LO1: Produce convincing visual products that communicate your intentions, using accomplished techniques in complex and unfamiliar environments, with minimal supervision from your tutor
The feedback following submission of Assignment Five resulted in going back to the editing wall. Removing all the images from my mock book and starting again. There were too many images and I needed to focus on what I was trying to say – ‘these are the women holding this community together’. I needed to tell their story but surround it by the place.
The process of how I got there is detailed in my Work in Progress blog here.
The use of Microsoft PowerPoint made the production of the video relatively simple, but I had to experiment with new areas within the package around transition and animation to plan how each page turned and each image appeared in the series. The video can be viewed here.
I had designed a series of Master Pages in Adobe InDesign from the previous drafts and the submission for Assignment Five. These had to be changed to now represent the new image sizes and layouts. The format change came about due to feedback from fellow students who commented that they wanted to see larger images. I wanted to retain the use of negative space to ensure the viewer concentrated on the image and the over size of the draft book to be small and intimate so moved from an A5 size portrait format to A4 landscape. The final version used for printing and the numerous drafts leading up to the final can be seen here.
The InDesign layout and images were then used to produce the new draft book. The process of how I produced the final version can be seen in my Work in Progress blog here. This includes the challenges of designing and producing a front cover and the final design.
As it’s not possible to now submit physical examples of work I have produced a video of me turning the pages of the book and this can be found here.
To help with assessment I have also generated a separate website to collate the key submission deliverables to this part of my course:
- Introduction to the Project;
- Video of the draft book;
- Video of the presentation; and
- Portfolio images of portraits, artifacts and location.
The new website can be found here.
LO2: Demonstrate comprehensive knowledge of your area of specialisation and be able to situate your own work within a larger context of practice in your field
The final selection of images and the website was reviewed and changed following reviews:
- By my fellow Level 3 students – comments can be found here
- OCA students on the open forum – comments can be found here
- Social media forum ‘SheClick’ – comments can be found here; and
- By two independent professional photographers and their comments can be found here.
My tutor also asked me to look and consider several other photographers which I did, and I think this helped form a stronger final set and a more considered narrative. My thoughts around these can be found in my Work in Progress blog here.
LO3: transform abstract concepts and ideas into rich narratives and integrate them in your images
Reviewing the photobooks of Sekula, Berger and Jaar I think helped me focus more on what I was trying to say. A case of allowing the images to tell the story rather than telling the viewer. It was important to me to highlight the environment that the subjects lived in as this was on the factors that meant that they needed to be strong in order to cope. The male presence in the form of the industrial elements implied they were there without having images per say. I think the use of black and white helped, giving a very hard tone and feel to the images added to the isolation and male presence.
I provided a review of the books in my Work in Progress blog here and a strong influence for the final set was based around the work of Berger and Mohr in ‘A Fortunate Man’ (2015). I haven’t used large amounts of text and that isn’t the aim for this aspect of the course as I would like to collaborate with a local author in the final module of SYP, but I did introduce a Maori quote and retained the words by Jim Mortram (2014) as I believe this is how I have approached this project and the subjects of Ngawi.
LO4: Critically review your own work and evaluate it against desired outcomes
Critical review of this part of the course can be seen in Assignment Five here
LO5: Demonstrate management, leadership and communication skills and have deployed them during the negotiation and production of the final body of work with your tutor and third parties
It was necessary to obtain a wider audience for feedback on what I considered to be the final submission and how it was going to be presented. The feedback from my peers in the Documentary, Rest of World and Level 3 Support Groups were helpful and constructive but they like me they had seen the progress of this project from inception to this point I needed a fresh pair of eyes, so my first point of call was the wider student platform. Overall the feedback was positive but poor. I’m not sure if this was because people weren’t interested, too busy or like me found the new platform frustrating and difficult to use.
Next plan of attack was to make use of social media, so I used an all-female platform and posted the video, this was positively received but I was still nervous about posting even though the group encourages and maintains an environment of constructive feedback.
The final step was to contact and obtain professional feedback. There were a number of options from on-line facilities with paid professionals or use my membership of NZIPP (New Zealand Institute of Professional Photographers) and try and get some free feedback/review. I have spoken on several occasions with the current president and so following a short email exchange she provided me with a name and a warning – ‘he will be blunt and honest, if you don’t want that kind of feedback then I can suggest someone else’. So, I emailed, and I explained what I was doing and asked for his feedback. The link to which can be found above. I’m glad that I did as it was a fresh pair of eyes as he clearly stated what was good and what wasn’t. I think the website as a final product is clean and shows each aspect of the project.
I also contacted Andy Spain a Wellington Photographer who I had spoken with previously around his Cuba Street project, panoramas and concertina books. His comments can also be found in the above link. I must admit gaining feedback from professionals wasn’t easy, not the process of contacting them but thinking that my work wasn’t good enough to show them. It was well worth the effort as the comments were constructive and I believe improved the final product.
The final version of the draft book took many twists and turns before finally being produced and recorded. The use of InDesign involved personal development but once the master pages had been set the generation of the draft was relatively straight forward. Having an idea of the final layout helps, along with all the images in one file and knowing if text was to be included is also a bonus. I knew I wanted something clean, professional and focused on the images to tell the story. As I couldn’t print myself I needed to provide a clean version for the printer, high resolution files, selected fonts and colour set. Discussion around paper selection, type seemed to take on a whole new meaning as I hadn’t appreciated how the selection of paper effects the final look. Producing a reasonable initial draft helped spot a few errors and a correction required following feedback from one of the professional photographers meant the swopping out of one image. The printing of the book will be further developed during SYP. I would also like to include a longer piece of text in the form of a collaboration when I complete the final version.
Michele Usher 