Category: Coursework

The focus for activity this week has been on production of a draft presentation. Unfortunately, the timing of webinars has meant that I haven’t been able to present my work to others in the group (a process that I found really useful in the first module). Just by chance this has coincided with running a photography workshop for students starting fieldwork on the UCL Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU) MSc in Urban Development Planning. The purpose of the workshop was to explore how photography could be used in urban planning research and social impact analysis from initial reconnaissance through the design and conduct of the study to dissemination of outcomes (more detailed reflection on the workshop and follow up activities is in the project development section of my CRJ here). The close relationship with plans for my final major project meant that I could present and discuss my current and planned work, and critically analyse with the group the photographic work that influences what I am doing, and might inform their own production and use of images. Whilst not exactly a replacement for giving the draft presentation at the webinar (the workshop was 3 hours with three group activities and 106 slides, mostly images, not 10 minutes!), it did give me the opportunity to pull together relevant resources and get some feedback on my own work and analysis. I now want to revise my presentation and get some feedback from tutors if possible.

The major progress this week has been in making contacts and developing networks relating to my project. A discussion with Richard from JustSpace has generated new possibilities for working with community groups (a consortium of market traders campaigning around the effects of regeneration on London markets, the campaign of the Pueblito Paisa market in Haringey against a compulsory purchase order, and resident campaigns on two estates undergoing regeneration and development in Barking and Dagenham). The follow up to the MSc workshop involves accompanying students on fieldwork with three community groups, the first of which is Rooms of our Own at the Feminist Library next week). I am also now in contact with the Students’ Union volunteer photographers, and will arrange to meet with them shortly.

I haven’t, unfortunately, been able to make any new images this week. I need to do that over the coming fortnight so that my work-in-progress portfolio represents my current and emerging interests and approach. I’ll also be doing some printing in the coming week to be able to take some work to Paris for discussion.

The ‘meet someone new’ activity was useful. I think I’ll develop something from this – a more structured way of exploring the relationship between an individual or community with place. Might be fruitful (for the development of my project) to make the dimensions of ‘prosperity’ explicit and work on how to make images to explore these with people. I need to seek some feedback on the final product, maybe at the meetup in Bristol this weekend.

From the networking activity (which I related specifically to my project) I gained an appreciation of the benefit of seeking synergies between networks associated with different activities (in my case, my academic networks and my emerging work as a photographer).

Over the coming week I have to work on the workshop for the Development Planning Unit. I’ll relate this to my coursework presentation (as it relates to my project and will explore similar issues and draw on common material). I am way behind in writing up my contextual research (including reflection on the exhibitions I have been to over the past few months). The real urgency, though, is to work on my portfolio. Having to build up contacts and make relationships has diverted me from image making. I need to get to work on this.

The Max Burnett interview was very insightful for me, coming from completely outside ‘the industry’. Particularly the importance of a print portfolio (which I want to build, but have neglected since my RPS submission). Need to think about strongest work and how images sit together, and the need for a different edit from website. Consider more than on image per page – think about the relationship between images. Think about audience. Consider different formats for presenting work – books, postcards etc.

The ‘Begin at the Beginning’ activity provided wonderful insight into the development of other people’s practice as photographers, and I was grateful for the interest paid to my own story and work (not a conventional passage into photography) by others. The ‘Marketing Plan’ activity was also beneficial in forcing me to think more clearly about the development of my work and how I will engage others. At some point I need to think clearly about how to market my own work, in the sense that I do want an audience, and whilst this is not a business, thinking about the funding of my photographic work is important.

A lot of exhibitions visited this week (in New York, London and Moscow), which I’ll write up in the Contextual Research section. The Turner Prize shortlist exhibition at Tate Britain has been particularly influential (for the use of film and the sociological and political focus of the work), and the Yugoslavian architecture (Towards a Concrete Utopia) exhibition at MoMA in New York (with tremendous photographs of brutalist architecture by Valentin Jeck).

Valentin Jeck, Marko Mušič’s Memorial and Cultural Center and Town Hall in Montenegro, 1969-75

Getting into social media (in particular, Instagram) has been a challenge this week (see post for details). The upshot is, I think, greater clarity about how I might use social media in advancing and promoting my own work, and how it might specifically play a part in elements of my project (for instance, in maintaining momentum amongst participants, and disseminating both the process and outcomes of each component of the work). In relation to my own work, it has made me think more carefully about development of a website where I can bring together the different strands of my work (the artistic, the academic and the community). Whilst Instagram can establish contact with individuals, groups and organisations (the calling card), I need to be able to direct attention to a wider body of more integrated work.

The discussion provided good advice on the use of Instagram, and alerted me to some issues around the holding of personal data (as I will be interviewing people as part of the project) which I need to sort out in relation to GDPR. I was disappointed not to be able to take part in the viral image activity – too much to do whilst travelling between UK, Guyana and USA. But I want to pick up ideas from this activity later in the project development process.

Limited opportunity to shoot work relevant to my project as I’m away from home, but I have been to some great exhibitions in New York (will post about these) and picked up some books at Aperture (and will post about these, too). Practical work on my project has been more concerned, over the past three weeks, with making contacts and developing partnerships. And I’m continuing to stretch myself into portraiture, and thinking about ways of exploring visually the lifeworlds of the residents in relation to the way in which physical space around them is being transformed. As discussed in the webinar, any portraits included in the final project will also have to include references to context, in order for them to make sense with respect to the project and the impact of regeneration on individuals and communities. The juxtaposition of images, as in Sissel Thastum’s work (guest lecture this week), warrants careful consideration in achievement of this contextualisation, and develops my experimentation with triptych form in the previous module. The idea of placing the residents is their ‘urban landscape’, in a way that can give a sense of their intimate engagement and interaction with aspects of this environment (including interior and external space) is challenging. As Sissel discussed, being clear about the interpretative dimension of the work produced is important, both with respect to the images produced and the relationship between the photographer and the ‘subject’.

