Project Plans and changes
Through the course of this project which i started back in september my ideas and plans have changed a lot. I find it useful to look over my previous work and plans in order to try and pin point the changes and assess my plans and whether i achieved my goals.
Evaluation of Last semester's start to the project
During the course of this semester my ideas and work process have been growing from strength to strength ever since my project took a drastic turn. I started off the semester with a vague idea of what I wanted to do, following up my summer shopping list. After initial tutorials and advice I continued to pursue my idea of re creating stories from an online series of short stories ‘420 characters’, individual one off short stories. My work book and research was flowing but the inspiration and motivation to take any images was lacking, I was struggling to approach the subject and felt almost uncomfortable and the longer I left it the more I struggled. I had enough with twiddling my thumbs and decided to just shoot something, anything. Taking my 35mm with me along on some walks trying to clear my head, I just snapped along and captured scenes that interested me. It was upon reviewing the images I had taken that it seemed a pattern was forming within my image taking process as the images seemed to all link in together in a form of serious moving through the landscape from left to right. It was at this point I realised I had to make a change and felt compelled to pursue this new idea of moving landscapes which I feel were influenced by my initial research into Sam Taylor Woods 5 revolutionary seconds, I could see my landscape image taking had a similar approach.
Upon reviewing my images within the interim review with Jim and Nick, I received such positive feedback and advices on how to approach and grow my idea, interlinking it back to story telling and progressing my work. It was revitalising to finally leave my original idea behind, as it just wasn’t working, it wasn’t me. It was evident that my style had emerged and for the first time this semester I was eager to take more images. It was crucial that I made a change and didn’t sit on my sketchbook for too long, and jumped straight into a new idea. From the interim review it was agreed that eventually my images would be best seen within a book, I was advised to stick to the same format of 35mm black and white and carry on building up a portfolio of images depicting my walks and journeys, almost mundane landscapes. Also creating short stories/snippets of text to compliment the images, my own images with my own stories, moving well away from the original 420 characters route.
After the review I was provided with sufficient research to support my sketchbook and imagery. My images stand within a fine art/land art category, which is something I haven’t exactly explored before. It was interesting to study new photographers I had not previously encountered and see the similarities between my work and theirs that was already apparent. For more recent shoots I took inspiration from land artists such as Richard long, Robert Smithson, Robert Adams and Tim Edgar all of which hold aspects that are visible within my imagery and explored other peoples walks and journeys besides my own. Also up until this point my images had taken a solely nature/country side view point, in my more recent shoots the urban and built up areas around Bristol start to appear subtly, not exactly the main focus of the image but still obvious within the frame.
One aspect of my approach I have struggled with is condensing the landscapes into the series of images, the amount of images vary and its hard to tell whether more or less images would work better, I sought advice and everyone seemed to have a different preference. I personally prefer the longer series of images in retrospect to some that are only 3-4 images long, yet within these series certain images tend to appeal and stand out compared to others.
It was apparent from the interim review that my final out come for this bulk of images would be a book. After research and study of many other books its clear to me that the book would have to be hand made by myself, I like creating things and it would make the book personal to compliment the images. I feel this project is nowhere near finished and I plan to carry it through to next semester. The contact, interaction and inspiration I could achieve through conversing with Ian Biggs would be vital in the creation of my book, I want the book to be unique and include sketches and maps and interesting collages to build up a multimedia piece of work within a one of a kind book. The main inspiration for my book lies within ‘Iris Garden’ a hand made photo book made up of imagery and text but together in such a clever yet simple way, pleasing to the eye and the text’s strange humour fully complements the images. “My intention in putting the stories together in an unplanned way was to suggest that all things – stories, incidental sounds from the environment, and by extension, beings – are related, and that this complexity is more evident when it is not oversimplified by an idea of relationship in one person’s mind.” – John Cage. The book proves that completely unrelated random forms of text can work within the context of a photo book. Upon discussion with Jim and Nick it was decided the text that would form my book would derive from my own personal experiences and memories.
As my ideas changed a fair amount during the project, my weakness of time management could have been better, I’m just glad I did something about my block on the project when I did as everything else seemed to lead on and fall into place. A lot of scanning and Photoshop preparation followed, which is unusual for my work but the images definitely benefited and added to a my skill set, a positive for future shoots. As for my final pieces for this section of the project I created long flowing series of images printed on matte paper presented on the corridor walls, my first ever images on the wall! Due to the length of the images I had to cut them out by hand with a scalpel, which took time and a lot of patience, but upon completion I was so proud to see my final images and have them presented for everyone to see and for me to receive feedback on. They look great and work well in the empty space, but the images would sit so much better within a book. I would have preferred to display even more images but time and cost played a major factor. In order to carry on this project I need to have more faith in my abilities, and myself, stop worrying and just go for it. I feel for text to be shown along side the images would be an element worth saving for the book. I still have many more images to take and stories to create/word, research and reading to complete before I can create my book, a book that I want to be so unique and special to me, representing my style of landscape photography, a great final piece to finish of my final year on the course and add to my portfolio.
