Reflections on Tutor feedback Assignment 4

 

The sheer amount of tutor feedback is great, however it does require a detailed response from me starting here:

In the report my tutor states that he feels my essay, while good lacks my own point of view clearly stated. Having reread it I think he is right and can only say in my defense that I simply lacked the experience of writing from an academic perspective and also the confidence not to put my opinion forward forthrightly. I was aware as I read and researched the essay that I had to strike a balance between quoting sources and stating my own opinion. Having said all that I will clearly state now that I personally find these images sickeningly saccharine and overly sentimental. It puzzles me why they are resurrected and held up as some sort of masterpieces by the art critics and museums. Neither are they original depictions of Ireland, as I said in the essay they are based on the image of Ireland created by John Ford in the Quiet Man, an Ireland of the doffed cap and where Irish people use language like begorragh and to be sure to be sure. To me they are the romanticised version of Ireland that is imposed by people from outside Ireland like John Hinde.

I believe the point of view that John Hinde’s images of Ireland is propagating is essentially a colonial one. He rarely shows people up close in his images and when he does they are children and I feel that he portrays the Irish landscape like a theme park – the over saturated colours and the permanently mediterranean sky, the castles that remind me of the disney logo – all of these elements in his images later went on to feature in his images of a real theme park – Butlins. Ireland is not, now was it ever a theme park.

It seems that I also neglected to say clearly enough that I consider the work of Anthony Haughey and Sean Hillen as “truer” in its representation of Ireland. I am not sure I would say truer, photography and truth are not words I am comfortable using in the same sentence. Both artists work I believe show a greater understanding of the complexities of Irish culture and to me as someone who is Irish I feel they have greater depth and are more authentic.

I also stated “

It would be wrong to assume though that the Irish are mere victims in the

process. In fact there is an interdependence between the tourist and the objects of the

tourist gaze… Sean Hillen and Anthony Haughey are two examples which I feel show that

it is impossible to consider representations of Ireland from only a purely aesthetic aspect.”

I stated that they Irish themselves were and still are complicit in these representations of

Ireland. At the time of the publication of John Hinde’s post cards Ireland was opening up

its economy and working to attract foreign tourists to Ireland. Aer Lingus, the national

Airline were acting as a defacto tourism and they employed a team of Dutch designers

who changed the way Ireland was depicted in their advertisement. They used

synecdoches to sum up and simply Irish culture. Their work is strongly modernist in style. I cannot help but feel, looking back with hindsight that the images that the new state chose

to depict itself were strongly colonialist in nature.

My tutor suggests that I choose a different more catchy title for the essay. I feel that

perhaps the addition of the word exploitation to the title would help to state my view

clearer. The Exploitation and Misrepresentation of Ireland in John Hinde’s Irish postcards

I also used the word truer in my essay, and my tutor find issue with that. I should have

stated “The image that the postcards present is an excessively romanticized one and

connotes the “true Ireland” and all that is “truly Irish” with rural life.” Hinde’s postcards are

aimed at potential tourists and it is a given in the tourist business that every tourist goes in

search of the ‘true’ or ‘real’ country of culture.

Again I state “This traditional Ireland, in my opinion is used to signify a lost world of innocence, a prelapsarian society that has a cross cultural appeal – such as the biblical fall of man – “ My tutor says that cross cultural appeal of the biblical fall of man is a contentious claim that could undermine my argument. Perhaps it would be better to say cross cultural recognition. What I am really trying to say by this is the romantic notion that before industrialisation we lived in a purer or a happier world. I personally find that hard to believe.

A small correction my tutor suggests is to change this sentence “these misrepresentations of Ireland are visual spectacle engaged in the commodification and appropriation of the Irish landscape solely for the tourist gaze.” to “these misrepresentations of Ireland are visual spectacles that commodify and appropriate the Irish landscape for the tourist gaze. Hinde’s work could be viewed as aiding and abetting the prostitution of the landscape – a version of which is packaged and marketed for financial gain” I think this is a good addition to the wording and strengthens my own point of view.

My tutor queries whether emigration is or was a fact of Irish life. I state that it is. I should elaborate. During the “Celtic Tiger” years emigration was, for the first time ever stopped and immigration became an issue also for the first time ever. Since the end of the mythological boom emigration is again a fact of life in Ireland.

