My course is progressing well. I am trying to blend my time in looking through course notes, conducting research, reading (quite a lot of reading), reacting to feedback and using all of these strands to slowly build one upon the other to form my own sense of my developing practice which compliments my interests and will decide how my physical work develops.
One of my concerns as I write this report is that an assignment based around a review of a plan and a progress update does not always provide a huge amount, I can say which feels as if it might be relevant to tutor feedback nor to assessment. I will however, set down what I have been looking at in past month with links to my work.
I have spent a little time adjusting the layout of this website. I was conscious that time spent doing this is in a way “dead time” which does not contribute to my creative work but felt the need to make some changes to try and make it feel more logical to myself on how the layout flowed, what the menus were called and what they contained. My adjustments took into account early feedback from tutor regarding my approach to this unit and from spending time speaking to other students and reviewing their blog posts.
One thing which came from my last piece of tutor feedback/discussion was a suggestion that I record my feelings. How do I feel about my work? How do the different concepts and areas of research and creative works I review or create make me feel and react? Looking beyond initial feelings, how do I react and stop and think and revisit a chosen topic and how does reflection and time shape my responses and perhaps change or extend my perspective? This level of reflection isn’t something I have done before in a visible way. So, while putting all these thoughts down on paper doesn’t always feel natural to me, the idea of externalising my internal workings and thoughts and feelings and reactions feels like it could become an important strand in my work. I will use this as a strand to expand my practice and maybe allow me to think on things more clearly and at same time show other people my thought processes and my working.
I looked at two pieces of research based on discussion from last month’s feedback. I think I might change how I do such research and rather than doing this then not referring to it again, for the research areas which interest me the most, I might well revisit, perhaps many times. My first piece of research was on boxes. My initial thoughts on this related to the box as a way of containing artefacts and ideas and perhaps memories. This infers that the boxes are a means of exclusion and of keeping some things on the outside. I looked at some work by other artists and the idea of opening hidden spaces, I thought was a good match for the medical scan revealing hidden spaces within the body. I want to further expand on the work I have done here and look at some different materials for boxes and containers. In part this relates to work done in Photography 2: DIC where I produced haptic works. This week I received feedback from the assessment team on that work.
My next piece of research was about the symbolism and symbolic representation of death. I wondered why we deal with death in terms of symbolism and abstraction. I also expending my work here to think about tattoos which often feature some of the same symbols. The idea of bringing a different art form such as tattooing interests me. The idea of the lifelong permanence of the tattoo somehow feels close to the imagery surrounding death. In my mind’s eye, I had initially thought of displaying my work in a long hospital corridor but what about displaying it on the human body? Would this be an extension of people who choose to tattoo their children’s names on themselves? This work is very interesting to me and very broad in scope.
I do not know at this stage if death or the abstract symbols linked to death and loss will form part of my work or how I weave the different strands of my work together. I originally envisaged my project as being based around the medical scan and trying to find a way to put back the person that is missing in those medical images. One potential revelation is to consider what is missing in a photographic sense from a medical scan image. There is no sense of who the person is, so no sense of self. But there are other missing factors. The scan has no sense of place. It could have been taken in any bland medical room in any hospital in any city. The scan also has no sense of time. I can tell when certain scan images were invented but how do I know if the scan was taken last month or many years ago or in the morning or evening? These things hold true other than if medical notes are added to the scan giving a name, date, time, location. One other disturbing element is that the scans of my son and daughter come from their medical files so I associate these scans with them. In reality could scans represent any of us or perhaps all of us?
How then to think of the scan as the basis for a photographic project when it seems to represent so little other than to medical professionals? Maybe one way to think about my project, if I were to use boxes or collections as a basis for my thoughts, is that there are different aspects to the scan; the person, the place, the emotion, the circumstance that led to the scan. If these ideas are missing from the scan and I have to find a way to put these back, then is the scan ultimately about loss? Loss ties closely with the abstraction of skulls and bones and things we associate with death. I still don’t feel any sense of resolution as to where my project is heading but the idea of looking at the different things that are missing in a scan somehow feels very important so I must do more research and thinking about this area.
