work — one thing at a time.
(B) What could I learn from my participants through crowdsourcing or mass participation?
There are numerous learnings I’d categorise under psychological factors. There are raw feelings I have experienced that others may potentially suffer.
Potential participants may form defensive strategies, around dignity, and other resistive arguments. The work can affect knowledge, experience and beliefs. Some will wish to forget the past, leave the dead behind and focus on the now and potential future.
Week 3 Presentation 2 Helping Others
Discussion
(A) Within my projects, how much agency do my subjects have in the creative decisions?
None insofar as genetic research is modern and did not exist for my subjects. It was only in the middle of the 20th Century that Watson and Crick discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.
As I interpret visually using glow, it is hard to know what other methods might work. Onward abstraction allows landscape/seascape or inner /outer world re-presentations. Within this, I sometimes introduce the form of tartan subtly. There is nothing culturally awry. Perhaps my perceptions of battle and the fading memories of home would meet with resistance as it can be hard for survivors to relate to traumatic conditions. The National War Memorial in Edinburgh is a great outpouring of the Scottish peoples’ loss. The memorial inscription says, for now, they are in God’s hands they shall suffer no more. I feel able to portray conditions without causing harm.
As a matter of choice, I portray healing as opposed to injury or wound. Healing has a direct connection through the warm glow I process of the physical body.
(B) Who is my primary audience and subsequently, my secondary audience?
Family is the immediate audience, as the work already causes us to unite or join together and reflect in thought and conversation as it affects our identity.
Once concluded, I can go public.
A growing interest in heritage through DNA has seen several commercial start-ups such as LivingDNA and AncestryDNA. There are numerous others. An upswell in interest is apparent, and individuals pay to have DNA analysed.
As part of my research, I’ve now obtained a view of the related and growing area of visual culture and representation. My method operates at around four generations and around a hundred years and is suitable for very much longer. This concerns recognising the connection with mitochondrial DNA.
The application of Y chromosome or YDNA provides a parallel for self as male. I’d considered this from the perspective of sisters of a male person having a one-sixteenth connection with fourth-generation male ancestors. I’m barred by nature from this connection.
Mitochondrial DNA fits my work as an energy giver in the context of action associated with War.
I’ve validated my method and built my knowledge base so gradually prepare for future application.
I’ve considered this at greater length than I’d anticipated when I started writing but supporting research has helped confirm my approach.
I’ve also just had the opportunity to discuss my photography and genetics with a medical practitioner who was somewhat interested in this work. By now, I can gauge people’s facial expression for engagement with the message as it affects their interests. The medic showed genuine interest. I didn’t get the specialist referral I was openly fishing for so will follow-up at a later point. I respect and value their time.
(C) In sharing my work, how can I retain the agency of the participants for a secondary audience without speaking on their behalf?
I think this comes down to working from factual data and trust in the propriety of relationships.
The historical research has to be of academic standing and use factual information that we have checked. The place never transformed and remains true to the rural nature of peoples lives in this case.
In terms of glow in my pictures, DNA is the information carrier. Mutations occur but rarely so in mDNA. Full visible characteristics are simplified or removed from my visuals. Hair and wrinkles, including effects of ageing, do not confound. In that sense, I do not allow the physical form to enter the work. Recent technical improvement has taken place by focus stacking. Stacking removes out of focus depth indications enabling standardised 2D framing of images. I’m saying this farther simplifies identification to that intended and prevent distortion of persons likeness or difference.
(A) Thinking about your research, which is of more interest to you: the subject or your view of the matter?
The ancestral subjects were never known to me during childhood the data and narratives of their lives only becoming known through the last decades of research.
My view derives from a place and others, as in early life I was immersed in Scottish culture. Having seen gaps in knowledge get closed through modern research and travel, I interpret the conditions of the lives of my subjects. I can relate based on collective experience.
(B) How could you be influencing your subject and is that something to be avoided?
Rather than glorify the dead, I proudly acknowledge their deeds for I have my freedom. Would they want to be recognised, maybe/maybe not? What is important today is the effect they have in uniting a family as a diaspora.
I do not misrepresent the facts/data. To the best of one’s ability, it has become my place to represent my ancestors before all living memory is lost. I can still touch the past for now. Once established, others can determine any ongoing engagement with the history or adapt the principles I create to situations other than the Great War.
There will always be a gap over their personalities. I have a rounded view. If as a child, I had met them, my presentation would be different.
Week 3 Forum Collaboration or Participation
A contact sheet of images below provides a visual sample from the World Community Grid, a computational biology project I have participated in since its inception in 2004.
I participate in a group where we donate spare computing power to a grid I get to see where we stand in a league table of returned results.
I recently gained some individual bronze awards and shifted my league standing from around 400,000 up to about 200,000. I can choose which projects to participate in (originally in Human proteome folding) and now for Cancer markers, Aids and Ziko virus.
The reason I mention this here is because of the subliminal impact my participation has had on the Biology within my practice. Interest had become ingrained in over at least a decade.
My efforts are allied with collaboration in my current photographic practice. I collaborate with a History researcher to illustrate a text and now move on to make standalone work in the abstract for the same subject.
My work evolved to use Biology to connect close family members and myself to narratives of specific others related in the past. I now photograph healing. I shoot family member healing as so they act as willing (mostly unwilling) participants.
If I consider the idea of voice, more precisely, that of subjects and collaborators, it does get interesting. From over 100 years in the past, these subjects are not alive to participate. I have researched data about their lives. I interacted with their close relatives within Scottish culture and society. The place is important too as I lived here as a child and on revisiting as part of my project, very little has changed in the landscape.
I become a proxy for my subjects’ voices. One participant has a loud guiding voice in the research but also adapts to the demands of tracing specific relatives. My children have a link through Biology and understand their contribution, and they ask if particular images are of themselves. The source becomes anonymous through abstraction, which is the working principle I adopt.
As work in progress develops, it will surely gain sophistication and get to a point where I can present the work back to them. I can then invite my family to relate to the experience and perhaps with a substantial body of work, ask them to present the perspectives they each have gained.
I care enough to sense how family and my more full family might engage or have the work presented. Already family have been encouraging and become emotionally involved in the practice as it evolves. Close family are sometimes very engaged while at other times they want distance from the work. The context has to be right.
I go back to Week 3 (from Week 7) in catch-up on some gaps in my coursework as I’d spent my time helping someone back to their feet so they could get around. Something to do with sports which are meant to be good for us.
Week 3 Resources
Week 3 Independent Reflection
I’m currently in the first phase of my project, and in doing abstract work I still need to resolve essential issues.
Colour versus black and white I’m conflicted over although this is working itself out.
Visual narratives as they apply to my engagement with the viewer needs further attention too. It was suggested I create a bridge or provide some way into the work.
I tend to finish my Portfolio work with a Title and Captions. I’ve investigated visual language related to science and have been researching commercial visual language around DNA analysis.
An interest in other students works led me to analyse and discover more concerning my work.
(A) I read the SAGE Handbook of visual research and realise I may need to do more with the Integrated Framework. It is not directly applicable to me, I thought. I have now started to build my research on Visual Social Research.
(B) I need to forward think my strategy for engaging a museum and work collaboratively, possibly with funding. The idea is one thing; putting a structure around this is something else.
Week 3 Webinar Opening Up
This week my abstract visual work, that connects to the past through the biology of DNA, is beginning an attempted transformation inspired by my ongoing contribution since 2004 to the world community grid and visuals of computational biology originally under the project called Human Proteome Folding phases I and II that completed in 2006.
If I ask why, then this ongoing contribution is now recognised by me as a subtle influence on my making of images that I did not acknowledge until this week of the module and that may help visually direct the narratives in my work that had previously been covered through text captions that ran in a rhythmic call and response alongside hand-drawn glyphs layered into my work.
With the ability of scientific microscopy to resolve down to 3 to 5 angstroms, and the power of supercomputers to model cellular structures then there is a modern world of imagery like those shown below from projects as far-ranging as cancer markers, ziko virus, and many more through to the development of treatments for autism.
Whether to appropriate or license materials to sit amongst or alongside my abstracts or whether possibly unavoidably now, to transform my photographs in these and other visual directions, is the question at the moment.
Fig 1 computational images from World Community Grid
Week 3 Activity Making Zines
If there is going to be a coincidence there might as well be more than one.
Concept eZine
Whilst an earlier week of the module was running, I’d independently been in communication with the Contemporary Photography world. Having seen the need for an editor for a Contemporary Photography Zine titled Concept, I offered to help, although I wouldn’t be fully available until June 2020, when this MA Photography course should complete for my intake.
Photo chain eZine (the Module group I joined)
The initial idea proposed by one of the students had good uptake, and work commenced right-away on a photo chain. We waited for our turn to respond to a photograph received from a member of the chain.
I took a received image that exhibits the idea of containment of time and moved it further into the surreal by looking within.
London 23-6-2019 21:13:10
Version 1 of the Zine can now be found on Issuu at this link
iPhone Zine – Cranes
In response to an open request to collaborate, the following winter nighttime scene of a crane in the snow, with moon present, was sent in.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this out of camera photograph didn’t make the edit. Being a dark blurry image it might not fit in.
Week 3 Presentation 3 Help from the Crowds
(A) How can crowdsourcing aid my project without causing concern?
I’d spawn the template for my work for use with other families. In that sense, we are isolated or disconnected. Later generations of my own family may wish to continue to extend the work as they please. If they obtain genetic results as raw data, they’d need to protect their data. These are early days, and higher analytical power will make connections we might not expect today. Also, the raw data may inadvertently reveal information to third parties about close relatives.
Fortunately, my method does not require DNA testing, per se.
Crowdfunding could aid the ongoing development of my project beyond the current stage of the MA Photography course. I have seen an example of an Army medical museum that allowed in an artist to work with children in creating work under National Lottery funding. I gain encouragement for my next phase work — one thing at a time.
(B) What could I learn from my participants through crowdsourcing or mass participation?
There are numerous learnings I’d categorise under psychological factors. There are raw feelings I have experienced that others may potentially suffer.
Potential participants may form defensive strategies, around dignity, and other resistive arguments. The work can affect knowledge, experience and beliefs. Some will wish to forget the past, leave the dead behind and focus on the now and potential future.
Week 3 Presentation 2 Helping Others
Discussion
(A) Within my projects, how much agency do my subjects have in the creative decisions?
None insofar as genetic research is modern and did not exist for my subjects. It was only in the middle of the 20th Century that Watson and Crick discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.
As I interpret visually using glow, it is hard to know what other methods might work. Onward abstraction allows landscape/seascape or inner /outer world re-presentations. Within this, I sometimes introduce the form of tartan subtly. There is nothing culturally awry. Perhaps my perceptions of battle and the fading memories of home would meet with resistance as it can be hard for survivors to relate to traumatic conditions. The National War Memorial in Edinburgh is a great outpouring of the Scottish peoples’ loss. The memorial inscription says, for now, they are in God’s hands they shall suffer no more. I feel able to portray conditions without causing harm.
As a matter of choice, I portray healing as opposed to injury or wound. Healing has a direct connection through the warm glow I process of the physical body.
(B) Who is my primary audience and subsequently, my secondary audience?
Family is the immediate audience, as the work already causes us to unite or join together and reflect in thought and conversation as it affects our identity.
Once concluded, I can go public.
A growing interest in heritage through DNA has seen several commercial start-ups such as LivingDNA and AncestryDNA. There are numerous others. An upswell in interest is apparent, and individuals pay to have DNA analysed.
As part of my research, I’ve now obtained a view of the related and growing area of visual culture and representation. My method operates at around four generations and around a hundred years and is suitable for very much longer. This concerns recognising the connection with mitochondrial DNA.
The application of Y chromosome or YDNA provides a parallel for self as male. I’d considered this from the perspective of sisters of male self having a one-sixteenth connection with fourth-generation male ancestors. I’m barred by nature from this connection.
Mitochondrial DNA fits my work as an energy giver in the context of action associated with War.
I’ve validated my method and built my knowledge base so gradually prepare for future application.
I’ve considered this at greater length than I’d anticipated when I started writing but supporting research has helped confirm my approach.
I’ve also just had the opportunity to discuss my photography and genetics with a medical practitioner who was somewhat interested in this work. By now, I can gauge people’s facial expression for engagement with the message as it affects their interests. The medic showed genuine interest. I didn’t get the specialist referral I was openly fishing for so will follow-up at a later point. I respect and value their time.
(C) In sharing my work, how can I retain the agency of the participants for a secondary audience without speaking on their behalf?
I think this comes down to working from factual data and trust in the propriety of relationships.
The historical research has to be of academic standing and use factual information that we have checked. The place never transformed and remains true to the rural nature of peoples lives in this case.
In terms of glow in my pictures, DNA is the information carrier. Mutations occur but rarely so in mDNA. Full visible characteristics are simplified or removed from my visuals. Hair and wrinkles, including effects of ageing, do not confound. In that sense, I do not allow the physical form to enter the work. Recent technical improvement has taken place by focus stacking. Stacking removes out of focus depth indications enabling standardised 2D framing of images. I’m saying this farther simplifies identification to that intended and prevent distortion of persons likeness or difference.
(A) Thinking about your research, which is of more interest to you: the subject or your view of the matter?
The ancestral subjects were never known to me during childhood the data and narratives of their lives only becoming known through the last decades of research.
My view derives from a place and others, as in early life I was immersed in Scottish culture. Having seen gaps in knowledge get closed through modern research and travel, I interpret the conditions of the lives of my subjects. I can relate based on collective experience.
(B) How could you be influencing your subject and is that something to be avoided?
Rather than glorify the dead, I proudly acknowledge their deeds for I have my freedom. Would they want to be recognised, maybe/maybe not? What is important today is the effect they have in uniting a family as a diaspora.
I do not misrepresent the facts/data. To the best of one’s ability, it has become my place to represent my ancestors before all living memory is lost. I can still touch the past for now. Once established, others can determine any ongoing engagement with the history or adapt the principles I create to situations other than the Great War.
There will always be a gap over their personalities. I have a rounded view. If as a child, I had met them, my presentation would be different.
Week 3 Forum Collaboration or Participation
A contact sheet of images below provides a visual sample from the World Community Grid, a computational biology project I have participated in since it’s inception in 2004.
I participate in a group where we donate spare computing power to a grid I get to see where we stand in a league table of returned results.
I recently gained some individual bronze awards and shifted my league standing from around 400,000 up to about 200,000. I can choose which projects to participate in (originally in Human proteome folding) and now for Cancer markers, Aids and Ziko virus.
The reason I mention this here is because of the subliminal impact my participation has had on the Biology within my practice. Interest had become ingrained in over at least a decade.
My efforts are allied with collaboration in my current photographic practice. I collaborate with a History researcher to illustrate a text and now move on to make standalone work in the abstract for the same subject.
My work evolved to use Biology to connect close family members and myself to narratives of specific others related in the past. I now photograph healing. I shoot family member healing as so they act as willing (mostly unwilling) participants.
If I consider the idea of voice, more precisely, that of subjects and collaborators, it does get interesting. From over 100 years in the past, these subjects are not alive to participate. I have researched data about their lives. I interacted with their close relatives within Scottish culture and society. The place is important too as I lived here as a child and on revisiting as part of my project, very little has changed in the landscape.
I become a proxy for my subjects’ voices. One participant has a loud guiding voice in the research but also adapts to the demands of tracing specific relatives. My children have a link through Biology and understand their contribution, and they ask if particular images are of themselves. The source becomes anonymous through abstraction, which is the working principle I adopt.
As work in progress develops, it will surely gain sophistication and get to a point where I can present the work back to them. I can then invite my family to relate to the experience and perhaps with a substantial body of work, ask them to present the perspectives they each have gained.
I care enough to sense how family and my more full family might engage or have the work presented. Already family have been encouraging and become emotionally involved in the practice as it evolves. Close family are sometimes very engaged while at other times they want distance from the work. The context has to be right.
I moved on from the base template to simplify the blog appearance and to allow the use of Tags. I also had a problem with structuring Reflections as I have this hanging section. Reflections crop up within my Coursework blog right now.
I updated the template at Week 7 spurred on by various things including Landing 2019. I also started a new website for portfolio work but have taken on quite a bit of work through this. The site in its first incarnation is almost an eCommerce site allowing visitors to purchase my work via the internet. That came about more through intrigue and future intent than an immediate requirement.
So in terms of reflections, they remain in the coursework section of this blog for the moment. I will need to rationalise this to make the content clear to visitors, especially as the staff of Falmouth University expect to see a laid out site where everything is readily accessible.
Week 8
Reserved for insight into the computational biology aspect of what I’ve done since 2004 and how it helped inspire the work I make.
My current practice is abstract expressionism with the aim of scaling images for art as experience as demonstrated by Mark Rothko in his painting.
During the week I was caused to revisit why I’d been conflicted and why I had settled on black and white images. There are two things running together a) the motivation which has sadness and darkness and b) celebration of life with vibrant colour which along the way got lost last module.
My methodology is a maturing process of controlled lighting with hints of clinical photography practice in the taking of photographs then in the digital dark room transformation of image texture and glow takes place (my IR processing method has developed). At this stage a glow image may be the end result I have in mind or an imaginings of home landscape may be the other form I have in mind. I allow the image to dictate my choices.
What I do could be described as an abstract form of rephotography through the surreal connection created by threads of common biology.
I was asked about developing the narratives in my work. Standard methods I had intended to use or reuse are captions in call and response (I dropped this last time I published a WIP portfolio). I was also experimenting with incorporating hand drawn glyphs and was yet to decide what symbols to use.
I didn’t get round to saying this week but do now, that I have a methodology I was now beginning to refine for improved visual impact and for clear narrative. I have yet to go back to early thoughts of romantic cultural inputs as my story connects with the song and verse of Robert Burns through location “A mans a man for aw that” etc.
Appropriation is something I’d not considered incorporating at this stage. Anything from stock images of place or similar approach or use Google Earth for sketch background storyline. I don’t know, early days.
There is scope to make that visit to London’s Imperial War Museum to get some contrasting stock imagery. I can seek out abandoned buildings of farm buildings, or park trenches or a mortar range I know of, for example as may have been use to hide out in during battle. Again I don’t know.
I’d been advised of the psychology of the method called Family Constellation Therapy, as a way of working with narrative. I followed up this to find out what might be taken from it. There is a parallel to a communication planning method I’m familiar with, I can consider. There is also, I find anyway a parallel with the male influence versus female influence on individual which runs alongside my themes of matriarchy and patriarchy.
I took a look at the presentation of the (near pornographic) work of Nobuyoshi Araki as an example of image pairings for visual interest. My work was seen to be uniform, which of course was exactly what I rebounded to after struggling to get more than a few images that went together in my previous work. Seems I might have overdone it.
I moved on from the base template to simplify the blog appearance and to allow the use of Tags. I also had a problem with structuring Reflections as I have this hanging section. Reflections crop up within my Coursework blog right now.
I updated the template at Week 7 spurred on by various things including Landing 2019. I also started a new website for portfolio work but have taken on quite a bit of work through this. The site in its first incarnation is almost an eCommerce site allowing visitors to purchase my work via the internet. That came about more through intrigue and future intent than an immediate requirement.
