Category Archives: Coursework

Reflective commentary #9

This month the student asked for a reflective presentation of 750 words to explore the relationship between my external projects, my written work and the future of my practice. I should consider the impact my choices and actions taken during past projects have had on the development of my work and the future development of my topic and my practice.

Looking back at earlier studies I see that some of the concepts I started to explore in the 3.1 Research and Practice unit have continued to this day and can be seen in my ongoing research, dissertation and my most recent creative works. Ideas from earlier in my studies such as the symbolism surrounding death or why deaths of children might be thought of differently to the deaths of the elderly, have relevance as I explore the threshold of death. Although initially I was less than interested in philosophical works, I have been increasingly drawn to the works of Roland Barthes and his idea of the photograph being a harbinger of death which places the photograph squarely in the liminal space between life and death. In turn, this raises the question of what the photograph is and what it is not. “Whatever it grants to vision and whatever its manner, a photograph is always invisible: it is not it that we see.” (Barthes, 1981, p. 6). I have come to believe that the very threshold between life and death is not a single thing; it is uncomfortable, dark, socially remote, emotionally challenging and unhealthy. Along with my research, I use my creative works to grapple with my understanding of the liminal space. I am increasingly aware that my understanding of this space cannot be expressed by a single work or an isolated segment of my work but instead, my journey of understanding, which mirrors my journey through grief, is a fragmented vision made up of many different viewpoints and works. Into this mixture, my collaboration with other partners starts to make sense as the fragments of my vision of what the liminal means takes creative input from others and finds new direction and meaning. I have found this collaboration challenging and time-consuming but, at the same time, very rewarding. Shared creative work forces adaptations, challenges assumptions and existing work practices. The output from my research and shared creative endeavours has started to bear fruit with the creation of new works which are different from my self-directed efforts. In this year’s study and creative works, I think back to Carlo Ginzburg’s thoughts in Myths, Emblems and Clues. Ginzburg writes about seemingly unrelated tracks left behind when conducting research, of what went before and the confusing melee from different sources. (Ginzburg, 1990, pp. 103, 118) In my work, some examples of these tracks heading in different and unexpected directions can be seen when a partner invited me to a meeting of the Folklore Society and a presentation on Burial Grounds. This led to an exchange of emails and an invitation to join the Association for the Study of Death and Society and the opportunity to build contacts with a shared interest. The building of networks, the growth of my self-directed and shared work and my increased knowledge through research may point to future directions and possibilities for my practice. Another less academic track is that I am involved with support groups and come into close contact with those who have experience of cancer. When I meet other people who have been touched by death or the experiences near the end of life, it is interesting to engage with their experiences of the liminal space and at the same time to use this group to explore some of my thoughts from my study. Yet another more recent track was feedback received about not questioning my choices but instead, reflecting on my experiences to continue to refine and to improve my work. Self-reflection is different from self-doubt. These brief thoughts on my external engagement, my creative practice and contextual research touch on the stated aims and outcomes for this unit. However, it seems to me that this is more than a tick-box exercise and that this is a continuing process. Undergraduate study and research do not cease as the degree is awarded. Research, creative trials, the different experiences gained from contacts with a broad range of interests, self-directed work and collaborations are all part of the journey of education which will continue with next year’s 3.3 unit and beyond the academic world.

References

Barthes, R. (1981) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. Vintage Books.

Ginzburg, C. (1990) Myths, Emblems, Clues. London: Hutchinson Radius.

Reflection – Exercises 1 and 2

The document “Reflect, Propose and Plan” is described as a toolkit to help the student with reflection and planning processes.

Reflection

The practice of reflection helps support and develop knowledge and understanding. To aid a clear sight of the challenges and how the student might have tackled these through different techniques and processes. Crucially this helps shape how the problems might be tackled next time.

I admit that I not always been best at this side of my learning experience. As a previous tutor pointed out, “I am showing my visual work but need to go much further in your follow up and supporting analysis and documentation. The thinking is clearly there, it’s just not being shown” So this idea of working but not always showing my planning, ideas, attempts, failures and reviews isn’t always something I have presented so am aware that this side of my experiences is something I need to work on and improve.

I started thinking about the idea of reflection through reviewing some of my previous projects which have a bearing on my work for Photography 3. This work not always been successful and doesn’t convey ideas or emotion of what I want this project to be about. My initial comments on that work are shown in Portfolio section of this website. I instinctively feel that the production of work allied with research and coupled with reflection and review and feedback is my preferred way of working.

Anna Fox and Natasha Caruana speak of feedback in their book, Behind the Image. They specifically mention listening to feedback as being as active rather than a passive task. Don’t be afraid to question and ask for further explanation and take notes if any other practitioners mentioned alongside your work. One thing I come across before if that such feedback needs to be written up immediately as allowing a gap between the feedback is a mistake and it easy to forget or misremember elements of what was said. The second thing of interest from Fox and Caruana that alongside feedback they speak of the review and of continual review throughout a project and not just once it completed. (Fox, Caruana, 2012)

Review of project work as it progresses is something I could make use of the Creative Conversations group for. This is important not just to review my own work, but also to review and comment on the work of others. Not just receiving feedback but also reviewing and looking to give feedback.

