Once again, some very useful feedback from my tutor on this second assignment. However, the overall advice is that I need to slow down and give myself more time for ideas and creativity to evolve.
Great to see you continue to work in an enthusiastic manner – my only concern is that if you continue at this speed you will lose sight of some learning that could be done in the reflecting and waiting times. Creativity needs time to develop and sometimes after thinking about something for a long time a brilliant idea will emerge – so it is important to allow space for creativity as well as making sure we get on with what is required. This is a tricky balance and you will need time to figure out how it works for you – for now though, make space for thinking, reflecting and pushing your work beyond the first initial and often knee jerk reaction. I think this will help you access some deeper creativity than you are currently displaying in your work.
I have been used to a busy life and slowing down, reflecting and allowing my creativty to develop more is a challenge. But this is good advice and something I shall take on board.
The more specific feedback indicates that I have a good eye for colour and composition but my images in the assignment lack consistency and that in a series of images it is important consistency is important.
You have shown outdoor shots with natural light, some studio and highly lit and contrasted shots which make it confusing for the viewer to know where you are going. In general try to keep your assignment consistent in lighting and approach. For example it would even be strange for a series of 8 images to have 5 landscape and 2 portrait unless there was a very good reason for it, which there might well be. A general rule of thumb would be to just think that you have to be able to give a good reason for everything in your work!! Try to think about the assignment in a creative way – try to use the brief to tell me something about who you are as a person. What interests you? How can you express that through images? It might not just be a chronological series but an emotional response or a funny point of view. Keep thinking outside the box and try to make your photography about you somehow.
The suggestion of not mixing landscape and portrait is interesting in terms of OCA assignments. I am familiar with not mixing landscape with portrait generally in audio visual presentations but had not thought about this in terms of OCA assignments. With regard to print panels for the Royal Photographic Society's awards or the Welsh Photographic Federation's distinctions, panels are often a mix of 12 or 15 photographs in both landscape and portrait format. So this is advice I will have to remember with regard to a series in an assignment, especially as in the earlier part of the course we were encouraged to look at scenes in both horizontal and vertical format. So it's all landscape or all portrait format I guess from now on, unless there is a good reason for mixing formats.
Moving on from these technical aspects of the assignment, my creativity sems to be the weaker side of this assignment. The message here is that I have to allow more time for thinking, reading and research for my creativity to come out, as mentioned in the initial summary to this assignment.
Regarding food I feel it is a slightly obvious route to show the production line from ground to cooking to table. I have seen this kind of assignment a hundred times! Which is why I suggested above that you allow yourself some time to allow some more creative thinking to emerge. Don’t be too hard on yourself because it does take time to allow this way of thinking to come if you are not in the habit of it but as you surround yourself with creative books and work you will start to become more creative yourself. For example you could have steered clear of a chronological approach and thought more about what food means to different people, what foods represent at different occasions or even playing with menus.
Where I introduced a human element into the series of pictures in the assignment I felt that the image of Trevor, the allotment holder was the best in the series and my tutor agreed. But there are more instinctive ideas that can develop.
These are interesting ideas you are exploring but they don’t really come across in your pictures. I think you were right that the image of the allotment owner was the strongest because it asks questions of who he is. If we were faced with a series of various people dealing with food from their origins (farmers / allotment keepers / butchers…) maybe a more compelling series could emerge? Go with your instincts!
Doing a learning log/blog is a new experience for me and my tutor's feedback has some valuable advice on this which I shall take on board.
It’s great to see you engaging with challenging reading already in Cotton’s book – this is a good sign that you are allowing yourself to be stretched out of your comfort zone and all going well that is what the OCA degree will provide for you. Although it may not all be enjoyable I hope you will find it enlightening and as you learn how to express yourself more creatively through photography this can be the most exciting part of the course.
Please write up your responses to The Photograph and Art Photography Now asap. It is important that your blog is full to the brim of what you are reading / looking at and learning from. I can’t overstate this enough.
My tutor has suggested some interesting reading/viewing websites which I shall follow up.
Reflecting on the feedback I see the key points as being -
take more time to research, reflect, explore
think outside the box and develop my creative instinctive ideas
read more and blog about what I am reading and researching so that my creative side can develop
I suppose I had always thought of photography as both an art and a science and have generally had no difficulty from understanding the technical side from the days I was undertaking chemical photography in the darkroom, colour transparency, colour negative eras and now digital. But the challenge in this course is understanding and developing the art of photography and this is where I have to also direct my effort.
Pointers for the next assignment , which is Colour, are:-
Try to think about the assignment in a creative way – try to use the brief to tell me something about who you are as a person. What interests you? How can you express that through images? It might not just be a chronological series but an emotional response or a funny point of view. Keep thinking outside the box and try to make your photography about you somehow.
"What is the theme here? What is the message? These were my thoughts and questions to myself."