One other interesting thing I found in the graveyards was old graves where the stonework been broken or tumbled over or worn away, whether through the passage of time, pollution or just neglect as nobody cares for the grave. Some grave stones are covered in thick moss or plants. The words carved into the graves are often eroded down to nothing. This idea is something I want to work on. Is the person forgotten as family moved away? Are the family or friends themselves dead? Are these people not in any way famous and over the years have attracted no attention? This also ties to idea of unmarked graves which is something I spoke with my tutor about. I wondered about these gravestones which commemorate a hidden or unknown person and I wondered if I could repurpose such stones to display a piece of my own work. This would give the stones a new story and a new life? It seems to have a parallel between the anonymous or dehumanised nature of medical scans. As I look at this area more next month, I will use some of the photographs I took.
Category Archives: Photography 3.1: Practice and Research
Review of project plan #2
My plan for my project is broadly as it was last month. I am fairly comfortable with my dates at this stage and I do not intend to spend much time looking at the plan itself nor in changing my proposed dates nor the tasks within my plan. These tasks and dates might evolve as I work through my project but at this stage, I have nothing further to change about my plan.
I will look to produce a task for the literature review which I will fit into plan but at this stage there is no rush so will do this when I next review the plan.
I mentioned when I first setup the project plan that there are different approaches to this. Some people might plan every moment of their day, enjoy the minutiae of their plans, endlessly reviewing and tweaking and updating the plan. To others the plan was a broader document not to be considered a whole and complete version of the truth until later in the project. I was always at this more relaxed end of the spectrum when planning a project. As regards milestones, specific targets and interdependencies in a plan, I have often found that at the early stage such fine detail makes less sense than it does as a project nearing completion when it all seems to make more sense.
In broad terms, I am operating at an assignment per month, which seems to allow me to work at a good pace yet still allows me to go down the various rabbit holes of research.
The one part of my plan I am uncertain about is that I marked two practical projects in my plan. I do not know for sure at this early stage if I will build two test projects, or more or perhaps less. The answer depends on how my research goes and how I feel compelled to interpret my research through completed works.
I will check in will my tutor that my chosen approach to planning is acceptable.
Tutor feedback
My feedback was very positive and took the form of a video chat. The feedback was more a sharing of ideas rather than a review of previous works.
I found it very useful to use my tutor as a kind of soundboard (no disrespect intended) to share ideas with, to get feedback, to formulate new ideas and possible directions for future works and to think of things differently.
On a practical level I asked about structure of this unit and whether I could go completely off-piste and whether the coursework and assignments in the notes was optional. Answer was that the coursework should be shaped to help inform my areas of interest and that if I do this, the coursework will seem more relevant and will help to inform my subject and will become an intrinsic aspect of my development and progression.
I mentioned that as part of my research I had approached some medical professionals to ask how they thought of medical scans, whether a tool of their job, whether they saw the person behind each scan and how they managed the technical and emotional sides of their work. As an aside I also wondered whether such an approach could even be considered as research. One answer which came back was that a doctor told me he compartmentalised these things, putting different feelings in separate boxes. This idea kicked off our discussion as I had said that the idea of boxes immediately filled me with different ideas both as physical items and as a way of managing potential collections. My tutor added to these thoughts with the idea of death itself, the boxes within boxes of coffins, graves, shrouds, ossuary, tombs and so on. We moved on and discussed the symbolism of death and using abstract motifs to convey deep and emotionally fraught emotions. We even strayed onto different plants associated with death which might commonly be seen in graveyards and spoke of these plants in mythology. The plants are another abstract symbol.
Specifically, my tutor suggested I make space to record how some of the concepts am working on make me feel and how they make me think about specific topics and work. These ideas and feelings can shape and even alter perspective and might lead to a different approach or an extension to an existing way of thinking.
An interesting start to the course.
In coming month, I have some online chats with other 3.1 students, some explanation of how the course been put together and based on what comes out of this I might start to reshape my blog layout a little as it feels a little scatter-brained to me. In addition to that my tutor suggested I read Barthes – Camera Lucida. My review of that will be in the same section of my blog as this post.
Reflective commentary
My initial thoughts on the course is that it a strange mixture. On one hand, it is unstructured, allowing the student great freedom to research what they want and to work on course as they want and to produce their own timescales. On the other hand, the course presents a very structured form with the 10 assignments. So, apologies from the outset if I have gone off at a tangent and produced work and started research and dipped in and out of any potential coursework.
