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.
A landscape learning log 