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)
Nicola South Student number: 514516
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
Photography 2: Documentary 