My reason for my chosen approach for this initial assignment is that I felt my project needed a starting point or a ‘line in the sand’. My work in Digital Image and Culture dipped quickly into attempts to work out the physical creative side of project with less time for reflection and research. Maybe I was using my work as a way to avoid thoughts of my children’s illness and my daughter’s death. At the start of Photograph 3 I felt that needed to complete some actual works I could look at to help me, at least in part, to resolve my feelings and allow a firm foundation as I push off and explore potential future project works. My choice for this initial work was based on my research into other practitioners who have dealt with cancer and death through their art including one OCA Photography student who I reached out to and exchanged emails with. I was inspired to complete a 2-part retrospective work which I thought would be a good starting point for Photography 3 alongside the test works I started in Photography 2- DIC. I didn’t start these works from nothing but was still a lot of work. I hope that with this grounding, Photography 3.1 will settle down to a less frenetic pace for me.
The thinking behind my 2-part introductory work is that when Rebecca died, I was left with access to her social media, computer and mobile phone. At the time this allowed me to search for some of her music choices for her funeral. This also gave me access to all her photographs, art works and images she had saved. I thought about this and how this tied into the idea of the self that I have looked at in previous units. Instead of Rebecca being voiceless or anonymous and being missing from the visual record, I had an opportunity to show her as she saw herself, although I do admit that this is based on my interpretation of what she might have wanted as, of course, her work might have always stayed private had she had the choice. I didn’t edit her images but used all the 870 or so images from her phone and constructed a slide sequence. I chose the time each slide was viewed and the gap between each so that the audience could see the images and these not in an incomprehensible blur but at same time so that these passed very quickly. I looked at different ways of transitioning between one image and the next but in the end chose a simple cut without any fancy graphic tricks which would have distracted from the message of her images and of the pace I was looking for. For the second part of this work, I then contrasted her view of herself and her life with my own view of the same period. This is a smaller piece of work and so contrasts hers as it can be viewed at a slower pace. There is maybe a connection here between the pace of these two works and the pace of life. If the end of life is in sight, then does time run quicker and conversely if we don’t know when end might be doe life run at a slower pace?
These works are shown on my website/blog page.
In addition, my blog shows my project work relating to medical scans from Photography 2 all in the Portfolio Menu.
As well as work done looking at project plans, critical essays or dissertation, timelines and looking at reflection and at my practice, I have begun in a small way to look at areas of interest. These are details in my blog under the Research Menu. My two initial pieces of research been on “Why is there a need to take photographs of the ill, the dying and the dead?” and “The Dying Brain”.
In this section I also revisited some work I had looked at in previous units including on Memory and the idea of Melancholy which I have started to revise and have added to this menu.
In my coursework part of blog, I have looked over course notes and produced some work on the different models used to help with the reflective process. I found this very interesting but have to admit that this is something I will have to make a conscious effort to build into my practice as a regular thing until I get to point where I no longer have to think about this.
I then spent some time thinking about my practice which isn’t something have ever done before. I think my practice been something that happens around me, almost in a way as a background task which I don’t think about so this was interesting to think directly about my practice.
Project planning
I have been an IT Project Manager for a number of years so working with project plans is something am very familiar with. I have drawn up some broad plans but feel it worthwhile to outline some project management basics.
Firstly, and most importantly, the project plan is a means to an end and is not an end in itself. The plan is produced to deliver a project or part of a project. I can create a polished plan with bells and whistles yet do no work whatsoever on project delivery. On the other hand, I could deliver a project, if I so chose, without a detailed project plan although I would still need somewhere to organise and record my tasks, especially for complex projects.
Next, is the idea of the order of delivery. Imagine I assume that I need to understand what I will deliver BEFORE I was to write a plan and will not start on my research or practical work until the plan is in place. It is easy to see that such an approach will create unnecessary delays. In real project delivery for IT projects, the pre-requisites for ‘ideal’ project delivery might be to have a list a requirements from the customer of what they want and a technical design of what I am to deliver. In real life, these things are rarely available at the start of a project. Therefore the project plan is written based on assumptions and educated guesswork. For the Photography 3.1 unit, the coursework is newly written and not always easy to navigate. I therefore make basic assumptions at the start of my project design and based on this, my project plan for this unit will be a broad outline.
Thirdly, the project plan is a working document. It isn’t something to produce once and never to look at again. Tasks might change, the order of tasks might change and dates might change. The fact that plan is a broad outline screams out to me that the plan at project end will likely bear little relationship to that at the start. This is all normal.
Fourthly, and this one might be of less interest for people with a non-IT background is the question of tools. This is a technical consideration on what tool I used to write the plan and to consider whether audience I share plan with have this tool or if I need to save a different format of the plan. I would normally work on a project plan using Microsoft Project but this is complex and expensive and even in world of IT not everyone has this software. I therefore need to consider whether to present plan as an Excel file, as a PDF document or whatever. If nobody else has my tool of choice then an obvious argument is to use something simpler.
