ASSIGNMENT THREE DRAFT: REFLECTIONS AGAINST ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

December 13, 2020February 11, 2021 / niki / Leave a comment

Demonstration of technical and visual skills

This assignment was shot over a few months and I observed the space much more than I shot, my observational skills sharpened as I worked into the project.
My framing became more deliberate through the shooting period, especially my awareness of what was outside of the frame.
I tried a variety of lens, perspective and shot at different times of day, in different weathers and through seasonal changes, to give visual variety; I had to learn to accommodate rather than hide inconsistencies in lighting and colour. My visual strategy incorporated these inconsistencies moving from saturated to less saturated duller images through the sequence.
To communicate my concept, I chose to present the images as small and “compressed” for the busy season to larger images gradually to larger images for the quiet season to narrate the feeling of breathing in to breathing out that occurs during this transition.
In retrospect I would make the text smaller on the cover,

Quality of outcome

My concept is straightforward but communicating it took quite a bit of experimenting. I settled on sharing the transition just from busy to quiet rather than beginning from quiet initially. I think this communicates the transition more strongly.
Campbell (2010) says that events have their meaning formed by the narrative, I hope my choice of images (edited many times) combined with the sequencing helps to give meaning.
I would like to reshoot the final image as a completely empty car park – which I am in a position to do.
It was important to me to have it recognised as being one space, one car park and I anchored this by including fixed elements such as the bus shelter in most images.
Though I considered using text I believe the book presentation of the images, sequencing, colour and size provides as much meaning as I need to; I think adding text would have over controlled interpretation.
If I had settled on my perspective earlier on when shooting I would have had more “busy” shots which fulfilled my needs; I had plenty but had to choose from only those which focused on the feeling of the space being compressed, rather than English/Welshness or surreality which I started out shooting,

Demonstration of creativity

With a conceptual starting point, I experimented with different ways of representing the issue, initially playing as Matt Stuart, Peter Dench, Paul Reas, and Marin Parr do with saturated colour and a slight irreverence to their subjects. I then moved onto exploring Englishness (and Welshness) influenced by Martin Parr, Simon Roberts and Anna Fox; but eventually settled on my own style, a quieter one.
Though I say that I am in an unusual position understanding both the local and visitor response to the seasonal change, you can see my emotional response in the work. Parr says, “it’s the subjectivity not the subject matter that is important”,and I believe my personal voice is evident.
As I worked into the project the car park took became a character for me, and the bus shelter also as a part of the landscape. I could almost feel their tenseness during the busy time and their relief when their space became quiet again.

Context

This was a personal context to me from the outset. It explored a local issue but one that I was at this precise time able to see both as an insider and outsider being in the throes of transferring from a second homer to a resident. I had been excluded during the lockdown and returned as this ended to become a resident. I was privy to the local resentment to the tourists and to the excitement of the visitors. This transformation was heightened this year, and there will be a discontinuity to the work later however the issue will remain at a lesser level.
Though I understood the local issue from both sides as Campbell (2010) suggested it seemed impossible to present this objectively. I think my personal stance shows through in the document, but it will be interesting to see if the document is interpreted in different ways.
Personal circumstance meant that this was shot over a longer period than I planned but I used this to my advantage reflecting at length between shooting and between that and editing/presenting.
I reflected and fed my learning from my coursework and research into my work and was able to share my work with various OCA peer groups as it developed; this is evidenced in my learning log. As well as the research I have mentioned I was affected by that I did on senses of place Alex Webb, Mikael Subotzy, Marco Van Duyvendik, Laurel Chor, and Hannah Reyes Morales who underlined the importance of knowing a place well to capture it effectively. I also visited photographer’s work which though interesting was not relevant to my project though a similar subject matter such as Stephen Shore, Brice Gilden, Ed Ruscha and Martin Parr’s “Parking Spaces”; all research as an influence but it’s knowing which to discount as well as be led by.

