ASSIGNMENT SIX: PRE ASSESSMENT REVIEW

Nicola South Student number: 514516

This Pre-Assessment Review gave me a valuable opportunity to revisit my reworked assignments, most after a good period of time has elapsed. Here I summarise the process and results of my reworks, each assignment has a link at the end to the reworked submission on my blog.

ASSIGNMENT 1: LOCAL COMMUNITIES – PROVISIONING AND PROTECTING

During the making of this assignment, I learnt to be adaptable. The sudden onset of the pandemic caused me to start the assignment again as circumstances changed dramatically. My second draft was my personal response to surviving both the threat of the pandemic, our withdrawal, and the need to protect my community. The windows represent the physical and emotional barriers that grew. The subject matter was mundane, my plan was to engage viewers in the detail of the ordinary.

My tutor’s feedback didn’t suggest any reworking and was very positive; possibly so because I reworked a lot as I drafted the assignment. I made many changes along the way suggested by peer critiquing. I was keen to move on from this assignment which was already a second draft and I had spent much time on, and believe that it still achieves what I set out to. I did however take my tutors suggestion of considering the presentation of the work, which I outlined in my reflections on my formative feedback: https://nkssite5.photo.blog/category/submissions/assignment-1-submission/a-reflection-on-formative-assessment/ . I concluded that if representing the work in a gallery I would seek one where I could set up in a rectangular central shape. Here I would place the images around the outside, so the viewers could walk around them – as if they are viewing my house through windows, as in my work. I believe this would give a good opportunity for activating viewers memories and responses through the detail in the ordinary represented, whilst also reinforcing the feeling of barrier that I was keen to convey.

Assignment 1 submission: https://nkssite5.photo.blog/category/submissions/assignment-1-submission/a1-submission/

ASSIGNMENT 2: SINGLE IMAGE NARRATIVE – ECONOMIC SCARRING

By the time I shot this assignment I was able to leave my house, most businesses were still closed, which I depended on for my outcome; so I shot with tight time constraints, as businesses they were due to open again shortly. My concept was economic scarring, in the context of Covid 19, and my narrative was that of something not quite right.

My use of stitched scars alongside the location images was central to my concept, but my tutor feedback pointed out that I needed to communicate this more fully. I wrote in my reflections on formative feedback, that the scarring is not only seen on commercial premises but is also felt by the people affected by the interruption to the economy and these businesses:

https://nkssite5.photo.blog/category/submissions/assignment-2-submission/a2-reflection-on-formative-feedback/ . For submission I added in the commentary accompanying the images that each image, “is accompanied by a flesh wound as a hashtag, to reinforce the human pain caused by the economic scarring. The stitching represents a holding together and hope of recovery”. I also made reference to the wounds in my submission artist statement.

I also acted on my tutor’s suggestion to reassess the images, to incorporate some more subtle ones leaving more room for viewer interpretation. In my rework I replaced the shop front and aquadrome images with more subtle ones I’d earlier rejected, see below-which I think do show more subtle signs of abandonment, and neglect.

Removed images:

Added images :

Assignment 2 submission: https://nkssite5.photo.blog/category/submissions/assignment-2-submission/a2-submission/

ASSIGNMENT 3: VISUAL STORYTELLING – BREATHE IN BREATHE OUT

I had a strong idea from the outset for the location of this project but did explore many styles of images and presentation before completing the assignment, influenced by photographers researched in the coursework and others. My focus was a local car park, as a manifestation of the seasonal change in visitors to the area, from presence to absence. This was presented as a book dummy as asked for in the brief. As in my previous assignments I shared my work with various peer groups before I even submitted my draft and so made many changes during the process, which are documented in my learning log. When constructing the narrative I presented the images sequentially increasing in size on the page to emphasis the breathing in and out of the car park.