I have some ideas on this production or works based on the self and how we each view the same thing but in our own ways. My daughter’s phone contained an archive of photographs which in a way were a limited visual snapshot of aspects of her mind; her thoughts and hopes and fears. Imagine as a starting point, a 17-year-old who been told they won’t live to have children, to go to university, to get a job, to form relationships or to have children and that they going to spend end of their life in enormous pain. It is difficult if not impossible to imagine ourselves into that space. This is one of huge challenges of my project. To contrast this archive of my daughter’s images, I can show an archive of my own images taken to document her illness. Like everything in any project, the technical decisions and reflections I might take are coloured by my experiences.

Exercise 1: What models work?
Begin to make notes on the different reflective models and try some methods out to see what works for you. Give reasons for your choice with consideration of the following questions:
●Which model of reflection might be well suited to your current piece of work? or stage of study?
● What barriers might you face in developing a regular reflective practice and what strategies could you put in place to overcome them?
Document your initial reflection model ideas as a list of bullet points, spider diagrams, or other means such as a Padlet. You may also find a more free-form approach is better for you; give some thought to this too, and make notes on the advantages and disadvantages of following a framework.

___________________

At first glance, the idea of the One-minute paper sounded interesting way to give instant self-reflection at end of a piece of work and something I would like to try and see if I find it useful. Driscolls’s model asking questions below sees very worthwhile but at same time, at first glance, feels wordy and quite unwieldy.

  • What were your expectations of the course?
  • What approach did you take?
  • What was difficult?
  • What was easy?
  • What challenged you?
  • What would you do differently?
  • What did you enjoy?
  • What changed your thinking?
  • What did you discover?
  • What did you learn?
  • What will you take forward into your next course?
  • What impact did your study have on your creative practice?

More visual models such as Jasper’s ERA model, Kolb’s experiential learning cycle and Gibbs’ cycle of reflection had feeling of being of most use to me on my current work. I used the Gibbs model below and found it very straightforward. Although, I can see value in Driscoll’s set of questions, am not sure if this is too involved and, as I commented above, unwieldy, and if this would present a disincentive to me using it regularly.

I used the Gibb’s model for debriefing from the course notes to produce this general reflection in my course notebook showing my early attempts on my project on medical scan images.

Gibb’s Model for Debriefing.

Connection with your creative practice

How does your reflection interact with, inspire, inform and develop your creative work? Use the following reflective questions to guide you, making notes on how you use reflection to connect with and help to develop your creative practice.

  • How has your knowledge gained influenced and developed your approach to making?
  • Have you made any interesting discoveries that enhance your working methods? Have you been inspired to try any new approaches?
  • Have you tried any new techniques, ideas or processes as a result of your learning, feedback and reflection?
  • In what ways has your practical work brought about new areas for exploration? Have you engaged with any new forms of source material?
  • Which aspects of your learning have inspired you to go into new research directions or to make discoveries?
    Try to identify one or two examples for each question, either from your coursework or from your wider creative work, that demonstrates your answers.

I will answer questions above as I start to work more on my essay and research related to my image making.

Exercise 2: Reflective Commentary

Use this exercise to take stock of your practice by reflecting on your creative journey so far. This is a chance to employ the resources in this document to evaluate your creative experiences and skills, identify strengths and areas for development, and set out your aims and ambitions for what you want to do next.

Gaining a deeper understanding of your practice is central to the overall experience of undertaking a degree and very much the focus of the initial projects in this unit. When we talk about ‘your practice’ we are defining a range of different aspects of how you make work, how it’s framed by wider ideas and practices, and the direction in which you want to develop your creative voice.

______________

I am using this exercise to test drive Driscoll’s model.

  • What were your expectations of the course?
    My expectations of the overall Photography course have shifted since I started on my journey. Initially, I wanted to improve my technical skills, then this shifted and I was looking for a reason to create photographs. Now on Photography 3 am very surprised to find myself in a place where I am using my photographic practice as a therapeutic or cathartic journey.
  • What approach did you take?
    In my initial approach to my studies didn’t understand the reasons behind the theoretical side and I thought I should be out with camera in hand at all times. My later approach to my studies from level 2 onward has been more thoughtful and experimental. I will use Photography 3 to further refine my approach and using the tools provided to make my approach less haphazard and more organised.
  • What was difficult?
    Time management has always been issue for me when faced with so many stressful issues in my personal life. In parallel with issues of time, the issues of disentangling what I might term, “my photographic thought processes” from whatever else going on in my life. Oh, how I envied those who appeared so much more organised than me.
  • What was easy?
    Ideas. I have never had any problems with wondering what to produce or being tongue tied or creatively stuck.
  • What challenged you?
    As I said above, the time side of course along with presenting my ideas in a suitable and coherent way.
  • What would you do differently?
    More reflection, re work and documenting my thought and technical processes.
  • What did you enjoy?
    The people side. Dealing with different people as my photographic subjects, as OCA classmates and tutors and responding to them.
  • What changed your thinking?
    Feedback on the various course units making me think about my work often in new and very different ways.
  • What did you discover?
    I was surprised when I started to look at photography in my own way as I never thought would reach that point.
  • What did you learn?
    The learning as well as about photography, was about myself. This perhaps echoes what bricks and mortar students learn about themselves as they first go to university away from home.
  • What will you take forward into your next course?
    Always the aim to improve. To try and do things better.
  • What impact did your study have on your creative practice?
    The two things are intimately tied together. One wouldn’t happen in the way it has without the other. My studies will form the foundations for creative practice which will continue to develop after study on this course complete.

