Reading and watching:

Still suffering from the problem that there is so much out there to watch at the moment that I get overwhelmed.

• Watched Street Level talks with Graham McIndoe and Sakai Machache. Very different photographers but equally fascinating to hear talk about their work
• Watched part of a TPG talk on surveillance in the digital age but got very confused (and my system kept cutting out) so gave up. It is something I am interested in though- so need to think about further
• Read Justine Kurland – Girl Portraits
• Continued to read Dorothea Lange autobiography
• Looked at photographers for A5, Eggleston, Wentworth, Shore, Frank, brill, Lipper, etc (all written up in main posts.
• Reread Charlotte Cotton – Photography as Contemporary Art – it made much more sense this time around (3^rd go)
• Read Perec’s book on Exhausting Paris – actually found fascinating
• Looked at Obsessed by San Yunchu – really enjoyed this, A vision feeling about modern China and the people there
• Looked at Lullaby for a Bride by Julia Borissova. A hand-made book/rat work (not bound but in a small folder) of images that tell the story of a Russian folk tale – minimalistic images interspersed with more archival looking ones
• Continuing to read Siri Hustvedt essays on all things to do with arts and writing
• Looked at Julia Crockett’s website o9n her grandmother – all archival work and fascinating reading
• Reading a lot about travel photography – from early to right now. Change in ethos about the subject – new less straight documentary and more about feelings and emotions
• Looked at Jonathan Levitt’s Echo Mask – loved it, telling about a place via emotive pictures and prose poetry.
• Reading Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McNulty – not directly related to photography but his words are as good as pictures

Thinking and doing:

• Attended IAP zoom – these are very useful – partly for support and partly as a way to float ideas that may or may not pan out
• Started a Padlet for collecting learning outcomes for assessment
• Attended zoom for crossover between IAP and level 2. Had several people who are doing/have done Level 2 talking about the different courses available. Useful information and lots of helpful advice that amounted to as long as you are prepared to put the work in they are all valuable, and can all work into your specific interests
• Attended zoom for the OCA Scotland (or whatever it is) group
• Had tutorial for A4 – went much better than I expected
• Spent time working out how to show Polaroid type on the blog – you really miss out the feel of the actual piece in your hand
• Started to think about A5. Planning to do a further archival series on my mother mixing words and images
  • Could be either a book /PDF or a video
  • Lots of research needed
• Attended OCA zoom on Write where you are – very interesting, looking at ways of writing about things, on this case places, fits in well with the IAP work, writing differently

Photography:

• Finished images for A4 and sent to tutor
• Took pictures of eggs(!) for still life exercise
• Pictures of dead flowers – also for still life
• Images for Exhausting Cameron Street to go with the observation of the same
• Polaroids type images of local journey- enjoyed doing this – point, shoot and pray – so very important to previsualise what you are trying to take .