Reflecting on my journey through Identity and Place I took a tour back through all of the work that I have produced, and then took the time to reflect on my work, my working practices, and how they have evolved over the course, and why. Before starting, it would be true to say that I […]
Category: Learning Log
End of Course Learning Outcomes
LO1 demonstrate an ability to make technically accomplished photographic work and apply technique purposefully and appropriately I think that my Assignment 5 is the most technically accomplished piece of work. I think this due to the technical technique used in capturing the images, but also in the editing and production techniques to create the physical book. […]
Book: Jail Keys Made Here by Lee Boltin
As part of researching the photography of signs for my Assignment 5, I came across the book, Jail Keys Made Here (Boltin, 1959) The book is not art, it not trying to say anything other than highlight some of the signs the photographer, Lee Boltin, has come across in his travels across America and that he […]
Photographer: Keith Arnatt
Arnatt studied painting at Oxford and then art at the Royal Academy Schools (Keith Arnatt, n.d.). His interests lay in conceptual art; particularly the reductionist element of that movement and “in relating the presentation of art objects to the contexts of their viewing in a way that sought to activate those contexts.” (ibid.). Reductionism This concept is […]
Photographer: Moussa Kalapo
I came across Kalapo when reading the Summer 2020 edition of the RPS Contemporary Photography journal (Ashley, 2020). The images that I saw are typical of those that I might have passed over before my studies but have come to appreciate more and more because of the story that they tell rather than their aesthetic impact, although […]
Photographer: Richard Wentworth
I researched Wentworth after finding him within the course texts. The images that I could find online piqued my interest in the way that he has used considerable attention to detail in isolating small pieces of reality to create interesting, sometimes amusing, images. I decided to purchase the book Making Do and Getting By which contains hundreds […]
Photographer: Michelle Sank
I researched Michelle Sank after finding her through the British Journal of Photography. Sank’s collection where the collection My.Self is portrayed (Warner, 2018). The collection was created by Sank by simply approaching young people in the area of Sandwell and asking to photograph them in their bedrooms. I think that Sanks, as a woman, was perhaps more able […]
Reflection Point: Fact or fiction
I touched on this area in my reflection on Assignment 4. In my day job, I am successful or not by how much ambiguity I manage to remove from situations and I think that this flows over into my photography. I think I am prone to trying too hard to mark my pictures explicit. This is analogous […]
Photographer: Aubrey Wade
I discovered Wade through the British Journal of Photography and a feature on her collection covering refugees in the UK and the families that have adopted them (Clifford, 2018). The images are taken from her project ‘No Stranger Place’. As well as the subject matter and the images themselves, I was interested in the extensive use of […]
Photographer: Karen Yeomans
I came across this photographer as she was featured by the Association of Photographers (AOP) (Yeomans, 2020). In her profile on the AOP site she says “I’m on a mission to help women be seen, it makes my creative heartbeat. I search for alternative representations of femininity through photography to discover the strength and depth of its […]
Photographer: Steve McCurry
Steve McCurry is known for his images of India. I chose to look at his images in more detail because I was specifically reflecting on a conversation that I had with my tutor about the importance of framing and the attention to detail in images, even when they are taken in non-posed situations. McCurry’s images are mainly […]
Photographer: Cocoa Laney
I came across Laney as I was attending a talk held by the Royal Photographic Society based largely on her project ‘belle’ (RPS,2020). Her project interested me because in many of her images, and outside of the image itself, she makes strong use of text. Laney describes herself in the following way “an American documentary photographer currently […]
Photographer: Gregory Crewdson
Gregory Crewdson photographs tableaux photographs (Gregory Crewdson, 2020), meaning constructed scenes in which he aims to tell a complete story in a single shot. His images are influenced by films such as those from Hitchcock (ibid.) and this is very clear looking at most of his images which are filmic in their appearance, Fig. 1 is an […]
Research: Rhetoric of the image – anchorage and relay
Learning from reading paper I read Barthes’ Rhetoric of the Image (Barthes, 1964) in which he uses the image of an advertisement for Italian food ingredients, but used within France, to illustrate his concepts (see Fig 1.) The overarching thrust of his paper (which is written in his usual style and means that it takes […]
Exercise 4.1: Looking at Advertisements
This reflection is based upon Dawn Woolley’s assessment of the avert “There’s a science to looking good” (Woolley, 2016). This is an advert for Clinique face wash for men along with some kind of scrubbing machine – both produced in a metal looking grey (see Fig. 1). The initial part of the analysis focuses on […]
Photographer: Stephen Gill
Stephen Gill, born 1971 (Stephen Gill (photographer), n.d.), has produced a series of collections that are predominantly inspired by living in East London. Many of his images are of everyday scenes that one might walk past and never take the time to stop and study them. An example might be one shown below in Fig. […]
Exercise 3.3: Portraying under-represented groups
This piece reflects on how marginalised or underrepresented groups could be badly portrayed and how being an insider might help combat this. For the exercise I thought about the homeless people and in particular a group that is supported by a charity that one of my daughters works for – they deal with those who have […]
Photographer: Nial McDiarmid
Background I researched Niall McDiarmid after he was suggested to me by my tutor after Assignment 2. In my Assignment 2 Reflection, I had made a bit of a throw away remark that I had chosen black and white presentation of my images because I wanted to position my images in the street photography domain, […]
Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2019
I visited the Taylor Wessing 2019. Photographic Portrait Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery . Previously, when I was reflecting on Assignment 2, I wrote “ I did feel that the need to capture the subject as the main person in the frame did reduce creativity in terms of one’s ability to control the frame and […]
Fill-in Flash to balance daylight, and the effect on what the viewer sees – Ken Grant
As part of my feedback for Assignment 1, my tutor suggested I take a look at Ken Grant and in particular look at how the images with flash compare to those without the flash. The images below are taken from Grant’s collection ‘The Birdhouse’. He has not captioned the individual images on his website (Grant, […]
Background and outside context
I am currently in the part of the course that deals with street and studio and so I am coming to appreciate the significance and choices of either approach and the impact that it can make. I’ve been reflecting on the fact that outside context is equally important and today was reading an article on […]
Leaving Space
Having just completed Context and Narrative with a key learning point of leaving space for the viewer to make up their own story, it is a point that is very top of mind at the moment. Today I was talking with my wife who is learning to paint in watercolour and she has learned the […]
Diane Arbus and random portraits
Having read ahead to Assignment 1, I have already started to think about just how that might pan out – and wondering if it is really is possible to simply walk up to several strangers. With this top of mind, and whilst researching Diane Arbus as part of reading the course text, I found this […]