So in terms of reflections, they remain in the coursework section of this blog for the moment. I will need to rationalise this to make the content clear to visitors, especially as the staff of Falmouth University expect to see a laid out site where everything is readily accessible.
Week 8
Reserved for insight into the computational biology aspect of what I’ve done since 2004 and how it helped inspire the work I make.
My current practice is abstract expressionism with the aim of scaling images for art as experience as demonstrated by Mark Rothko in his painting.
During the week I was caused to revisit why I’d been conflicted and why I had settled on black and white images. There are two things running together a) the motivation which has sadness and darkness and b) celebration of life with vibrant colour which along the way got lost last module.
My methodology is a maturing process of controlled lighting with hints of clinical photography practice in the taking of photographs then in the digital dark room transformation of image texture and glow takes place (my IR processing method has developed). At this stage a glow image may be the end result I have in mind or an imaginings of home landscape may be the other form I have in mind. I allow the image to dictate my choices.
What I do could be described as an abstract form of rephotography through the surreal connection created by threads of common biology.
I was asked about developing the narratives in my work. Standard methods I had intended to use or reuse are captions in call and response (I dropped this last time I published a WIP portfolio). I was also experimenting with incorporating hand drawn glyphs and was yet to decide what symbols to use.
I didn’t get round to saying this week but do now, that I have a methodology I was now beginning to refine for improved visual impact and for clear narrative. I have yet to go back to early thoughts of romantic cultural inputs as my story connects with the song and verse of Robert Burns through location “A mans a man for aw that” etc.
Appropriation is something I’d not considered incorporating at this stage. Anything from stock images of place or similar approach or use Google Earth for sketch background storyline. I don’t know, early days.
There is scope to make that visit to London’s Imperial War Museum to get some contrasting stock imagery. I can seek out abandoned buildings of farm buildings, or park trenches or a mortar range I know of, for example as may have been use to hide out in during battle. Again I don’t know.
I’d been advised of the psychology of the method called Family Constellation Therapy, as a way of working with narrative. I followed up this to find out what might be taken from it. There is a parallel to a communication planning method I’m familiar with, I can consider. There is also, I find anyway a parallel with the male influence versus female influence on individual which runs alongside my themes of matriarchy and patriarchy.
I took a look at the presentation of the (near pornographic) work of Nobuyoshi Araki as an example of image pairings for visual interest. My work was seen to be uniform, which of course was exactly what I rebounded to after struggling to get more than a few images that went together in my previous work. Seems I might have overdone it.
I had a crit during the Module Leader Office Hours meeting:
a) the project appeared to be resolved. It is entirely decided and undergoing refinement. In retrospect, with themes of commemoration and celebration of life running alongside each other, they may need to be separated, and I then focus on one subject.
b) the work is set to undergo levels of refinement. As ideas introduced during Week 1 were unconstrained, and the established practice has a serious tone, I don’t want to undermine this. I have to avoid new ideas fraying the edges of my work.
The project survived the rigours of my first module, possibly against the odds but did shine enough and adapt and has developed with a series of refinements over another two modules.
This is a project that has to go ahead irrespective of the MA. It is a life’s work and needs to complete while living memory remains. I had to test if it were possible to continue without visual repetition and knowing it is not a final work, I needed to think clearly about how it might proceed.
I’m gaining increased confidence, these doubts never go away, that there is more than enough development remaining to carry the work forward through this module now I’m getting a clearer sight of what the module has to offer. It is a lot more than a book, exhibition and workshop.
Week 2 Webinar Where are You Going
For students not familiar with my work:
My project statement
I commemorate ancestors I missed, who gave in the Great War. As they were injured and healed and fought again, I identify with them through abstracted images of the minor injury that we meet in daily life.
Through natural glow and healing, I connect with them in a shared process of repair.
Moving Forward
Sketch1: refinement, visual quality and hot buttonsSketch 2: context, support and makingSketch 3: new directions, message management and unresolved intent
Work in progress
Contact sheet: previous week
Challenge activity
Contact sheet: 100 Locks (Ed Rusha challenge)
Week 2 Activity Make a Trailer
Week 2 Presentation 2 Remixing
My practice takes my photographs and layers in reprocessed copies of the background as layers and may include hand-drawn glyphs. As the inclusion of narrative develops, there is scope to consider the learning of the current module. This has yet to be developed. I begin to wonder how remixing might apply as I’m sure there must be scope. Ultimately there are photographs created in prior modules, such as the museum work that came to a halt as close-up photography didn’t seem to do the business, but inclusion at some later point, perhaps even beyond the course, seems inevitable.
My practice links to other work, such as a published research document of historical narratives.
In a sense, the influences I gain are through the trainers who teach at the north-west London studios where I work as Studio Manager and get to interact with many professional photographers and digital artists.
Week 2 Presentation 1 Appropriation
We looked at appropriation by many visual artists and viewed the many ways they made this work, controversially in the case of Prince or in more subdued ways by other photographers/artists/curators and we looked at some of the argument that needs to be carefully considered, things we need to be mindful of.
This covered a vast range of approaches from official photography being re-photographed through to Google Image search for download images hopefully of quality, through to the use of Google Earth outtakes.
The approach of Ruff ignoring or even making a play on pixelation and still conveying an image resonated with an aspect of my work. I photograph small scale minor injury and need to think carefully about scaling my work, especially when comparing with painters and in particular Marc Rothko in attempting Art as an Experience.
There are opposite strategies like removing any reference to the original image through to wanting to identify the subject and context or recreate more of the original meaning.
Schmid curated typologies and self-published and also noted what I might call fashions in taking photographs around food and selfies for example and how this allows an analysis of changes in time like the cost of photographing.
It is worrying that recent snaps may have been taken as conceptual art in earlier times.
The playful alteration of images was also considered. I can relate to this in one picture where I had a bit of fun (and won a competition with it).
There are so many examples of approach and learning from such exercises. Critical appraisal was also given through critics comments on some of the work demonstrating the polarisation of views that can occur and how we as photographers ought to remain aware that this can or will happen with our work.
As for my practice:
I do have an inspiration that is based upon being able to reach back and touch the history and people linked to my narratives as I do so before living memory is lost. I also mention verbally the narrative text I take inspiration from in connection with a researcher I work with and am married to. I began wanting to support the book with illustrations until I realised there is more that we can do as photographers than that. I’ve moved off now as a separate visual exercise in the abstract.
As for the longer future, there should be some longevity once my work is fully resolved. For now, based on family, it can then be opened up publicly to others as a methodology concerning the stories of their lives. There is educational potential as support material in biology education. However, what is uncertain is the effect of reconnecting with migrant members of the family as this cold stir interest in North America. Who knows?
Week 2 Forum Joywar
Rather than use a visual for this, here is a linear approach
0. Note the remediation of a photograph and a painting above (displayed one above the other and captioned left and right on my screen).
2. Wonder why Harper’s material is not presented on Canvas.
2b Search the article, as requested in paragraph 2.
2c Harper’s website located. Note one-year subscription required to see the article / read the pdf.
2d Decision not to proceed with this line.
3 Inspect a second search result as Google identifies a pdf download.
3b Consider virus risk.
3c Consider if this is fair educational, non-commercial use/intent.
3d Wonder at students reactions to downloading this.
3e Resolve by getting a sense of perspective as the request to search is made in good faith. Technically though it does say search, not download.
3f Enough of this moral consideration / taking high ground.
4 Another search result is to a Wikipedia article, perhaps read that as a safe alternative?
5 Read paragraph 3 Post a diagram relating to this topic. I investigated in a linear step by step manner so provide this list instead of a layout or sketch.
5b Comment on three peer posts – TBD/in progress
I hope this perspective is sufficiently different!
For a visual I thought I’d return and add the Harper’s subscription request, but isn’t their website copyright? #confounded
6 Read paragraph 4 and respond in a way that challenges practice.
I initially started out in digital photography, creating my own stock for my planned work on business websites. Now my practice is to abstract my photographs and hand draw my individual glyph layers taking a wide berth of copyright issues. My other work has been copied before and each time caused no more than a raising of an eyebrow as I muttered congratulations regarding good taste (through gritted teeth). #chill
Now, if I decide to contextualise my abstract work with representational photographs, I could reach out to our family photographs.
Photographs of ancestors in uniform were found in the national newspaper archive. The pictures appeared in a local newspaper, in an article that was a precursor to further sad news. This is from over a century ago, and a researcher’s permission request led nowhere. Best measures have been taken to clarify ownership without any claim, and so my understanding is there is no issue.
I hope that the context given is both different and relevant.
I’m wrestling to with some new term: Immediacy and Hypermediacy as the foundations of Remediation. There are many examples from the media over time (Bolter, 2000). Having read this, there is much to commend the summary (Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation – PUB401, no date)
Regards the question as to whether any photograph is finished or not, in the case of my own pictures, they are definitely not finished. In post-processing, I first have to process the glow, then layer if required, e.g. cultural references or imaginings of home, plus I may include hand-drawn glyphs or an image section transformed.
With the medium I use, I describe this to others as best I can, conscious of the fact that I continue to refine my earlier experimental approaches. Once these solidify, I can be more transparent.
Images I create have an immediacy, as there is an abstraction of minor injury of body impressions. As I build up the image layers with hand-painted effects and hand-drawn glyphs and transformed sections, the hypermediacy begins to build. At this stage in my development, the question is whether I Remediate. Perhaps self-remediation as handiwork is transformed into the abstracted photograph. My original conversation for my practice is in relating through standard biology the contemporary healing with historic wounding.
Bibliography
Bolter, J. D. (2000) ‘Chapter 1 Immediacy, hypermediacy and remediation’, in Bolter, J. D. and Grusin, R. (eds) Remediation: understanding new media. Cambridge, Mass: MIT, pp. 20–50.
I had a crit during the Module Leader Office Hours meeting:
a) the project appeared to be resolved. It is entirely decided and undergoing refinement. In retrospect, with themes of commemoration and celebration of life running alongside each other, they may need to be separated, and I then focus on one subject.
b) the work is set to undergo levels of refinement. As ideas introduced during Week 1 were unconstrained, and the established practice has a serious tone, I don’t want to undermine this. I have to avoid new ideas fraying the edges of my work.
The project survived the rigours of my first module, possibly against the odds but did shine enough and adapt and has developed with a series of refinements over another two modules.
This is a project that has to go ahead irrespective of the MA. It is a life’s work and needs to complete while living memory remains. I had to test if it were possible to continue without visual repetition and knowing it is not a final work, I needed to think clearly about how it might proceed.
I’m gaining increased confidence, these doubts never go away, that there is more than enough development remaining to carry the work forward through this module now I’m getting a clearer sight of what the module has to offer. It is a lot more than a book, exhibition and workshop.
Week 2 Webinar Where are You Going
For students not familiar with my work:
My project statement
I commemorate ancestors I missed, who gave in the Great War. As they were injured and healed and fought again, I identify with them through abstracted images of the minor injury that we meet in daily life.
Through natural glow and healing, I connect with them in a shared process of repair.
Moving Forward
Sketch1: refinement, visual quality and hot buttonsSketch 2: context, support and makingSketch 3: new directions, message management and unresolved intent
Work in progress
Contact sheet: previous week
Challenge activity
Contact sheet: 100 Locks (Ed Rusha challenge)
Week 2 Activity Make a Trailer
Week 2 Presentation 2 Remixing
My practice takes my photographs and layers in reprocessed copies of the background as layers and may include hand-drawn glyphs. As the inclusion of narrative develops, there is scope to consider the learning of the current module. This has yet to be developed. I begin to wonder how remixing might apply as I’m sure there must be scope. Ultimately there are photographs created in prior modules, such as the museum work that came to a halt as close-up photography didn’t seem to do the business, but inclusion at some later point, perhaps even beyond the course, seems inevitable.
My practice links to other work, such as a published research document of historical narratives.
In a sense, the influences I gain are through the trainers who teach at the north-west London studios where I work as Studio Manager and get to interact with many professional photographers and digital artists.
Week 2 Presentation 1 Appropriation
We looked at appropriation by many visual artists and viewed the many ways they made this work, controversially in the case of Prince or in more subdued ways by other photographers/artists/curators and we looked at some of the argument that needs to be carefully considered, things we need to be mindful of.
This covered a vast range of approaches from official photography being re-photographed through to Google Image search for download images hopefully of quality, through to the use of Google Earth outtakes.
The approach of Ruff ignoring or even making a play on pixelation and still conveying an image resonated with an aspect of my work. I photograph small scale minor injury and need to think carefully about scaling my work, especially when comparing with painters and in particular Marc Rothko in attempting Art as an Experience.
There are opposite strategies like removing any reference to the original image through to wanting to identify the subject and context or recreate more of the original meaning.
Schmid curated typologies and self-published and also noted what I might call fashions in taking photographs around food and selfies for example and how this allows an analysis of changes in time like the cost of photographing.
It is worrying that recent snaps may have been taken as conceptual art in earlier times.
The playful alteration of images was also considered. I can relate to this in one picture where I had a bit of fun (and won a competition with it).
There are so many examples of approach and learning from such exercises. Critical appraisal was also given through critics comments on some of the work demonstrating the polarisation of views that can occur and how we as photographers ought to remain aware that this can or will happen with our work.
As for my practice:
I do have an inspiration that is based upon being able to reach back and touch the history and people linked to my narratives as I do so before living memory is lost. I also mention verbally the narrative text I take inspiration from in connection with a researcher I work with and am married to. I began wanting to support the book with illustrations until I realised there is more that we can do as photographers than that. I’ve moved off now as a separate visual exercise in the abstract.
As for the longer future, there should be some longevity once my work is fully resolved. For now, based on family, it can then be opened up publicly to others as a methodology concerning the stories of their lives. There is educational potential as support material in biology education. However, what is uncertain is the effect of reconnecting with migrant members of the family as this cold stir interest in North America. Who knows?
Week 2 Forum Joywar
Rather than use a visual for this, here is a linear approach
0. Note the remediation of a photograph and a painting above (displayed one above the other and captioned left and right on my screen).
2. Wonder why Harper’s material is not presented on Canvas.
2b Search the article, as requested in paragraph 2.
2c Harper’s website located. Note one-year subscription required to see the article / read the pdf.
2d Decision not to proceed with this line.
3 Inspect a second search result as Google identifies a pdf download.
3b Consider virus risk.
3c Consider if this is fair educational, non-commercial use/intent.
3d Wonder at students reactions to downloading this.
3e Resolve by getting a sense of perspective as the request to search is made in good faith. Technically though it does say search, not download.
3f Enough of this moral consideration / taking high ground.
4 Another search result is to a Wikipedia article, perhaps read that as a safe alternative?
5 Read paragraph 3 Post a diagram relating to this topic. I investigated in a linear step by step manner so provide this list instead of a layout or sketch.
5b Comment on three peer posts – TBD/in progress
I hope this perspective is sufficiently different!
For a visual I thought I’d return and add the Harper’s subscription request, but isn’t their website copyright? #confounded
6 Read paragraph 4 and respond in a way that challenges practice.
I initially started out in digital photography, creating my own stock for my planned work on business websites. Now my practice is to abstract my photographs and hand draw my individual glyph layers taking a wide berth of copyright issues. My other work has been copied before and each time caused no more than a raising of an eyebrow as I muttered congratulations regarding good taste (through gritted teeth). #chill
Now, if I decide to contextualise my abstract work with representational photographs, I could reach out to our family photographs.
Photographs of ancestors in uniform were found in the national newspaper archive. The pictures appeared in a local newspaper, in an article that was a precursor to further sad news. This is from over a century ago, and a researcher’s permission request led nowhere. Best measures have been taken to clarify ownership without any claim, and so my understanding is there is no issue.
I hope that the context given is both different and relevant.
I’m wrestling to with some new term: Immediacy and Hypermediacy as the foundations of Remediation. There are many examples from media over time (Bolter, 2000). Having read this, there is much to commend the summary (Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation – PUB401, no date)
Regards the question as to whether any photograph is finished or not, in the case of my own pictures they are definitely not finished. In post-processing, I first have to process the glow, then layer if required, e.g. cultural references or imaginings of home, plus I may include hand-drawn glyphs or an image section transformed.
With the medium I use, I describe this to others as best I can, conscious of the fact that I continue to refine my earlier experimental approaches. Once these solidify, I can be more transparent.
Images I create have an immediacy, as there is an abstraction of minor injury of body impressions. As I build up the image layers with hand-painted effects and hand-drawn glyphs and transformed sections, the hypermediacy begins to build. At this stage in my development, the question is whether I Remediate. Perhaps self-remediation as handiwork is transformed into the abstracted photograph. My original conversation for my practice is in relating through standard biology the contemporary healing with historic wounding.
Bibliography
Bolter, J. D. (2000) ‘Chapter 1 Immediacy, hypermediacy and remediation’, in Bolter, J. D. and Grusin, R. (eds) Remediation: understanding new media. Cambridge, Mass: MIT, pp. 20–50.
In advance I’d taken the request to make a set of three project images. I did this at first as a way of moving on my work as I was keen to challenge myself and wanted discover as soon as possible what new directions might be calling. Here is the panel (discussed but not shown).
Figure showing alternative thinking around my existing project.
Left: an example portfolio image for human genes – I could have picked a stronger one to show at this scale.
Centre: post processing applied to a more structural visually similar subject of red light source on trouser material or Jeans (Jeans or Genes) as a play on words.
Right: plant genes, as seeds of the catkins of willow trees had created blanket cover
I then relented and took a selection of three of my portfolio images as an illustration of what it is I do. As that kind of work had been critiqued at the Falmouth Face to Face, The Living Image we quickly moved beyond this and the other student had my portfolio images links to hand and posted them to the discussion!
Attendance of this week’s webinar gave the chance to meet with my new tutor, re-introduce my work and see the work of another student.
At the Falmouth Face to Face I’d described my work succinctly. In the webinar I was given an extended period to discuss in detail and things can go too deep too quickly. I’m always on guard for this happening. My first practice after a month away from it.
I noted that in the last module, the black and white presentation of my project went against my natural inclination. We discussed how this resulted – basically from tutor feedback, the likeness of my work to paintings and the potential of the Art as Experience approach of Mark Rothko. My work is motivated by commemorative work but really attempts to celebrate freedom based on others sacrifice.
The deep emotional element of the project and the existence of a text led to a suggestion about finding out about a family therapy method to potentially enhance the work. Here is the link for the resource now investigated:
With a feminist perspective in mind, I’d already identified the power of the matriarchy through the mitochondrial DNA that fuels our bodies compared to the nature of male association that drives paternalism.
This activity as it relates to my project is a challenge as the place element of my work is not an absolute geographic location. It is about imaginings of home, the soldiers fading memory and muddy images of battlefield.
Chance is a major element in these images. I have been taking photographs based on minor injury and bodily impressions as a kind of photogram. I could attempt to process to a similar landscape over the weeks using a new starting image each time.