My tutor questions this statement: “John Hinde’s postcards fit exactly the dominant stereotype of Ireland” He says the use of the word dominant implies other stereotypes and says that I should either remove the word dominant or allude to the stereotypes I am referring. I am referring to stereotypes of Ireland being a rural arcadia where everyone lives on a farm, collects turf and drinks Guinness. It would be true perhaps to say that some people do live on farms in Ireland although since the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st there has been a gradual shift of population from rural to urban living. Collecting turf has become a contentious issue in modern day Ireland, a subject I examined in assignment 2. Turf also happens to be a very inefficient fuel. And so on.

“through imagery such as painting, film and postcards the rural is venerated at the expense of the urban and the past is sanctified at the expense of the present.” My tutor asks whether I maintain that this version ever existed or that it is a fabrication. I maintain it is a fabrication, invented by urban intellectuals such as Jack B Yeats and Sean Keating, two Irish artists who painted romantic images of Ireland during the 19th century when Ireland was experiencing the Gaelic revival. My source for this is Transformations In Irish Culture By Luke Gibbons.

I quoted Sean Hillen “I would say that I feel Irelantis celebrates the slightly delirious imagination of Hinde’s images whilst perhaps critiquing them, but I was always dismayed when people at first read it as purely satirical, that was far from my aim. I also think that the Ireland pictured was actually not unfamiliar in its contents to anyone born before the ’60’s, when you actually did still see the poverty and peasant nature of Ireland which persisted then.”

My tutor says that this quote seems to imply that Hinde’s Ireland does exist and that I should state whether or not I agree with it. I do not think that this statement implies that Hinde’s Ireland existed. In fact Hinde’s Ireland ignores the harsh reality of Ireland in the 1950’s when so many people were driven off the land and out of Ireland for a new life elsewhere.

Portfolio: The final selection

This series of photographs is the result of the very confused brief in this photography course.  The essence of that brief is that the portfolio should be based on the seasons.  As I have written about earlier the brief was written in a contradictory way.  It has worked out better for me that the brief is confused because it has required me to examine and question what it means to me personally by a seasonal portfolio, what is my personal response to the idea of a selection of landscape photographs that represent the seasons?  I have set out to explore, to test this theme with the portfolio When I think about the seasons the images that come to mind are what imagine are quite typical.  Initially I had considered seasons in terms of the changes seen in the landscape, the colour change, the leaves in spring and the unique green colour when they are young and full of vigour.  In summer the green deepens and darkens, becomes fuller and as the summer passes they begin to droop in the late summer torpor until autumn brings the shorter evenings and the first morning chill see the green slowly change to yellow and red then brown.  Winter arrives and the first atlantic storm has them dropping down to make a rich brown carpet that leaves the trees bare and naked.  This of course in Ireland is a romantic and idealised idea of the changing seasons.  Here spring frequently fools us, lulls us into a false sense of security with sunshine one day followed by hails, rain and snow all accompanied by gail force winds leaving us shivering and confused.  In the Irish landscape it can be autumn one day and deep winter the next at times of year.  You can be photographing the beautiful autumn gold or perhaps planning to go out tomorrow to capture it only to have winter arrive in the form of a huge wind from the atlantic that leaves the trees embarrassingly naked.  Even in summer it can feel like winter.  So depending on the idealised signs of winter can be difficult and to me they don’t represent the changing seasons. I began to broaden my thinking on this and consider different aspects.  Firstly on a more practical level, I went back through my images of Irish landscape photography taken around Ireland since 2012.  I at them looked chronologically, by date and chose images that I stood out to me for whatever reason into seasonal collections; Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter respectively.  I didn’t worry too much whether they met, what I think of as the conventional signifiers of the seasons.  As I did this I could see that some might have conventional seasonal signs like for instance daffodils but also they could have other conflicting signs.  A good example is this image here:   This image for me is a more authentic representation of how I experience Spring here in this part of the west of Ireland.  Look closely and you can see the yellow daffodils between the bare trees.  Maya Angelo said “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel”.  The same is true of photography, people don’t look at an image and wonder what camera it was taken with or if it is composed on the rule of thirds etc.  At least not at first, at first what hits them is “how does this make me feel?”  The technical analysis comes later on. So in some of the photographs I have included the more obvious seasonal signifiers like daffodils for spring but I have also included other signifiers such as the window.  Shown  from inside this could signify the weather, the cold and the rain, the claustrophobic feeling of being sick indoors on a rainy day and so on.  This image then, is polysemous, it can mean many things to many different people.  This, to me, makes it a richer image visually.  You may not know how spring feels here, you might not see this image as an image of spring but it might remind you of a day when you were a young child, off school, at home sick in bed, trapped and bored inside the house.  Or it might remind you of something else altogether.  When I dig deep and really examine what the seasons mean to me they mean lots of different things, I represent them to myself in pictures, words, thoughts, feelings, sounds, tastes and smells.  So the possibilities are endless when it comes to making an image or a series of images about the seasons.  But in the images the seasons are like a loose thread that holds the set lightly together. Another concept I have been exploring is around the meaning of the set of images.  As I asked here and elsewhere, what does this selection mean to you?  Who decides what the set means; Me (the author) or you the reader?  The traditional idea or concept of the author of a piece of work is the person who not only creates and crafts the work but is also the sole arbiter of the works meaning.  Again in traditional terms it is the readers duty to discover what the authors meaning is.  I have certainly found myself standing in a gallery trying to understand what an artist meant when they created a certain painting or photograph have you?

