Nicola South   Student number: 514516

I chose to take this documentary course as I thought it would be a contrast to the landscape course which I’d enjoyed so much, and to extend my knowledge base and photographic toolkit.

Reflecting now, this is exactly what it did, though I’ll admit I struggled to enjoy it until I reached assignment 3, when my learning and research began to propel me forwards.

I started the course exactly at the beginning of the UK Covid pandemic (a context that continued throughout), which initially forced me to change my subject for assignment 1. I felt constrained and tense, but adapted, and photographed my own community at home. This began my documentary journey, as both a participant and observer, photographing the mundane. I am surprising how meaningful these images are 18 months on, and having seen many Covid19 series since, I appreciate that my work is less cliched than I first feared. This work signalled themes that were to continue and develop in my work throughout the course: personal response, funnelled observation, attention to the banal, and a desire to trigger responses in others.

Peer support and critiquing were crucial to my progression during the course. The first half of the course was completed over a longer period than usual due to unusual domestic and family occurrences, and a mid-way loss of my initial tutor. These events interrupted my workflow, however as I increasingly shared with peers, and in turn challenged and supported others in their work, my confidence and creativity grew; retrospectively I can see how this helped to shape my work and contributed to developing my own voice.

Part way through assignment 3 I found I was able to immerse myself again; this either coincided or resulted in a growing enjoyment in my learning. I was motivated as I felt I had a story to tell and relished turning another mundane subject into a visual narrative. I had confidence in my concept, contextualised more intuitively, used my personal and local understanding, applied recent and broader knowledge of other practitioners, thought creatively about presentation, and realised I did have my own voice, personal and visual style.

The period of the course was a time of rich learning, especially as so much was available virtually. Assignment 4 was a welcome springboard, where I was able to build on themes from my coursework and other research, but particularly at that time, the Lumix festival talks which concentrated my thoughts on how visual storytellers can create impact with their photographs. My tutor feedback challenged me to go narrower and deeper with the critical review, and this helped me to focus and substantiate my conclusions on how documentary photographs can move beyond just highlighting issues, to benefiting those they photograph.

As I began to work into assignment 5, I felt it was all “coming together”. My fascination with the representation of truths led me into my personal project “Layers of Truth”. By that point I had the tools to realise a personal project which I had been working on since the outset of the course. I extended previous work by researching more deeply, using my insider-outsider position, considering ethics, different truths and choosing a method to present the project that would provoke thought.

Throughout the course I focused on the mundane, observing the extraordinary in the ordinary. Though this and my subject matter of local communities remained throughout the course, as did the context of the Covid19 pandemic, my perspective shifted as did my methods of presentation. These were greatly influenced as I learned about the practices, motives and ethics of other photographers, which enabled me to think hard about my own practices. The cultural and political space of the photograph, and how people can take control of it, has become clear to me. I now have a greater understanding that documentary photography can provide different representations of reality, and am motivated to make conceptual, creative, and visual choices as well as communicate concisely for my audience, to encourage viewers to ask questions of images and give meaning to my work. I am also minded to be clear about the role of any project; should it seek to change or just highlight something?

When asked for learning tips by students at an event, I shared that feedback from tutors and peers helps to force you out of your comfort zone, whilst talking with others helps you to focus your thoughts. I also shared that I’ve learned to have confidence in my own ideas, experiment and trust my instincts; this how I have begun to find my own voice.

Next post: https://nkssite5.photo.blog/2021/08/02/assessment-note-to-the-assessors/