As I suspected, I found this unwieldy with too many questions which sometimes overlapped. I can’t see myself using Driscoll’s model as a regular and frequent tool.

However, using the general thrust of these models, I can answer the questions in this exercise more directly.

evaluate your creative experiences and skills, identify strengths and areas for development, and set out your aims and ambitions for what you want to do next.

What are my skills and strengths? Experience in a life which has shaped me and which am interested in exploring through photography. Allied with this is my imagination and range of ideas.

Areas for development. While I can produce ideas and work on these, my explanation of these ideas, processes, failures and successes and my thinking behind my choices has been lacking. I know that these along with what and how I present for assessment are things I know I need to improve. Maybe this sounds strange, but I never been overly concerned with marks being more interested in the learning itself. Now am involved in my current piece of work which is of great meaning to me, I want to do the best I can.

References

Fox, A; Caruana, N (2012) Behind the Image: Research in Photography, Basics, Creative Photography, Thames & Hudson, London, (pp50-51)

Photography 3 – Introduction

Many people feel fear or unease when they are in the hands of medical professionals. The condition which had led to the doctor and their hands and eyes on you are impersonal and an invasion of your being. The doctors’ language and their x-rays and scans are of you and are about you but are technical and tied up with the emotion of your condition. They strip your sense of being in control. I have been experimenting with trying to find a way to change how medical imaging is thought of, maybe to bring a sense of comfort to these images, even if they are of painful things, although I am not sure if comfort is the correct word. The aim is to question how we think of medicine and the conventions about being ill. I want to put the real person shown in the medical scans back into the frame.

My proposed project for Photography 3 is an attempt to make use of medical scan images to give the patient behind such scans a voice.

I had a long video chat with tutor about this project. My views of how I think of this work and whether, in trying to express my feelings about my work, I was over long and complex and waffling and whether this project might suffer and be less than it perhaps could be. I questioned how an audience might look at such a difficult and emotionally charged work.

I received a lovely reply which was encouraging and detailed. Here is summary of some points.

  • Death, loss, memory, commemoration and representation. The differences and similarities between photographs as documents of a person and medical images that are perceived by contemporary culture not to represent but to dehumanise.
  • Images are memory replacement as well as aide-memoires. The notions and fallacies of photography historically and contemporarily.
  • The narrativization of the deceased and its link to post-mortem posterity and an enduring afterlife.
  • The effect of such a body of work to audiences.
  • The ethics of working on death and loss, especially if it also incorporates images other than your own.
  • The duality of the photographer as bereaved and the photographer as observer. This is the most potent intersection of research.

This idea of giving the deceased an afterlife and a narrative is something I have thought about. I reviewed an earlier project, which I have reproduced in summary in my ‘Portfolio’ section of this website. I can see that looking back at that work, I was attempting to create that narrative for someone who has no image and little story. Interesting to consider how I might shape that narrative for my Photography 3 work which uses as it’s source material a subject very much closer to my heart than when working with a distant, almost forgotten and ‘dusty’ relative.

Interestingly was that tutor immediately picked up on difficult side of project for me personally but also spoke of my need to do this work and suggested this might become a therapeutic journey.

I was struck with one specific comment that, “Crucially, the photographic medium is inextricably entwined with loss and death from its very beginning. In this way, your idea is also very medium specific“.

One comment I want to make about this blog is that it will not be purely a technical document as it must also contain glimpses of the life which is the heart of the project. I can imagine, this personal side might be at odds with the defined structures of learning but I will make no apology for my approach.

Photography 3 – A Start

Planning and Website Design

This is my first Photography 3 unit, Photography 3.1: Practice and Research which is followed by Photography 3.2: Context and Audience and Photography 3.3: Major Project.

My initial tasks involve producing a plan with dates and timescales and also a developmental plan. This website will form a backbone for my work and I feel it makes sense to use this space to record my learning experiences for all of these three related units.

I am considering pulling together some of my work from other units where I feel this has relevance to my work on Photography 3 and especially if I decide to develop or research some of these ideas further.

The structure of this website will be fairly self-explanatory but for clarity I will describe this here.

My coursework will be subdivided for each of the ten projects which will be available from menus labelled Project 1, Project 2 etc. In addition the whole unit will appear under Coursework for Photography 3.1: Practice and Research heading to make the unit coursework flow. I will have alternate headings for the other two Photography 3 units but at this stage these will be blank. In addition my menu will have space for research, visual works will be listed under portfolio and I will have space for feedback.

I can see at the outset that the research side of project will be very large with various ‘excursions’ down logical rabbit holes as I try to make sense of my chosen work and to fit it into place in my mind, in the outside world and in the construct of my education.