A discussion that came up recently on a forum I participate in was Roland Barthes essay The Death of The Author.  In it Barthes proclaimed the death of the author and the birth and emancipation of the reader as the arbiter of meaning in a piece art or a text.  From the many and varied responses I received it appears that he may have had a point.  No two viewers responded in the same way as an earlier blog post here shows. This concept of the death of the author not only emancipates the reader but also the author too.  Barthes essay shows up a common misconception on the artists  purpose in creating a work of art.  It is often  thought that the artists purpose in the creation is to establish a direct line of communication between the themselves and an audience. While this may be the case in advertising or illustration it is not the situation in fine art.  A fine artist will create a piece of work, show, share or exhibit it and the audience will understand it (in some way).  If there is any coincidence between an idea, meaning or message that the maker/artist might invest in the work and the audience might discover then it is only coincidental.  So not only are we free as an audience from deciphering the meaning that the author may have intended but also as the artist or photographer we are free from having to invest any meaning that might appear in the piece other than what might appear during the process.  It is not that the work has no meaning, on the contrary the meaning exists as the result of the interaction between the work and the audience but also as Barthes points out the author is the first reader too…. So now I ask you once again what does this et of images mean to you personally?  What comes up when you see them?  What do they say to you?  Leave me a comment please!

Here is my second set of possible images for the portfolio.  This time I have deliberately scrambled the seasons around.  Spring is no longer the fist set, here we start with summer time and finish with spring which also brings hope and optimism represented by the rainbow and the couple together in the final image.

Reflecting on the portfolio version 1

I have already written about the reaction to the first possible version of the portfolio selection and I just wanted to write about how and why I selected the selected the images in the slideshow.  My reasons for selecting this set are simple.  Each triptych of images has a seasonal clue in the image.  The seasons are shown in the normal annual chronological order order, the way that seems most natural.  So the first image is a spring image as represented by the lamb beside its mother.  The next image might seem wintry but if you look closer you will notice that there are bare trees in the garden, outside the rain spattered window and beneath them you can make out the daffodils planted in the garden.    The next image is of daffodils blowing in the wind beside an empty bench.  The first summer image is a rain spattered window looking out on a car park, the window has a latch and its the inside of a caravan or a camper van.  The trees are green and in full bloom.  Summer is not usually warm and dry in this part of the world.  And so on.  Each one has a direct reference to the season or the season is in some way implied.  Some are inside a vehicle looking out and some are not.  That was the selection process.  The other element I wanted to include was that they should be deliberately ambiguous or polysemous.

I asked for feedback from various different viewers because I wanted to investigate the idea of authorship and meaning.  Having recently read Death of The Author by Roland Barthes I was interested to test the theory and I feel the feedback I have received would indicate that every viewer or reader will find their own meaning in an image or a set of images.  I am the first reader of my work so I suppose that I set the criteria that I am happy with for the selection.  I decided what I want the meaning to be and I select images that meet that standard but once I put the work out there the viewer will find their own meaning.  Therefore I am effectively free to make my work, my way and the viewer is free to read what they will into it.