I’ve eliminated some other metaphors for place as in: bodily location of a minor injury or impression, or; injury corresponding to place such as rugby field or football field.
This activity may not be feasible for my project. Think, think, think, think, think.
I can make a start and see where this leads me.
Week 1 Presentation 2 Rephotography
I’ve photographed in the past in the style of the famous for the purpose of social photography in competition and for fun or entertainment. This has made me aware of others and their work and given me an insight into re-interpreting and re-photographing based on what they have done. This has been outside of my practice.
In my project, it is already re-photography, as the glow I capture from minor bodily injury or impressions, is a direct representation of the biology of others from over 100 years ago. When I make a contemporary abstract the design of the one image can go in many creative directions amongst which I select the most likely candidate and best effect, at the time of making.
I did re-visit and remake an image, something to do with the date being in the weeks before the module start. I now understand the original would have been valid. However, the circumstances led me to remake and it was then as I suspected that it would be quite a challenge to make as successful comparison with the original, and the remake was a pale version even with the same subject and same lighting.
As already mentioned elsewhere, I had to improve my methodology of lighting, and post processing steps. What this does is compromise artistic improvisation for greater scientific repeatability. Maybe this conveys something of the photographer. At best I now take sets of images and process them together. I can take a contemporary subject and re-photograph – take several shots but really for improved framing, perspective or control of shadow or depth of field. It is hard to get away from uniqueness though as apart from the technical difficulty I enjoy having greater freedom when making a personal project.
Further viewing
I viewed several of the further viewing items listed and signed up to re-photos without time to fully explore at the moment. It is a shame about the withdrawal of the app Street Museum. Of course, the work of Ricard Martinez is listed and he featured as a recent guest lecturer.
Week 1 Presentation 1 Repeat Photography
We are asked several questions on this topic, in relation to our own practice.
In terms of repeat photography helping me think in a different way, my response is several fold.
As injury, even if of a minor nature is my photographic subject, then clinical observation could be a thing. Clinical photographic practice, something I adopt, maintains consistency of lighting of the subject. My original was a portfolio of regular appearance, images that stand together as a set. If the same injury is revisited, during healing then change should be observed. Observation of change is part of Clinical photography regards progression of disease or healing. Over increased time, skin is susceptible to damage such as wrinkling, scaring, or other ageing effects.
One thing I cannot, or will not do from the ethical standpoint is harm or self-harm.
In some cases tattooing might show change. This is not within my current subject and is not immediately related to bodily glow.
In an earlier module I switched to pressure marks, the act of memory on the skin as a kind of photogram that fades. Harmless pressure can induce the same redness of glow I photograph. I adopted this when there was a “drought” of injury.
As my work extends to post processing in the digital darkroom, repeat photography calls for less avant garde attitude to creativity. In my work, each image can evolve different visual qualities. Repeat photography failed in the past as I was unable to obtain the same visual outcome again. I tried to replace a photograph I thought at the time violated the course time constraints.
Standardised recording of my dark room procedures has to be enforced. I once saw this limiting experimentation and creativity depending upon fixed parameters rather than following the eye. A solution I did introduce was to batch process like with film working, on many images (5 or 6), as one image later splitting them back down to individual images.
As for what I can learn from my subject by recording it over time.
I can work out post processing limitations.
I could mimic effects such as Andy Warhol did with his lithographic work.
I could by chance make medical observations.
I could determine gender or age effects around smoothness or softness or the effects of hairs in an image.
The patience of the persons being photographed probably wouldn’t extend to repeatedly photographing so the work would become wholly self-referencing.
I’m wondering though if collaboration might somehow become possible. A group of suffers of a condition might participate as if in a trial or promotion of a disease for example. My project hasn’t yet extended to the public.
Reversal of the effects of time or ageing become visually possible if skin care treatments were tested.
As for an agenda influencing how images are viewed.
Beauty might turn to disgust as a result of creating my version of punctum.
It would be necessary to prevent the visuals becoming over dramatized or shocking.
An attempt at being overly intellectual or scientific could switch off the casual viewer and limit appeal.
Repetition might call into question artist judgement and motivation.
Further Viewing
I got the chance to go over some of the multitude of references for further viewing. The Balog TED talk helped bring some gravity to the subject through the Extreme Ice Survey indications of Climate Change
Week 1 Forum Looking Back
I took up the Ed Ruscha challenge to work with the mundane and learn some of the skills of making a handmade book. Here I’ve taken the subject of security and in this context owners make attempts to protect property or access. Having decided on what to prepare for the challenge the first thing encountered was quantity and ability to maintain focus on the specific objective and finally learning to handcraft a book.
Ed Ruscha challenge – Security
When I set out to photograph padlocks, there were a limited number to be discovered on each shoot. As a matter of efficiency related subjects were photographed. Chains make a strong visual impact given the way they drape so I photographed these too. As the photographic method can readily translate the mundane into the beautiful there is a thing here wanting to stick with the mundane i.e. avoid eye catching compositions of chains. Diversification continued and material for several books was encountered. On a London shoot I found numerous padlocks in and around Trafalgar Square, but in the urban environment, access became a stronger theme and so I found more entry point methods and entry phone systems. In a rural environment the subject matter further diversified to hausers of steel ropes and steel fittings related to adventurous outdoor activities related to climbing, swinging and aerial transit – there is a wealth of compositional elements that work well in close-up and with interesting background blur. Artistic representation becomes a strong element of this work but again runs against the mundane objective.
The above is more or less a random layout for the purpose of this post. I have learned to image match photographs when creating a book. At the time of learning, this was meant to lead to standard book creation using InDesign and one of the standard publishing platforms. For the current challenge, my intent is the handmade book for which I’ve amassed some tools and methods. This is an area of discovery for me and one I am enjoying. I did some research for this and resolved to use an adhoc method of allocating layouts to signatures. I’d then be able to use Adobe Acrobat booklet printing method without having to use specialist software – keep it simple and start with something you know I said to myself. I know there are a mass of considerations to manage in book production and for now I want to create a raw looking product.
When I return to base, I intend to give this a go and in trying to think how best to communicate the result, perhaps I should make a page turning video.
The biggest challenges are both in closing the skills and knowledge gap whilst making sure I’m not my worst enemy in enthusiastically venturing off into related diversions of chains, hausers and entry phone systems.
Reading
I got the chance to go over some of the multitude of references for further viewing. The Balog TED talk helped bring some gravity to the subject through the Extreme Ice Survey indications of Climate Change.
Alternative challenge
As this was offered, I decided to do both challenges.
I have something for the re-photograph, challenge in addition to the Ed Rusha challenge. This photograph of a photograph was taken instinctively.
Alternative challenge photograph
Although a Vivian Maier self-portrait, the meaning for me was in once having created such an image in the window of the Oxo Tower on London South Bank. It was for a Photography social competition and having been taken at night time was rather dark and mysterious. For some reason I recall the date as about the 5 Dec 2015, so should be able find my original in an old catalogue when I return to base. So back to the Vivian Maier self-portrait reproduction. This was displayed at PhotoLondon 2019, and when it aroused interest it became a “Rephotography Trap” automatically capturing the photographer’s reflection on Maiers. Many decades have passed since the original was taken. Would Maier ever have envisaged a large-scale reproduction behind glass ensnaring future photographers? – if she did what brilliance. You are allowed access by having your reflection automatically superimposed, but you are not given access to the silver disc, at least without deliberately plotting some way in. The least I was able to do was to included my silver hair. Another meaning concerns a piece of geometric transformation. Instead of the silver disk, there is a reflected rectangle. The decider would have been If I’d worn my hat indoors, which naturally I don’t. So, there is a sign of the outdoor then, and indoors now. Wearing my hat would have topped it all off, but then that would have forced the new image. The result might lose authenticity. Let’s stay with the natural and instinct and move history on a step.
Notes about tutors and CRJs
I currently have over 500 photographs on the subjects discussed, and if I decide to progress a collection of books it would make sense to divide the labour. It would let me concentrate on the photography and use specialist software or an editor (person!) to help produce the overall set of books.
I was pleased to learn I’d been assigned to a Tutor who’d critiqued my work at the Falmouth Face to Face “The Living Image” event earlier in the year.
I posted the link for my Critical Research Journal CRJ blog
For reference the review images were also posted to my portfolio website temporarily.
Welcome to Surfaces and Strategies
There is quite a challenge ahead in the module. Alongside the learning there is the prospect of making book dummies, creating an exhibition or doing a workshop or indeed engage in all.
There is also a trip to Arles, trip to Amsterdam and Landings2019 curation that is looking for volunteers.
I’ve been away from my base all of the first week, with very poor internet connectivity. Good connectivity is essential for the online delivery aspect of the course and particularly as I use cloud storage for portability and photography deals with larger sized files. The nightmare is over as I’ve since returned and I’m rapidly catching-up.
In advance I’d taken the request to make a set of three project images. I did this at first as a way of moving on my work as I was keen to challenge myself and wanted discover as soon as possible what new directions might be calling. Here is the panel (discussed but not shown).
Figure showing alternative thinking around my existing project.
Left: an example portfolio image for human genes – I could have picked a stronger one to show at this scale.
Centre: post processing applied to a more structural visually similar subject of red light source on trouser material or Jeans (Jeans or Genes) as a play on words.
Right: plant genes, as seeds of the catkins of willow trees had created blanket cover
I then relented and took a selection of three of my portfolio images as an illustration of what it is I do. As that kind of work had been critiqued at the Falmouth Face to Face, The Living Image we quickly moved beyond this and the other student had my portfolio images links to hand and posted them to the discussion!
Attendance of this week’s webinar gave the chance to meet with my new tutor, re-introduce my work and see the work of another student.
At the Falmouth Face to Face I’d described my work succinctly. In the webinar I was given an extended period to discuss in detail and things can go too deep too quickly. I’m always on guard for this happening. My first practice after a month away from it.
I noted that in the last module, the black and white presentation of my project went against my natural inclination. We discussed how this resulted – basically from tutor feedback, the likeness of my work to paintings and the potential of the Art as Experience approach of Mark Rothko. My work is motivated by commemorative work but really attempts to celebrate freedom based on others sacrifice.
The deep emotional element of the project and the existence of a text led to a suggestion about finding out about a family therapy method to potentially enhance the work. Here is the link for the resource now investigated:
With a feminist perspective in mind, I’d already identified the power of the matriarchy through the mitochondrial DNA that fuels our bodies compared to the nature of male association that drives paternalism.
This activity as it relates to my project is a challenge as the place element of my work is not an absolute geographic location. It is about imaginings of home, the soldiers fading memory and muddy images of battlefield.
Chance is a major element in these images. I have been taking photographs based on minor injury and bodily impressions as a kind of photogram. I could attempt to process to a similar landscape over the weeks using a new starting image each time.
I’ve eliminated some other metaphors for place as in: bodily location of a minor injury or impression, or; injury corresponding to place such as rugby field or football field.
This activity may not be feasible for my project. Think, think, think, think, think.
I can make a start and see where this leads me.
Week 1 Presentation 2 Rephotography
I’ve photographed in the past in the style of the famous for the purpose of social photography in competition and for fun or entertainment. This has made me aware of others and their work and given me an insight into re-interpreting and re-photographing based on what they have done. This has been outside of my practice.
In my project, it is already re-photography, as the glow I capture from minor bodily injury or impressions, is a direct representation of the biology of others from over 100 years ago. When I make a contemporary abstract the design of the one image can go in many creative directions amongst which I select the most likely candidate and best effect, at the time of making.
I did re-visit and remake an image, something to do with the date being in the weeks before the module start. I now understand the original would have been valid. However, the circumstances led me to remake and it was then as I suspected that it would be quite a challenge to make as successful comparison with the original, and the remake was a pale version even with the same subject and same lighting.
As already mentioned elsewhere, I had to improve my methodology of lighting, and post processing steps. What this does is compromise artistic improvisation for greater scientific repeatability. Maybe this conveys something of the photographer. At best I now take sets of images and process them together. I can take a contemporary subject and re-photograph – take several shots but really for improved framing, perspective or control of shadow or depth of field. It is hard to get away from uniqueness though as apart from the technical difficulty I enjoy having greater freedom when making a personal project.
Further viewing
I viewed several of the further viewing items listed and signed up to re-photos without time to fully explore at the moment. It is a shame about the withdrawal of the app Street Museum. Of course, the work of Ricard Martinez is listed and he featured as a recent guest lecturer.
Week 1 Presentation 1 Repeat Photography
We are asked several questions on this topic, in relation to our own practice.
In terms of repeat photography helping me think in a different way, my response is several fold.
As injury, even if of a minor nature is my photographic subject, then clinical observation could be a thing. Clinical photographic practice, something I adopt, maintains consistency of lighting of the subject. My original was a portfolio of regular appearance, images that stand together as a set. If the same injury is revisited, during healing then change should be observed. Observation of change is part of Clinical photography regards progression of disease or healing. Over increased time, skin is susceptible to damage such as wrinkling, scaring, or other ageing effects.
One thing I cannot, or will not do from the ethical standpoint is harm or self-harm.
In some cases tattooing might show change. This is not within my current subject and is not immediately related to bodily glow.
In an earlier module I switched to pressure marks, the act of memory on the skin as a kind of photogram that fades. Harmless pressure can induce the same redness of glow I photograph. I adopted this when there was a “drought” of injury.
As my work extends to post processing in the digital darkroom, repeat photography calls for less avant garde attitude to creativity. In my work, each image can evolve different visual qualities. Repeat photography failed in the past as I was unable to obtain the same visual outcome again. I tried to replace a photograph I thought at the time violated the course time constraints.
Standardised recording of my dark room procedures has to be enforced. I once saw this limiting experimentation and creativity depending upon fixed parameters rather than following the eye. A solution I did introduce was to batch process like with film working, on many images (5 or 6), as one image later splitting them back down to individual images.
As for what I can learn from my subject by recording it over time.
I can work out post processing limitations.
I could mimic effects such as Andy Warhol did with his lithographic work.
I could by chance make medical observations.
I could determine gender or age effects around smoothness or softness or the effects of hairs in an image.
The patience of the persons being photographed probably wouldn’t extend to repeatedly photographing so the work would become wholly self-referencing.
I’m wondering though if collaboration might somehow become possible. A group of suffers of a condition might participate as if in a trial or promotion of a disease for example. My project hasn’t yet extended to the public.
Reversal of the effects of time or ageing become visually possible if skin care treatments were tested.
As for an agenda influencing how images are viewed.
Beauty might turn to disgust as a result of creating my version of punctum.
It would be necessary to prevent the visuals becoming over dramatized or shocking.
An attempt at being overly intellectual or scientific could switch off the casual viewer and limit appeal.
Repetition might call into question artist judgement and motivation.
Further Viewing
I got the chance to go over some of the multitude of references for further viewing. The Balog TED talk helped bring some gravity to the subject through the Extreme Ice Survey indications of Climate Change
Week 1 Forum Looking Back
I took up the Ed Ruscha challenge to work with the mundane and learn some of the skills of making a handmade book. Here I’ve taken the subject of security and in this context owners make attempts to protect property or access. Having decided on what to prepare for the challenge the first thing encountered was quantity and ability to maintain focus on the specific objective and finally learning to handcraft a book.
Ed Ruscha challenge – Security
When I set out to photograph padlocks, there were a limited number to be discovered on each shoot. As a matter of efficiency related subjects were photographed. Chains make a strong visual impact given the way they drape so I photographed these too. As the photographic method can readily translate the mundane into the beautiful there is a thing here wanting to stick with the mundane i.e. avoid eye catching compositions of chains. Diversification continued and material for several books was encountered. On a London shoot I found numerous padlocks in and around Trafalgar Square, but in the urban environment, access became a stronger theme and so I found more entry point methods and entry phone systems. In a rural environment the subject matter further diversified to hausers of steel ropes and steel fittings related to adventurous outdoor activities related to climbing, swinging and aerial transit – there is a wealth of compositional elements that work well in close-up and with interesting background blur. Artistic representation becomes a strong element of this work but again runs against the mundane objective.
The above is more or less a random layout for the purpose of this post. I have learned to image match photographs when creating a book. At the time of learning, this was meant to lead to standard book creation using InDesign and one of the standard publishing platforms. For the current challenge, my intent is the handmade book for which I’ve amassed some tools and methods. This is an area of discovery for me and one I am enjoying. I did some research for this and resolved to use an adhoc method of allocating layouts to signatures. I’d then be able to use Adobe Acrobat booklet printing method without having to use specialist software – keep it simple and start with something you know I said to myself. I know there are a mass of considerations to manage in book production and for now I want to create a raw looking product.
When I return to base, I intend to give this a go and in trying to think how best to communicate the result, perhaps I should make a page turning video.
The biggest challenges are both in closing the skills and knowledge gap whilst making sure I’m not my worst enemy in enthusiastically venturing off into related diversions of chains, hausers and entry phone systems.
Reading
I got the chance to go over some of the multitude of references for further viewing. The Balog TED talk helped bring some gravity to the subject through the Extreme Ice Survey indications of Climate Change.
Alternative challenge
As this was offered, I decided to do both challenges.
I have something for the re-photograph, challenge in addition to the Ed Rusha challenge. This photograph of a photograph was taken instinctively.
Alternative challenge photograph
Although a Vivian Maier self-portrait, the meaning for me was in once having created such an image in the window of the Oxo Tower on London South Bank. It was for a Photography social competition and having been taken at night time was rather dark and mysterious. For some reason I recall the date as about the 5 Dec 2015, so should be able find my original in an old catalogue when I return to base. So back to the Vivian Maier self-portrait reproduction. This was displayed at PhotoLondon 2019, and when it aroused interest it became a “Rephotography Trap” automatically capturing the photographer’s reflection on Maiers. Many decades have passed since the original was taken. Would Maier ever have envisaged a large-scale reproduction behind glass ensnaring future photographers? – if she did what brilliance. You are allowed access by having your reflection automatically superimposed, but you are not given access to the silver disc, at least without deliberately plotting some way in. The least I was able to do was to included my silver hair. Another meaning concerns a piece of geometric transformation. Instead of the silver disk, there is a reflected rectangle. The decider would have been If I’d worn my hat indoors, which naturally I don’t. So, there is a sign of the outdoor then, and indoors now. Wearing my hat would have topped it all off, but then that would have forced the new image. The result might lose authenticity. Let’s stay with the natural and instinct and move history on a step.
Notes about tutors and CRJs
I currently have over 500 photographs on the subjects discussed, and if I decide to progress a collection of books it would make sense to divide the labour. It would let me concentrate on the photography and use specialist software or an editor (person!) to help produce the overall set of books.
I was pleased to learn I’d been assigned to a Tutor who’d critiqued my work at the Falmouth Face to Face “The Living Image” event earlier in the year.
I posted the link for my Critical Research Journal CRJ blog
For reference the review images were also posted to my portfolio website temporarily.
Welcome to Surfaces and Strategies
There is quite a challenge ahead in the module. Alongside the learning there is the prospect of making book dummies, creating an exhibition or doing a workshop or indeed engage in all.
There is also a trip to Arles, trip to Amsterdam and Landings2019 curation that is looking for volunteers.
