Category Archives: Progress Reports

Learning Log, Progress Reports

Regular Reflection – January 1

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Reading:

  • Ranciere – Notes on the photographic image
  • Playing to the Gallery – Greyson Perry
    • His written version of the Reith lectures – fascinating and funny! Gives an overview of what he thinks about the contemporary art scene
  • Thinking about art – Penny Huntsman
    • A general book on the history of art (not just photography) – secondary to my decision to generally learn more about art history so that I can put the photography scene into context
  • People of the 21st century – Hans Eijkelboom – his work on people and their similarities (and differences) see notes Hans Eijkelboom

Photography:

  • Still no further forward with pictures for A2 – think I an going to have to completely change subject
  • Started on images of people with ASD and their families. Met up with a couple (and baby) and did some work with them
    • This has led to some thoughts as to what I might want to take forward
      • People with their favourite image (to an image of their favourite artist)
      • People mimicking the person they would most like to be, or someone who inspires them

Hangouts/zoom:

 

Thinking:

  • See above – lots of ideas about ASD work rolling around in my head – just not sure how to fit it into OCA course
Exhibitions, Learning Log, Progress Reports

Regular Reflections – December 2

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Reading: (limited because of Xmas chaos)

  • Started Train your Gaze fascinating information and would like to find time to work on the exercises
  • Carpe Fucking Diem by Elina Brotherus, a tale of sorrow, loneliness and despair, bookended by sections of life. Favourite image – the blossoms, white against grey, (? cherries). How can you reveal yourself to others so nakedly? No words, none needed.

Exhibitions:

  • BP portrait of the year at the Scottish National portrait gallery.
    • https://www.nationalgalleries.org/exhibition/bp-portrait-award-201
      • https://www.bbc.com/reel/playlist/portrait-of-an-artist
      • A documentary about what makes a portrait – worth seeing, talks about the guilt a painter feels for exposing the sitter to the public, and how the sitter feels for being exposed, how the judging was done – it doesn’t have to be crystal clear, its often the things you can’t figure out, how people feel when they have been shortlisted, the intensity of painting
    • Seen this most years but this will be the last time up here because been withdrawn from the calendar because of links with the oil industry
    • Favourite image – 3rd prize – Quo Vadis? By Massimiliano Pironti. Oil on aluminium. Magic picture that looks so real you want to stroke it. He says vanitas like effect of open window and hot water bottle referencing passing of time.
    • 2nd favourite – Girl without a pearl earring – Bas Nijenhuis – apparently someone the artist met in the street and asked to paint.
    • Also Openings Thomas Ehretsmann – monochrome acrylic on wood of a girl, shadows and doors – reminds me of Woodman images
    • Travel award portraits – fascinating series by Robert Seidel about travel the length of the Danube.
  • Scotland’s Photograph Album, the McKinnon Collection
  • Oscar Marzaroli at Street Level in Glasgow
    • http://www.streetlevelphotoworks.org/event/oscar-marzaroli
    • Wonderful images of Glasgow
    • Favourite is the Golden Haired Lass
    • Interesting contrast between his images and the Annan ones taken almost a century earlier, both showing children from the slums, the later ones only slightly cleaner than the earlier and several others in between such as Bert Hardy.

Scottish OCA Group meeting:

  • Started by seeing the Oscar Marzaroli exhibition as above, excellent exhibition, beautifully hung, images stand out against new colour of walls (calendar obtained)
  • Discussed at length the problems with focus, the need for a plan, a beginning, middle and end, possibly even using a GANT chart! Actually do things, even if not directly relevant to get your mind working.
  • Think about using a photographers Playbook type approach to make you do work you are uncomfortable with and stretch you.
  • Get feedback – who from? not just friends and family but outsiders
  • Could we do a group art show?
  • For the future – think about how you would die a proposal, time-limited and budgeted. How do you value your time?
  • Consider
    • Dora Marr exhibition
    • Jonathon Owens pictures
    • The Extended Mind at the Talbot-Rice gallery
  • Discussed the zines we experimented with
  • Need to consider use of flash within portrait photography, especially if inside.

Photography:

  • Flowers – to make a New Year’s card. I haven’t taken any for ages and found it surprisingly difficult to get back into the groove
  • The photoshop play to make the card

Planning:

  • Working on contacting a group of ASD people, reasonable interest gained from local support group – but no actual meetings planned to the New Year. 

 

Learning Log, Progress Reports

Regular Reflections – December 1

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Weeks ending 06/12/19

Reading and Seeing:

  • Finally finished Theatre of the Face, notes made and overall write up posted
  • Aperture – Spirituality – very interesting issue. Favourite pieces
    • Essay on Spirituality from works by Krishnamarti
    • To see the unseeable – on astrological photography
  • The photobook review – too much that I would like , too little money!
  • Carnegie face  – by Calum Colvin 

Photography:

  • Continuing to work on images for A3 – attending the club and making relationships
  • Unfortunately, no further forward with A2
  • Used photo taken earlier to try out making a Newspaper with the newspaper club – fairly successful

Online:

Thinking:

  • How to move forward with A2 – still stuck

 

 

Learning Log, Progress Reports

Regular Reflections – November 3

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Reading:

  • Bates – The Memory of photography, and then discussing it on the photographic readers group. Fascinating essay – which spiralled off into a range of discussions about archives and there meaning together with ‘fire hosing’ – a term I was not familiar with.