Reflections, feedback and revisions on assignment 3.

My tutor report for this assignment was a good piece of feedback for which I am grateful.  However my tutor starts his report by stating “You submitted 11 images when only eight were called for. The main thrust of your approach involved comparative and contrasting images from the two areas – Sligo and Dublin. I suggest that you review your submission and edit your images down to the eight that best make your point.”  I have to take issue with this for a couple of reasons.  The first is that this landscape course is written sort of adhoc.  This is the only assignment that 8 images were asked for, every other assignment asked for 12.  I fond having to edit my selection down to 8 just because it says so contradicts the point of undertaking a degree, we are not here to follow instructions – this is art – but to develop as photographers/artists.  Also this particular subject is too large to be restricted to 8 images so I will be leaving it as is.

“You might want to consider and reflect on the merits of a different camera height for the series. I’m not suggesting a re-shoot just reflect on the possibilitiy in your log. Evans and Donovan Wylie adopt a high camera position effectively to look down on the street. Your images tend to be from normal head height and contain a lot of sky with some cutting of the ground to concentrate on buildings. A higher camera point would allow you to include the ground and thereby compare the presence or absence of people/cars and other evidence to support your proposition.  I think this is a fair point, I have noticed a propensity to put the horizon always in the same position in my images.  However for instance with the first image in the series for instance I wanted to include some of the details on the ground in the image.

“The influence of Evans and his image of the graveyard at Bethlehem Pennsylvania is clear in your image 1”  I did not see the image of Betlehem, Pennsylvania until after I had finished this series, I first came across if in John Tagg’s The Burden of Representation.  But I was please to have made the jump myself in recognising the element of juxtaposition by including the graveyard.

“I like the emptiness in the image. However I’m not convinced about picking a sunny day as this suggest a positive and uplifting feeling when you may be wanting to suggest the opposite. Your later images are more in keeping as they use and cool blueish palette that echoes the likes of Picasso’s blue period that helps suggest dejection and other aspects of negativity. I appreciate that you want the sun to pick out the graves but was there not an alternative camera position that on a dull day emphasised the gravestones by placing them in the foreground and enabled you to use a similar cool overcast grey day. Look again at Evans’ Bethlehem image with its gravestones in the foreground.”

First of all I shot it at this height because of that little weed with the litter sticking in on the right.  Its there deliberately.  I shot several images where I tried to leave it out but it kept on creeping in and then I thought it should be in there because it is a sign of neglect and decay.  The sunny weather in the shot matches exactly the situation of the crash in Irelands economy.  We were steaming along having a jolly time, partying, buying cars, houses and more when the titanic hit the iceberg.  Everything was sunny, we were told that we had nothing to worry about when BAM, out of the blue all hell broke loose.  I think that this is what the message in this image is.  Everything can look great on the surface but you never know what might be lurking in the background….  And it wasn’t possible to shoot this from the graveyard, the signs in the windows are a vital part of the image.

“I like the contrast using the presence of cars to suggest vibrant financial prosperity. There is the echo of signage – in image 1 the ‘for sale – enquiries’ indication comnpared to the ‘childcare’ sign that effectively draw attention to the comparison. In image 2 the sign is very dominant; in image 1 much less so – is this an issue do you think? Higher camera position might help here.”   Perhaps a higher camera position would help here.  I am not sure that it is possible to make the contrast any plainer.  My idea was death and life, young and old.  The cars and so on were an added bonus.  I am not sire that a higher camera angle would have made the comparison any clearer.  And as I now know from reading Barthes, Death of the Author it is not really possible to control the reading my viewer will take from an image or images so why try so hard?

I’ve had to crop the image a little here to do as my tutor suggests:  “Personally I would consider correcting the converging verticals – as they stand they communicate overtones of amateur – you may not feel this is a problem but I suggest that the stark and professional dispassionate and corrected recording is stronger.”  I agree it looks much better.

Here is an earlier shot of the same place.  I spotted the sun flare on the glass and thought it might be a nice touch.  The problem with this view is the different converging lines in the building.

“You are very close to the cars in this image but in image 6 less so; would you /could you change things to use this as another repetitive aspect?”  My idea with being so close was to give a kind of claustrophobic feeling, like I was right in the middle of them.  It is a good point though and worth considering next time to repeat aspects such as this in a series based on repetition.