Upon reviewing my images within the interim review with Jim and Nick, I received such positive feedback and advices on how to approach and grow my idea, interlinking it back to story telling and progressing my work. It was revitalising to finally leave my original idea behind, as it just wasn’t working, it wasn’t me. It was evident that my style had emerged and for the first time this semester I was eager to take more images. It was crucial that I made a change and didn’t sit on my sketchbook for too long, and jumped straight into a new idea. From the interim review it was agreed that eventually my images would be best seen within a book, I was advised to stick to the same format of 35mm black and white and carry on building up a portfolio of images depicting my walks and journeys, almost mundane landscapes. Also creating short stories/snippets of text to compliment the images, my own images with my own stories, moving well away from the original 420 characters route.
After the review I was provided with sufficient research to support my sketchbook and imagery. My images stand within a fine art/land art category, which is something I haven’t exactly explored before. It was interesting to study new photographers I had not previously encountered and see the similarities between my work and theirs that was already apparent. For more recent shoots I took inspiration from land artists such as Richard long, Robert Smithson, Robert Adams and Tim Edgar all of which hold aspects that are visible within my imagery and explored other peoples walks and journeys besides my own. Also up until this point my images had taken a solely nature/country side view point, in my more recent shoots the urban and built up areas around Bristol start to appear subtly, not exactly the main focus of the image but still obvious within the frame.
One aspect of my approach I have struggled with is condensing the landscapes into the series of images, the amount of images vary and its hard to tell whether more or less images would work better, I sought advice and everyone seemed to have a different preference. I personally prefer the longer series of images in retrospect to some that are only 3-4 images long, yet within these series certain images tend to appeal and stand out compared to others.
It was apparent from the interim review that my final out come for this bulk of images would be a book. After research and study of many other books its clear to me that the book would have to be hand made by myself, I like creating things and it would make the book personal to compliment the images. I feel this project is nowhere near finished and I plan to carry it through to next semester. The contact, interaction and inspiration I could achieve through conversing with Ian Biggs would be vital in the creation of my book, I want the book to be unique and include sketches and maps and interesting collages to build up a multimedia piece of work within a one of a kind book. The main inspiration for my book lies within ‘Iris Garden’ a hand made photo book made up of imagery and text but together in such a clever yet simple way, pleasing to the eye and the text’s strange humour fully complements the images. “My intention in putting the stories together in an unplanned way was to suggest that all things – stories, incidental sounds from the environment, and by extension, beings – are related, and that this complexity is more evident when it is not oversimplified by an idea of relationship in one person’s mind.” – John Cage. The book proves that completely unrelated random forms of text can work within the context of a photo book. Upon discussion with Jim and Nick it was decided the text that would form my book would derive from my own personal experiences and memories.
As my ideas changed a fair amount during the project, my weakness of time management could have been better, I’m just glad I did something about my block on the project when I did as everything else seemed to lead on and fall into place. A lot of scanning and Photoshop preparation followed, which is unusual for my work but the images definitely benefited and added to a my skill set, a positive for future shoots. As for my final pieces for this section of the project I created long flowing series of images printed on matte paper presented on the corridor walls, my first ever images on the wall! Due to the length of the images I had to cut them out by hand with a scalpel, which took time and a lot of patience, but upon completion I was so proud to see my final images and have them presented for everyone to see and for me to receive feedback on. They look great and work well in the empty space, but the images would sit so much better within a book. I would have preferred to display even more images but time and cost played a major factor. In order to carry on this project I need to have more faith in my abilities, and myself, stop worrying and just go for it. I feel for text to be shown along side the images would be an element worth saving for the book. I still have many more images to take and stories to create/word, research and reading to complete before I can create my book, a book that I want to be so unique and special to me, representing my style of landscape photography, a great final piece to finish of my final year on the course and add to my portfolio.
What's changed?
Since writing the evaluation above my project has changed in many ways. I have furthered my imagery by using medium format Bronica, which allows for more detail, focus and a better quality allowing my project to grow with strong images. I have also moved away from working in a series, the images i have taken so far are so strong that they stand alone, and although as final pieces i will have 3 large images to be presented together, they are very different images and work on their own as well as part of a triptych. Throughout the project's start last semester i was more concerned with the idea of 'journeys' and walking, but since I've aloud my project to be a bit more free location wise my quality of work and images taken has grown from strength to strength. Overall i am still capturing my local home of Hartland documenting the area through black and white film imagery capturing the everyday and mundane scenes that go unnoticed, the large agricultural community and the memories and marks this industry has left behind, embedded within the landscape. I still aim to create my final piece as a book, not hand made but something more real and solid in the form of a blurb book, with a plain finish. Also throughout the second half of this project the idea of 'writing' and using 'stories' has still been in my mind, but through tutorials and much deliberation it was decided that due to the solid imagery and representation of the area that the use of writing may confuse the audience and the images were best left to speak for themselves, i will have to think carefully regarding the layout of the book in order to make sure it flows well.
[ figuring out this statement above has helped me to pin point the changes of my project and progress which will aide me when it comes to writing my evaluation]
[ figuring out this statement above has helped me to pin point the changes of my project and progress which will aide me when it comes to writing my evaluation]