T&R May 2020

1^st May 2020

I can’t believe that we are now at day 36 of this lock down, first at level 4 with a total ban on travel unless you were an essential worker and now at level 3, with a little more freedom but not much so that the numbers remain low.  New Zealand has only lost 19 people, that’s a drop in the ocean compared to other countries around the world, but still 19 too many.

So, I’ve been up-dating my blog site and adding additional items including reflections and thoughts from my tutors reports for Body of Work, just need to write my reflection on Assignment Two for Contextual studies whilst I wait for his feedback and then make any changes and recommendations.

I watched and listened to a number of talks yesterday and today and I’m not really sure it’s a good thing as I keep looking at my work in general and feel as if its never going to be good enough or I haven’t really found my direction, not just with this course but with the whole of my photography.

2^nd May 2020

Tutor’s comments for my Literature Review Assignment two arrived in the early hours of the morning NZ time, not a good idea to open and try to review comments and feedback on your phone after very little sleep.  Decided to close and review and digest later as there seemed to be pages of negative comments.

Logged into two talks as part of the Head-On Photo Festival in Australia, very different but interesting.  I’ve provided a write up on both as part of my Exhibitions page on this blog so wont repeat the information hear, but so far the talks and workshops have been really well organised and the use of Zoom has been seamless, probably not as good as being there in person but I struggle to attend all those that I plan to login to if I have been in Sydney.

4^th May 2020

Decided to take a few days off – well apart from logging in to two talks, photography and this course took a back seat and that’s probably for the best.  This morning I joined the “rest of the World’ forum, small turn out but just great fun to catch up with the others and hear progress and see their progress.  Got a number of links and ideas to follow up on and took a first tentative look at the comments from my tutor.  He hasn’t told me anything I didn’t already know, but he has given me some guidelines and possible ways to go.  The Assignment needs to be resubmitted which I was expecting, so back to the drawing board.  I did pick up on a point and start reviewing the document he sent but then thinking about it I think I want to take my time (as per his suggestion) and plan this a lot more, pick a part all the comments and form a more strategic process.

6^th May 2020

The Head on Photo Festival is offering some amazing talks and workshops which are really inspiring and offer a lot to think about – great that they are all on line and free.  I seem to have selected a number of different genres that will both help my current Body of Work or question my own creative expression.  I have provided a more detailed write up for each of the ones I attended today.

I also took the opportunity to email Mark Spain – a Wellington based photographer who photographed Cuba Street in Wellington as one long Pano.  This would give me another option to explore.  To produce a pano of Ngawi and if I have enough volunteers, I could link the pano to the portraits or just use the pano with the images of the cray – things to think about for the final stage of Level three – exhibition or book.

8^th May 2020

The cray fish finally arrived and so I (with a lot of help from my partner) set up a make shift studio in the garage.  I have provided images of this in my Work in Progress pages of the blog along with the first image.  I plan to leave the cray in place and fingers crossed it will rot into the hidden tray beneath.  I will photography it every other day I think as I’m not sure it will decay that fast.

I have also reviewed the response from my tutor for contextual Studies and formed a list (very long list) of bullet points to work through.  One of the talks from the Head On Festival mentioned a photographer involved in Photovoice work – Giacomo Pirozzi, who I will research as a possible case study.

10^th May 2020

Completed some fine tuning of my bullet points on a new action plan for my Contextual Studies and sent that off to my tutor for any guidance or changes.  I feel a lot happier about this part of the course now.  I seem to have a direction, so a rework of the current version and move on to next part.

11^th May 2020

So today we have finally got the go ahead to drop to level 2 on the 14^th May.  This means that for now provided there are no further spikes in numbers I can finally get out and deliver my letters to the residents of Ngawi and at the same time do another shoot of the area.  Following the talk, I listened to by Mark Galer (Head On Photo Festival 9^th May 2020) I need to explore more and get the detail images, get in closer.  I think I have number of useful images of the general location, just need to get closer, something I need to do with my portraits as well.

I have also set up and started to photograph my cray fish still life (see Work in Progress page of this blog).  I really not sure how this will progress or how long it will take to decay, but as I have till November 2021 to submit, I hope it shows some form of decay my then.  Looking at the processed images I’m thinking that the colour will probably work best to show the results but that will contradict my thoughts around the portrait studies.