 

“Image 9/10 You make more of an obvious point with this pair and although they work, to my mind they don’t have the subtleness of some of your others and as such are less successful. Your image 9 has elements of a snap to it.”  I don’t see what he might mean here.  Although there is this earlier image that I had taken that wouldd be more repetitive because of the gate.

 Image 11:  “This stands out as it has no contrasting pair. Why include it? you give no indication in your notes.”  This is a fair question.  I was thinking of it as a kind of full stop.  Above is a possible pairing for this image.

“Your log contains good material about your thoughts, reflections and musings about your work and other photographers that you ahve seen. But without an exhaustive look though it, it doesn’t seem to mention much of your work – if you have done some – on the exercises leading up to to the assignment. This of itself is not a problem as you are making good progress pursuing your own areas of interest but it may reflect on the outcomes at formal assessment. You may want to think about including commentary about your decision in this respect to explain your rationale.”  I can see no relationship between the exercises prescribed for this course and the assignments.  If I was to do the assignments based on the exercises I would be critiqued for being too literal and unoriginal.  I have since completed all of the exercises required and some of the voluntary ones too and tried my best to approach them like they were in an of themselves mini briefs but some of them seem bizarre to me as I have said elsewhere on this learning log.  It’s like they are designed to bulk out the course.

 

 

 

 

 

Further reflections on feedback and assignment 2

In preparation for assessment I am revisiting the assignment sand the tutor feedback.  I completed and submitted this assignment 18 months ago now and its interesting to look back at it and the feedback from my tutor.  I can see clearly now as the song says.  My tutor made what seems now, a prescient remark at the beginning to the report “To me it appears that with this assignment you have been exploring various styles”.  Now looking back at the series of images it appears to me that one of the weaknesses of this set of images is the mixture of styles.  It seems confusing to me now, what is the message that is being given or is trying to be given here.

He goes on to say “the first, illustrated best by your first two images, uses the subject matter to show the tension between competing pressures that man exerts on the land. The beaten up no dumping sign infers the disdain with which the message is held by some and introduces nicely the second image with the fly tipped rubbish, the farmer transporting livestock and the scenic landscape for the transient tourist or viewer. Both these are good images. I wouldn’t worry too much about the imperfections of composition in the second image as you have caught the moment well and it is one that is neigh impossible to recreate. In these first two images the sky is very different although this sounds obvious my point is that the difference argues against a unifying style. You no doubt could have chosen to photograph the no dumping sign against a less dramatic sky – similar to image 2. I’m thinking of Donovan Wylie’s conscious decision to photograph his Maze Project against a bland overcast sky”.  I have a clear understanding of what he means now.  To have the same conditions, the same weather conditions in each image would have given more visual weight to the entire set.  It would have perhaps forced the viewer looking at the set to consider the environmental issues in the images rather than admire the composition or the aesthetic aspects of each image.

I feel now looking back at this series that I was conflicted about the different styles, conflicted between making ‘nice’ landscapes and giving my opinion about the environmental issues around the landscape here in Ireland.

On the order of the set again he says “These two styles are then mixed with more traditional landscape work as shown in images 3 &11. Thats fine in that these help meet the brief but I’m not sure how they add to a viewers interpretation of your impression of the area”.

On the order of the set again he says “It could be that these are forgive the pun scene setters – to be used as an introduction to the area – if so that’s fine. You might give some thought to the ordering of the images and with this in mind how you might envisage presenting them (in a book, an exhibition?) what order should the images be viewed. in this respect Images 3 and 11 could act as “book ends” with one introducing the area under consideration, the other – say 11 – concluding the piece demonstrating its underlying beauty. Again it would be useful to record in your log how you see them contributing to the whole’.  I think image 3 would make a better scene setter and that the order could change to make this the opening image, it gives an overview and introduces the area in question.  Image 11 I thought might allude to the fact that the peatlands in Ireland could completely disappear, the metaphor I was using was the sunset, the end and I thought it made a good scene closer.  Whether it does or not is, I think, complicated by the variety of styles.