Online:

Photography:

  • Started working on the images for A3 – attending a club for war gamers. I put some of the images up on their website and asked for captions – which were often funny. The main complaint was – why isn’t there one of me – so I am definitely welcome back!
  • Still failing on images for A2 – combination of weather and health. May have to rethink.

Thinking:

About the issues involved in talking images of children combining today’s political climate with real worries about what is shown where.

 

Learning Log, Progress Reports

Regular Reflections – November 2

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Week ending – 51/11/19

Reading and seeing:

  • Andrea Modica – Treadwell with an interesting essay by E. Annie Proulx
  • Attended an exhibition at the local library by David Mach – Odyssey, an which he has made a sculpture of containers and sea objects. Accompanied by a video talk about how he built it and the need for repurposing items together with the interest in the use of shipping containers across the world.
  • Also saw exhibition on the local collection of objects from the Far East, interestingly it showed how the marks on the china often were misleading, in that they were copied from earlier pieces onto ones made for overseas trade!

Online:

Planning:

  • Settled on work for A3 – have contacted a local gaming club and will start photographing and attending from the weekend.
    • Discussion with the chairperson about the problems of photographing under 18’s in todays restrictive society without formal permission from parents. There are interesting questions there
      • What age does the restriction cut in, heath uses a 16 year cut-off for all consent, which under Scottish Law is the age of adulthood while the council uses 18 which is the age people may still be in school
      • How much memory are we loosing? I have multiple pictures of my children at school events from nursery up – but there is a moratorium on taking these now, equally I was told you can’t take pictures at cub events such as sitting around a campfire if you show anyone’s face. Is this political correctness gone mad? Why are people so scared? What are the real risks? Is it all secondary to social media?
Learning Log, Progress Reports

Regular Reflections November 1

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Week ending 08/11/19

Reading:

  • Clare Strand – Monograph, a general overview of her work until 2009 accompanied by essays. The essays give an insight into how she thinks and her interest in fantasy and what photographs can mean
  • BMJ December (7890) – mainly on depictions of America
    • I really enjoyed Blackwater River by Lawrence and Patterson. The images are luminous and varied and interestingly show a mixture of black and white and colour images

Online:

This week there was a lot of articles about competitions and shortlists.

Another interesting article was about the work by Mike Goldwater on the London Underground- which fits in with some of my earlier reading

Thinking:

As I am nearly at the end of part 2 I am thinking about possibilities for final work for part 3 which will need some time. Possibilities are;

  • The local running club
  • One of the local knitting clubs
  • The local choral society.

I am not members of any of these so any will take some considerable work-up.

Learning Log, Progress Reports

Regular Reflections – October 3

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Week ending 01/11/19

Photography

  • Exploration of use of animal cloths as backdrops for an outdoor studio
  • Retake of some of the images for 3 people in same place
  • Playing with use of reflection in a bus window

Reading and listening:

  • More from Kozloff’s The Theatre of the Face
  • Lots of articles on Clare Strand and Irving Penn to make sense of their different uses of a studio
  • Podcasts on Daniel Meadows, David Moore and Todd Hido
  • New podcast series – The Way I See It – on various scientists talking about their favourite piece of art from MOMA. Fascinating as they link the art to their other interests, a jazz musician saw a piano score in Piet Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie-Woogie – something I would never have thought of, but totally get on reflection.

Online:

Outing:

  • Attended the Scottish OCA Photography groups bi-monthly meeting
    • Saw the open exhibition at Street Level. Some fascinating pieces of work. I particularly liked a typology of hands by Alex Hetherington, a zine about part of Glasgow (Govanhill) and 3 small wet collodion plates by Lorenzo Dalberto, although I could have given the entire list. Of particular interest (and pointed out by tutor Wendy McMurdo) was the extremely wide range of ways people used th show their images, ranging from books and a zine to traditional frames.
    • Discussed the possibility of handmaking books to show images, both as a more flexible approach to design and as an alternative to getting things printed by Blurb or similar
    • Looked at possibility of producing a Newspaper club zine – as an exercise for our next meeting
    • Long discussion on the need for editing and how to do so in the context of massive archives of material, especially when not already digitised. Could you pick out a small number of images, or think about typologies.
    • Thinking about archives – suggested look at work of Joachim Schmid on found photographs
    • Also Erik Kessler
    • Suggested looking at work of Christelle Lebas – work Field Studies where she looked at the pictures of a Victorian ethnobotanist and went back to reshoot them with great difficulty due to the changes in the areas
    • Discussed work by 2 of our members, interestingly both looking at things to with relatives. Used very different approaches, both valid but giving very different feels.
    • Discussed the possibility of using videos of the way work is produced to make it easier to understand conceptual pieces
    • Discussed the possibility of using projections of images and then taking more images of the projected ones.
  • Overall a fascinating day, with thanks to Wendy for tutoring it and Neil for organising it!