14^th May 2020

I have continued to log into the Australian Photo Festival for a number of inspirational talks.  All of which I have provided a more detailed over view on my Exhibitions page of this blog.  It often amazes me how people have come to photography and how they keep going and manage to support themselves.  We are surrounded by images and even more so during this lock down, or is it a case that my life has slowed down and I’m noticing things more? Most of the stuff on the usual social media sites I find emotionless, often selfish and self-centred.  In this plastic world how do you produce emotive, thought provoking work?

15^th May 2020

As we have only just officially been given the green light to move between regions, I have decided to postpone my trip to Ngawi to next weekend when everyone has got over the initial excitement of a bit of freedom.

I have continued to photograph the progress of decay! Have to say the smell is not good and it is looking a little sad.  The colour images show the most change however slowly.

Its running up to the end of the Head-On photography festival in Australia and they have done an amazing job moving everything on-line in such a sort period of time.  They have managed to keep the programme on track and interactive, the talks and workshops that I have attended have been varied and extremely interesting, not sure how the Auckland one will compete or if I have to start working from the Wellington office how much I will be able to see.

I been giving more thought to other options for my BoW and exploring the panoramas that other photographers have produced and how they have exhibited or printed the end result.  From my discussions via email with Mark Spain and looking at the work by Rusha (see Work in progress blog) I really like the one continuous page which can be pulled from the covers.  This is I think worth investigating depending on the results I get.

18^th May 2020

Last night saw the end of the Australian Photography Festival which has been an amazing inspirational insight into areas and subjects of photography I wouldn’t normally have considered.  Its only because New Zealand has been in lock down like the rest of the world and working from home has meant that my usual travel time is now study time.

Caught up with the other students on the ‘Rest of the World’ forum and asked for feedback on my initial cray images.  They think at this stage the colour works best.  For me its too early to say, this project might not even feature in my final submission but I will continue and see where it leads.

19^th May 2020

Seems like it’s a week of student forums, this morning it was the Level 3 tutor led one.  Not a really good turnout which is unusual but it was great to get some feedback on my ideas and progress.  My idea around the decaying cray caused a few laughs but then I was also pointed into the direction of the work by Sally Mann on the decaying human corpses in her project ‘What Remains’.  We also discussed other areas of how I could show decay or the evaporation of life for example the work by Nic Rue on the native moths of the UK and her use of cyanotype contact prints and Kuster and polaroid images that are left to fade over time.  Both of these really interest me I think I would like to explore more and experiment with the results.

22^nd May 2020

Signed in and joined the Documentary Forum this morning, this after an early talk by David Noton from RPS, not really in line with either my Body of Work or Contextual Studies but I just like his work.  The student forum had lots of discussion around the new assessment requirements.  As I have over 12 months to think about this I hadn’t really taken much notice (thinking that by the time I need to submit it will have changed again) but it does seem to have caused a lot of frustration and confusion, so I have printed off the document and reviewed what I need to add to my blog from both an up-dating perspective and going forward.

As part of my Contextual Studies research my essay will cover photo therapy and the Royal Photographic Society were holding a full day of presentations and lectures – timing couldn’t have been better and so I had registered on the 13^th May and so I prepared myself for a full night.  I have provided more in-depth detail in my Exhibition section.  Lots of useful discussion and work being undertaken – not the best technical ability as we lost the session at one point, but they soon got it working again. Worth staying up all night for.

27^th May 2020

I have spent several days reviewing and reworking my literature review ready for re-submitting.  Not the easiest process.  I always thought that it was easier to change something than start with a blank page, that doesn’t seem to be the case.  The new approach I have (see Reflections on Assignment Two Tutor feedback and Research blog for Contexture Studies) has helped and so I can pull out some of my original thoughts and gain more of a focus.

I have continued to photograph the cray but have decided to only post the weekly changes to my Work in Progress page as this is going to be a slow change.

28^th May 2020

Up early to listen to the Photoworks Digital Event talk with Eli Durst – full details about the talk on my Exhibitions page.  As I’m thinking about producing a book, I was interested in understanding he layout and thoughts about images and text.

I also took the day off work and went to Ngawi for a photoshoot and to post my letters.  First real outing with my camera (apart from my daily trips to the garage to photograph the cray) in weeks.  I have to say it was good to be out and about.  I spotted a few locations on the way for stopping on the way back, but got to the village around 9:30 and delivered the letters, then started the panorama along the front, completed some more detail images on the beach and then started to head back.  Completed the first additional location and then got to the second, pulled off the road and onto what I thought was hard sand – how wrong could I have been! Ended up having to be pulled off, why is there no one about when you need them.