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.