I’ve been away from my base all of the first week, with very poor internet connectivity. Good connectivity is essential for the online delivery aspect of the course and particularly as I use cloud storage for portability and photography deals with larger sized files. The nightmare is over as I’ve since returned and I’m rapidly catching-up.
Hello, I’m Michael Turner, a student of the Falmouth Flexible MA Photography course. I’m moving into my second year having started in the May 2018 intake. Within the industry, I’m Studio Manager at Trade Secrets Live.
I’ve been published in a London Group photobook and group exhibited twice in London during 2018.
My portfolio is in the abstract. I re-present minor bodily injury in order to identify with lost ancestors who continued fighting in the Great War despite injury and wounding. I trace shared mitochondrial DNA connections as this is what converts nutrients to our bodily energy and I use this to express a connection through Life’s Glow.
Task – Ed Ruscha
In the run up to the start of the Surfaces and Strategies Module we were asked to prepare some work in line with Ed Ruscha’s portrayal of the mundane in his book 26 Gas Stations.
I’ve taken the topic of visible security and photographed an array of locks, padlocks, chains and entry mechanisms.
Ed Rusha challenge – security
The idea is to create a handmade book for which I’ve learned some of the basic skills and obtained the simple tools necessary.
I thought I would have finished this by now as I’ve been working away at it regularly for a month. In principle all is straightforward.
What I have done is to take stock of visual portrayals that hang together and have kept shooting to increase the number of images. Currently the total stands at over 400 and surprisingly only now provides enough for what I need to edit down. This is over 12 times what I’d expect for an edit. It is just that I have mixed items within the subject brief.
There is no automatic count of each category so I had to keep going out to increase the numbers of compatible images. Unsurprisingly, I still came back with a mixture, probably as a result of hedging and waiting to see in which direction things would go.
Initially padlocks were the objective, I keep seeing them wherever I went. I felt that they were mundane and so met the brief but expressed something deeper about modern life around protecting property and access.
Chains are often associated with padlocks can make more interesting visual compositions. Then I photographed an array of entry devices with all manner of constructions.
This rapidly expands to several books.
I now have to draw a line as I proceed further with processing images for the edit.
Handmade Bookmaking
I’m for now avoiding standard photobook offerings in favour of the handmade.
I learned about using signatures, sewing and gluing and got so far investigating layout software. I have a bookmaking course scheduled for August. Skills currently need to be developed and decisions made around printing and making the cover.
For now I again need to draw a line and get on with the making. I won’t yet have full control of bookmaking in all its aspects, more of which I discover at every turn. I intend to have a go and learn, then later build on this start.
Second Challenge
I have something for the re-photograph, challenge in addition to the Ed Rusha challenge. This photograph of a photograph was taken instinctively.
Although a Vivian Maier self portrait, the meaning for me was in once having created such an image in the window of the Oxo Tower on London South Bank. It was for a Photography social competition and having been taken at night time was rather dark and mysterious. For some reason I recall the date as about the 5 Dec 2015, so should be able find my original in an old catalogue when I return to base. So back to the Vivian Maier self portrait reproduction. This was displayed at PhotoLondon 2019, and when it aroused interest it became a “Rephotography Trap” automatically capturing the photographer’s reflection on her’s. Many decades have passed since the original was taken. Would Maier ever have envisaged a large scale reproduction behind glass ensnaring future photographers? – if she did what brilliance.You are allowed access by having your reflection automatically superimposed, but you are not given access to the silver disc, at least without deliberately plotting some way in.The least I was able to do was to included my silver hair. Another meaning concerns a piece of geometric transformation. Instead of the silver disk, there is a reflected rectangle. The decider would have been If I’d worn my hat indoors, which naturally I don’t. So there is a sign of the outdoor then, and indoors now. Wearing my hat would have topped it all off, but then that would have forced the new image. The result might lose authenticity. Lets stay with the natural and instinct, and move history on a step.
Hello, I’m Michael Turner, a student of the Falmouth Flexible MA Photography course. I’m moving into my second year having started in the May 2018 intake. Within the industry, I’m Studio Manager at Trade Secrets Live.
I’ve been published in a London Group photobook and group exhibited twice in London during 2018.
My portfolio is in the abstract. I re-present minor bodily injury in order to identify with lost ancestors who continued fighting in the Great War despite injury and wounding. I trace shared mitochondrial DNA connections as this is what converts nutrients to our bodily energy and I use this to express a connection through Life’s Glow.
Task – Ed Ruscha
In the run up to the start of the Surfaces and Strategies Module we were asked to prepare some work in line with Ed Ruscha’s portrayal of the mundane in his book 26 Gas Stations.
I’ve taken the topic of visible security and photographed an array of locks, padlocks, chains and entry mechanisms.
Ed Rusha challenge – security
The idea is to create a handmade book for which I’ve learned some of the basic skills and obtained the simple tools necessary.
I thought I would have finished this by now as I’ve been working away at it regularly for a month. In principle all is straightforward.
What I have done is to take stock of visual portrayals that hang together and have kept shooting to increase the number of images. Currently the total stands at over 400 and surprisingly only now provides enough for what I need to edit down. This is over 12 times what I’d expect for an edit. It is just that I have mixed items within the subject brief.
There is no automatic count of each category so I had to keep going out to increase the numbers of compatible images. Unsurprisingly, I still came back with a mixture, probably as a result of hedging and waiting to see in which direction things would go.
Initially padlocks were the objective, I keep seeing them wherever I went. I felt that they were mundane and so met the brief but expressed something deeper about modern life around protecting property and access.
Chains are often associated with padlocks can make more interesting visual compositions. Then I photographed an array of entry devices with all manner of constructions.
This rapidly expands to several books.
I now have to draw a line as I proceed further with processing images for the edit.
Handmade Bookmaking
I’m for now avoiding standard photobook offerings in favour of the handmade.
I learned about using signatures, sewing and gluing and got so far investigating layout software. I have a bookmaking course scheduled for August. Skills currently need to be developed and decisions made around printing and making the cover.
For now I again need to draw a line and get on with the making. I won’t yet have full control of bookmaking in all its aspects, more of which I discover at every turn. I intend to have a go and learn, then later build on this start.
Second Challenge
I have something for the re-photograph, challenge in addition to the Ed Rusha challenge. This photograph of a photograph was taken instinctively.
Although a Vivian Maier self portrait, the meaning for me was in once having created such an image in the window of the Oxo Tower on London South Bank. It was for a Photography social competition and having been taken at night time was rather dark and mysterious. For some reason I recall the date as about the 5 Dec 2015, so should be able find my original in an old catalogue when I return to base. So back to the Vivian Maier self portrait reproduction. This was displayed at PhotoLondon 2019, and when it aroused interest it became a “Rephotography Trap” automatically capturing the photographer’s reflection on her’s. Many decades have passed since the original was taken. Would Maier ever have envisaged a large scale reproduction behind glass ensnaring future photographers? – if she did what brilliance.You are allowed access by having your reflection automatically superimposed, but you are not given access to the silver disc, at least without deliberately plotting some way in.The least I was able to do was to included my silver hair. Another meaning concerns a piece of geometric transformation. Instead of the silver disk, there is a reflected rectangle. The decider would have been If I’d worn my hat indoors, which naturally I don’t. So there is a sign of the outdoor then, and indoors now. Wearing my hat would have topped it all off, but then that would have forced the new image. The result might lose authenticity. Lets stay with the natural and instinct, and move history on a step.
I’m spilling over into the ideas around external influences – reaching out from my work to other partitioners or genres. Also, I’m thinking aloud over some of the points necessary as inputs to the Oral Presentation.
I need to go back over this and tidy it up and add more of the reading I’ve been doing and some ancillary research I’ve conducted.
Flusser I derive my work by subverting the camera (filter and sensor) then undermining the external processing software. I challenge the algorithmic and break its limits. I recombine an image in myriad ways with itself to create something new, in part unexpected but linked to my intent.
Kandinski – the Spiritual
It is comforting to read Kandinski on The Spiritual in Art as the work I make springs from the soul. It is symphonic with strong inner value, and does not readily explain itself yet can be appreciated by those who are patient. Since writing this, I have ventured into mixing archive images with abstract to create access for the viewer to make their interpretation of the visual language.
My work has long now been subject to a spiritual influence that tracks back over decades something I attributed to chance although history drew me in. Presence became heightened in recent times, and still, I attribute events to chance. Chance worked to prevent my return to photography. An art gallery experience threw me with remarkable resemblances to my work in abstract photography. A discussion with Olympia in Damien Hirst’s gallery challenged my belief in God and led to a debate on chance events having such implausibility alongside a direct comparison of the artist’s paintings and my photographic work.
I subsequently watched Rachel Howard’s interview with Will Self, and it is clear that her work uses “the hidden hand of gravity”. It is that universal which linked our work.
There are more coincidences one with a Pentecostal Pastor, and each time I have to rationalise what happened. Events taint how I look at my work. It is easy to suspend judgement and accept conversion. I can see how that operates for some.
Science and Art
People I link to from a hundred years past have a direct information carrier through DNA. Not just the link that Barthes noticed is seeing a likeness, but in mitochondrial DNA that powers our bodies. We share common mitochondria and it diverges infrequently. It remains static for thousands of years. By comparison, X chromosome alters and mixes at each generation and so lacks connection over time that mitochondria have.
My photography method begins with the lens-based digital camera and captures information as the camera sees in a different way to the eye. I process the image to reveal and emphasise infrared light that manages to passthough and create data via the sensor.
I align passthrough infrared with the human healing process in a merging of science and Art.
Making Art is next. The glow images I obtain have an aesthetic that can be quite dramatic, but this is the stuff of Flickr groups and the like with categories such as the spectacle of bruising. I go beyond this through early discovery and subsequent pre-visualisation of how I can transform the data to make images in several well-defined categories. These originally were abstract landscapes and ghost images, and I now extend to seascapes, the inner space and outer space.
Those who died in the early 20th century would never have known of trace conducted through DNA relations or of internet record searches nor carriage by personal vehicle.
From the start, I worked with my Generally Accepted Rules of DNA inheritance focussed on mitochondria. I identify the dominant driving force of the Matriarchy and assume propriety in families. It may come as a surprise to learn that the male action dominated world, especially of 20th-century warfare, was powered biologically speaking by the female of the species.
Only recently have I adopted DNA testing with the specific intention of learning the visual culture of commercial testing companies. Commercial entities use marketing and advertisements to build public consciousness. I’ve now brought this into my practice.
I have worked in an interdisciplinary manner and deduced a biological interpretation. I have done so without medical qualification, and by closing in on commercial testing; this research has critically strengthened my analysis.
We remain naive even today when participating in DNA testing. If we allow the raw data to be set loose, there can be repercussions. If health insurers obtain the raw data, they could use it to penalise. Beyond this are discoveries yet to be made by science. We could leave ourselves open.
Week 8 and 9
During these study periods, I visited Arles 2019 Les Rencontres de la Photographie.
While I appreciated many many works, I also had a keen eye for the variety of presentation methods on display and for books I specialised in looking out for the various approaches to pamphlet style books. The display method is vital regarding my impending exhibition if I’m ever to get an edit in place in time and then for the book I have a limited number of pages to fill (around 32) hence the interest in pamphlet-sized presentations.
As an interactive aside and in the spirit of the course, I interacted with a Helen Levit poster then rephotographed an interaction with the actual print.
At another venue, I took over a blank wall for short photo session involving an evocation of a crucifixion (as one does?), then proceeded to photograph several linked items including crosses and a couple airing themselves by a fan in cruciform style.
In what follows is a reminder to self of where I visited which I can tie into the Exhibition Catalogue for a further reminder. Without this record the details would disappear into a fog, I’m sure so this way I can relive the experience and resurrect the details.
Day 1 Friday 26 July
1. Espace Van Gogh: Helen Levitt: Eve Arnold, Abigal Heyman and Susan Meislas
2. Eglise Des Trinitaires Toute un Historie ! Arlse A 50 Ans
3. Eglise Sainte-Anne Libuse Jarcovjakova 6. Salle Henri-Comte Tom Wood
PM
8. Chapelle de la Charite
9. Maison des Lices
Then a walk over to the station and visits to:
18. Monoprix: Mohamed Bourouissa
21. Ground Control: Prix Decouverte, Louis Roederer: Kurt Tong
19. Le Jardin: Mario del Curto
Day 2 Saturday 27 July 2019
16. Croisiere: Camille Fallet, Marjan Teeuwen, Lionel Astruc and Erik Bonner, Des Clics et des Classes, France Inter, Nuit de L’Annee, La Sage des Inventions, Clergue and Weston, Pixy Liao, La Zone, Yann Pocreau,, Guillaume Simoneau, Laurence Aegerter
17. Maison des Peintres: The Anonymous Project, Home Sweet Home, Christian Lutz, Arles, Au-Dela D’une Rencontre; Explorer L’Image.
24. Grande Halle; Mecanique Generale: Photo ! Brut, Marina Gadonneix, Valerie Belin, 50 ans 50 Livres, Prix Du Livre, Dummy Book Award, Une Attention Particuliere
25. Les Forges: Lei Lei, Corps Impatients
15. Couvent Saint-Cesaire: VR Arles Festival
Day 3 Sunday 28 July 2019
Critique – I took along my handmade book and my Exhibition in a box and obtained vital feedback (see Project Development blog page)
4. Palais De L’Archeveche: La Modiva, Chronique d’une Agitation
7. Fondation Manuel Rivera-Ortiz: Hey! What’s Going On?
Week 5
The book (Rexer, 2009) arrived after me writing, “No sign of The Edge of Vision the Rise of Abstraction – Lyle Rexer, appearing for a month. It does seem ever unlikely that the book will arrive in time to have any impact.” I was writing having had two orders frustrated by transportation damage at the sender end.
On the first inspection, I wonder if the book is a copy. Signs are, lack of copyright page discovered when I entered a citation. Next up the index was wrong when I used it to look up specific topics. I’ve written to the supplier. Being an expensive item it would be an attractive book to copy. I could be wrong, so let me see what transpires.
Already I have been inspired by the content, and it is helping me deepen my understanding as I further contextualise my abstract photography.
I was pleased to see my entries for artists; whose work I already follow: Ellen Carey, Gary Fabian Miller, Susan Derges and some recent arrivals on my scene, Gottfried Jager et al.
I have two other books on backorder. Jager, I wished to follow up as I’d studied Generative Art and wanted to find out the specifics for photography.
Bibliography
Rexer, L. (2009) The edge of vision : the rise of abstraction in photography. Aperture.
Week 4
I ordered twice and failed to have delivered Lyle Rexer, The Edge of Vision, The Rise of Abstraction in Photography, having been disappointed by two bookshops declaring damage in delivery to them (book dropped and damaged, book contaminated by wet chemical). I’m waiting for a second refund and my third order to be processed. These events fall into the category of superstition as it has affected my work at essential points in my practice.
Meanwhile, I have reading ongoing around Curating (George, no date), Photobooks (Colberg, 2017) and Exhibitions (Marincola, 2006)
Bibliography
Colberg, J. (2017). Understanding Photo Books the Form and Content of the Photographic Book. Edited by Taylor and Francis. New York: Focal Press.
George, A. (no date) The Curator’s Handbook. Kindle. Edited by A. George. Thames and Hudson.
Marincola, P. (2006) Questions of Practice What Makes a Great Exhibition?Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative. Available at: http://www.pcah.us/exhibitions.
Week 3
Towards a philosophy of Photography, Vilem Flusser
I’ve analysed the reference (Flusser, 2012) a bit further following a group discussion. A recommendation was made that having read this, return to it and have another read. It is considered quite an important document.
What I do here on second reading is to gist the content for a fresh perspective in terms of the language used by Flusser, to describe photography.
Flusser concentrates on photography from the standpoint of the image, and he focusses the writing on the camera or apparatuses.
There is an existential theme where Flusser considers the human being, in conjunction with another discussion around the universe (photographic universe) and the magic that exists.
There is a concern for the technical aspects of the apparatus.
There are also many other factors introduced in a wide-ranging analysis covering anything from anthropology, and too many to mention considerations such as signs and signification, the qualitative etc., through to the identification of stakeholders to build reasoned actions and opinions coloured with emotional overtones of devastation and collapse.
From this body of analysis, Flusser makes many assertions including one about the camera as a tool, being technically complex and having constraints, but how otherwise a camera is simple to use as he considers the logical limits in terms of numerous references to “everything”. He is concerned with the lack of criticism that images receive.
He makes references to Lebanon, Jewish prophets and Greek philosophers but also mentions the Kodak brand.
Thinking about the negative assertions Flusser makes, these cover a vast range of considerations again and includes Marxism, ritual acts and fetishisation, Luddite just to mention a few aspects of his language. He also makes negative connotations around change, that which was that is no longer, and we return to indicate the electromagnetic.
There is just so much more that can be written about this reference, and so for now I settle for this summary that gives the gist of the topic. In essence, Flusser writes down on paper a personal life of experience of thinking about photography, and it is quite personal as he does not reference other work. Thus he takes ownership of a philosophy of photography. Clearly, other authors to cover the subject area, and there are many points where the various works inflect. Flusser makes a significant contribution to his aim, I would say, to fuel meaningful critical discussion about photography which as mentioned he found generally lacking.
You don’t know how much he was able to read of others, and in the end, there is no assumption that Flusser is actually a photographer. He may be more the thinker than a photographic practitioner.
Bibliography
Flusser, V. (2012) Towards a Philosophy of Photography. Kindle Flu. Edited by V. Flusser. London, [England]: Reaktion Books.
Week 2
Check out George LeGrady who’s earlier career was in digital computing and software or the like. The reason for making an association is to determine similarities in the approach I might find between our work methods.
I began looking at my work in more full ways and discussed this in Module Leader Office Hours. I need to be careful that I understand where my work comes from and maintain the resolved nature rather than take my work and cause it to fray at the edges. Resolved means resolved.
Several word definitions looked up to inspire various ways forward with my work.
Montage: 1. The act or process of making a composite photograph 5. Frequent cutting of camera viewpoint to create action cf mise en scene
Tableaux and tableaux vivant Vivid, suddenly created, action frozen for dramatic effect.
Guest Lecture – Victoria Forrest
It is a more than happy coincidence that we were able to gain advice from a practitioner in Bookmaking, particularly as my attempt to make my Ed Rusha hand made book has stalled. Apart from time pressure, I need to find a supply of doubled sided matte or gloss paper to print on. Gloss will emphasis the blacks in my Padlock series.
In allocating pages to so-called signatures, I probably need to work in the Adobe InDesign software and manually assign pages.
I need to work backwards from whatever format, e.g. start with 35mm format images then select a paper size that works. Images for full bleed want to be 3mm oversize to prevent unplanned white borders.
The cover could be a graphic of one of the images in reduced colour bearing in mind the challenge of printing on coloured paper/card. It is good to have some texture, and it is possible to stick on a sticker to the front cover.
Any book I make could be standalone, for exhibition or perhaps special edition. Contents remain the same, covers alter.
