I have recently attended a zoom meeting with Andrea Norrington on research. The PowerPoint for the meeting is available here: https://oca.padlet.org/andreanorrington/laq2kvhc5mpg  (Norrington, s.d.) and here: https://discuss.oca-student.com/t/tutor-led-zoom-for-level-1-2-photography-may-session-research-how-and-why/12031/19 so I will not repeat everything in it, just give my own thoughts and note the ‘activities’ it has caused me to do.

Why do research?

• This seemed a rather superfluous question to me – but apparently some people don’t think it is necessary or relevant
• The question about the ‘risk of copying’ other people’s work came up. Andrea pointed out that this is one of the best ways to learn. Certainly, I understand that it was always part of any Fine Art curriculum until recently.
• It is actually hard to copy – everyone has their own style and ways of doing things. Copying something may well give you new ideas.
• She showed the Rankin shoots Bailey clip and suggested that we should look at some of the others on the series
  • Note to self – do this
• I was just looking at the work of Julia Fullerton-Batten (as she was one of a group of artists offering to sell prints in aid of charity) and saw the image Ophelia , which is directly based on the John Everett Millais work of the same name. She went to vast effort to copy it accurately. See here for the picture: https://www.juliafullerton-batten.com/gallery.php?gallNo=87&photoNo=4&catNo=1 (Fullerton-Batten, s.d.) and here for the explanation https://www.juliafullerton-batten.com/galltext.php?photoNo=603&catNo=1&gallNo=87 (Fullerton-Batten, s.d.)

Research:

• Think laterally
• Explore the whole time period
• Use books, films, poetry (and presumably music) to inspire
• Think outside the box, follow up references and footnotes – they may take you off on a completely different but productive stream
• Be curious
• Go down that rabbit hole (just remember to come up)!
• Be critical of sources

Referencing:

• Be rigorous
• Use a rolling bibliography
• I have been using MyBib – but had not realised that the version of Harvard the OCA uses is slightly different from standard
  • I am now checking all my references
  • I have installed Zotero (with some difficulty) and am trying that out

Be Practical:

• Think about what you can read and when
• Try setting up a regular time of day
• Used the 30 second rule to take really quick notes after you have seen/watched /read things
• Have an organised system for keeping notes and storing resources
  • Try Evernote
  • Try Notion
  • Problem is I do most of my immediate work on a tablet and not much seems to work with that,
    • Find one that does
  • Keep notes and mark if good or awful so you don’t waste time going back to something that is useless
  • Remember that something you read now may be useful later

Plan for myself:

• Check out Zotero and Paperpile- done
• Check out Evernote/Notion
• Look into Padlet
• Print out UCA Harvard referencing – done
• Follow up the Library webinars over the summer – see: https://discuss.oca-student.com/t/library-online-and-library-webinars-over-the-summer/12073

References:

Fullerton-Batten, J. (s.d.) Ophelia ,. At: https://www.juliafullerton-batten.com/gallery.php?catNo=1&gallNo=87&photoNo=4 (Accessed  17/05/2020a).

Fullerton-Batten, J. (s.d.) Ophelia – Story,. At: https://www.juliafullerton-batten.com/galltext.php?photoNo=603&catNo=1&gallNo=87 (Accessed  17/05/2020b).

Norrington, A. (2020) Tutor Led Zoom for Level 1 / 2 Photography – May Session – Research: How and Why. At: https://discuss.oca-student.com/t/tutor-led-zoom-for-level-1-2-photography-may-session-research-how-and-why/12031/28 (Accessed  17/05/2020).

Norrington, A. (s.d.) Photography Zoom Talks 2019/2020. At: https://oca.padlet.org/andreanorrington/laq2kvhc5mpg (Accessed  17/05/2020).

.