Project plan
| Photo 3.1 – Planned end date before 23 Feb 2023 | |
| Preparatory work | Read course notes, layout website/blog page, assemble what I need for note taking, recording practical ideas and a diary, look at some text books and assemble a reading list to research, reach out to peer group on Photo 3 course/courses |
| Project 1 | Submit plan (this document) along with OCA template for a plan. Submit initial ideas for research and areas of interest and beginning to define my initial work along with outline of initial practical 2-part practical work designed as a baseline for my project – Planned end date – 28 Feb 2022 |
| Project 2 | Submit a summary of work in progress – Planned end date – 28 Mar 2022 |
| Project 3 | Submit a summary of work in progress – Planned end date – 28 Apr 2022 |
| Project 4 | Present initial test piece with a summary of work in progress – Planned end date – 28 May 2022 |
| Project 5 | Mid-point review. Submit early draft of Dissertation with proposal and literature review with research and practical updates. – Planned end date – 28 Jun 2022 |
| Project 6 | Outline of second practical test piece with a summary of work in progress – Planned end date – 28 Jul 2022 |
| Project 7 | Submit a summary of work in progress – Planned end date – 28 Aug 2022 |
| Project 8 | Submit a summary of work in progress – Planned end date – 28 Sep 2022 |
| Project 9 | Present second test piece with a summary of work in progress – Planned end date – 28 Oct 2022 |
| Project 10 | Submit next draft of Dissertation which will be completed in the 3.2 unit -Planned end date – 28 Nov 2022 |
| Suggested Assessment date | For March event so submit work by 15-30th Jan 2023 |
This is the OCA Project Plan template
| What are you going to do for your practical or creative project(s)? Check that these fit within your assessment outcomes in the unit introduction.Describe the project’s aims and outcomes. I want to try and find a way to put the person not seen in medical scans back into the frame. The scans seem harsh, technical and devoid of emotion. I do not yet know how I will accomplish the task I have set myself. |
| Are you doing a Critical Review or Dissertation? Check that these fit within your assessment outcomes in the unit introduction |
| I think a dissertation as this will give me more latitude to pursue my chosen subject in greater depth. |
| What does your research explore, and what is your research question? |
| My research is in part a cathartic and self-healing journey about dealing with personal loss. In part it will allow my subject to live on in a new way. At the same time my work will attempt to deal with the social boundaries surrounding bereavement and medical care and ask why we should take back ownership of the medical view of the self. My research question is developing and not close to being finalised but broadly will exist in the space of the junctions between different versions of the self from the medical self, the self as seen by society and the most intimate personal view of the self. |
| Why have you chosen these practice and research projects? Think about the connections between your practice and research |
| I have long wanted to explore this field due to the death of my daughter Rebecca and the ongoing illness of my son Robbie. The practice of producing a worthwhile (in my eyes) work and of the balance between my research on the medical side and the human side which seems vast will be challenging both emotionally and technically but at same time of great interest. |
| How will you schedule your project within the unit structure? Set out the start and end dates of your projects. Identify whether you are doing more than one practical project. Add suggested submission dates. For example: |
| Preparatory work – Read course notes, layout website/blog page, assemble what I need for note taking, books for potential areas of research, practical ideas and diary, reach out to peer group on Photo 3.1 – Planned end date 23 Feb 2022 Project 1 – Submit plan (this document) and show initial ideas for research and areas of interest and beginning to define my initial work along with initial 2-part practical work designed as a baseline for my project – Planned end date – 28 Feb 2022 Project 2 – Submit a summary of work in progress – Planned end date – 28 Mar 2022 Project 3 – Submit a summary of work in progress – Planned end date – 28 Apr 2022 Project 4 – Present initial test piece with a summary of work in progress – Planned end date – 28 May 2022 Project 5 – Mid-point review. Submit early draft of Dissertation with proposal and literature review with research and practical updates. – Planned end date – 28 Jun 2022Project 6 – Outline of second practical test piece with a summary of work in progress – Planned end date – 28 Jul 2022 Project 7 – Submit a summary of work in progress – Planned end date – 28 Aug 2022 Project 8 – Submit a summary of work in progress – Planned end date – 28 Sep 2022 Project 9 – Present second test piece with a summary of work in progress – Planned end date – 28 Oct 2022 Assessment – for March event |
| Who else will be involved in your project? List any collaborators, audiences, clients, or others you will be working with?If you are working with others, how can the project be accessible to others? |
| None at this stage |
| Is the project safe and ethical?