Note: look up Sally Mann Ambrotypes of thumbprints to check any parallels with my current practice.
I’m spilling over into the ideas around external influences – reaching out frpm my work to other paratitioners ro genres. Also, I’m thinking aloud over some of the points necessary as inputs to the Oral Presentation.
I need to go back over this and tidy it up and add more of the reading I’ve been doing and some ancillary research I’ve conducted.
Flusser I derive my work by subverting the camera (filter and sensor) then undermining the external processing software. I challenge the algorithmic and break its limits. I recombine an image in myriad ways with itself to create something new, in part unexpected but linked to my intent.
Kandinski – the Spiritual
It is comforting to read Kandinski on The Spiritual in Art as the work I make springs from the soul. It is symphonic with strong inner value, and does not readily explain itself yet can be appreciated by those who are patient. Since writing this, I have ventured into mixing archive images with abstract to create access for the viewer to make their interpretation of the visual language.
My work has long now been subject to a spiritual influence that tracks back over decades something I attributed to chance although history drew me in. Presence became heightened in recent times, and still, I attribute events to chance. Chance worked to prevent my return to photography. An art gallery experience threw me with remarkable resemblances to my work in abstract photography. A discussion with Olympia in Damien Hirst’s gallery challenged my belief in God and led to a debate on chance events having such implausibility alongside a direct comparison of the artist’s paintings and my photographic work.
I subsequently watched Rachel Howard’s interview with Will Self, and it is clear that her work uses “the hidden hand of gravity”. It is that universal which linked our work.
There are more coincidences one with a Pentecostal Pastor, and each time I have to rationalise what happened. Events taint how I look at my work. It is easy to suspend judgement and accept conversion. I can see how that operates for some.
Science and Art
People I link to from a hundred years past have a direct information carrier through DNA. Not just the link that Barthes noticed is seeing a likeness, but in mitochondrial DNA that powers our bodies. We share common mitochondria and it diverges infrequently. It remains static for thousands of years. By comparison, X chromosome alters and mixes at each generation and so lacks connection over time that mitochondria have.
My photography method begins with the lens-based digital camera and captures information as the camera sees in a different way to the eye. I process the image to reveal and emphasise infrared light that manages to passthough and create data via the sensor.
I align passthrough infrared with the human healing process in a merging of science and Art.
Making Art is next. The glow images I obtain have an aesthetic that can be quite dramatic, but this is the stuff of Flickr groups and the like with categories such as the spectacle of bruising. I go beyond this through early discovery and subsequent pre-visualisation of how I can transform the data to make images in several well-defined categories. These originally were abstract landscapes and ghost images, and I now extend to seascapes, the inner space and outer space.
Those who died in the early 20th century would never have known of trace conducted through DNA relations or of internet record searches nor carriage by personal vehicle.
From the start, I worked with my Generally Accepted Rules of DNA inheritance focussed on mitochondria. I identify the dominant driving force of the Matriarchy and assume propriety in families. It may come as a surprise to learn that the male action dominated world, especially of 20th-century warfare, was powered biologically speaking by the female of the species.
Only recently have I adopted DNA testing with the specific intention of learning the visual culture of commercial testing companies. Commercial entities use marketing and advertisements to build public consciousness. I’ve now brought this into my practice.
I have worked in an interdisciplinary manner and deduced a biological interpretation. I have done so without medical qualification, and by closing in on commercial testing; this research has critically strengthened my analysis.
We remain naive even today when participating in DNA testing. If we allow the raw data to be set loose, there can be repercussions. If health insurers obtain the raw data, they could use it to penalise. Beyond this are discoveries yet to be made by science. We could leave ourselves open.
Week 8 and 9
During these study periods, I visited Arles 2019 Les Rencontres de la Photographie.
Whilst I appreciated many many works, I also had a keen eye for the vaierty of presentation methods on display and for books I specialised in looking out for the various approaches to pamphlet style books. Display method is important regarding my impending exhibition if I’m ever to get an edit in place in time and then for the book I have a limited number of pages to fill (around 32) hence the interest in pamphlet sized presentations.
As an interactive aside and in the spirit of the course I interacted with a Helen Levit poster then rephotgraphed an interaction with the actual print.
At another venue I took over a blank wall for short photo session involving an evocation of a crucifiction (as one does?), then proceeded to photograph a number of linked items including crosses and a couple airing themselves by a fan in criciform style.
In what follows is a reminder to self of where I visited which I can tie into the Exhibition Catalogue for further reminder. Without this record the details would disappear into a fog, I’m sure so this way I can relive the experience and resurrect the details.
Day 1 Friday 26 July
1. Espace Van Gogh: Helen Levitt: Eve Arnold, Abigal Heyman and Susan Meislas
2. Eglise Des Trinitaires Toute un Historie ! Arlse A 50 Ans
3. Eglise Sainte-Anne Libuse Jarcovjakova 6. Salle Henri-Comte Tom Wood
PM
8. Chapelle de la Charite
9. Maison des Lices
Then a walk over to the station and visits to:
18. Monoprix: Mohamed Bourouissa
21. Ground Control: Prix Decouverte, Louis Roederer: Kurt Tong
19. Le Jardin: Mario del Curto
Day 2 Saturday 27 July 2019
16. Croisiere: Camille Fallet, Marjan Teeuwen, Lionel Astruc and Erik Bonner, Des Clics et des Classes, France Inter, Nuit de L’Annee, La Sage des Inventions, Clergue and Weston, Pixy Liao, La Zone, Yann Pocreau,, Guillaume Simoneau, Laurence Aegerter
17. Maison des Peintres: The Anonympous Project, Home Sweet Home, Christian Lutz, Arles, Au-Dela D’une Rencontre; Explorer L’Image.
24. Grande Halle; mMecanique Generale: Photo ! Brut, Marina Gadonneix, Valerie Belin, 50 ans 50 Livres, Prix Du Livre, Dummy Book Award, Une Attention Particuliere
25. Les Forges: Lei Lei, Corps Impatients
15. Couvent Saint-Cesaire: VR Arles Festival
Day 3 Sunday 28 July 2019
Critique – I took along my handmade book and my Exhibition in a box and obtained vital feedback (see Project Development blog page)
4. Palais De L’Archeveche: La Modiva, Chronique d’une Agitation
7. Fondation Manuel Rivera-Ortiz: Hey! What’s Going On?
Week 5
The book (Rexer, 2009) arrived after me writing, “No sign of The Edge of Vision the Rise of Abstraction – Lyle Rexer, appearing for a month. It does seem ever unlikely that the book will arrive in time to have any impact.” I was writing having had two orders frustrated by transporation damage at the sender end.
On first inspection I wonder if the book is a copy. Signs are, lack of copyright page discovered when I entered a citiation. Next up the index was wrong when I used it to look up specific topics. I’ve written to the supplier. Being an expensive item it would be an attractive book to copy. I could be wrong, so let me see what transpires.
Already I have been inspired by the content and it is helping me deepen my understanding as I further contextualise my abstract photography.
I was pleased to see my entries for artists; whose work I already follow: Ellen Carey, Gary Fabian Miller, Susan Derges and some recent arrivals on my scene, Gottfried Jager et al.
I have two other books on backorder. Jager I wished to follow up as I’d studied Generative Art and wanted to find out the specifics for photography.
Bibliography
Rexer, L. (2009) The edge of vision : the rise of abstraction in photography. Aperture.
Week 4
I ordered twice and failed to have delivered Lyle Rexer, The Edge of Vision, The Rise of Abstraction in Photography, having been disappointed by two bookshops declaring damage in delivery to them (book dropped and damaged, book contaminated by wet chemical). I’m waiting for a second refund and my third order to be processed. These events fall into the category of superstition as it has affected my work at important points in my practice.
Meanwhile, I have reading ongoing around Curating (George, no date), Photobooks (Colberg, 2017) and Exhibitions (Marincola, 2006)
Bibliography
Colberg, J. (2017) Understanding Photo Books the Form and Content of the Photographic Book. Edited by Taylor and Francis. New York: Focal Press.
George, A. (no date) The Curator’s Handbook. Kindle. Edited by A. George. Thames and Hudson.
Marincola, P. (2006) Questions of Practice What Makes a Great Exhibition?Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative. Available at: http://www.pcah.us/exhibitions.
Week 3
Towards a philosophy of Photography, Vilem Flusser
I’ve analysed the reference (Flusser, 2012) a bit further following a group discussion. A recommendation was made that having read this, return to it and have another read. It is considered quite an important document.
What I do here on a second reading is to gist the content for a fresh perspective in terms of the language used by Flusser, to describe photography.
Flusser concentrates on photography from the standpoint of the image and he focusses the writing on the camera or apparatuses.
There is an existential theme where Flusser considers the human being, in conjunction with other discussion around the universe (photographic universe) and the magic that exists.
There is a concern for technical aspects of the apparatus.
There are also many other factors introduced in a wide-ranging analysis covering anything from anthropology, and too many to mention considerations such as signs and signification, the qualitative etc etc, through to the identification of stakeholders so as to build reasoned actions and opinions coloured with emotional overtones of devastation and collapse.
From this body of analysis Flusser makes many assertions including one about the camera as a tool, being technically complex and having constraints, but how otherwise a camera is simple to use as he considers the logical limits in terms of numerous references to “everything”. He is concerned with the lack of criticism that images receive.
He makes references to Lebanon, Jewish prophets and Greek philosophers but also mentions the Kodak brand.
Thinking about the negative assertions Flusser makes, these cover again a vast range of considerations and includes Marxism, ritual acts and fetishization, Luddite just to mention a few aspects of his language. He also makes negative connotations around change, that which was that is no longer, and we return to mention of the electromagnetic.
There is just so much more that can be written about this reference, and so for now I settle for this summary that gives the gist of the topic. In essence Flusser writes down on paper a personal lifetime of experience of thinking about photography and it is quite personal as he does not reference other work, thus he takes ownership of a philosophy of photography. Clearly other authors too cover the subject area and there are many points where the various works inflect. Flusser makes a major contribution to his aim, I would say, to fuel major critical discussion about photography which as mentioned he found generally lacking.
You don’t know how much he was able to read of others and in the end, there is no assumption that Flusser is actually a photographer. He may be more the thinker than photographic practitioner.
Bibliography
Flusser, V. (2012) Towards a Philosophy of Photography. Kindle Flu. Edited by V. Flusser. London, [England]: Reaktion Books.
Week 2
Check out George LeGrady who’s earlier career was in digital computing and software or the like. The reason for making an association is to determine similarities in approach I might find betwen our work methods.
I began looking at my work in wider ways and discussed this in Module Leader Office Hours. I need to be careful that I understand where my work comes from and maintain the resolved nature rather than take my work and cause it to fray at the edges. Resolved means resolved.
Several word definitions looked up inspire various ways forward with my work.
Montage: 1. The act or process of making a composite photograph 5. Frequent cutting of camera viewpoint to create action cf mise en scene
Tableaux and tableaux vivant Vivid, suddenly created, action frozen for dramatic effect.
Guest Lecture – Victoria Forrest
It is a more than happy coincidence that we were able to gain advice from a practitioner in Book making particularly as my attempt to make my Ed Rusha hand made book has stalled. Apart from time pressure, I need to find a supply of doubled sided matte or gloss paper to print on. Gloss will emphasis the blacks in my Padlock series.
In allocating pages to so called signatures, I probably need to work in the Adobe InDesign and manually allocate pages.
I need to work backwards from whatever format, e.g start with 35mm format images then select a paper size that works. Images for full bleed want to be 3mm oversize to prevent unplanned white borders.
Cover could be a graphic of one of the images in reduced colour bearing in mind the challenge of printing on coloured paper/card. It is good to have some texture and it is possible to stick on a sticker to the front cover.
Any book I make could be standalone, for exhibition or perhaps special edition. Contents remain the same, covers alter.
Note: look up Sally Mann Ambrotypes of thumbprints to check any parallels with my current practice.
My first visit to PhotoLondon. I used the virtual tour previously. That was good but left me slightly disorientated. Nowadays, I appreciate physical attendance perhaps as testament to increasing awareness of the making, purpose and the impact of the exhibition.
It was absorbing to witness the variety of display methods as well as the seeing montages and other types of work. No doubt my time will come so a chance to think ahead.
On the day, and in terms of an icon of photography, it was Ellen Carey and her talk on the Avant Garde that resonated strongly with me.
Socially, the event was very rewarding. As usual I was not backwards in striking up conversations where appropriate and then in a flood of happenings, met a photographic colleague and then fellow student with family member, all whilst exchanging business cards with an artist photographer.
Highlights were numerous, especially as I carried with me ideas and artist information from earlier times. This expanded of course. I enjoyed Shore, and saw displays of Matthews, Davey, Fenton, Tripe, et al.
There was a noticeable interest in black and white and vintage prints amongst those attending.
Sorolla lost out to the emerging Modernist movement and towards the end the growing interest in Picasso.
Many paintings are of family, of the beach and later of reflections on water.
From a critical perspective, I noted that given that painting is an additive process, one portrait had cropped the top of the subjects head. In another portrait an ear appeared to have at least a stop to much brightness.
The paintings are of impressionist style with dynamic elements in a number of them. A stronger sun in Spain proves advantageous yet at the same time shadows can be deep contrast. Where the camera would lack the dynamic range of the eye, the painters vision and technique would win over.
I’m reminded of the long sitting times for subjects in paintings, compared to the much faster exposure of film or today he digital sensor.
I felt a sense of calm and warmth from the paintings. It was an excellent experience to contrast and compare painting with the photograph. Although Sorolla was not a portrait artist as such, portraits were a necessary means of income.
The paintings are on loan to the National Gallery and as such cannot be photographed even for reference.
I’d not heard of this Spanish painter before and so welcomed the viewing.
Sorolla painted that which appeared before him, and was not quite in the right era or did not keep up with fashion is painting and so was overtaken by others. So you make the very best of work and not achieve full recognition.
I will take the opportunity to attend the exhibition again.
My first visit to PhotoLondon. I used the virtual tour previously. That was good but left me slightly disorientated. Nowadays, I appreciate physical attendance perhaps as testament to increasing awareness of the making, purpose and the impact of the exhibition.
It was absorbing to witness the variety of display methods as well as the seeing montages and other types of work. No doubt my time will come so a chance to think ahead.
On the day, and in terms of an icon of photography, it was Ellen Carey and her talk on the Avant Garde that resonated strongly with me.
Socially, the event was very rewarding. As usual I was not backwards in striking up conversations where appropriate and then in a flood of happenings, met a photographic colleague and then fellow student with family member, all whilst exchanging business cards with an artist photographer.
Highlights were numerous, especially as I carried with me ideas and artist information from earlier times. This expanded of course. I enjoyed Shore, and saw displays of Matthews, Davey, Fenton, Tripe, et al.
There was a noticeable interest in black and white and vintage prints amongst those attending.
Sorolla lost out to the emerging Modernist movement and towards the end the growing interest in Picasso.
Many paintings are of family, of the beach and later of reflections on water.
From a critical perspective, I noted that given that painting is an additive process, one portrait had cropped the top of the subjects head. In another portrait an ear appeared to have at least a stop to much brightness.
The paintings are of impressionist style with dynamic elements in a number of them. A stronger sun in Spain proves advantageous yet at the same time shadows can be deep contrast. Where the camera would lack the dynamic range of the eye, the painters vision and technique would win over.
I’m reminded of the long sitting times for subjects in paintings, compared to the much faster exposure of film or today he digital sensor.
I felt a sense of calm and warmth from the paintings. It was an excellent experience to contrast and compare painting with the photograph. Although Sorolla was not a portrait artist as such, portraits were a necessary means of income.
The paintings are on loan to the National Gallery and as such cannot be photographed even for reference.
I’d not heard of this Spanish painter before and so welcomed the viewing.
Sorolla painted that which appeared before him, and was not quite in the right era or did not keep up with fashion is painting and so was overtaken by others. So you make the very best of work and not achieve full recognition.
I will take the opportunity to attend the exhibition again.
note: this section contains many links that are marked as requiring login through Falmouth University. Readers from other institutions may be able to gain access via their home institution.
note: also references have developed throughout the module and what appears here is a round up of some given references from the module. They mostly appear at the bottom of the page. These become true references when researched and critically linked to my practice. As most of this occurs outside of the list here,
I started to take a more informed view, where like advertisements before I tried to cut out external influences, knowing it was not entirely possible, I’d referred to driving in France and not recognising the branding of a distant store – Carrefour. This observation demonstrates how I am conditioned by my home territory and branding and advertising. There had been an intent to jealously maintain creative originality which I now view as isolating myself from culture. This probably explains why I often think so differently. Confident in my ways I need not be afraid to engage and now in thirst I drink down with vigour.
Two realisations that have built and built that brings me closer to research and the references.
Interconnectedness (a web)
First I imagine my work to be like others work, to be within a web. So I began to reach out and in research and increasingly contextualise and position my work. This rejects denial of influence and sustains cultural growth. Through this module I begin to become cultured in visual arts? I’ve had to have time for this transformation to occur and so as I paused for thought, just as I started to finalise the development of our three assignments, then the realisation took increased force. Such change must become lifelong.
Reason (a way of thinking and doing)
A piece of writing, designed to support our development, I found by serendipity.
The advice is from a remote lecturer whom I listened to as Guest Lecturer, met and heard present. This absolutely helps make real. The advice given: reasons why we should, as here write down those fleeting thoughts. and pursue them making them significant if that is where they lead. The article describes in effect the nature of the creative process and departures into new ways of thinking.
TV and Video
Having discovered these library resources earlier in the module (Genius of Photography then) I return to them to refresh knowledge or at least use these to provide a path back into deeper research. I prefer to gain context in a simpler form at the beginning , but mostly here today, after or during reading. Such is the unfolding of events.
Specifically on Berger, shortly after his death, there was a radio broadcast series presented by his dear friend and that features his voice. It is good to dip into these programmes – BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week Episodes 1 to 6
I’ve found my way into the Journals resource via Falmouth University. I was able to pick up the journals on two visits to the Penryn Library. But, obviously my research hadn’t fully extended as far as online EBSCO and other resources. This “find” can be leveraged further in the upcoming modules of the course. For now it is a nice to have feature to browse.
Fox, Howard (1989) ‘Avant-Garde in the Eighties’ in Connor, Stephen Postmodernist Culture: An Introduction to Theories of the Contemporary. (New York: Blackwell).
Unbeknown to myself as author I was keeping two blog posts running on this topic. How can this even happen?! Anyway the other post can be found at the following WebPage URL.
Week 12
Social and cultural elements underpinning my work concern place and absence of persons related, the loss of able-bodied young men from a farming family. Outpouring withheld, those who remained quietly lived out their lives in peace.
Two things happened within the social structure: local migration, west to east; settlement within Burn’s poetic landscape; focus on a place of Christian adoption and fishing employment; early globalisation with travel reaching out to Canada, United States and India,
Themes exist within my practice and work expanded in Week 11 to cover an underlying basis of social connection based on biology represented as epigenesis. Here are the themes corresponding to the structure of my Critical Review and edit of my Work in Progress WIP Portfolio:
Commemorative – somber mood
Celebration of life – unseeing eye
Faded memory
Narrative – photogram and captioning
Biology – epigenesis
I realise now I need to order this list and in the CR introduce these and us subheading to add structure at the outset then proceed having scoped this for the reader. No big surprises or unexplained diversions.
