The Body of Work course seemed to follow quite well from my Level 2 Documentary being based around mental health. For the previous eighteen months the New Zealand press were highlighting the issues of mental health within rural communities and so my proposal was to explore and get to know a local rural community and to discover the real stories.
At the start it was difficult to see how my ideas for Body of Work would relate to my extended essay for Contextual Studies but as the course progressed and my ideas changed and progressed I think the link has been formed. My initial idea of mental health and discovering the courses changed as I discovered the real stories and lives of the people in the community I had selected. Yes, things were bad and yes, the media had focused on the areas that would catch the most headlines and views but what I found was a community that was held together by some very strong minded and hard-working individuals that keep things going and supported one another, through thick and thin.
This realisation meant a change for both courses from mental health to focusing on representation, me as an observer and what role I would play, the place and space and how the community lived and worked and finally how I would give this community a voice.
There have been several challenges throughout this course. The first was having to start the course without any tutor. A new tutor was assigned following Assignment Two submission. Initially I had some concerns but as my location was set I could progress with my ideas and keep them broad and focus later. The second was the world pandemic and the lockdown. This restricted my access to my location and subjects but enabled me to focus on other areas to experiment with, such as looking archive images, experimenting with a decaying crayfish and the possibility of alternative printing methods. The extra time at home allowed me to log into a range of talks, presentations and virtual exhibitions.
This was a time to take stock and to also review what I was going to submit and how. OCA had decided to go fully electronic submission. It had been discussed on various forums, but I was hoping to still be able to submit prints for this module and complete a book and exhibition for my SYP. COVID and the fully electronic submission meant that I decided to bring forward the book production, although only a draft version and introduce a dedicated website and video presentation of the book and final image set. This offers the best way to see the physical product and both the images from the series and those that were not included but were considered strong following professional review.
This course has given me the opportunity to really focus and research a personal project for an extended period. One regret I have is not using my medium format camera, which was my original aim, but then this would have resulted in a very different style/approach. The medium format makes you slow down, arrange/stage and after getting to know some of my subjects and knowing how I feel in front of a camera I don’t think I would have achieved the same results that I did. My aim was to be an observer, capturing moments in their lives.
The main area of research for this project has been based around mental health and how photographers have captured other’s experiences along with their own. The methods used were many and varied from self-portraits to landscapes, from ICM to Surrealism. For me the aim was to blend in with their environment, document and not disturb. I knew that as I researched more that it was not just a case of representation but also the place and how the resident connected with it. Key photographers I reviewed Adrian Hollister who photographed the community of Loch Ewe in the north west of the Scottish Highlands. His landscapes and portrait images were all in black and white and in a square format showing the same elements of isolation as that of Ngawi.
Looking closer to home in the form of New Zealand photographers, Julia Johnston who documents the people and locations along the west coast of the South Island from Westport to Greymouth. She managed to capture the isolation and remoteness of this part of the country, getting behind the scenes and portraying the human aspects and the ‘back to land’ idealist in a series of colour images. Also, Chris Killip and the images and work he undertook at Skinningrove a North Yorkshire coastal town between 1982 and 1984. The town was heavily reliant on a single industry – iron smelting. In a similar way Ngawi is reliant on the sea and the export of crayfish. And finally, the work by Tessa Bunney, a documentary photographer who is interested in the different environments that are shaped by human intervention. Her most current project ‘FarmerFlorist’ looks at the ‘artisan’ cut-flower farms that recently started to grow in numbers within the UK. She is an observer, not disturbing her subjects. The portraits are in the environment, often not seeing the subjects face, hidden behind their flowers. This is very much the style was trying to achieve with my images of the women of Ngawi. These are just a few key ones amongst the many works and projects I reviewed.
I have tried to capture a feeling of the location through landscape and still life, showing the hard conditions and the environment which gives a feeling of isolation, hardship, mental health issues, but also the softer side. The women that through their own strength hold the community together by making do and sticking together to support each other. I think the images are strong and fit together to tell the narrative I wanted. These have been reviewed by my peers and on social media, but I also took the step to ask for independent professional advice and both were honest and supportive of my work.
Through the course I think I have developed as a photographer and my confidence to take portraits has increased. My skill at editing has definitely improved and learning to remove some of my favourite images was hard but I think the series is stronger for it . Presenting my work for others has always been difficult but the support from fellow students and from external professional photographers I think has helped produce a cohesive series that leads the viewer on a journey through this rural part of New Zealand.
Michele Usher 