Hangouts 2.7.20 – 8.10.20

I have been involved in this group since I started Documentary, there are usually 6-8 of us in the discussion (1 member is now on level 3) and we have formed quite a close group. 2 more members have now submitted for assignment but we are going to stay as a group and it is already useful having conversations with peers who are working at level 3 as well as peers outside of the UK.

I normally post these sessions on my blog individually but thought I would post them in one chunk here as the form a useful digest of my learning progress whilst working n part 3.

Documentary fact and fiction hangout 2.7.20

We had some useful discussions on:

• Putting images to music (Jack)
• Personal voice
• Blurb books versa lightroom for book making (Bob)
• The recent Documentary Reconsidered zoom talk which some of us watched

I shared the scars that I’m intending to use for hash tags in assignment 2, they were found to be very lifelike which is good.

Documentary fact and fiction hangout 13.8.20

Bob shared his assignment 3 work based around his cat with dementia and we gave him feedback.

We spent much time discussing digital assessment. Jack particularly enjoyed curating his work for digital assessment and has subsequently built his own website (using Ben Smith from Small Voice podcasts). However Bob feels that printing your photographs is central to putting yourself into your work and its disappointing that we aren’t able to submit prints.

I should stay open to different approaches to exhibiting and curating work, especial for level 3.

I shared some initial thoughts that I’ve had on my assignment 3 work.

OCA Documentary photography hangout 24.9.20

I was booked on this hangout but my mother had been taken badly ill and consequently I’d not re-edited a series to show since my Thame Valley Meeting the previous week, so I was intending to just say hello and apologise and leave the hangout. In the event I stayed for the hangout, when I explained my position everyone was really supportive.

I had also just picked up the message from the OCA that my Tutor is no longer available, so I was in a bit of a spin, with that and all sorts of circumstances conspiring against me.

I talked about my intentions to return to photographing the carpark to exploit its mundaness, with the story being how it transitions from quiet, to busy, to quiet. Through this ideas came up such as places in vacuum (Jack Latham was suggested ) and those with no context and transience.

We also talked about possible text to put with the images, in particular incidents in carparks and what I’d been overhearing.

I’m going to follow up on a couple of works suggested: Jack Latham “Parilment of Owls” and Jan Svobada.

I’m also going to email to ask for  a Tutor to submit to, and to contact Dan Robinson to ask for breathing space in view of circumstances should I need it.

OCA Documentary photography hangout 8.10.20

We talked a lot about level 3 work and one note I have made is possibly to link my assignment 5 to something that will share the work, like Instagram or even the village telegraph pole.

It was useful to talk about bookmaking; we discussed flipbooks, blurb books, and books made in lightroom, some feel the later are better quality than the pdf produced in draft for blurb.

I also reminded myself to look out the learning objectives and refer to these rather than the assessment criteria.

Since the last hangout I had returned to Pembrokeshire and had been able to photograph again for assignment 3.

Following from the TVG meeting I introduced my reworked draft “Breathe in Breath out”. Since the TVG meeting I’d returned to my original idea of the car park as an entity to showcase the way the area goes from quite to busy to quiet; making the car park not the people my focus. I have also tried to contrast the flatness of the car park in bad weather as a contrast to the vibrancy of the height of the season shots. 

I have also considered how to show that it is only one car park and have done this by including in most images the bus shelter to anchor the location; it now seems that this has become a monitor of the “breath in breathe out”.

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Suggestions and questions:

• Could I begin with the vibrant busy images and work down to the empty quiet images?
• Do I need to have 10 images as briefs seem to be more flexible?
• Consider exploiting the lines seen and no lines seen
• Really focus on absence and presence

Actions following the meeting:

• Rework again starting with the Kayak image, then review my contact sheets for other images.
• Text wise I am still considering whether I should use statements from the press about lockdown or the local area a bit like Anna fox did in her Basingstoke work using press statements about the town.

Next Post: https://nkssite5.photo.blog/category/research/a3-research/additional-research/