Please few the appropriate OCA policies: www.oca.ac.uk/about-us/our-policies/ |
| Are there any health and safety risks to you or others? How will you mitigate against these issues? |
| None. |
| Are there any ethical issues you need to take into consideration? How will you mitigate against these issues? |
| There might be ethical issues should I use scans of other people and need their permission. |
| I have carried out appropriate Health and Safety checks and have a copy of the relevant documentation. (please tick) |
| No |
| I have the necessary insurance to carry out my project. (please tick) |
| Not required |
| I have familiarised myself with the OCA safeguarding policy, and checked my project meets the criteria. (please tick) |
| Yes |
| Resources and budget
What do you need to make the project a success? |
| A project budget at this stage is unknown. |
Course Descriptor
I think a good place to start is with familiarising myself with the aims of this unit.
There are three level 3 units of which this Practice and Research unit is the first. This unit, “aims to synthesise your creative practice and research interests across a self-directed body of work and critical thinking assignment.” The course literature is a bit widespread and doesn’t feel very concise or even easy to find but these practical concerns aside, Practice and Research aims are to, “scope out, develop and receive tutor feedback on a body of practice and research, including a proposal to take these forward.” The work done in this unit provides support to scope and to test different approaches which will be continued in the next unit, 3.2 Audiences and Contexts.
Crucially practice and research cannot be separated as one informs the other. “It provides room to build on your learning, test new ideas, and to identify areas of interest you may want to develop throughout stage 3. Through your enquires you will be encouraged to deepen your awareness of your discipline and its subject boundaries, and to develop highly relevant practical, technical, and communication skills to articulate your ideas and outcomes.”
Specific aims of this unit are as follows:
A1 To encourage a creative and critical conversation between ideas, practices, and your subject.
A2 To provide a framework to identify, explore, and articulate areas of interest and emerging practice.
A3 To encourage a research methodology through practical and theoretical study.
A4 To provide a flexible and supportive structure to develop self-directed projects.
Learning outcomes for this units are as follows:
LO1 Examine your emerging practice through a considered body of self-directed work. (A1) (A4)
LO2 Apply relevant research methods and subject knowledge to test, inform, and develop your work. (A2) (A3)
LO3 Present informed connections between your research and practice interests. (A1)
LO4 Articulate your creative ideas and critical thinking using suitable communication methods. (A2)
Commentary on my Practice – Exercise 3
Exercise 3: What do I want (and need) to do?
Your practice may not be fully formed at this point but it’s useful to think about what you do, begin to describe it and signpost where you think you’re heading. Reflecting on how you go about making your work and how you learn will add to this understanding and help you identify potential self-directed projects you can use to move your practice forward.
Starting to locate your practice alongside what’s currently happening out in the world will give you a sense of where your discipline is heading, what skills you may need to develop and help set a benchmark for what you want to do next.
Use this exercise to audit your practice to date, identifying practical, technical and theoretical aspects, forming an evaluative statement that maps and plans for a sustainable and professional way of working.
Starting with any previous reflective commentary, write a paragraph about your aspirations and ideals, do you have set goals or prefer to work intuitively? Include practical information such as describing your medium and processes as well as the ideas in the work and why you make it. Think about what you are trying to communicate to an audience and who it is intended for.
Are there any key aspects that stand out for you and are more important than others? Highlight these to set out how you may expand and build upon them. Refer back to any mind and concept maps you may have made, identify elements that you think have creative potential and are worth exploring further, both in terms of practical work and contextual research. Identifying connections or threads that you can see running through several projects might present useful starting points or points of intersection.
Use these as starting points to generate some initial ideas and subject areas for you to begin. Don’t worry about whether they are refined at this point – just get everything down so you can investigate these starting points in lots of different directions. Concentrate on the bigger picture, don’t let yourself get bogged down in detail
________________________
I have never sat down and considered what my practice looks and feels like before. So far in my photography, it must have existed in an almost unconscious way so my words below seem new and fresh even to me. Am aware that I can at times internalise and keep my thoughts to myself so in Photography 3 I intend to make a big and conscious effort to write about more of my thoughts, planning and experiences and to provide self-feedback and to use how I look at the work of other students, practitioners and writers.