Keep asking yourself these questions and come up with a strong convincing answer and show it in the work.
Great to see you continue to work in an enthusiastic manner – my only concern is that if you continue at this speed you will lose sight of some learning that could be done in the reflecting and waiting times. Creativity needs time to develop and sometimes after thinking about something for a long time a brilliant idea will emerge – so it is important to allow space for creativity as well as making sure we get on with what is required. This is a tricky balance and you will need time to figure out how it works for you – for now though, make space for thinking, reflecting and pushing your work beyond the first initial and often knee jerk reaction. I think this will help you access some deeper creativity than you are currently displaying in your work.
I have been used to a busy life and slowing down, reflecting and allowing my creativty to develop more is a challenge. But this is good advice and something I shall take on board.
The more specific feedback indicates that I have a good eye for colour and composition but my images in the assignment lack consistency and that in a series of images it is important consistency is important.
You have shown outdoor shots with natural light, some studio and highly lit and contrasted shots which make it confusing for the viewer to know where you are going. In general try to keep your assignment consistent in lighting and approach. For example it would even be strange for a series of 8 images to have 5 landscape and 2 portrait unless there was a very good reason for it, which there might well be. A general rule of thumb would be to just think that you have to be able to give a good reason for everything in your work!! Try to think about the assignment in a creative way – try to use the brief to tell me something about who you are as a person. What interests you? How can you express that through images? It might not just be a chronological series but an emotional response or a funny point of view. Keep thinking outside the box and try to make your photography about you somehow.
The suggestion of not mixing landscape and portrait is interesting in terms of OCA assignments. I am familiar with not mixing landscape with portrait generally in audio visual presentations but had not thought about this in terms of OCA assignments. With regard to print panels for the Royal Photographic Society's awards or the Welsh Photographic Federation's distinctions, panels are often a mix of 12 or 15 photographs in both landscape and portrait format. So this is advice I will have to remember with regard to a series in an assignment, especially as in the earlier part of the course we were encouraged to look at scenes in both horizontal and vertical format. So it's all landscape or all portrait format I guess from now on, unless there is a good reason for mixing formats.
Moving on from these technical aspects of the assignment, my creativity sems to be the weaker side of this assignment. The message here is that I have to allow more time for thinking, reading and research for my creativity to come out, as mentioned in the initial summary to this assignment.
Regarding food I feel it is a slightly obvious route to show the production line from ground to cooking to table. I have seen this kind of assignment a hundred times! Which is why I suggested above that you allow yourself some time to allow some more creative thinking to emerge. Don’t be too hard on yourself because it does take time to allow this way of thinking to come if you are not in the habit of it but as you surround yourself with creative books and work you will start to become more creative yourself. For example you could have steered clear of a chronological approach and thought more about what food means to different people, what foods represent at different occasions or even playing with menus.
Where I introduced a human element into the series of pictures in the assignment I felt that the image of Trevor, the allotment holder was the best in the series and my tutor agreed. But there are more instinctive ideas that can develop.
These are interesting ideas you are exploring but they don’t really come across in your pictures. I think you were right that the image of the allotment owner was the strongest because it asks questions of who he is. If we were faced with a series of various people dealing with food from their origins (farmers / allotment keepers / butchers…) maybe a more compelling series could emerge? Go with your instincts!
Doing a learning log/blog is a new experience for me and my tutor's feedback has some valuable advice on this which I shall take on board.
It’s great to see you engaging with challenging reading already in Cotton’s book – this is a good sign that you are allowing yourself to be stretched out of your comfort zone and all going well that is what the OCA degree will provide for you. Although it may not all be enjoyable I hope you will find it enlightening and as you learn how to express yourself more creatively through photography this can be the most exciting part of the course.
Please write up your responses to The Photograph and Art Photography Now asap. It is important that your blog is full to the brim of what you are reading / looking at and learning from. I can’t overstate this enough.
My tutor has suggested some interesting reading/viewing websites which I shall follow up.
Reflecting on the feedback I see the key points as being -
take more time to research, reflect, explore
think outside the box and develop my creative instinctive ideas
read more and blog about what I am reading and researching so that my creative side can develop
I suppose I had always thought of photography as both an art and a science and have generally had no difficulty from understanding the technical side from the days I was undertaking chemical photography in the darkroom, colour transparency, colour negative eras and now digital. But the challenge in this course is understanding and developing the art of photography and this is where I have to also direct my effort.
Pointers for the next assignment , which is Colour, are:-
Try to think about the assignment in a creative way – try to use the brief to tell me something about who you are as a person. What interests you? How can you express that through images? It might not just be a chronological series but an emotional response or a funny point of view. Keep thinking outside the box and try to make your photography about you somehow.
"What is the theme here? What is the message? These were my thoughts and questions to myself."
Keep asking yourself these questions and come up with a strong convincing answer and show it in the work.