At present I improve contextualisation practice as all the learning and all the reading begin to take hold. My moments of realisation become intensified but deadlines do loom. Keeping a balance between assignments is paramount, acting before everything has sunk in better. Suddenly from a smouldering the course as experience has once more ignited and again engagement is on fire.
Week 11
In the past weeks (Week 5 to 10), experimental inputs have been included in my work motivated by portfolio creation rather than collection of single images. I return now to capture a new concept about making based on my philosophical research into life as represented by our healing glow. Perhaps what follows can be classified as wild idea or maybe free thinking. On this occasion instead of letting intuition have full reign I plan out the making steps ahead of time – a discipline encouraged by the existence of the blog. I have yet to make and see the visual result – it might not work out, let me see. Images created better be good or I will have wasted my time.
Poppies are Red
Poppies are Red?
I’d be excited to experiment with an interchange between form and shape. I have it in mind to revisit some separate abstraction from the past and use it to stage the work. The reason for wanting to try this out is to extend the intent of taking photographic representation deplete or deconstruct it further. I capture glow and remove details but trace remains, and some viewers recognise it. So make a radial 3D image (I need to remember how I did this before). It is derived from the camera sensor. The end result is a 2D surface or print. In clinical terms there is a comparison between the images from an MRI scan built up in slices and the microscope sample as a single slice. I find that a little off-putting for some reason so will stick to my image making.
Image Deconstruction to Trace of Glow
Normalise the colour balance (key to moving from single image to images that collocate), process in strips of 5 (I get two or three matching successes), processes out the distractions and emphasise the warmth and glow.
Introduce a processing step into this beginning workflow. Translate the image into a radial 3D form as I’ve practiced in the past (as a sideline to a small worlds project).
Conduct the invisible paint brush work and layering. A recent move here has been to introduce a high resolution tablet. There is better scope for artistry – I have to prove I’m capable. I know people who are and even though I love to collaborate I’d never convince them and besides, for now I insist on my own original work. Maybe after the MA I can collaborate.
These deconstructionist effects now disguise the trace but it is still there more as an emotional element that direct physical one. Some abstractionists maintain photographic trace. In philosophical terms, there is a metaphor here for epigenesis, that complex state of human development where the genotype (DNA) is converted into the phenotype (the physical organism that we become). So this is a nod to the complex bio/chemical transformation that no one in human endeavour has yet been able to map. The new making step, step 2 as deconstruction is maybe the reverse of human development phenotype back to genotype. Nevertheless it is metaphor of so called prosaic isomorphism. DNA strands do map to the physical as in family resemblance transmitted, hence the isomorphic. We can’t follow the mapping, but there has to be a map of some sort. That much established, if only it were prosaic – a dull process. Instead it is highly complex and full of obscuring details, overwhelmed by unknowns. Hence the exotic and so, the term exotic isomorphism.
I set this observation aside and concentrate on the craft of making a visual metaphor. There is scope to apply with Occam’s razor.
Light Transmission
Something that settled with me that I didn’t make explicit and that stared back at me after a face to face critique held in Falmouth, is to do with reflected light versus transmitted light.
It goes like this. From a photograph usually of a wound or marking, I go into the digital darkroom and do all my processing as transmitted light. This is where I get first evidence of glow. If I continue to work the image and try to be creative in introducing depth and marks then in that environment it is still transmitted light. Control is exercised over environmental lighting and screen calibration here.
Turning for a moment to the taking of the photograph. Again there is environment and much more controlled these days. A mix of external light and flash light directed at the subject do two things a) reflect from surface and b) penetrate the surface, pick up colour there, then reflect back at the lens. Then when there is a wound there is an additional concentration of blood supply infused into the damaged area as part of the repair. It feels warm to the touch and emits a glow. This later bit is what manages to sidestep the filter designed to cut out infra red from entering the camera sensor.
So you might ask, why not shoot with an IR conversion? Apart from not wanting to destroy a perfectly good camera and besides, which wavelength conversion should be selected – it is a bit left to chance. What I actually use is a natural blend of visible and IR in my picture aesthetic. Another development I’m starting is to use light metering to measure natural and flash exposure and obtain a measure of colour temperature.
So some photographic artists construct the sets of their images with weeks of effort. I’m starting down a clinical route of gaining consistency. It offers the possibility of tracking healing as other factors than the wound progress are eliminated or at least controlled. Do I really want to do this? Well, I don’t want to shut out the possibility.
Finally, if you follow all this, then it is only natural that the images sing in the context of a display monitor or light box I suppose. This becomes more readily apparent in comparing print to monitor. The monitor forces enough light through and with enough dynamic range to make an effective job of exhibiting.
That’s not to give up on the paper medium. It’s enough to get a result on display at the moment without diverting off into repeat printing on a vast range of paper types. I’m thinking metal print might be worth a go. I’ve no clue at present it being only 18 months from my being a print virgin, as they say, whoever they are.
Week 5 to 10
I’m not going to pretend that I updated project development, religiously each week. I got up a head of steam and set to in making progress. I return at the end of a burst of activity to reflect on developments.
In reverse or mixed order, order doesn’t matter here:
Make hand drawn glyphs that emphasise symmetry and blend into the image. Symmetry is pleasing to the eye and helps disguise an inability to sketch to a high standard – my practice is more geometric than aesthetic. I let the camera provide the aesthetic input by pointing and framing. Symmetry is also metaphor for the double helix structure of DNA. Semiology through this introduction of signs is an aid to guiding the viewer to help them get some narrative from what might otherwise be a series of smudges or indefinite smokey forms with call and response captions.
From the visit to the Institute of Photography I’d shot 35mm and 5 by 4 film and processed and scanned the films. I returned to digital and started to process strips of my digital images. Why? I always processed individual images and got widely varying results and now wanted to go beyond square crop as a link, to images processed together that have an increased likelihood of being able to collocate. This actually works quite well. I used to find as single image. maybe 1 in 6 would respond well to my actions. Now with consistent lighting and processing as strips I go on to produce 2 or three images that do go together each time. So far so good. In my portfolio, I have an established pattern of three images then blank to break the sequence and so on, so this production method works for me.
I restarted image creation in Week 2 of the module and at first got decorative results. They were good – I thought so but in review I was being persuaded to the sombre style of Mark Rothko. I appreciate his work highly, and I gain a consistent look and feel from this but cant fully let go as I am conflicted by my intent of representing the fact that they (ancestors) lived out their lives in colour and yet representations in book and film are mainly in black and white. Here the image is a separate thing to the subjects who once lived. I prefer the image to have closer connection to their lives.
I process an image into several layers and recombine. With a bit of luck it works and creates a sense of foreground depth with layers of patterning or marks. When this is successful the viewer response it terrific. Very encouraging. However, I’m also aware that mastering the aesthetic can produce fantastic image collections, yet it is all for nought if there is no evidence of underlying purpose or strong narrative sequence.
Something that occurred and really inspired and has yet to take shape is to go back to an inspirational scientific film of viral invasion of the human body. My link to this is the pictorial aspect of healing glow. In this film, what unfolds is a takeover of the cell nucleus through spoofing, followed by the defences we mount shown as body constructs of tiny molecular machines. This battle has raged since bacteria first inhabited the earth and our mitochondria, the very same, has fought its corner for millions of years and survived, and so we developed and continue to live on. Such is the power of scientific development the it can be shown. I’ve put this very imaginative inspiration on the back burner until I find out what to do with it. In film format, maybe that job has already been done by someone else and doesn’t need me to translate it to stills. Never say never.
Week 4
This weeks developments have much more to do with culture and communication and takes from advertising the direct ways in which dominant readings are created. Having said that the ideas work for literature, and pictorial imagery and whilst it is not immediately apparent for Abstract work the same ideas apply and as author I simply need to consider this and apply myself. As a self confessed rejectionist of advertising which of course is impossible to fully be, I begin to acknowledge the effect of advertising and from my reading this week, realise there is a lot my practice can gain from being more savvy about ads, so for now I’m a convert to advertising. For me this is a turnaround.
The following question and responses below are based on the Week 4 Webinar preparation form.
In the webinar this week you will be considering the intent and authorship of your own practice and how you construct your work for a presumed audience and context.
Intent – the work I do makes common over family as diaspora. This is where it starts and continues from.
Under the MA, there is influence to take this forward and expand context.
A major element of the taught work I thought initially I could not use in my work at least until I translate what I’ve learnt from pictorial work into abstract imagery.
Authorship – this for me has been a challenge for some visual projects.
Although some reasonably successful approaches have been developed (see abstract categories below), there remains the next big challenge, to continue to home in on and author a consistent set of images. To some photographers this might be natural. For me it is a key developmental point and this week’s studies have drawn back a veil.
Presumed audience – this starts out as family and extended family
Context – recently the book returned as strong context (I had tried to move the work way beyond this to challenge myself. I have to consider the signification in other contexts). A possible exhibition is a strong maybe.
You will informally present your thoughts and relevant examples of your practice to your peers and tutor. You should try to contextualise your reflections with other relevant visual material and critical ideas.
<examples> portfolio is best example for now
Identify aspects of this week’s content that have / could influence your own developing practice.
Main influence this week is reading of Photography and Cinema – David Campney, two key aspect arising from discussion of
Narrative, photo presentation film La Jette
Also, moved to the fore by Representation – Stuart Hall – strengthens my ideas around culture, society, communication
For example, you might choose to:
Examine your own work in the context of any common / disparate interpretations emerging in the forum: So Where is the Author Now?
The taught part was on case studies around advertising. I rejected advertising up until now as a poorly regulated/implemented endeavour. I might change if adverts teach me how to get my work to transmit signifiers guided by author intent.
Reflect on any important peer feedback you received in the forum: Viewers Make Meaning.
A photograph was posted without title or explanation and was commented upon by a fellow student. Although compared to my norm this was different photography – different abstraction – different intent – yet same theme emerged! This confirms author interpretation carries forward naturally into work.
Provide examples of relevant practices you think are successful in achieving their intent.
Abstract method 1 is readily supported and works. It works again in combination with further layering and it is trace. It connects with critical reviewer is the sense I get. As commented recently, I can create such representations quite simply now and for the MA I was looking do achieve something more challenging.
Abstract method 2 is successful in creating visually stimulating (beautiful) images. It works in combination with Abstract method 1 in toning down. These images tend not to fit the theme in call and response titling of trauma and are more inclined to celebration of a theme of life’s force.
From ongoing experimentation variations in abstract style have been introduced this week
Abstract method 3 monochromatic from 1 or 2 with optional colour filter.
In the time the current form of work has run, we encounter the first spillage of artist blood from a little mishap. Trauma – Minor – Ignore i.e. get back on with things. In fact there were two separate mishaps. No injury whatsoever throughout the quiet winter period then suddenly, ouch and ouch.
First occurrence – Artist Blood with Water (dramatic presentation loses some delicate edge texture)First occurrence – Artist Blood with Water (preferred representation) Trauma – Minor – IgnoreTrauma – Minor – Ignore
and
Abstract method 4 monochrome from 1 or 2 with spot colour.
Trauma – Minor – Ignore
Narrative Call and Response works really well: brief, dramatic in rhythm and to the point. Allows depiction of mental trauma.
Lighting the skin – discussion took place in a studio context of gelled lighting and skin tone (for different models). Actually, I might bring out the gels as a way of enhancing my work.
Explain why you think this is.
Images don’t naturally make narrative, but video does. Book with written narrative and photographs with text does create narrative. Abstractions with landscape appearance is a form of imagery readily signified to viewers and takes om more effect with layering (as depth).
Discuss the intent of your own work and reflect on how successful you think this is.
Recognise gaps in childhood communication loved ones to child. Complete those gaps many decades later.
Analyse the audience and context in which your work should be viewed.
Family or by identification other families.
Education
Evaluate how meaning might change with context.
Let’s get the core solidly set and plan for other contexts what I term MA “influenced” contextualisation.
Week 3
So work was made that develops the imagery but looking back from Week 4 the author has still to target signifier-signified when placing before the viewer.
Disparate thoughts at this stage were initial panic at not shooting trauma (there simply was none). A fallback position of physical impressions came about through Alumni influencers. The same influencers triggered ideas on layering which I felt was a necessary future inclusion to more clearly transmit intent. A formative idea that needs thinking through properly for plausible contexts.
Each image has a summary comment in the title as a reminder to the author of discussion in three reviews.
Glow ! At last the glow is back. Perhaps novelty styled but image elements can be used.Combined abstraction – creates interest and consistent signification
Glow – low key effect
Impression – mismatches trauma theme (but colours loved by author)
Too decorative
Week 2
Materiality
In terms of development my ideas became much more unconstrained and I hesitate to say wild. Here for now I’ll mention my anti-frame perspective as clearly photographs are conventionally framed but I try for creative reasons to resist this. Whether that is a good thing must depend on the distraction caused versus the support it gives to the work.
Other ideas of form may or may not relate to framing. Printing on silk I want to try out. The fact I could wear my work would be the ultimate identification.
Printing somehow on a ball must be possible although involve tricky convolution. But why, that would be making a self serving point of trying to be too clever and ought to be resisted. Too many such diversions will surely dilute my work and make it gadgety.
I’d like to make my own installation by way of a gallery model. The return to the material. This could work and I could distribute my gallery top others rather than expect them to travel to a location. There would be scope for relevant technology with weblink to media via QR code.
On framing I diverted into a photograph as Mobius strip. That would need to be carefully designed but again is this a distraction? Trying to be too creative, in effect trying to show off? This type presentation would be a bit structured and really I’d prefer the print on silk method.
A subsequent wilder thought I probably wouldn’t take further would be robotic presentation of images like a juke box effect. At least though here there is link to the narrative as the War concerned was in my interpretation a war enabled by mechanisation.
Do please excuse these wild musings and feel free to comment.
Review of images and Artists intent
I need to cross refer here to the section on Barrett. This is where the practice ideas evolved within the Contextualisation section.
Week 1 Forum: Where Are You Now?
A summary response was given with links out to my text and images. Tutor feedback (thank you) led to a longer reply. Here we go:
The blog post from me, created during the assessment period is given in text form here .
I started out with Commemorative Historical work implemented as Close-up and Conceptual photography. The same theme moved to Abstract Impressionism. I continue to refine the technique to increase the standard of finish and consistency. Meanwhile, I continue to photograph intuitively for a change whilst exploring different avenues.
Feedback: Had I looked at the work of Mark Rothko? I have now. Also there was comment about giving consideration to moving image and sound. My reply is next.
I had added to the blog a Week 1 section in preparation for meeting and mention it here as there is a section on psychological impact as experienced when in discussion about the intentional hidden meaning in my work.
Mark Rothko I looked up and I immediately get why you mention his still or silent Abstract Expressionism.I love the work of painters and always thought if my work could almost be passed off as painting then the job was well done.
I waver now in this objective. Why? I am learning through the course the additive and subtractive nature of these visual media and so discern between them having become more informed. I hope this doesn’t spoil my enthusiasm.
I have begun to realise the impossibility of making groundbreaking creative work. I always later find someone else has also explored the technique. This is to say I work with a freedom without knowing of these other works, without taking influence from them. As I learn more and gain greater discernment this will close off my chances of creating something entirely new.
Contrary to this, I’m always tuned to the possibility of collaborating although this is not absolutely the correct term here.
Let me look deeper into Rothko’s work.
Sound, yes sound. I created a short moving stills piece with rational way back in our first module. It was raw, but I found it so compelling. I’ve looked since at the ability of the mind to create colour in response to sound. Sound and moving stills can be such a useful thing to work with. I did learn about it on a course but haven’t practised much, but would love to. I’ve since heard live and experienced the work of former painter and now performance artist Bill Jackson photographer whom I met last year. By chance, he picked up on my work on Instagram. He is one of two artists who follow me, which I find amazing. I always get why they like certain items I post.
Let me look up the link to the short (short) I mentioned. It is on Vimeo. Here we are, there were two items I created:
Title: Taster this was devised to set the emotional context of my project. It was rough and ready then dropped for the assignments as we are discouraged from using sound, and I understand the explanations as to why. I’d definitely want to include sound in any future work as an exhibition though.
Photography the Shape Shifter
Modernism and Postmodernism
Vincent Van Gogh is the father of Modernism in Art ? True or False ?
True for Painting (e.g. by way of making marks), but not for Photography (e.g. reproducibility)
Introduction
I have two purposes immediately below: to appraise my practice and to prepare work ahead of this week’s Tutor meeting.
My Practice
My portfolio developed during the last module is evidently work in progress and certainly would benefit from more thought and analysis.
When I look at this, I immediately bias towards editing and technical refinement as I seek a common visual consistency.
Also though from the thematic standpoint, I need to resolve some things. I wrestle with these thoughts going into Informing Contexts module. This is my opportunity to test for worthwhile endeavour.
My work has addressed physical trauma as healing. As they (ancestors) became wounded and healed we pick up injury and heal. This parallels to create feelings of personal identification with those who were lost, and the loss, and maybe not the exact right word, the concealed loss. I refer to the gaps in communication made to self as child but which I now understand. Communication completing thus, decades after the event is a powerful and magical experience, or at least as personal experience.
Visually a particular kind of abstraction generally results in my work and is distinct. The origin of the injury is not apparent.
Before moving on, before going much deeper into this with a second important form of visual representation, something challenging has emerged. A successful project will have a message that is simple and clear. The viewer should get it.
Repeated attempts my making direct communication are not complete. A few months ago my expression of the emergent work ran deep. I’m not surprised as the work is deep, emotionally deep.
Through simplified expression, and a selective silence, I reduce the risk of the viewer (listener/reviewer) making an Oppositional Reading. However, a root cause is still there. The challenge is not solved.
There is a learning prospect as the MA unfolds. That’s on the positive side. If a continuous process of adaption on my part doesn’t help the viewer get it i.e. not get the message of the purpose of the work, it will become increasingly difficult to sustain.
Returning to the project as is, the other branch of development relates to images styled in terms of Life’s Glow witnessed at body surface level and detected by a camera sensor where invisible to the eye and brought out in processing through the digital darkroom. There is an intentional hidden level of meaning, whereby a descendant – ancestor linkage is identified in which materially and in energy production (e.g. warmth) is a direct one to one manifestation is established or some part of.
I don’t expect audience to get this without being primed. From my involvement in it I initially associated with ancestors missing from my life but whose siblings I’d met. That was an act of bonding. However I learned I had no connection in terms of Life’s Force. When I checked further, it was my father who had that connection, not me, and he is a direct biological descendant.
Then I learned, that my sisters had a fractional linkage of common connection.
Finally, I could steer back through my mothers line for my own direct connection. With some researcher input I discovered I did have a direct connection with relatives in the same world event, the Great War.