Work done:

  • Finished the exercise on one person in 5 backgrounds. Great difficulty in choosing the images
  • Still working on ‘the aware’ as a concept

 

 

Learning Log, Progress Reports

Regular Reflections October 2

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Week ending 25/10/19

Reading:

  • Mary Ellen Mack – on the Portrait and the Moment
    • Interesting workshop on her thoughts about what makes a portrait work, heavy on the images, light on words – but very informative
  • Sian Davey – Looking for Alice
    • Reread – one of the books I am collecting that show images of people with disabilities and how that impacts on their or their families/friends lives

Online:

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-artists-share-advice-preventing-burnout?utm_content=st-V-picks&utm_medium=email&utm_source=18238497-nl-ntf&utm_campaign=ntf&fbclid=IwAR1X_aSKpHMhlioIhTk7txw44V0Lmjs1Bg6fhQUBsUvEGXS9JNsk9QUryC8

  • about burnout and how to avoid

https://www.bjp-online.com/2019/10/portrait-of-humanity-defying-the-myth/?utm_campaign=Portrait%20of%20Humanity%202019&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=78427269&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8k8Kv2S–hXLmSINoLm4hMAqgkb93VIc–U9X4fHG3In6WfJBbdDxRYG4znQiq4MXlFEaUwk_N11sdWkiBs7HJtZm9OB-hVgM3vFT1lkZn-c6el0s&_hsmi=78427269

  • an article about people with disabilities

Photography:

  • Initial work up on images of 3 people with some trial runs looking for good viewpoints around our local abbey
  • Taking images of 3 people – at the abbey, unfortunately limited by very poor light conditions so very dark inside the abbey, not practical to use a flash even if I had a set up
  • Some general images of the abbey to show historical background
  • Phone photography of the area and the lovely autumn colour (+ some heavy rain)
  • Started working on a long-term project of taking random images of unusual rubbish on the streets – this is for personal interest and as a play project!

Work done:

  • Finished initial write up on the aware and summary piece

Thinking:

  • Still lacking in mojo so decided just to take pictures rather than thinking about it!
  • Considering how to start working on long-term plan on showing mental health and its effects on the families

 

Learning Log, Progress Reports

Regular Reflections October 1

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Week ending 18/10/19

Further to discussion with another OCA student who commented that she was advised to do weekly summaries by her tutor I remembered that i used to do exactly that and found it helpful. So, I will try again.

Reading:

  • Theatre of the Face – Max Kozloff
    • Fascinating if hard going at times
  • The Autobiography of Miss Wish – Nina Bernard
    • Depressing – important tale to be told, a long-term history of a person struggling with life
  • Big Brother – Louis Quail
    • Rereading, love this book
  • Now and Then, England 197- 2015 – Daniel Meadows
    • Summary of life’s work with additional stories
  • Mother – Paul Graham
    • Loads of thoughts here, wish I had done similar, poignant images that show that focusing on the face is not always essential

On-line:

Photography:

  • Mass of archive boxes and photo albums
  • A cat in a box
  • Random things in the street
    • Should I have another go at a daily photograph? And see what I can see? Practice at looking.
  • Looking at and starting to sort archival photos from my husband’s family

Planning:

  • How to take images for Vice Versa
    • Possibility of using curtain as a backdrop
    • Can I use Sam and family? – against an animal background possibly?
  • Organising shoot of 3 people in same place – delayed for practical reasons, availability of subjects and weather

Thoughts:

  • I wish I hadn’t missed the opportunity of doing a similar project to Paul Grahams mother.
  • Wondering about taking pictures of slowly dismantling her house and belongings, sacks for the charity, rubbish, empty cupboards etc. Again, a partly missed chance as process already started and maybe too raw.
  • Struggling to get my mojo together at the present. Too many changes recently and too much time spent doing nothing.

 

Coursework, Introduction to Course, Learning Log, Progress Reports

A Square Mile -update

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A Square Mile – A Walk in the Park

I did the Square Mile exercise at the very beginning of this course of study, now over 2 years ago. At the time I was pleased with it. It was the first time I had done a piece of work that was designed to ‘tell a story’ for many years. Looking back, while I still think it was interesting (I focused on the very changeable weather in a Scottish spring) in reality the images did not tell much about the local area and what it means to me. It was about the wider place – Scotland, and the time of year – spring, and the weather – variable!

If I redid this exercise now – and I might yet do so – I would concentrate on the places that I go to and see regularly, my street, the local coffee shop, the comic book store, the library and the people I meet at these places. It would be an interesting exercise to stand outside my house and take pictures of everyone who walks along the street over a few hours. I might get some very odd looks and need to do a lot of explanation, but it would tell a lot about the area especially if I got a little bit of information from everyone – who they were, what they did, and why they were there.

Simply thinking about this shows how much my attitudes to photography have changed over the 2 years and also how much my confidence has grown. At that stage I would not have thought about asking relative strangers to allow me to take pictures of them – now I am considering the implications and the need for a card to give them together with an information sheet on the project!