OCA VIRTUAL HANGOUT MEETING

/ niki

OCA HANGOUT TUTOR LED: ANDREA NORRINGTON 13.5.20

RESEARCH: HOW AND WHY    

WHY TO RESEARCH

  • Research is essential to move work on, stimulate broaden knowledge.
  • Copying is a good way to improve your own photography then develop your own style:
  • Gives you attention to detail and helps you understand technical aspects

Rankin shoots Bailey: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p010wn00 where David Bailey – recreation of an iconic photograph

Photographer Rankin recreates a famous photographic image. He works alongside David Bailey on the famous 1963 Vogue picture of model Jean Shrimpton, using 1960s photographic technology.

Bailey brought energy, charm and Technical brilliance to fashion photography and produced iconic images. Here Rankin tries to cop’s Bailey’s image of Jean Shrimpton with his own girlfriend posing:

Uses a rolliflex the same backdrop, same cardboard flap for wind, same pose…Then shot digitally to compare. The point was that he learnt a lot by going through the copying process.

Also watch Richard Avelon: Contesian (2015) Richard Avedon 7 fashion photographs that Changed the world BBC: At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj5O0sRXSlQ (Accessed 18/05/2020).

HOW TO RESEARCH:

  • Think laterally and use other media poetry, music, art, tv, films
  • Look at lighting and the construction of photos
  • Delve deep but explore wide
  • Follow up references on what you’re reading
  • Read what’s interesting
  • Move on if something is not grabbing you – be selective
  • Remember to look at the stars not your feet – Stephen Hawkins

“So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious, and however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.”

Professor Stephen Hawking from speech given at Cambridge University in 2017.

OCA article recommended by Andrea on being curious: https://www.oca.ac.uk/weareoca/creative-writing/being-curious/

OCA librarian Helen Barrett – Students are welcome to contact for any help (e.g. using the Online Library) this was new to me that we can contact and use her, for referencing and even if looking for research outside of UCA/OCA). Contact details are:  library@oca.ac.uk or Ask the Librarian on OCA Discuss. Helen works work Monday to Friday 8.30-14.30. Also as part of the OCA Learn launch, Helen has also created a Library guide for photography students https://ucreative.libguides.com/OCAPhotography

ON REFERENCING: Good to re find that UCA recommends paperpile

RESEARCH ACTION

  • Your response
  • 30 second rule – take 30 sec straight afterwards only to record my response/important points
  • Key elements you take from a photographer’s work – As I do

Maybe I should keep an index of my photographers research across all courses – this would be good for work that’s not relevant at the moment or that I’ve not used.

SYSTEMS

  • Guilty of open tab syndrome. Maybe back them up on a draft sheet?
  • Check out Evernote for storing you tube links *** trellofor note taking notion for note taking

ALIVE V DEAD TIME

  • So much content online at the moment, share with others even if it’s poor
  • Be critical of your sources question everything
  • Think about the source of the story- context/angle
  • If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking – be divergent

Robert Bloomfield post decolonising the curriculum about placing yourself within the perspective of the course you’re on: Decolonising the curriculum – a ‘serious need’? | The Open College of the Arts (2020) At: https://www.oca.ac.uk/weareoca/education/decolonising-the-curriculum-a-serious-need/ (Accessed 18/05/2020).

Padlet of this session:    https://oca.padlet.org/andreanorrington/laq2kvhc5mpg

MY LEARNING AND ACTION POINTS

  • Its definitely okay to copy to learn!
  • Remember to be critical of all sources
  • Use the OCA librarian as a resource
  • Note to self to make a personal index of research done on photographers across all courses
  • Checkout evernote for storing you tube links?
  • Be curious – don’t let the course work stifle my curiosity; so don’t feel guilty about taking time now to access all the virtual material available even if its slows me down
  • Look for Dan Robison q and A on new assessment under the forum photography under Covid 19.

References:

BBC Two – Bitesize Secondary, Creative and Media, Media, David Bailey – recreation of an iconic photograph (s.d.) In: BBC At: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p010wn00 (Accessed 18/05/2020).

NEXT POST: https://nkssite5.photo.blog/category/learning-log-research-and-reflection/photographer-talks/mohamed-bourouissa-16-5-20/

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