My main regret is the time that it took me to complete this project due to events in my personal life. Looking for the positives, it did give me an extended shooting time, plenty of time to research and experiment and time to reflect between shooting and presenting the work.

References:

David Campbell – Narrative, Power and Responsibility (2010) At: https://soundcloud.com/mattjohnston/david-campbell (Accessed 15/08/2020)

Potter (2018) ‘Martin Parr interview (The World According To Parr, 2003) At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCRyB2SFQZ4&feature=youtu.be (Accessed 25/10/2020).

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ASSIGNMENT THREE DRAFT: VISUAL STORYTELLING

December 13, 2020December 13, 2020 / niki / Leave a comment

THE BRIEF:

Produce a photo story of 10 images that, as a set, tells a story and conveys a narrative.

Engage at local level.
Do this assignment in colour.
This is not a visual chronology unless your theme naturally has one. Structure your visual story as you would a written story. Present your viewer with the theme, further developments and complications and, finally, a resolution – or non-resolution that poses further questions. Edit and sequence your work accordingly.
Go for visual variety – use a variety of lenses, viewpoints and compositions – but ensure visual and conceptual consistency across the images. (Open College of the Arts, 2014:83)

BREATHE IN BREATHE OUT

COMMENTARY

To engage at a local level, I focused in on a small car park, near the water and a boat club in my village in Pembrokeshire. My choice was influenced by the current national and local circumstances. The UK had just come out of a national lockdown and tourists were beginning to move around again. The village, the beach and waterside in particular, changes from sleepy in the winter to comparatively busy over the summer months. This car park is the springboard for many activities local and tourist and as such is a barometer of this transition.

I am currently both and insider and an outsider here, having just made this my main home when it has been my second home for many years. This gives me a unique perspective. I have enough inside information to have a photographer’s gaze rather than a tourist gaze; I understand both the frustrations and joys that the bustle brings to the area, but also share the excitement visitors experience on arrival and their sadness when they leave.

My research gave me much to consider; I have been deliberate in my framing, mindful that what is outside the frame is as important as what I am showing; what Paul Reas calls a conscious ordering of information. My narrative is linear in time though I have also used criteria such as colour to underline the transformation I am sharing. I have not used any text believing that in my framing, composing, choice of images and sequencing I have said what I want to, leaving some room for viewers to interpret the work.

It is a mundane place and my story documents mundane events, yet the feelings evoked and experienced there are rarely insignificant.

References:

FfotonWales (2019) Paul Reas — ffoton. At: https://www.ffoton.wales/interviews/2019/4/paul-reas (Accessed 16/09/2020).

Open College of the Arts (2014) Photography 2: Documentary-Fact and Fiction (Course Manual). Barnsley: Open College of the Arts.

ARTIST STATEMENT

On a physical level the this is story of a car park, however the car park is also a manifestation of the seasonal increase in tourists which alters both the environment of the car park and the nature of the locality. This was a story I particularly wanted to tell this year, when combined with the impact of Coronavirus, lock downs, travel bans and social distancing, the arrival of visitors was felt more keenly by locals. It is a tale of two halves: absence and presence, hushed and busy, lively and dull, and peace and pressure.

BREATHE IN BREATHE OUT

Book PDFDownload

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LEARNING LOG: ASSIGNMENT 3

December 13, 2020May 23, 2021 / niki / Leave a comment

Assignment 3 learning log: Visual storytelling

In preparation we were asked to listen to a lecture on documentary and narrative by Professor David Campbell.

The brief: Produce a photo story of 10 images that, as a set, tells a story and conveys a narrative.

Engage at local level.
Do this assignment in colour.
This is not a visual chronology unless your theme naturally has one. Structure your visual story as you would a written story. Present your viewer with the theme, further developments and complications and, finally, a resolution – or non-resolution that poses further questions. Edit and sequence your work accordingly.
Go for visual variety – use a variety of lenses, viewpoints and compositions – but ensure visual and conceptual consistency across the images. (Open College of the Arts, 2014:83)

Planning

My initial idea was to focus on a small local car park, by the waterfront here, which is quiet and empty much of the year but becomes extremely busy in the summer season. I thought it would be interesting to observe and record this process from spring to Autumn as a manifestation of the invasion of tourists into an otherwise sleepy place.

