Photovoice Elements and Community Based Programming
8th October 2021
Artist Talk with Diana Nazareth: Project Kids and Cameras
During CS and BoW I attended lots of on-line talks and discussions, taking advantage of the pandemic and lockdown around the world. With only 12 months to complete SYP I’m trying to be more selective thinking about my own project and joining discussions that relate to social documentary but also areas for future projects and study. I have found a real interest in the area of Photovoice both as a method to interact but also to help and encourage others to make a change.
Diana uses photovoice in her work and has done for many years, but not as a form of research. She utilises elements in her educational and community work. She works with children and communities through local councils and has developed what she calls ‘photovoice elements’. She has found this approach increases student engagement, amplifies their voice, gives life long skills that are transferable, and she is also able to provide cameras to the participants through sponsorship from a major camera manufacturer.
Website for Project work accessed 09/10/21: https://www.projectkidsandcameras.com/?fbclid=IwAR3VSnymgHyihs6FJaWrcyYeNh21OlLZQLQX6IBOtvoVg2RaO_wrN-jAg8Y
Relevance to my work
This was really for future projects and next steps in my photography. I don’t think my ‘voice’ is in creative fine art photography, sitting in front of a pc working in Photoshop is really not my interest. Getting it right in the camera with minimum processing fits my style and I have a keen interest in teaching and encouraging others to grow and develop. Photovoice is an area that both interests me and I think will help me and the community I live in grow.
Research Workshop with Historian Haley Drolet
14th October 2021
How to conduct through photography research
Probably a little late in the game for current studies but useful for my next steps depending on my results as I would like to progress to either a MA or Phd. She emphasised the importance of utilising librarians, a resource that is often overlooked but as she points out they are a key source of knowledge and have some amazing ways of changing the ways you look at resource material and know how to get the most out of on-line material and search engines – something I find very frustrating.
She detailed the different types of resources from primary sources, books, articles, images, dissertations, articles etc to reviewing bibliographies. She also covered the importance of writing styles and writing for your audience, understanding who that will be, very much depends on the style you use, and this is just as important as your main research.
She also mentioned a new source of information solely for photographers called Luminous Lint: http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/home/ (accessed 15/10/21) – one for later I think as you need to subscribe.
Ballarat International Foto Biennale
Photobook weekend 16th and 17th October 2021
The festival this year offered a weekend of five talks all based around the production of photobooks. I managed to attend three of the five:
- Rohan Hutchinson in conversation with Linsey Gosper;
- Heidi Victoria in conversation with Julie McLaren; and
- Panel conversation: The shape of a photobook project.
Of the three the first was the most helpful and informative to my current studies. Rohan has produced over fifteen photobooks since 2014. He started by designing and self-publishing. His first was a simple handmade string bound zine, printed and produced in Japan on matt uncoated paper. His second consisted of nine 4×5 slides mounted and placed in a box. This was both a gallery piece and in a folder. His third was in a similar form, so the owner can re-order the images and experience a different feel each time they look at the set. His latest is also a handmade concertina type book, consisting of large format images.
Rohan stated how the research will affect the final result. Images in the book often don’t work as exhibition pieces. He often uses rejected images in the book as they offer a link in the narrative. He uses books to reach a wider audience and in this current climate of lockdowns and pandemics he has found that interest in his books has grown as most people can’t get to a gallery and transporting an exhibition is costly. He has also started his own publishing company – ABC Press. I have contacted him for a possible review of my portfolio.
The second talk and third talks were mainly around individual projects and not really about photobooks so overall interesting from a project view but of little value to my current stage of study.
Head-on Photo Festival
23rd November 2021
Artist Talk: Neil Kramer and Kadri Elcoat
The work by Kadri was conducted during the Australian lockdown which was for a period of 100 days. She wanted to tell a story of a lost life using a series of self-portraits in which she deals with the feeling of living in a confined space, trapped and locked in, but all with a clear sense of humour. She uses colour in a ‘Vogue but wrong’ feeling. When she started the project, she set herself a series of rules which consisted of location (within current legal guidelines), colour, lighting (natural with limited additional lights), In camera, captions, expressions and orientation (portrait not landscape).
Neil’s project ‘Quarantine in Queens’ was also about lockdown but approached in a very different way. He recreated scenes from events that had happened using both his mother, who he had moved back in with following a divorce and believe it or not his ex-wife. His work spans a period of 600 days and is still on-going. He seems to be using this to help with his own mental health issues. In a similar way to Kadri, these are very comical and clearly away of coping with the situation.
Relevance to my work
Although my work doesn’t use staged scenes or self portraits it shows how people cope with mental health issues in the form of isolation. In the case of these two artists is forced due to the lock down, in the case of Ngawi this is often due to weather conditions. In both cases the human spirit finds away to cope, through humour, community, work or just plain determination.
Head-on Photo Festival
24th November 2021
Artist Talk with Johannes Reinhart
A Perth based photographer who started this long-term project in 2013. ‘Dreaming of Mermaids’ is about a lost childhood and covers a number of genres. The work is a form of self-therapy, a way to give a voice. He is constantly looking for light, moments but without a real project in mind –‘they just form’. He produces prints and edits from there which was reassuring as a method to edit as that is how I work. Laying them out on a table he finds easier to edit and order with physical copies rather than on a screen.