“I think that you have too many images of the cut peat. Image 5 is good in the close up detail showing the mechanisation. Image 6 is also good giving a good impression of the scale of the operation – I particularly like the composition with the peats going over and beyond the top of the rise helping to give the impression of the lines of peat going on and on and on… Image 7 I feel is unnecessary. I can see that it shows the dried peat with it’s black colour. You could have perhaps for the peats in image 6 to dry and then just included this one? As a fulfillment of the brief its fine but as a commentary piece it’s over-egging it I feel“.  I think I would drop 7 completely.  Image 6 is a good image and it is a metaphor for how we think that the peat will just go on and on.

“The images through the windscreen: I think it’s a great idea to pursue but needs further analysis and development. I like the notion of using the frame of the windscreen as a reference point and the rain blurring the imagery. But I think they can be improved and worked on. Image 8 I find the frame of the windscreen being sharp off putting as it is distracting, My attention is grabbed by this and diverted away from the outside. How would it be to get closer to the windscreen focus on infinity and use a wide aperture to throw the frame significantly out of focus. Have the rain on the windscreen distorting the image more (leave the wipers off for longer before shooting). Image 9 is more like I imagine an image to be but perhaps with one edge of the window frame just appearing.”

I think I was too concerned with the techniques involved and the aesthetics than thinking of how the image would look to someone else.

“Your point about the trees and how they affect the peatland is well made but image 10 doesn’t add much more. If you are wanting to draw attention to how the forestry crop affects the landscape then you might want to include something of the ditches that you refer to”.  I have to agree with this, the image doesn’t make the point at all.

I have looked back through all of the images that I took but didn’t use for this assignment and this and the next one are, I think more as my tutor describes.  The two images above too have an interesting metaphor.  One thing I feel I have learnt from this course is that I need to spend more time considering the actual images.  From now on as I begin level 3 I will be printing contact sheets and living with the images in front of me everyday.  I had discounted both of these images because I was, as a previous tutor says I was reverting to the binds of the aesthetics, I had excluded them because they were not ‘nice’.  But the ruined building could make an interesting metaphor to add to the set.

This is a definite improvement of the image in the assignment submission, missing all of the distractions pointed out in the feedback.

I thought this was an interesting substitute to make to the series.  It shows the disappearance of the turf. Again I left it out because of the aesthetic look I thought it had but actually I like it now a lot.

I thought this was an interesting image too, the light from the car headlight seems to denote the speed at which we travel through the landscape without noticing it.

So now to consider the fully revised set:

Opening image.

This is a substitute image not included in the original series but I thought it was an interesting one to include with the narrative about the turf extraction and it shows the big picture scene.

This was in the original set.

Another image not included but that could maybe be included on the same narrative.

Again this is a substitute image, the narrative is that the turf will eventually disappear

 

Now if I change tack on the narrative slightly and introduce the other environmental concern here.

Another substitute image.

Original image.

Possibly not required here.  It might be better to stop at the last image.

 

 

 

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Reactions to portfolio version 1

I have received the following reactions from people on my blogs, Flickr on email and on social media.

“Isolation, Self imposed. Sad.”

“Hi brian – I see alot of images are shot through windows – and an impression of holiday memories in Ireland are coming through – perspectives of a passenger in a car- making images of scenes in the moments of travel”

“Destination anywhere! More than likely damp if it’s going to be Ireland”

“Lee Friedlander visits Ireland”

 “Disconnect”. So much focus on the foreground/barriers, makes me think what’s beyond it is not what’s important.

One initial thought on your landscape set: “landscape” is tied up in my mind with ideas of “outdoors”; here you/the viewer are inside (a car, a holiday cottage, a caravan) for most of the pictures (there are only two as far as I can see where it’s possible you’re “outside” when taking them); this makes me think of “views from” rather than landscapes ie a mediated view rather than THE VIEW; and also the climate-related British practice of driving to the coast and looking out at the sea until the tea in your thermos has misted up the inside of the rain-spattered windscreen of the car…

I watched the film Fracture the other day, and I was attracted to the name and its meaning and its supposed link to the film. Now looking back at your set this BoW links to my feeling of Fracture, as I said on Flickr, the meaning of not really being there/connected (foot on the ground), not really separated from nature but finding a way to dislocate from it – car. You understood time-travel and that’s a feeling I too get from looking at it, as if swiftly dragged from one place to the other…

I appreciate the video/slide as I’m not required to click to view the next image so can seat back and enjoy it. Not so sure about the light grey background, I think white works best – but that’s a personal taste – for both B&W and colour.