This shifted my attention to one of information based of records and on science and now I connect with other ancestors exploits and have learned of a different set of narratives including from newspaper articles of the time.
Although a different aspect of life, I could liken the experience to a (lesser) form of adopted child uncovering knowledge of their true birth parents. I use this description to illustrate the weight of the subject and eiher for feelings of acceptance or rejection. Those other than people we bond or connect with are brought into our lives with a stronger relevance and they may have as in my case simply been missing – I refer to gaps.
This latter piece led to initial ideas on the value as education. Here there is a problem as taking a person who has well formed bonds and then linking them in ways not previously accepted, could have repercussions.
In one discussion I had it was evident that the idea once conveyed allowed an exploration of thought. The individual concerned ranged across bonds in their own life and quickly made connections regarding their loss of loved ones. That had not been my intention and I’d not been ready for it so it was just as well we have a long term friendship. Potentially I had triggered raw thoughts and feelings. You just don’t know how these things will turn out. When it comes to individuals psychological resilience it is tricky and no doubt varies with proximity to loss and other connections such as births and other things like anniversaries. There are so many potential triggers.
Moment of Realisation
We know there are family interests that others outside the immediate family have no interest in, yet these others may be interested in comparing with their own family. I found this when presenting the early work to an audience. The group did not hold back and made helpful suggestions – things I could embellish the work with. As far as that goes, yes there are embellishments that can be made, so the audience showed support, a willing to say things to encourage project progression. This input in part came from an Arts Council sponsored University Lecturer and other eminent and respected individuals.
During my presentation I looked out at the audience in sensing and gained interaction with one individual. With a little interplay, conversation lit up after an initial reluctance. We related to their connection in their own family. Then a second audience member joined us and the wider audience looked on in interest.
On winding up for the break, someone came over and discussion continued as our experiences intersected. Then a magazine editor and book publisher/educational reviewer rallied to further discussion. They smilingly set me the challenge to develop the work to be published in their magazine.
Clearly work given freely and of a standard is of interest to them. They’d of course gotten in their pitch.
What I learnt:
Communication worked by seeking out grounds of common experience.
I’d uncovered about a 10% slice of the audience who engaged, that day.
Most others were neutral and appeared to enjoy witnessing the interaction.
Around 10% appeared oppositional, this given away in their clever questioning strategies. They were readily disarmed by the response.
Another individual told me their favourite image – always nice. That was encouraging. I’ll put that alongside a request for prints from another context, and prints in the style of another subject.
Original Scope
Before this project runs away with itself it seems prudent to recall the original scope as being family, who as a diaspora get this reach into the past and towards their culture as children. Beyond this a museum seemed interested at least in the text research (illustration photographs were not available to show at the time of meeting in the Curator department back in July 2018).
Comparison
I was going to make comparison with a simpler to explain project I have on the go then remembered a golden benchmark, Chloe Dewe Mathews work, Shot at Dawn.
The title says what it is about. Then everything photographed directly connects with the title. Everything said relates back to the same theme. We can argue, is that enough for successful work? Well no. It also has to be substantive. And of course the work is substantive.
If only my project had such clarity of thought and of presentation. I’ve got to determine if the gap can be closed.
All Pervasive Nature???
I have to comment on this and to be honest will need to go back over this weeks work to figure out where this comes from and understand what is required.
Unbeknown to myself as author I was keeping two blog posts running on this topic. How can this even happen?! Anyway the other post can be found at the following WebPage URL.
Week 12
Social and cultural elements underpinning my work concern place and absence of persons related, the loss of able bodied young men from a farming family. Outpouring withheld those who remained quietly lived out their lives in peace.
Two things happened within the social structure: local migration, west to east; settlement within Burn’s poetic landscape; focus on a place of Christian adoption and fishing employment; early globalisation with travel reaching out to Canada, United States and India,
Themes exist within my practice and work expanded in Week 11 to cover an underlying basis of social connection based on biology represented as epigenesis. Here are the themes corresponding to the structure of my Critical Review and edit of my Work in Progress WIP Portfolio:
Commemorative – somber mood
Celebration of life – unseeing eye
Faded memory
Narrative – photogram and captioning
Biology – epigenesis
I realise now I need to order this list and in the CR introduce these and us subheading to add structure at the outset then proceed having scoped this for the reader. No big surprises or unexplained diversions.
At present I improve contextualisation practice as all the learning and all the reading begin to take hold. My moments of realisation become intensified but deadlines do loom. Keeping a balance between assignments is paramount, acting before everything has sunk in better. Suddenly from a smouldering the course as experience has once more ignited and again engagement is on fire.
Week 11
In the past weeks (Week 5 to 10), experimental inputs have been included in my work motivated by portfolio creation rather than collection of single images. I return now to capture a new concept about making based on my philosophical research into life as represented by our healing glow. Perhaps what follows can be classified as wild idea or maybe free thinking. On this occasion instead of letting intuition have full reign I plan out the making steps ahead of time – a discipline encouraged by the existence of the blog. I have yet to make and see the visual result – it might not work out, let me see. Images created better be good or I will have wasted my time.
Poppies are Red
Poppies are Red?
I’d be excited to experiment with an interchange between form and shape. I have it in mind to revisit some separate abstraction from the past and use it to stage the work. The reason for wanting to try this out is to extend the intent of taking photographic representation deplete or deconstruct it further. I capture glow and remove details but trace remains, and some viewers recognise it. So make a radial 3D image (I need to remember how I did this before). It is derived from the camera sensor. The end result is a 2D surface or print. In clinical terms there is a comparison between the images from an MRI scan built up in slices and the microscope sample as a single slice. I find that a little off-putting for some reason so will stick to my image making.
Image Deconstruction to Trace of Glow
Normalise the colour balance (key to moving from single image to images that collocate), process in strips of 5 (I get two or three matching successes), processes out the distractions and emphasise the warmth and glow.
Introduce a processing step into this beginning workflow. Translate the image into a radial 3D form as I’ve practiced in the past (as a sideline to a small worlds project).
Conduct the invisible paint brush work and layering. A recent move here has been to introduce a high resolution tablet. There is better scope for artistry – I have to prove I’m capable. I know people who are and even though I love to collaborate I’d never convince them and besides, for now I insist on my own original work. Maybe after the MA I can collaborate.
These deconstructionist effects now disguise the trace but it is still there more as an emotional element that direct physical one. Some abstractionists maintain photographic trace. In philosophical terms, there is a metaphor here for epigenesis, that complex state of human development where the genotype (DNA) is converted into the phenotype (the physical organism that we become). So this is a nod to the complex bio/chemical transformation that no one in human endeavour has yet been able to map. The new making step, step 2 as deconstruction is maybe the reverse of human development phenotype back to genotype. Nevertheless it is metaphor of so called prosaic isomorphism. DNA strands do map to the physical as in family resemblance transmitted, hence the isomorphic. We can’t follow the mapping, but there has to be a map of some sort. That much established, if only it were prosaic – a dull process. Instead it is highly complex and full of obscuring details, overwhelmed by unknowns. Hence the exotic and so, the term exotic isomorphism.
I set this observation aside and concentrate on the craft of making visual metaphor. It’s much simpler and is more in line with Occam’s razor – given several choices (many of which may be complex) then taking the simpler option is usually the best strategy.
Light Transmission
Something that settled with me that I didn’t make explicit and that stared back at me after a face to face critique held in Falmouth, is to do with reflected light versus transmitted light.
It goes like this. From a photograph usually of a wound or marking, I go into the digital darkroom and do all my processing as transmitted light. This is where I get first evidence of glow. If I continue to work the image and try to be creative in introducing depth and marks then in that environment it is still transmitted light. Control is exercised over environmental lighting and screen calibration here.
Turning for a moment to the taking of the photograph. Again there is environment and much more controlled these days. A mix of external light and flash light directed at the subject do two things a) reflect from surface and b) penetrate the surface, pick up colour there, then reflect back at the lens. Then when there is a wound there is an additional concentration of blood supply infused into the damaged area as part of the repair. It feels warm to the touch and emits a glow. This later bit is what manages to sidestep the filter designed to cut out infra red from entering the camera sensor.
So you might ask, why not shoot with an IR conversion? Apart from not wanting to destroy a perfectly good camera and besides, which wavelength conversion should be selected – it is a bit left to chance. What I actually use is a natural blend of visible and IR in my picture aesthetic. Another development I’m starting is to use light metering to measure natural and flash exposure and obtain a measure of colour temperature.
So some photographic artists construct the sets of their images with weeks of effort. I’m starting down a clinical route of gaining consistency. It offers the possibility of tracking healing as other factors than the wound progress are eliminated or at least controlled. Do I really want to do this? Well, I don’t want to shut out the possibility.
Finally, if you follow all this, then it is only natural that the images sing in the context of a display monitor or light box I suppose. This becomes more readily apparent in comparing print to monitor. The monitor forces enough light through and with enough dynamic range to make an effective job of exhibiting.
That’s not to give up on the paper medium. It’s enough to get a result on display at the moment without diverting off into repeat printing on a vast range of paper types. I’m thinking metal print might be worth a go. I’ve no clue at present it being only 18 months from my being a print virgin, as they say, whoever they are.
Week 5 to 10
I’m not going to pretend that I updated project development, religiously each week. I got up a head of steam and set to in making progress. I return at the end of a burst of activity to reflect on developments.
In reverse or mixed order, order doesn’t matter here:
Make hand drawn glyphs that emphasise symmetry and blend into the image. Symmetry is pleasing to the eye and helps disguise an inability to sketch to a high standard – my practice is more geometric than aesthetic. I let the camera provide the aesthetic input by pointing and framing. Symmetry is also metaphor for the double helix structure of DNA. Semiology through this introduction of signs is an aid to guiding the viewer to help them get some narrative from what might otherwise be a series of smudges or indefinite smokey forms with call and response captions.
From the visit to the Institute of Photography I’d shot 35mm and 5 by 4 film and processed and scanned the films. I returned to digital and started to process strips of my digital images. Why? I always processed individual images and got widely varying results and now wanted to go beyond square crop as a link, to images processed together that have an increased likelihood of being able to collocate. This actually works quite well. I used to find as single image. maybe 1 in 6 would respond well to my actions. Now with consistent lighting and processing as strips I go on to produce 2 or three images that do go together each time. So far so good. In my portfolio, I have an established pattern of three images then blank to break the sequence and so on, so this production method works for me.
I restarted image creation in Week 2 of the module and at first got decorative results. They were good – I thought so but in review I was being persuaded to the sombre style of Mark Rothko. I appreciate his work highly, and I gain a consistent look and feel from this but cant fully let go as I am conflicted by my intent of representing the fact that they (ancestors) lived out their lives in colour and yet representations in book and film are mainly in black and white. Here the image is a separate thing to the subjects who once lived. I prefer the image to have closer connection to their lives.
I process an image into several layers and recombine. With a bit of luck it works and creates a sense of foreground depth with layers of patterning or marks. When this is successful the viewer response it terrific. Very encouraging. However, I’m also aware that mastering the aesthetic can produce fantastic image collections, yet it is all for nought if there is no evidence of underlying purpose or strong narrative sequence.
Something that occurred and really inspired and has yet to take shape is to go back to an inspirational scientific film of viral invasion of the human body. My link to this is the pictorial aspect of healing glow. In this film, what unfolds is a takeover of the cell nucleus through spoofing, followed by the defences we mount shown as body constructs of tiny molecular machines. This battle has raged since bacteria first inhabited the earth and our mitochondria, the very same, has fought its corner for millions of years and survived, and so we developed and continue to live on. Such is the power of scientific development the it can be shown. I’ve put this very imaginative inspiration on the back burner until I find out what to do with it. In film format, maybe that job has already been done by someone else and doesn’t need me to translate it to stills. Never say never.
Week 4
This weeks developments have much more to do with culture and communication and takes from advertising the direct ways in which dominant readings are created. Having said that the ideas work for literature, and pictorial imagery and whilst it is not immediately apparent for Abstract work the same ideas apply and as author I simply need to consider this and apply myself. As a self confessed rejectionist of advertising which of course is impossible to fully be, I begin to acknowledge the effect of advertising and from my reading this week, realise there is a lot my practice can gain from being more savvy about ads, so for now I’m a convert to advertising. For me this is a turnaround.
The following question and responses below are based on the Week 4 Webinar preparation form.
In the webinar this week you will be considering the intent and authorship of your own practice and how you construct your work for a presumed audience and context.
Intent – the work I do makes common over family as diaspora. This is where it starts and continues from.
Under the MA, there is influence to take this forward and expand context.
A major element of the taught work I thought initially I could not use in my work at least until I translate what I’ve learnt from pictorial work into abstract imagery.
Authorship – this for me has been a challenge for some visual projects.
Although some reasonably successful approaches have been developed (see abstract categories below), there remains the next big challenge, to continue to home in on and author a consistent set of images. To some photographers this might be natural. For me it is a key developmental point and this week’s studies have drawn back a veil.
Presumed audience – this starts out as family and extended family
Context – recently the book returned as strong context (I had tried to move the work way beyond this to challenge myself. I have to consider the signification in other contexts). A possible exhibition is a strong maybe.
You will informally present your thoughts and relevant examples of your practice to your peers and tutor. You should try to contextualise your reflections with other relevant visual material and critical ideas.
<examples> portfolio is best example for now
Identify aspects of this week’s content that have / could influence your own developing practice.
Main influence this week is reading of Photography and Cinema – David Campney, two key aspect arising from discussion of
Narrative, photo presentation film La Jette
Also, moved to the fore by Representation – Stuart Hall – strengthens my ideas around culture, society, communication
For example, you might choose to:
Examine your own work in the context of any common / disparate interpretations emerging in the forum: So Where is the Author Now?
The taught part was on case studies around advertising. I rejected advertising up until now as a poorly regulated/implemented endeavour. I might change if adverts teach me how to get my work to transmit signifiers guided by author intent.
Reflect on any important peer feedback you received in the forum: Viewers Make Meaning.
A photograph was posted without title or explanation and was commented upon by a fellow student. Although compared to my norm this was different photography – different abstraction – different intent – yet same theme emerged! This confirms author interpretation carries forward naturally into work.
Provide examples of relevant practices you think are successful in achieving their intent.
Abstract method 1 is readily supported and works. It works again in combination with further layering and it is trace. It connects with critical reviewer is the sense I get. As commented recently, I can create such representations quite simply now and for the MA I was looking do achieve something more challenging.
Abstract method 2 is successful in creating visually stimulating (beautiful) images. It works in combination with Abstract method 1 in toning down. These images tend not to fit the theme in call and response titling of trauma and are more inclined to celebration of a theme of life’s force.
From ongoing experimentation variations in abstract style have been introduced this week
Abstract method 3 monochromatic from 1 or 2 with optional colour filter
In the time the current form of work has run, we encounter the first spillage of artist blood from a little mishap. Trauma – Minor – Ignore i.e. get back on with things. In fact there were two separate mishaps. No injury whatsoever throughout the quiet winter period then suddenly, ouch and ouch.
First occurrence – Artist Blood with Water (dramatic presentation loses some delicate edge texture)First occurrence – Artist Blood with Water (preferred representation) Trauma – Minor – IgnoreTrauma – Minor – Ignore
and
Abstract method 4 monochrome from 1 or 2 with spot colour.
Trauma – Minor – Ignore
Narrative Call and Response works really well: brief, dramatic in rhythm and to the point. Allows depiction of mental trauma.
Lighting the skin – discussion took place in a studio context of gelled lighting and skin tone (for different models). Actually, I might bring out the gels as a way of enhancing my work.
Explain why you think this is.
Images don’t naturally make narrative, but video does. Book with written narrative and photographs with text does create narrative. Abstractions with landscape appearance is a form of imagery readily signified to viewers and takes om more effect with layering (as depth).
Discuss the intent of your own work and reflect on how successful you think this is.
Recognise gaps in childhood communication loved ones to child. Complete those gaps many decades later.
Analyse the audience and context in which your work should be viewed.
Family or by identification other families.
Education
Evaluate how meaning might change with context.
Let’s get the core solidly set and plan for other contexts what I term MA “influenced” contextualisation.
Week 3
So work was made that develops the imagery but looking back from Week 4 the author has still to target signifier-signified when placing before the viewer.
Disparate thoughts at this stage were initial panic at not shooting trauma (there simply was none). A fallback position of physical impressions came about through Alumni influencers. The same influencers triggered ideas on layering which I felt was a necessary future inclusion to more clearly transmit intent. A formative idea that needs thinking through properly for plausible contexts.
Each image has a summary comment in the title as a reminder to the author of discussion in three reviews.
Glow ! At last the glow is back. Perhaps novelty styled but image elements can be used.Combined abstraction – creates interest and consistent signification
Glow – low key effect
Impression – mismatches trauma theme (but colours loved by author)
Too decorative
Week 2
Materiality
In terms of development my ideas became much more unconstrained and I hesitate to say wild. Here for now I’ll mention my anti-frame perspective as clearly photographs are conventionally framed but I try for creative reasons to resist this. Whether that is a good thing must depend on the distraction caused versus the support it gives to the work.
Other ideas of form may or may not relate to framing. Printing on silk I want to try out. The fact I could wear my work would be the ultimate identification.
Printing somehow on a ball must be possible although involve tricky convolution. But why, that would be making a self serving point of trying to be too clever and ought to be resisted. Too many such diversions will surely dilute my work and make it gadgety.
I’d like to make my own installation by way of a gallery model. The return to the material. This could work and I could distribute my gallery top others rather than expect them to travel to a location. There would be scope for relevant technology with weblink to media via QR code.
On framing I diverted into a photograph as Mobius strip. That would need to be carefully designed but again is this a distraction? Trying to be too creative, in effect trying to show off? This type presentation would be a bit structured and really I’d prefer the print on silk method.
A subsequent wilder thought I probably wouldn’t take further would be robotic presentation of images like a juke box effect. At least though here there is link to the narrative as the War concerned was in my interpretation a war enabled by mechanisation.
Do please excuse these wild musings and feel free to comment.
Review of images and Artists intent
I need to cross refer here to the section on Barrett. This is where the practice ideas evolved within the Contextualisation section.
Week 1 Forum: Where Are You Now?
A summary response was given with links out to my text and images. Tutor feedback (thank you) led to a longer reply. Here we go:
The blog post from me, created during the assessment period is given in text form here .
I started out with Commemorative Historical work implemented as Close-up and Conceptual photography. The same theme moved to Abstract Impressionism. I continue to refine that work in technique to increase the standard of finish and consistency. Meanwhile, I continue to photograph intuitively for a change whilst exploring different avenues.
Feedback: Had I looked at the work of Mark Rothko? I have now. Also there was comment about giving consideration to moving image and sound. My reply is next.
I had added to the blog a Week 1 section in preparation for meeting and mention it here as there is a section on psychological impact as experienced when in discussion about the intentional hidden meaning in my work.
Mark Rothko I looked up and I immediately get why you mention his still or silent Abstract Expressionism.I love the work of painters and always thought if my work could almost be passed off as painting then the job was well done.