It was interesting to hear that he doesn’t have or use an artist statement unless he needs one to submit is work for exhibitions or competitions. Undertaking both commercial and personal work, he finds the personal projects have no barriers. His advice was to trust yourself – something that was told to me by my tutor in a recent discussion. He stated to not focus on competitions but to believe in your work and style, don’t try to copy others and don’t aim to get validated by others. The work needs to be close to his heart to be most creative. If you want to enter competitions don’t try to second judge, be true to yourself and don’t feel conflicted.
Relevance to my work
I have to admit I hate entering competitions, think it’s the rejection and a complete lack of confidence but I think he’s right I need to trust that my work is good enough, that it might not be to everyone’s ideas but its mine and I should show it.
NEPN Event
13th January 2022
Photographer Talk: Laia Abil
This isn’t the first time I’ve attended a talk by Laia Abil on her long-term project ‘History of Misogyny’ The first talk covered ‘Chapter One: Abortion’, and in this talk she gave a brief overview to give an understanding of how she worked on that chapter to then form the new ‘Chapter Two: Rape’.
She has a background in journalism and so it was with little surprise that the first part of her project was the result of reading an article within a Polish Newspaper around the loss of women’s rights to have an abortion. This started years of research looking at current and past laws, practices, rights and outcomes, including detailed interviews with women.
Her aim is to explain the facts, show evidence and try to promote discussion and change through photography. She constantly asks ‘what is my role here? What am I trying to show/achieve with this project? The results are a mixture of archive images, interviews, text and created images. Starting with a mind map she tries to envisage how the work would be shown in a space i.e gallery, the flow around the space is important to the viewer, what is included or excluded changes the perspective of the exhibition. She ensures that she has full creative design over the shows. The resulting book is different as she says you can’t control how someone will interact with the book, picking it up, thumbing through or reading front to back, she aims to provide all the information for the viewer – however hard that is to see.
She states that in both chapters her aim is to represent the women, not as victims. It is important to provide the facts, their side of the situation. Chapter Two was triggered by an event in her home country of Spain. Five men raped a teenage girl at a festival but were only charged with abuse and not rape. This caused a national out cry for the change of law. Abil then started researching on the failure of authorities to take action. This time she produced life sized images of the clothes that were worn at the time of the occurrence – from wedding dress, army uniform to a child’s four-year-old dress. Text with each image doesn’t describe the event but how the women felt being let down by the so-called legal bodies there to protect them.
She wants people to feel the emotion of these women, to feel uncomfortable and to ask questions. She watches people’s reaction to the show before she starts the production of the book. The exhibition cannot just be transported to the book. She states there is an emotional journey to be had when walking through the exhibition. A book is a very private/personal experience.
Relevance to my work
In a similar way I have tried to be very factual about the women of Ngawi. Obviously, their situation is very different to that of those interviewed and referenced in the books and exhibitions of Abil, but they are overlooked, not seen, live in isolation, and cope with the extremes. By being an observer, even for such a short time I hope I have shown the resilience of the female spirit.
Social Documentary Network: Matilde Simas
13th January 2022
This talk was based around the underworld of human trafficking – the second largest criminal activity in the world. The organisation – Capture Humanity supports the victims and uses photography and other arts therapies to help the victims tell their stories, recover (or learn to cope) and promote change with the help of local government action. Children are usually to most to be taken for either cheap labour or for sex. They are often promised jobs in new countries such as the US, often kept in isolation and then brought out to perform in front of a faceless audience in the form of a webcam.
Simas has worked at a number of centres gaining the trust of the young girls. The images are made very much in collaboration with the subjects, they have direction and control over which are selected and used. This is a way of returning the power to them. She hasn’t used traditional B&W to show mood but colour and heavy shadows to represent the darker side of their lives. B&W has been used to show the location where the original abduction took place. This project, through exhibition and book will be used to education and promote change.
Relevance to my work
It was interesting to see how Simas used the combination of B&W images with the colour of the portraits. The B&W representing the violent darker side of trafficking whilst the very stylised portraits showed the softer female. The latter do contain a lot of shadows to represent what each girl has gone through, moving from the dark to the light, taking back their lives.
In a similar way I’ve used B&W to represent the male side of my location, I have also deliberately removed the male presences only showing the male side in the form of machinery and the conditions/isolation in the form of environmental images. My portraits are not staged, I work around my subject, the observer. The women of Ngawi either married into the life here or moved following retirement, their past isn’t dark but they do have to cope with isolation and limited infrastructure, which for many in the Western world is hard enough.
Head-on Foundation
31st January 2022
How to pitch the perfect Submission
Although this was based around submitting for the Head-on festival due later this year in Sydney, I think that a number of points raised would apply to any submission.
- Have a cohesive selection of images. These need to visually flow and have an engaging narrative
- Think about how you would see the work if you were in the audience, not as the photographer
- Start with a strong image and build the narrative
- Avoid cliché images- be bold in your vision, perspective, composition, lighting etc.
- Have a personal style, rather than follow a trend
- Avoid using popular filters on Instagram for example
- Avoid over processing
- Think about how you make your images stand out.
- Have a good story
- Do the images have a narrative, visually engaging
- Write concisely about your work
- Create a unique /catchy title
- Explain what your work is about
- Why is it important
- How do you want the viewer to engage with your work?
- Do not describe your images
- Avoid art verbosity
Good technical skills – a good idea is not enough.
Michele Usher 