Hope this helps. Looking forward to the next instalment. 🙂

“I like the general documentary feel but it is not consistent. There are a couple where “composition ” is rather too “self-conscious” for me. Also I am not convinced by the sequence, there seems to be a lost opportunity here, where is the strong initial image to draw us in?

“To me it’s about several things. How a car can get you places but uses up natural resources. You can think you’ve been to a place just by going through it in a car or sitting there and looking at the view. Seeing the world through a glass screen instead of getting out there and feeling the breeze in your hair and the sun or rain on your face.”

 

“Hi Brian
 I think it works fine as a series. It makes me think of the transition from the old country to the new; how Ireland becomes America, ‘Thousands are Sailing’.
 The big skies and highways are foretold but the car is stymied from escaping by the water hedging it in and even signs slowing it down as it looks for a way that’s not eventually barred.”

So each viewer had a completely personal response to the piece.  Not one of them saw it as a series about the seasons which is fine by me.  I set out to create a set of images that were polysemous after all.  I also see different meanings in the set of images too, thats deliberate, each one has a seasonal element but also something more.  The shots through the window are about the experience of the landscape being mediated by a vehicle, a window, a frame even.  By landscape art itself.  And they were about being inside sheltering from the weather here or experiencing the landscape from a car or a van or a caravan.  What encourages me is the amount of different responses.  If I had shown a series of images of the same location changing seasonally would I have received the same response?  Does what others say matter?  At the end of the day no, I don’t think it does.  I am not trying to convince someone or even entertain them.  Perhaps I am testing ideas?  Perhaps I am making work for myself.

Anyway.  Its time to think of a second incarnation of this and see where it leads me.

 

The Portfolio continued

I have decided that I will be going my own way with this final set of images for the portfolio.  Yesterday I went back over the catalogue of images that I have taken for this course over the last 2 years or so and sorted them into seasonal images.  I looked for other  common themes in the images as well that might make them cohere as a set.  This is my first spin at this and I can see several other possible ways of putting this together.  I have chosen the slideshow format because it will show the images sequentially rather that stacking them down a page. I am conscious that I have not given this set a title or a theme and this is deliberate because I am testing an idea.  If I include a title it is a give away of what the set means, or at least means to me.  What I am more interested in knowing from you, the viewer is what the set of images means to you who is viewing the slide show.  You can click on the icon and the video will start.  Please help me out!  Once the video is finished please navigate back here and adding a comment in the comments section about what the meaning of the slideshow is, if there is one or is it incomprehensible to you?  How does it makes you feel?  Thanks in advance!

Seasonal Project: The portfolio.

It appears I have made a boo boo on the portfolio for landscape. The actual brief IMHO, and I am not offering this as an excuse, is ambiguous or perhaps confusing. Anyway it doesn’t matter now.

At the beginning of the course it states “Throughout the course we would like you to revisit and photograph the same general location at least once during each season: This is explained more fully in 2 light and its measurement. For your final portfolio you will select 3 photographs from each season which best represent the seasons. the object is to make 4 contrasting sets of images that highlight seasonal differences ` a total of 12 pictures. It also states that 3 of the images are to be from assignment 1 which is themed the current season.

Now here is where it gets confusing for my little brain. When I flick forward to Light and its measurement and look for the fuller explanation I find it in the unnumbered project marked Planning your Portfolio and it states “This project is quite simple, but takes the whole course to complete. Find a location that you think will show seasonal changes as clearly as possible. It recommends choosing a location where the vegetation will change and then states Consider the location carefully, because once you have started, you are committed it to it. Be sure that you have access to the same place every few months and that summer foliage in the foreground will not obstruct the view. When you return in subsequent seasons bring the processed photos with you in order to frame at least one image in exactly the same way. It mentions considering the lighting directions and finally states Study your 4 photographs and assess how well you have kept the framing and viewpoint consistent. Have you shown the 4 seasons effectively 

I read this description as the “explained more fully” bit and I have been revisiting the same place and rephotographing it with the same framing and view point each season with the intention of producing 4photographs, 1 per season, as mentioned in the project and I have concentrated on looking for the best set that show the change over the seasons. So I would have 7 images in total.

