1st April 2021
Can’t believe that this time last year New Zealand was still in Lockdown. We have been so lucky to still be able to have so much freedom following a short (compared to other countries) period of isolation. Anyway, logged into the next of the series by the RPS ‘Looking at Photography’ covering collaboration and queerness’ with Anthony Luvera. This was probably one of the better ones in this series and relevant to both my Body of Work as I have collaborated with the people of Ngawi and my Contextual Studies on giving voice to communities.
Had another get meet up with the Level 3 Support group. Always a great discussion and supportive environment. Anna was the only one missing as she was in Wales and had poor internet connection. We managed to get an up-date from Sarah on her book production. The handmade product is really to be delivered. Like me she plans to only make/produce a limited number due to cost. These will be cloth bound, all handmade pages. She has a meeting with her tutor the following day so she’s keeping her fingers crossed it all goes well. She recommended a number of on-line book courses – the one from the RPS she said was good. Helen also recommended the one she took with Lewis Bush and said he was running another in may so I might take a look, but things are getting a little too expensive at the moment. There was a lot of discussion around progress which was mixed and a little frustrating following the tutor led discussion. I stated that I hoped to get my first draft out following the Easter weekend if anyone was able to provide comments/feedback I would be most grateful.
6th April 2021
On Friday I caught up with the Level 3/Documentary group. We worked our way around the group, most waiting to start the next level or just finishing like Niki who needed feed back on her final assignment. She had up-loaded this to the share drive so I was able to review before the meeting. We all provided comments and I believe she has more of a direction as there seemed to be multiple narratives, tourists, COVID, multiple home owners, house prices, no food etc. She has used a lot of text which seemed to distract from her images, a combination of the local Facebook and media, anyway a little more work to get a final direction and I think she had done.
Jack brought us up to speed with his Level 3 work – so far advanced than I was at his stage. Had us all in stitches over his stories of Canvey Island, can’t wait to see the final results.
I spent the rest of the long weekend – between house jobs and visits – learning InDesign. Watch both the course from RPS and the one from Lewis Bush, gave me a great base understanding of how to start and plan my book. I have provided a full description of progress in my Work in Progress section to this blog. Not sure I would have gotten anything out the doo without these and the YouTube videos that are free to use.
Sent the first draft of my book out to my fellow students for comment and feedback. Fingers crossed they think its ok. I did email my tutor to see if he wanted an early review but didn’t seem interested until I submitted for Assignment 5 which has a lot of course material to produce as well.
10th April 2021
Over the last few days I have received feedback from the student groups I sent it to. On the whole they have been very supportive and positive. There are a number of suggestions and I have provided a copy of all their comments here and a summary in my Work in progress section and the changes I plan to make.
Added a Photo Live event with Gauri Gill and an early 1:30 am start to watch a VII Agency Insider talk with four photojournalists who covered the Siege of Sarajevo. Both have been written up in my Exhibitions section to this blog. Another amazing and useful presentation and very fitting as I’m in the process of making a book was the Camera Store discussion and presentation with Dr J. Ashley Nixon on ‘Making Photobooks for Publication’ – also written up in the Exhibition section. Really helpful as just got feedback and that with these notes will help with the redraft.
12th April 2021
Spent the weekend re-editing my book following feedback, getting the images printed and then pulling together the pages, gatefolds etc into a draft. Once finished I will photograph and produce a short video which will hopefully address the issues raised in the feedback about the gatefolds not really working in the pdf format. All this work and changes have been documented in my Work in Progress section to this blog.
17th April 2021
Not many talks this week. The RPS Series 3 was all based around the history of the photobook and as it related to the history of Africa. Interesting to see the different perspectives taken from the photographers of the British Empire as they set out to document the colonies, their lives and cultures to those of local African photographers.
I also attended the Photoland Talk – a conversation with Bas Losekoot and the Level 3 student Presentation on the 16th April. This covered the work by Sara-Jane Field, Rowan Lear and Mandy Williams.
24th April 2021
Finished compiling the draft book. Not really very successful and will need to rethink and produce a new mock up. I have provided a full write up on this in my Work in Progress section to the blog. In summary I have to separate the back binding to add additional pages due to the number of images, this resulted in a very unstable structure with uneven spacing. I tried to cover this up by adding a fold of the same paper but it was just a mess, so back to the drawing board. Making individual pages and a separate front and back cover, which will expand due to the uneven pages, having the additional thickness of the image on them rather than having the image printed directly on the page.
Attended a number of talks through the week. The first was an Art House open lecture with Vanley Burke. I had seen his images before and so I was interested to hear him talk about his work, the frustrating thing was they only gave him 30 minutes and then opened it up for questions, most of which came from the people running the presentation.
RPS provided a publishing photography talk with Dewi Lewis, a publisher who gave an interesting insight into his approach to publishing photobooks. I have provided a more detailed write up in the Exhibitions section to this blog.
On the 22nd met up with my Level 3 Support Group fellow students. Always a great way to recharge and get the support to keep going however low you feel. This session Anna was able to get enough bandwidth to join us, although fresh from her recent win of the Shutterhub Portfolio for 2021, she didn’t seem her usual self which is a bit of a concern.
Sue had up-loaded some images for her BoW and we worked through these giving feedback and suggestions to enhance or change in some slight way. She has produced a range of different types of images and styles consisting of archive, ICM, montage, abstract. For me there were several themes, purely around memory of the area and time and a mixture of memory of WWII and the current COVID situation. All had a strong narrative but not sure how she will link them into a series.
Sarah showed us her final book which has been beautifully produced. This hand made book has a matt fabric cover and sits within a protective cover. There are two pieces of text at the start, an essay and a poem – part of a collaborative exercise. The images are full spread and printed on a concertina series of pages. The size of A5 is just the right size to give an intimate feel to the final result.
Helen and Lynda didn’t have anything to show, although Helen said that she had received feed back on her images for her BoW so she felt a little more comfortable in how she was progressing.
I thanked the group for their feedback on my images and the pdf book I had sent out. Showed the draft mock up and how I would be changing it to make it a little more professional looking. I discussed how I still wanted to produce prints for SYP but they suggested I do some for my final submission to link this part of my journey to the next in SYP. The prints could be produced and hung on a plain wall and videoed to demonstrate how they would look.
Great turn out on Friday 23rd April for the Level 3 / Documentary student group. Always a great group to discuss progress and work. Judith had just completed her assessment and had passed with flying colours and now moves on to SYP. Note to self to talk to her when I’m getting close to submission for any hints and tips. Niki showed us her Assignment five submission. She had taken on-board our feedback and had produced a really strong single narrative piece in the form of a short video of images and text.
We discussed the new learning Outcomes and the Harvard Reference version – both of which I need to check.
This next week I have booked some leave to attach my Contextual Studies Essay. I know I have lots of time before the November Assessment but I want to ensure I can address any issues with my Blog site, cross reference my Learning Outcomes and lock my Contextual Research.
Michele Usher 