In my final reworking of the assignment for submission, I rephotographed and replaced the final image, to show an empty car park:

I also re-photographed the 8^th image to use as the last empty car park image, but ultimately chose not to end with 3 empty car park images, which would have looked like this:

So retained the original 8th image:

Assignment 3 submission: https://nkssite5.photo.blog/category/submissions/a3-submission/

ASSIGNMENT 4: CRITICAL REVIEW – VISUAL ACTIVISM

In my critical review I explored how documentary photography can be effectively used for the benefit of the communities that it is photographed in.

Following my tutor feed-back, I identified these areas to action:

Reduce the breadth of my writing by “control and editing of sources”, this will enable me to:

Give more in depth analysis

Articulate my critical engagement, to describe how my sources support my view and have developed my argument and thesis.

Describe how my research has led me to my end thesis – How I get to my ideas.

Provide more in-depth image analysis. The activists that I describe in my sources are visual activists, so I need to articulate how they provoke a response through the lens, the response they provoke, as the audience is not passive.

In my rewrite of the critical review I narrowed down the material that I’d used and explored what remained in more depth, using the broader material to retain the context, placing these sources in a bibliography. I also reviewed the images and analysed those I used in the submission to show their part in visual activism. I can see now that this has resulted in a more detailed but succinct and cohesive essay which develops more effectively towards my conclusion.

Assignment 4 submission: https://nkssite5.photo.blog/category/submissions/assignment-4-submission-critical-review/a4-submission/

ASSIGNMENT 5: PERSONAL PROJECT – LAYERS OF TRUTH

This was a project based upon extending my assignment 3, for which I proposed a working title of Tensions arising from visitors. The concept was different truths. I shared that I intended to photograph local contentious subjects such as, caravan parks, holiday houses, shops, and roads, and present my images with short text/captions from my research, to exemplify the various notions of truth around visitors to the locality.

My draft proposal was rightly challenged by my tutor; though recognising the potential, she questioned the clarity of my proposal and how I would extend my previous work. I could then see that I hadn’t overtly set out my methodology in my proposal. This was useful and enabled me to clarify my approach. During a follow up video chat I shared that:

My intent is to move from the subjective social media comments that I have collected from face book, to collecting data and facts from various sources (e.g. Town council, Government, Press releases, property companies, census, and business owners. Also to include facts on home ownership, house prices, rental opportunities, business demographics, and tourist demographics, to ascertain facts about the impacts of visitors to the community.
This will give me a better intellectual understanding of the situation, and enable me to decide on my stance on the various issues. At the heart of this is a synthesising of the various voices, messages and information- the different truths, so that I can communicate my understanding of the concerns.
I described how this work is a progression from my assignment 3 work and is of a much wider scope; assignment 3 was connotative of the issues, this expanded work allows me to denote more fully the concerns and issues arising from this phenomenon.

This is set out fully in my submission version of my proposal: https://nkssite5.photo.blog/category/submissions/assignment-5-submission-personal-project/a5-proposal/

Once again I bounced my project as it developed with my peers, which helped me to clarify my approach, see my learning log: https://nkssite5.photo.blog/category/learning-log-assignments-2/assignment-5-personal-project/a5-learning-log/

Following the submission of my assignment draft, my tutor’s feedback suggested that I could challenge the layers of truth further. She suggested as well as presenting a face book/press statement and an opposing evidential image, I could possibly juxtapose these images with opposing evidential images from the Facebook quotes. I immediately saw that by doing so would extend the representation of various truths, and challenge viewers further. My dilemma was how to achieve this, as the original Facebook posts didn’t contain any supporting images, which was interesting in itself. I decided to photograph opposing images myself, to add to the layers of truths. This also proved challenging, but in most areas, I was able to achieve what I wanted eventually.

This resulted in adding 7 contradictory images, and 2 provoking media images to the slideshow, which I achieved this without lengthening the duration of the slideshow. Where I now have 2 images preceding facebook/media text, I have faded one image into another to simulate the transplanting of truths.

New image/Corresponding original image