LEARNING LOG
PLANNING
ASSIGNMENT PROPOSAL submitted to my Tutor 11.2.21 see: https://nkssite5.photo.blog/category/learning-log-assignments-2/assignment-5-personal-project/personal-project-proposal/
Tutor hangout feedback meeting 25.2.21: This was to discuss my feedback on Assignment 4 Critical review, but we also discussed my proposal for assignment 5.
In her feedback my tutor queried several points about my assignment proposal. She asked me to:
- Clarify my approach and undertaking in relation to the criteria: Critical and analytical skills, Develop intellectual understanding, Synthesis information, Communication skills
- Would my proposal allow critical engagement with the blurring boundaries between fact and fiction/different truths?
- How this assignment develops my work further from assignment 3?
When I first received my feedback I was puzzled, however I quickly saw that my proposal had not been explicit about these points and that much of the methodology, approach and workflow was in my head. By the time we had this discussion I think I had clarified the points myself and this is how I answered her questions:
- I was able to explain how I realised that I hadn’t set out my methodology in my proposal: 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. Sources such as the Town council and government, press releases, property companies, census, and business owners. I will focus on facts about the house market (home ownership, house prices, rental opportunities), business demographics (proportion of income taken in the tourist season)and tourist demographics, to ascertain facts about the impacts of visitors to the community.
- I explained that I will add to the collated social media comments from locals and visitors, demographic, economic and housing facts, from various gatekeepers. 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 which identified the pressures of the rise in visitors to the town during the summer season, exemplified by the increased traffic in a car park. This work 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.
Extracts from my Assignment proposal:
Working title: Tensions arising from visitors.
Theme: Different sides of a story.
It’s a personal project, that began a year ago when I was in lockdown in England and not allowed to travel to my then “second home” in Pembrokeshire Wales. During this time I observed many discussions on social media about visitors to our “second” town, as well as Welsh national media highlighting lockdown infringements. The coverage was mostly one-sided and uncomfortable to read. As the year progressed and I travelled to my second home, I was able to gauge the real breadth of feeling from local residents to visitors; though not “local” I am well established in the community here and talk to people on both sides of the divide.
The second part of this year I have been resident here in what is now my only home where my research continued, capturing media articles and comments, knowing I would probably use the material for assignment 5. I added to this notes on conversations had, overheard and related.
Methodology: Photograph local contentious subjects such as, caravan parks, holiday houses, shops, roads, footpaths. Present images with short text/captions from research.
Further research: Photographers, and bodies of work to support my presentation approach, through websites, books, talks, and online interviews. I may also look at my archive of images, to compliment those that I shoot over the next month.
Approach: Probably a slideshow sharing images with overlaying text contradictory to each photograph, and possibly a third layer (perhaps audio) communicating another perspective on issues.
RESEARCH
I began with reading around “truth” in photography, investigating photographers’ who’ve written on the subject and photographic philosophies on the topic. I have written my responses to the thoughts of Allan Sekula, John Tagg, Levi Strauss, Borge and also explored other such as David Company “On photographs” (2020) and David bates Photography: The key concepts (2009).
I came away that there must be some belief in images or they lose their value. Therefore where there is power over an image the photographer, editor, curator, pubisher and so on there needs to be some transparency about their intention and influence. It is is also important that the viewers ask questions of an image, because a photograph can only be a representation of a reality, not reality itself.
My extended research led me down many rabbit holes, from a starting point of social media comments to Government web sites, Newspaper articles, council meeting minutes, letters from MPS, Tourism data sources, property information sources, and interviews with local business owners. I also attended some local virtual meetings.
My conclusion that there is a real trade off with local businesses and economies who need the income from tourists and the impact that this has local house prices and rental availability as well as some feelings of “invasion” at certain times of the year.
PHOTOGRAPHING
My work above showed emerging themes:
- Tensions caused by tourism
- Fears about Tourists and second home owners breading Covid lockdown rules
- The dependency of the local economy on visitors
- The impact of second home owners on the housing and rental markets.
I went out to photograph with these themes in mind. On the first 2 themes the evidence of tourists visiting was scant so I focused on representing this, empty streets, empty rental cottages, empty second homes, empty caravan and camping sites, empty car parks and so on.
For the 3rd theme, the local economy, again the visual evidence was different to many of the views expressed of food shortages and a lack of welcome by local businesses, as I photographed the local high street. The 4th theme, housing was different and I had to take a more representational approach as evidence of lack of affordable housing and long term rental housing is hard to capture.
I shot similar subjects and locations over a period of time to get the right light, weather and traffic (human and vehicular) conditions. They are all necessarily mundane subjects which I found less than inspiring to shoot so had to keep returning myself to the research and my intention to justify my photographing, but found the challenge of capturing the subjects in the manner that I wanted enough to maintain my momentum. At the time of shooting we were in a period of “Stay local” Covid 19 restrictions, which meant locally that you were not even allowed to drive for exercise, so I was restricted to photographing within walking distances. Most of my exploratory first images were taken on my I phone when out running or when walking locally for other purposes. I then returned with my larger camera on planned visits around, weather, light and time of day.
EDITING
During my editing I decided which images needed improving or taking from a different aspect. As I then began to put these to the text I had acquired I discovered where I had gaps and needed to photograph other subjects. My shooting was time limited as I needed to complete it before the area opened back up to tourists as this would have provided another perspective and a different story to that which I was writing. This was another story I could have written but it would have taken me past my course deadlines, it was a story that I already touched on in assignment 3. However it could be another project going forward.
PRESENTING
Early on I the work I thought that I would prefer to use four of five repeating images with varying text to show the different truths, Subjective social media, subjective press reports, Government and official reports, statistical data and my voice. However the brief is to use 15 images and having discussed this with my peers in an OCA hangout group I decided to present multiple images withina theme with different aspects against them.
This was my first draft of my power point documentary:
I shared my first draft with my peers in the Documentary/level 3 OCA hangout group. The feedback was really useful. I asked:
Should I give more context, perhaps in the title? but was told to keep the ambiguity.
Whether they could see my voice and what they thought my message was?
- Some did realise that I was taking a tongue in cheek position and that the visuals are opposed to the text.
- The fact that one peer asked me where I sat in the whole thing told me it wasn’t clear enough.
- Some thought the message was about spreading corona virus, holiday homes
- So I realised that my message wasn’t clear, nor was my voice.
- No one had realised that I had put the subjective Facebook comments on a grey background, and facts on white background- so that hadn’t worked!
We discussed what I wanted to convey and how I could adjust to achieve this and to ensure the visuals come through. There were suggestions to:
- Reduce the text
- Separate the text in some places from the visuals
- Put the facebook comments on ticker tape under the images
- Present some facts without visuals on a text only page.
Afterwards I thought more about how to make it clear what my position is:
- I need to really think about where I am in the story.
- Let my voice speak in the visuals.
- Make sure the work is really tongue in cheek.
Actions taken:
- I pared down the text, by critically looking at each piece of text eliminating what is not essential.
- I threw all the parts up in the air and looked at afresh, which enabled me to see it afresh and make decisions on what order was most effective for the various parts.
- I chose to differentiate the factual text by giving the appearance of newspaper column print.
- I experimented with ticker tape but then arrived at the idea that I’d like to viewers to see the images first and then with a delay provide the contradictory facebook comments. So I faded the text in after the image.
- I reduced the backgrounds all to a simple white.
- I have added an end note before the references to explain my unique position in the situation.
Photography 2: Documentary 