At the very end of the course it again mentions 12 images: you should have selected 3 photographs which you feel best represent the 4 seasons – 12 photographs in all. You will have 4 photographs already taken for project 15. 
I thought I might have gone mad because I was fixed on photographing the same place, same framing and same viewpoint every season. When I read the final description I couldn’t understand how I could have made the error but now I can understand where the confusion cropped up.

I found this project or portfolio mind numbingly boring. I thought it was to prescriptive, I wanted to let loose and use other seasonal signs and changes in it.
But is there not an inherent contradiction in this brief? Look at the first explanation: For your final portfolio you will select 3 photographs from each season which best represent the seasons. the object is to make 4 contrasting sets of images that highlight seasonal differences. Although you will be submitting 3 images from assignment 1 as part of your final portfolio….. So 3 from 12 leaves 9. So to me that implies 3 images of each season other than the one covered in assignment 1 so in my case it would be spring, summer and Autumn.

On Project 15 – the fuller explanation as stated at the beginning of the course implied to me that this was the brief ( I thought this was project 12 – the projects are not numbered) it mentions one image of the same place over each season. So I understood 3 images from assignment 1 plus 4 images from project 15. This project is called planning your portfolio, ergo I was working of the fuller explanation mentioned plus the project title.

Then finally it says “you should have selected 3 photographs which you feel best represent the 4 seasons – 12 photographs in all. You will have 4 photographs already taken for project 15.” I have my 4 from project 15. Plus the 3 images from assignment 1 that are not mentioned here so that would make 7.

Note it does not say 3 photographs of EACH season and also the numbers don’t add up if you take 4 from 12 that leaves 8. from the description at the beginning 3 of these are to be for assignment 1. That leaves 5 images from 4 seasons…..
I am tired and confused just typing that at its not even 9 am yet….

So I have two choices:  Submit 3 images from assignment 1 which was about winter.  Then Submit my 4 images from the project mentioned from the same locations.  That would be 7 images.  After that I can look through my course images and see what else I might be able to use from each season.

Or I could start from scratch and select 12 images, 4 sets of three that show the 4 seasons effectively.  This seems to be main thrust of the portfolio brief.

Defining a style: Walker Evans.

Before I consider too deeply on the style of Walker Evans I must first of all say that I am judging this from the book American Photographs.  I do not really believe that a photographer has one style.  Perhaps this is because I find it hard to imagine being restricted to working with one style myself.  I believe that the style is dictated by the subject, so for instance you can look at examples of my landscape work and see different styles that I have chosen for different subjects etc.  So Walker Evans’s work might be different in American Photographs than it would be say in Life magazine.

Way of seeing

To me WE’s way of seeing is indicated by what and who he chose as his subject.  He photographed the great depression and the disappearing share croppers, the poor, the migrant workers as well as the small towns, the everyday buildings, houses, cars, war memorials, churches, bill boards – all of the everyday details that people ignored, looked at but didn’t see.  In the book jacket there is a note that mentions “indigenous American expression, whatever its source, whatever form it has taken, whether in sculpture, paint or architecture: that native accent we find again in the Kentucky mountain and cowboy ballads and in contemporary swing-music”.  So it seems to me that he was examining what was the essence of America at the time.  Eugéne Atget comes to mind as I write this and the way he documented old Paris.  Unlike contemporaries such as Steiglitz and Weston he is looking outwards at the world and perhaps using a camera to record it but also to make sense of it?

His style is realist, the photographs are not changed in the dark room to make them more pictorial, which is what some of his contemporaries, such as the photo secessionists, were doing: Making the photograph look more like a painting or more palatable perhaps?

Some of the images were posed but posed in such a way as to look natural.  What this suggests to me is that Evans both photographed what he found to see and also staged his photographs as well.

In a lot of his images we can see that he is sowing us rather than telling us, he is using the camera as a tool for description rather than a way of literally showing the world.

Composition

His composition is influenced by his way of seeing the world and by that I mean he is not trying to beautify it, it is already beautiful in its own way, but rather he is recording it in detail.  So there is no need to do anything but make the subject clear in each image.  I would say that many street photographers could look at his work and learn a lot from it.

 

Film

In this book the images are all B&W but he shot in colour for his magazine work too.  This is in keeping with the conventions of the time that colour was used for advertising and B&W was used for art.

 

Light

He predominantly used natural light.

 

Camera equipment

Given the time when he was photographing for this book I know he used a large format camera and also a 35 mm hand held camera.