My Blog

Assignment 3 - Tutors Report

Overall Comments

Thanks for submitting Assignment 3 Nick, which was another visually strong submission.

The key issues mentioned within my last feedback report were as follows:

•Include your thoughts and analysis on the reading recommendations.

•Try to relate your own work to the work of others.

•Try to tackle an issue / angle through your landscape work.

•Challenge yourself to produce different imagery and leave your comfort zone.

•Include more contextual links on the blog IE: Readings / Practitioners Research / Journal Publications / Gallery Visits etc.

•Think clearly about ‘why’ you have chosen a specific theme and try to justify this decision through your written work.

As mentioned, I thought the visual component of this submission was of an exceptionally high standard, which I will elaborate upon in the next section – but I think you still have a way to go in terms of being able to contextualize this work …. which is extremely important at this level of study. You must keep an eye on the fact that an undergraduate degree is an academic qualification and you do need to jump through these academic hoops set by the validating HEI – this requires a healthy balance between theory and practice. At the moment I think you are concentrating too much on the practice element, which needs contextualization embedded into it really. Hopefully I have included some good leads for you to follow within this feedback.

Feedback on assignment

The imagery you have submitted was very competent from a visual perspective and I can accept the theme of ‘trees’ as your angle here, but would just like some more detail behind this decision really. I’m constantly going to be challenging you with the question ‘why’ over this module and I’m sure you will get fed up of me by the end of it ! It is a valid question though and one that you not only need an answer for, but one that you need to spell out clearly in the annotated notes expected to support the imagery. It simply isn’t enough to just produce visually pleasing looking images without being able to support your reasons for taking them. Why have you chosen this area over another ? What is it about these trees that draws your eye to wanting to record them over some others ? You are already an extremely competent photographer, but you need to be really pushing yourself in this respect and I’m not currently convinced you are forcing yourself out of that comfort zone. You don’t need a degree to continue taking the fantastic landscapes you are currently producing … but in order to achieve degree level study you must push your research and critical thinking / understanding.

The infrared technique clearly has its place within the landscape genre, but why have you used this and what purpose does it serve for this project ? You need to be able to articulate this and I need to know your thoughts on these really important questions, as it is through this debate that we can then determine the level at which you are engaged within the subject matter. Have you seen the recent use of colour infrared work created by Richard Mosse for instance ? Can you provide a considered opinion on this work in relation to the way in which you have used infrared perhaps ?

The two shots that really stand out for me are firstly NJA3008-2 and secondly NJA3009-2. The first shot is beautifully constructed with such a simple composition, it works well at every level and obeys many of the orthodox principles of composition. The second shot is vast and has been patiently sought after, which again is a credit to your technique. It actually really reminds me of some of the work produced by the great Pictorialist Alvin Langdon Coburn, whose work I urge you to seek out if you haven’t already done so. Coburn is often credited with being the first photographer to use the medium for the exploration of the abstract form. His ‘Vortographs’ of cloud formation produced in 1917 were actually trying to emulate abstract painters of the day, such as the Cubists. Another photographer I’d like you to look at is Edward Chambre Hardman, who was heavily influenced by Coburn. He was a Liverpool based commercial portrait photographer, who had a passion for Pictorialism and is actually better known now for his topographical views of Liverpool taken during the 1940’s and 1950’s (EG: Birth of The Ark Royal). Some of your images remind me of Hardman’s work also, therefore I’d urge you to go and take a look for yourself and tell me what you think.

I think you could also benefit from looking at Carleton E. Watkin’s work during the 1860’s. He was a pioneer really and shot many trees in Yosemite National Park before Ansel Adams was even born ! He has left us an archive including some amazing 18x22 inch glass negatives, which required a train of 12 mules to carry the equipment around for him !

Lastly I’d like you to look at a project by American photographer Mark Klett, called ‘Third View’ and can be found at www.thirdview.org – The methodology associated to the genre of re-photography is nothing new, but this functionality of this website created from these landscapes is impressive.

Learning Logs/Critical essays

I can see this is being posted on fairly regularly and it does include some excellent project work – again though, I am however concerned about the lack of any serious supporting research included here. The last assignment did include some of your thoughts on each image, but this assignment only really had a couple of sentences mostly relating to technical consideration again.

My main concern is that the assessors will be looking for evidence of this at Level 2 and will struggle to find it, which in turn would be detrimental to your overall grade. It is not possible to pass a degree in photography by simply taking good images alone unfortunately.