My practice exists having as a basic, its feet dipped in photography, using both my own work and using found images such as medical scans. I often use found or collected objects as well as photographic images. As I produce my work, my trials and experiments form part of how I research what works for me, although I haven’t always been the best at documenting this. As I am working with medical scans, I have been experimenting with different media, printing on different papers and transparent films all with different properties and opacities which I can then layer together. I very much see this idea of layering as being more than just a pretty technique and is more than the physical process. It is also a way to communicate the passage of time and in a medical sense, to unpeel different layers and structures in the body. I wonder here if I can discover a way, through layering to add in the sense of the self back into technical medical images. My tutor gave me initial feedback on my project, “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. (Xenou, 2022) The idea of the importance of my choice of the photographic medium I will use in my practice and in this specific project through my work is something I will have to research and experiment with.
In addition, I am inspired by the written word, often poetry, which I feel, like photography, condenses and distils words down to a fragment of the original view, feeling or thought. I think, particularly related to my current work, the emotion of the written word can be very powerful and inspiring. I wonder about the use of technical and scientific words attached to images for example in medical notes related to x-rays or MRI scans. These seem to me to be lacking in any emotion. This idea of emotion is at the heart of my practice and how the work makes me feel as a creator and how I consider the audience might feel as they experience my work. Ernst van Alphen in his book “Francis Bacon and the Loss of Self” speaks of the emotional wrench of some works describing some works as being able to leave the viewer speechless, causing pain, of being touched and dragged along by a work and of a kind of emotional paralysis (van Alphen, 1992). These are the things I feel when working on my children’s scans. I cannot speak for how an audience might look at my work but maybe through feedback from tutor and other students as I work on this course, I can start to get an idea of these things.
Within photography, I have been experimenting with layering, both digitally and in a haptic sense. I wonder about how my work might develop in the future. I have enjoyed collaborations in the past with poets, graphic artists and artists working with textiles. I do not see any need to think of my photographic based art as being restricted in what form it might take or what direction it might lead me.
My practice has evolved greatly over past few years. Initially, I didn’t understand what I wanted to gain from photography and in which direction this might lead. My recent work dealing with family memory and the past, questioning how visual memory might work especially when there is no photographic trigger and wondering about aspects of society excluded from visual records led me to my current work using medical scan images and trying to find a way to bring a sense of humanity to these. It feels that my projects are interrelated and I am able to pull ideas used from one project and shape them to help form another aspect of a different project. The document in course notes, “Reflect, Propose and Plan” asks an interesting question, how do you learn? I think, the answer to this, is through experience, both in terms of life and what happens and shapes me but also how I have learned in my studies to shape and adapt my practice to the outside world, by which I mean outside of photographic studies. Learning takes place through the experience of having done something before and how I respond to feedback. In addition, learning happens through internal processes, of what gives me satisfaction and the emotional impact of a particular project and of events in life and how these shape me.
My practice has strengths in how I think of ideas and find inspiration. This shaping of what interests and inspires me still feels new to me. This newness and part of my character can bring doubt to my practice. I can at times doubt the value of my work or of my own worth. I suspect many of us have such contradictory feelings. It is something I am aware of and that everything in life doesn’t always travel a straight or even course and as a practitioner, I need to deal with peaks as well as troughs. An example of this would be that when I research and look at the work of other artists and photographers, I often think, wow, how can I ever reach those heights? The senses of light and darkness in what might be thought of as the soul, are very human ideas and things I wonder about in my subjects and how they felt at different times in their life. The sense of empathy is important to me in my work.
Anna Fox and Natasha Caruana speak of practice and research in their book, Behind the Image. Interestingly, they write, “by shooting in the early stages of your project development, while you are still reading various texts and looking at other artists’ work, you will begin to visually track your progress. As this process develops, it is possible to see how this type of practical research is informing the way you are recording your subject and constructing your image.” (Fox, Caruana, 2012)
I must admit that the detail and breadth of lining up the trial and error of visual development alongside written and visual research sources and then using output to track different attempts and to map my processes and ideas feels daunting. Mostly, I suspect, as I have never consciously put such rigour and organisation into how I reach an end point in my work.
References
Fox, A; Caruana, N (2012) Behind the Image: Research in Photography, Basics, Creative Photography, Thames & Hudson, London, (p63)
van Alphen, E (1992) Francis Bacon and the Loss of Self, Reaktion Books, London (pp 9-10)
Xenou, A (2022), PROGRAMME LEADER DISCUSSION – PROGRESSION FROM LEVEL 2 (HE5) TO 3 (HE6), OCA, [Email communication]
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.