I waver now in this objective. Why? I am learning through the course the additive and subtractive nature of these visual media and so discern between them having become more informed. I hope this doesn’t spoil my enthusiasm.
I have begun to realise the impossibility of making groundbreaking creative work. I always later find someone else has also explored the technique. This is to say I work with a freedom without knowing of these other works, without taking influence from them. As I learn more and gain greater discernment this will close off my chances of creating something entirely new.
Contrary to this, I’m always tuned to the possibility of collaborating although this is not absolutely the correct term here.
Let me look deeper into Rothko’s work.
Sound, yes sound. I created a short moving stills piece with sound way back in our first module. It was raw but I found it so powerful. I’ve looked since at the ability of the mind to create colour in response to sound. Sound and moving stills can be such an effective thing to work with. I did learn about it on a course but haven’t practiced much, but would love to. I’ve since heard live and experienced the work of former painter and now performance artist Bill Jackson photographer whom I met last year. By chance he picked up on my work on Instagram. He is one of two artists who follow me which I find amazing. I always get why they like certain items I post.
Let me look up the link to the short (short) I mentioned. It is on Vimeo. Here we are, there were two items I created:
Title: Taster this was devised to set the emotional context of my project. It was rough and ready then dropped for the assignments as we are discouraged from using sound and I understand the explanations as to why. I’d definitely want to include sound in any future work like an exhibition though.
Photography the Shape Shifter
Modernism and Postmodernism
Vincent Van Gogh is the father of Modernism in Art ? True or False ?
True for Painting (e.g. by way of making marks), but not for Photography (e.g. reproducibility)
Introduction
I have two purposes immediately below: to appraise my practice and to prepare work ahead of this week’s Tutor meeting.
My Practice
My portfolio developed during the last module is evidently work in progress and certainly would benefit from more thought and analysis.
When I look at this, I immediately bias towards editing and technical refinement as I seek a common visual consistency.
Also though from the thematic standpoint, I need to resolve some things. I wrestle with these thoughts going into Informing Contexts module. This is my opportunity to test for worthwhile endeavour.
My work has addressed physical trauma as healing. As they (ancestors) became wounded and healed we pick up injury and heal. This parallels to create feelings of personal identification with those who were lost, and the loss, and maybe not the exact right word, the concealed loss. I refer to the gaps in communication made to self as child but which I now understand. Communication completing thus, decades after the event is a powerful and magical experience, or at least as personal experience.
Visually a particular kind of abstraction generally results in my work and is distinct. The origin of the injury is not apparent.
Before moving on, before going much deeper into this with a second important form of visual representation, something challenging has emerged. A successful project will have a message that is simple and clear. The viewer should get it.
Repeated attempts my making direct communication are not complete. A few months ago my expression of the emergent work ran deep. I’m not surprised as the work is deep, emotionally deep.
Through simplified expression, and a selective silence, I reduce the risk of the viewer (listener/reviewer) making an Oppositional Reading. However, a root cause is still there. The challenge is not solved.
There is a learning prospect as the MA unfolds. That’s on the positive side. If a continuous process of adaption on my part doesn’t help the viewer get it i.e. not get the message of the purpose of the work, it will become increasingly difficult to sustain.
Returning to the project as is, the other branch of development relates to images styled in terms of Life’s Glow witnessed at body surface level and detected by a camera sensor where invisible to the eye and brought out in processing through the digital darkroom. There is an intentional hidden level of meaning, whereby a descendant – ancestor linkage is identified in which materially and in energy production (e.g. warmth) is a direct one to one manifestation is established or some part of.
I don’t expect audience to get this without being primed. From my involvement in it I initially associated with ancestors missing from my life but whose siblings I’d met. That was an act of bonding. However I learned I had no connection in terms of Life’s Force. When I checked further, it was my father who had that connection, not me, and he is a direct biological descendant.
Then I learned, that my sisters had a fractional linkage of common connection.
Finally, I could steer back through my mothers line for my own direct connection. With some researcher input I discovered I did have a direct connection with relatives in the same world event, the Great War.
This shifted my attention to one of information based of records and on science and now I connect with other ancestors exploits and have learned of a different set of narratives including from newspaper articles of the time.
Although a different aspect of life, I could liken the experience to a (lesser) form of adopted child uncovering knowledge of their true birth parents. I use this description to illustrate the weight of the subject and eiher for feelings of acceptance or rejection. Those other than people we bond or connect with are brought into our lives with a stronger relevance and they may have as in my case simply been missing – I refer to gaps.
This latter piece led to initial ideas on the value as education. Here there is a problem as taking a person who has well formed bonds and then linking them in ways not previously accepted, could have repercussions.
In one discussion I had it was evident that the idea once conveyed allowed an exploration of thought. The individual concerned ranged across bonds in their own life and quickly made connections regarding their loss of loved ones. That had not been my intention and I’d not been ready for it so it was just as well we have a long term friendship. Potentially I had triggered raw thoughts and feelings. You just don’t know how these things will turn out. When it comes to individuals psychological resilience it is tricky and no doubt varies with proximity to loss and other connections such as births and other things like anniversaries. There are so many potential triggers.
Moment of Realisation
We know there are family interests that others outside the immediate family have no interest in, yet these others may be interested in comparing with their own family. I found this when presenting the early work to an audience. The group did not hold back and made helpful suggestions – things I could embellish the work with. As far as that goes, yes there are embellishments that can be made, so the audience showed support, a willing to say things to encourage project progression. This input in part came from an Arts Council sponsored University Lecturer and other eminent and respected individuals.
During my presentation I looked out at the audience in sensing and gained interaction with one individual. With a little interplay, conversation lit up after an initial reluctance. We related to their connection in their own family. Then a second audience member joined us and the wider audience looked on in interest.
On winding up for the break, someone came over and discussion continued as our experiences intersected. Then a magazine editor and book publisher/educational reviewer rallied to further discussion. They smilingly set me the challenge to develop the work to be published in their magazine.
Clearly work given freely and of a standard is of interest to them. They’d of course gotten in their pitch.
What did I learn:
Communication worked by seeking out grounds of common experience.
I’d uncovered about a 10% slice of the audience who engaged, that day.
Most others were neutral and appeared to enjoy witnessing the interaction.
Around 10% appeared oppositional, this given away in their clever questioning strategies. They were readily disarmed by the response.
Another individual told me their favourite image – always nice. That was encouraging. I’ll put that alongside a request for prints from another context, and prints in the style of another subject.
Original Scope
Before this project runs away with itself it seems prudent to recall the original scope as being family, who as a diaspora get this reach into the past and towards their culture as children. Beyond this a museum seemed interested at least in the text research (illustration photographs were not available to show at the time of meeting in the Curator department back in July 2018).
Comparison
I was going to make comparison with a simpler to explain project I have on the go then remembered a golden benchmark, Chloe Dewe Mathews work, Shot at Dawn.
The title says what it is about. Then everything photographed directly connects with the title. Everything said relates back to the same theme. We can argue, is that enough for successful work? Well no. It also has to be substantive. And of course the work is substantive.
If only my project had such clarity of thought and of presentation. I’ve got to determine if the gap can be closed.
All Pervasive Nature???
I have to comment on this and to be honest will need to go back over this weeks work to figure out where this comes from and understand what is required.
It was all in the melting pot at this stage and a very uphill struggle at times. Engaging with the language of Roland Barthes translated from the French is made more difficult than is necessary, at least that was how I felt. Consecutive to this, I read Susan Sontag On Camera multiple times in the hope of extracting something of value for my practice. Maybe if there is very little or no overlap with practice then the work does become a labour.
When I returned to Camera Lucida I improbably discovered that by reading the last paragraph in the book first I at last made progress. I’d noticed this effect first when reading an interview with Jeff Wall. Nothing said struck any chord with my practice. When I turned to reverse reading two things happened:
comprehension. Ideas that made complete sense were then seen to be developed,
surprisingly many paragraphs were left hanging and this demanded attention and so the preceding paragraph had to be consumed.
Anyway, it worked better and allowed progess to be made again.
Revisiting print size
I’ve been sensitive about large scale printing of small scale subject matter (after all I would not wish for massive trauma only monitoring minor happenings and latterly memory of body from contact pressure). Now having read of Gurky’s large scale work in the Journal American Photo (Jan 1, 2015) I’m caused to analyse and challenge this. The first module sensitised me to low res pixelated image presentation. But I do not say a flat no to large scale prints. In fact I have some testing on the go using Artificial Intelligence AI software and can print up to a limit of 18ft using roll paper. Initial results were encouraging but I need time to do more over my return to materiality (a nod towards Carol Squiers ICP exhibition What is a Photograph?
Mark Rothko Chapel a Week 5 visit to this research topic
In terms of his life’s work snd how this impacts my Practice:
The phenomenology of perception is key to Mark Rothko’s work where this concerns the structures of experience and consciousness. There may be a risk in engaging in this world and so a hidden warning. At his peak, Mark Rothko died of a drug overdose in New York. It was this day exactly 49 years ago on the 25 February 1970.
This anniversary and many other coincidences around my work can lead to fetishisation – a false attribution. It goes on – by accidentally touch typing one letter to the right on this keyboard just now, “his” translated to jod before autocorrecting to god.
Rothko’s work moving again into my consciousness has a rational explanation. The timing of so many of these events can be harder to explain. Religious context moved to the fore twice last year in conversation with Olympia and Pastor Prince whom I met separately. My own work can become obsessive which requires one to chill out. An original manifestation of my practice changed to abstract expressionism. This helped normalise sustained emotional outpouring. Now the tears have been wiped away. In the written word this may seem overstated but feelings ran deep and challenged who I am as a person.
Rothko’s work becomes a performance work. The paintings emerge around floor level and are large scale so as to envelop the viewer. The paintings have no central focus, paint being evenly spread from edge to edge, and corner to corner. Upon closer inspection the viewer becomes immersed as layers of colour reveal at the edge transitions. In the context of the chapel the work provides a sacral experience and you begin to comprehend how some become enveloped in the here and now and are given cause to weep.
Sadly, the viewer may experience the “imminence and transcendence of the tragic in human existence”. I tend to express this as the motivation to create work but the intent towards the viewer could be quite the opposite. This holding two opposing ideas in mind simultaneously might be taken as fetishisation. I’m obviously conflicted and have a task to sort this out. The emotional impact was originally my punctum insofar as I understood this by the close of the first module.
It has been hinted at various times that we learn first about ourselves as practitioners in doing this MA Photography course. On that score and in light of the return to fetishisation, I would draw a parallel with my other professional practice outside of photography. Here, some are trained to think in linear terms, and go step by step through a problem solving it. In my personal experience, I had to learn to carry many states at once. I liken this to waves lapping a sandy beach. As the waves retreat, water, returns to the sea along many tributaries at once or even soaks into the sand as one.
It is clear that the artist has control over the terms and conditions of the work and its contextualisation.
Mark Rothko Chapel a week 2/3 visitation to this research topic
Here is one of the earlier videos watched on Rothko’s Abstract Expressionism (Mark Rothko (video) | Abstract Expressionism | Khan Academy, 2014): note: no frame; floor height and viewer stands “within’ the work; effect is painted all over rather than a core with corners and edges of less importance; and no frame. Not action painting like Pollock.
From a previous mention, Mark’s son on video Rothko Chapel (Rothko, 2015) acted as guide to the Rothko Chapel. He talked about his father’s work and how visitors of all faiths sit and experience the black and purple wall paintings and how many have been moved to tears.
The sentiment to his work differs from mine as I struggle to hone my message towards a celebration of life. At present it doesn’t always translate that way as my motivation to doing the work gets in the way of the message. In other words I try to separate the motivation that drives me to do the work from the voice I wish to express – they are almost opposites and voice is opposite too to Rothko’s work.
Let me read the PDF and gain from a comparative analysis.
Rothko, C. (2015) TCA Rothko Chapel Video on Vimeo. Available at: https://vimeo.com/127754629 (Accessed: 25 February 2019).
Week 4 Critical Thinking
Film Documentaries
Some documentary films were consumed Hidden Histories: WW1’s Forgotten Photographs (‘Hidden Histories: WW1’s Forgotten Photographs · BoB’, 2014)and The Genius of Photography (‘The Genius of Photography 1800-1914 Fixing the Shadows · BoB’, 2009)
Week 3 Critical Review – Reflective Thinking
As the next week of study begins (Week 4), I realise the Week I’m leaving behind needed some finishing off. I’d got distracted by making work and setting up the framework for the week to come and realise I need to act on advice and read to inform my work.
Of several books I’ve majored on this week, only one Campany(Campany, 2008)resonated enough to impact on my photographic practice. We’d previously been informed how comparing a medium (photography) with another medium (in my case this week Cinema), you begin to discover the essential nature of photography.
I’m going to set aside Barthes (Barthes and Howard, 1980) and Sontag (Sontag, 1977)
Before departing into the insights gained from Photography and cinema, I should also not broader aspects at this time whilst enumerating the sources I’d been to during research and study. Resources checked out following a library webinar include:
[A] insightful definitions of photographic genre (Szarkowski, 1980)
It seems wrong to categorise my work as Abstract in the vanilla sense as to be abstract it should not trace to a source, at least that is how I interpret and feel about it. I forever give away hints that tie the image back to the subject photographed. A closer genre I think, has to be Abstract Expressionism. I’m not fully settled on this as I do not wholly find expression in the negative, being more of the happy photographer aligned to the glow of life’s force and healing and the conceptual idea of impression upon the skin as analogy to photography, the latter being more in the realm of intellectual pursuit.
Also, a review during the week, highlighted the closeness of portfolio introductory images to the theme of title and captions used, and I agree. I can see a split now opening wide and I have to think whether to pursue trauma in its physical and mental modes, the theme that created for me the punctum that elevated the work above its previous status of illustration.
Trauma does depend on there being minor injury and when this falls away the subject matter becomes sparse. At first, I diverted towards the above mentioned theme of “Impressions”. Since then, there have been two instances of minor injury, one to me, the second to a close other. It is difficult at times as the taking needs another photographer really for perfection and ease of working whilst it remains slightly weird to be recording injury although by now it is understood and becoming tolerated. This new subject matter has led to a variation or economy of approach. As often now said, I follow the direction a photograph will move in based on practice, developed skill and latest informed intent. There are usually several points in the image making where multiple images can result. It does require a higher degree of image and file management. The approach is quite exciting though, as the photograph may lead to an image that invokes landscape, or incorporates the glow I so often seek or may demand comparison as monochrome. In fact the last image I made went off on the monochrome trajectory but with spot colour to let the eye rest and remind of injury.
In a sentence, several images worked/made from the base photograph. I wonder what my tutors would make of that? To find out I need to create something to view.
[B] access to hi res photography sources (Artstor, 2019)
I’ve been able to check the look of war photography, and as it happened around the American Civil War. This archive material so often is in the sepia style when I declared early on in my practice that they lived their lives in colour and so I would honour that in my representations based on their worlds. This did rather drive me to the logical extreme of highly saturated work. The colours are trace if not somewhat overwhelming but visually interesting. It is a specialised branch of my practice and has evolved due to studying this MA Photography course. It is marmite according to the responses received but hey, I like it. I like it a lot. It has a very strong aesthetic and is trace and solidly linked to trauma and healing.
Week 3 Informed Context:
Photograph and Cinema – Stillness
Photography has developed a trend towards slowing down alongside the burgeoning of the Fine Art market. I should note this as my Practice is not vernacular.
Photograph and Cinema – Paper Cinema
My practice is likely to take on the context of a book and it would be very worthwhile revisiting this chapter later.
Something I seem to have and is seen as a feature of cinema is the mingling of real and imaginary; present and past; the probable and the improbable. Possibly my practice contains less of the latter, or maybe it does have probability in the balance.(Campany, 2008, p62)
My work is intended to be didactic in that it may be adopted by a museum or be used as an example for genetics teaching. The aleatoric or presence of chance exists in the making process, but is guided by learning the art. (Campany, 2008, p67)
I should check which of these film shots applies to my photography and image making:
If moving still is used (it is anticipated) then consider dissolves etc (Campany, 2008, p83)
Photograph and Cinema – Photography in Film /
As noted by Barthes and recorded in Campaney underlying the stillness of photography is Death. Indeed that theme underlies the loss in my narrative and again as memory is lost as other pass. (Campany, 2008, p96)
The photo novel La Jetee I find has resonance with my practice. “European filmmakers since 1945 include memory, history, war, identity, loss, desire and uncertainty” as themes and many of these apply. (Campany, 2008, p96)
Taking La Jetee a step further is is described in terms of “the patchy nature of the imagination and promise of redemption” (Campany, 2008, p101). The former is a very strong theme of my abstraction process. I need to think how redemption applies or could be applied.
Photograph and Cinema – Art and the Film Still
Trompe l’oeile addresses the details that give realism to cinema/stills.(Campany, 2008, p119). I need to consider this aspect as I largely remove detail to spare the viewer, and improves the aesthetic. However, I wonder if the additional layer of lines of poetry for example would compensate if included visually in support of the abstractions.
There seems to be a problem of stills not carrying forward narrative meanings. (Campany, 2008, p135). Perhaps the origins of my work in a narrative text clouded this for me as photographer and I should give narrative more attention. So far, a title and call and response captions are all I use. Note to self, to think this through further.
Sontag, S. (1977) On Photography. Penguin Bo. Penguin Modern Classics.
Szarkowski, J. (1980) ‘Introduction [IN] The photographer’s eye’, in Szarkowski, J. (ed.) The photographer’s eye. London: Secker and Warburg, pp. 6–11.
Think about your work each week under the following headings:
1: Aim of the work
What are you trying to say or express with your work? What is its ‘intent’ (this will change from week to week, but in the final Critical Review should explicitly refer to your Work in Progress Portfolio). Refer to your research here – does anyone else try to explore similar issues?
The intent is to close a gap in communication made to me as a child where those missing were never mentioned and hence the gap, and how it has been possible decades later to recognise these gaps and magically fill in these gaps.
The intent is to relate myself and family as a diaspora to events of the past and to a culture left behind – a family healed.
The intent is to reference specific others in the past and through reflected trauma in the main create the closest of ties to ancestor.
How did you try achieve this intention? What does the work look like? What is it’s subject matter?. Is it successful? Why? How does it differ?
The work had three and this week another, so three strands of abstract imagery now based upon-
Trauma (healing) – Life’s Force (glow ) – and Impression (as image captured)
The images become consistent and yet have different characteristics:
Trauma both mental and physical take on a depiction upon which the injury as it was photographed allows the eye to settle. There is trace yet is unlikely that reality would reach out to the viewer.
Glow is apparent as an indicator of health and well being and localises to subject areas photographed and varies with shadow effect and source lighting or now use of flash.
Impression is the transitory mark left upon the body as a trace of some object.
There are two levels of abstract processing now often combined in my work. There are edges and marks with horizontal landscape and vertical atmosphere and combined where visible reference to tartan.
The second level is immediately noticed by the high saturation levels of colours. These are trace, being present in or reflected from the subject. As in the darkroom level s are reduced to allow glow to emerge, it is when the colours are again raised that the glow appears and th