I was influenced initially by Simon Roberts work, where he surveys scenes, often from elevated positions particularly his work We English (2009) documenting everyday signs of Englishness (1985/86) and by Anna Fox’s work Basingstoke (1985/86) particularly her emphasis on the mundane; however, by the time I started shooting I had researched the street photography of Peter Dench, Matt Stuart and Paul Reas and this fed into my first few shoots; thus, I strayed from my original intention focusing more on people in the car park subconsciously looking at characterising their tourist role.

I shared these images with some peers:

Planning mind map:

Shooting

Following peer feedback and my reflections I decided that I should return to my original intention and focus on the car park rather than the people, exploiting signs of presence and absence. I revisited my research on Martin Parr and Stephen Shore’s colour photographs of car parks noting the sharp detail, high colour saturation, and using the mundane to create meaning. I also considered how to show that this is one car park, whilst using a variety of viewpoints as required in the brief and decided to feature the bus shelter in most images to anchor this.

I thought more about my technical approach:

To use colour, vibrancy or the lack of it to communicate mood
Try different lens
Frame more forcefully, with an eye on what’s outside of the frame
Use good depth of field
Use perspective to magnify subtleties and choregraph information

These were the next set of images shared with peers on my documentary OCA hangout 8.10.20:

Shooting Mind map:

Editing

Because of personal events I had plenty of time between shooting and editing, which is not a bad thing, though I did feel my work was rather staccato. I made sure that I returned to my intention when choosing images and sequencing.

I thought about narrative seriously at this point, as this communicates the concept. David Campbell’s insights on narrative were helpful, that it is, to relay information, make sense of things, provide connections, and overall that the “event” is not what happens but what is narrated.

I asked myself whether my images match my intention, a car park as a barometer of absence and presence, invasion and peace and considered how to order them to get best effect and meaning. I had intended to show the process from quiet to busy to quiet again but realised that I could achieve my intention by simply starting from busy (which is actually when I started shooting) through to the quiet season.

I also asked myself whether the images made the mundane interesting as Parr suggests, had strong details in them (Gilden), different sites of emphasis (Shore), had visual variety, and that I was intentional in how much context I gave and ambiguity that then remained.

When I thought about sequencing, I considered not only the content but also colour, remembering how in the Roma Journeys (Eskildsen and Rinnes, 2007) images were presented less to more saturated; this has happened more or less in my work but as a consequence of the weather deteriorating and the light falling as the busy season exits, a natural consequence.

Editing mindmap:

Presentation

I had considered text that I could use at various points of the project: press statements as we went in and out of lockdown, publicity from tourist/local articles/Trip advisor, snippets I’d overheard in the car park, letters or Facebook comments from residents; but ultimately decided to let the images and their sequencing speak for themselves – to keep it simple and not impose my meaning on the viewer. I employed the technique of sequentially increasing the size of images on the book pages to emphasis the “breathing out” of the car park.

I’d had useful book making discussions with peers and decided to create mine in lightroom. I sent the book to blurb to see how it looks as a book and have taken screen shots of this, but also made a PDF which gives better quality images.

I then shared these with peers: Hangout 26.11.20. One asked me about how the visuals connect with the concept of breathing in and out, and questioned should there be one busy, then one quiet image to mimic breathing in and breathing out. My feeling and the group consensus was that this would destroy the flow and narrative. Following their comments, I did exchange the positions of the 4th and 5^th images. I also considered creating a “flip” book with the breathe in at the front flipping the book upside down to the breathe out at the back; this seemed overcomplicated so in the end decided to move the title text completely to the front of the book, instead of having breathe in at the front and Breathe out at the back as I had originally.