Some great advice on, insight into and debate about Instagram provided by others in the discussion group. Lots to get to grips with. When it comes to Instagram, and social media more generally, I’m definitely in the remedial group. I set up an account before the module and acquired one follower (a former colleague) immediately, followed soon after by my son. The activity asks us to develop a strategy. I have posted a sequence of images with a consistent style, and sought appropriate hashtags (though it has been tricky finding ones that attract the right kind and level of interest, as others have noted). I’m responding to any comments made, and increasing the number of people and organisations I follow, thinking about what this implies about my own work. Gaining 20 followers in a day indicated that I should meet the (thankfully low) target of 30 set for the activity. I shifted the content incrementally to bring it closer to my current work.

What Instagram can offer me at this point in time, as a photographer, is limited, I think, but I can see that I could use it very productively (in a clearly directed and designed manner) when I am more advanced in my final project. This would entail, I think, a number of accounts, each focused on a particular locality, plus an account of my own for the work that I produce in relation to these contexts (which would include insights into process and outcomes as well as images). As a means of dissemination (and exchange within a particular group, for instance a residents’ group) it’s a really good resource. Whether or not Instagram facilitates wider interaction and dialogue, as others have observed, is a moot point. The potential for Instagram to stimulate some form of financial return or competitive edge is less of an interest for me, but clearly important for commercial photographers seeking to maximise exposure and access new markets. And it appears that Instagram is now the first port of call for collectors, galleries, publishers, agents, editors and others in the industry, thus making a well-managed Instagram presence/identity essential for many photographers. For those seeking no more than a wider audience for their work, I’m less clear, at the moment, about whether Instagram provides sufficient return for the work required. The crux appears to be developing a strategy (whatever the means adopted, online or IRL) to reach and engage the right audience.

In 3 days I’ve gone from 2 to 66 followers, with a relative deluge of likes. The key appears to be consistent and regular posting, and following and liking other people’s work to show that you are active. And, I hope, posting good and engaging images. To reach the right audience for your purposes, I think you need to accept that there will be a high degree of redundancy. From this point I think it’s a matter of cultivating that audience through well targeted and considered liking and commenting. I’ll continue to post and cultivate, but maybe less frequently, and more experimentally. One firm and unambiguous piece of advice from the photo-journalist I spent time with in the preliminary activity was ‘Delete everything you did as a student’.

I think I can see how I can productively use Instagram in my work. Engaging in an extended dialogue through Instagram is, I think, too much to expect. If Instagram is a calling card, then we have to follow up to make the appointment to engage more fully through other means. Maybe its more like a card in a (global) newsagent’s window.

One key concern for me is the need to be really clear about our aspirations and organise our Instagram use and strategies (and expectations) accordingly. I don’t aspire to be a ‘social influencer’ (now the top career aspiration for young people, apparently – looks like we are going to be reliant on AI for our doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers …), nor to make a million a year as an Instagram star (seriously, who needs that, sitting at laptop all day, generating content …), nor even to max out my likes. So that’s not necessarily where I need to go to develop my Instagram strategy. Better to identify people with whom I share aspirations who have successfully advanced these through Instagram and learn from them. And maybe develop some strategies of my own.

The webinars with Susan Bright and Victoria Forrest provided real insight into the process of curation and publication. In terms of exhibiting, I’m now thinking more carefully about the relationship between the design of an exhibition and the space available. This is particularly important for multimodal exhibitions, which need to balance providing an collective experience and drawing individual attention and provoking reflection. The Elina Brotherus exhibition did this very successfully. Likewise, book design warrants careful consideration (and specialist assistance or advice). I’m thinking about forms of dissemination and public engagement more carefully, and in an integrated manner, in the development of my project. I’ll revisit both these presentations.

Whilst not intending to develop a business from my photographic work, thinking of the development of my project ‘as a business’ has been very helpful in clarifying who the work is for and what it is intended to achieve. As the work develops I do need to consider financial aspects (and maybe seeking funding), and also legal aspects. In the research proposal, I wrote about the use of the Creative Commons. I need to return to and clarify this in relation to the three levels of work that will be produced.

The development of my project has been mainly in terms of creation of networks, building relationships and creating contexts. This has been very productive, with work arranged with the UCL Student Union volunteering unit (working with volunteer photographers to document the work of volunteers with local community groups), a workshop for the Development Planning Unit at the Bartlett, followed by working with community groups and MSc students on planning and regeneration initiatives, and work for the Centre for Excellence in Equity and Higher Education in Australia (making a series of still photographs relating to projects to supplement short films already made, developing a critical commentary on photovoice style research drawing on projects on domestic violence and on youth offenders in rural areas, and publications on equity in higher education, space and time involving the use of visual arts based research methods and approaches). If all goes to plan, I should be able to line this up with the requirements of each module and the development of the final project. If all goes to plan …

Being out of the country has made it difficult to create images directly relating to the project. I have, though, attempted to develop my portraiture work in preparation for the project. Some preliminary images of family in Guyana below (these require some work – just a quick selection to give a sense of current photographic work). This has given rise to a possible alternative project – I’ll write about this in another post. I have also been working through Roswell Angier’s (2007) book on portrait photography, and will develop the outcomes of the projects from that when I am back in London at the end of the month.

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Angier, R. (2007), Train Your Gaze: A Practical and Theoretical Introduction to Portrait Photography, Lausanne: AVA Publishing.

OK, these images are not so good, but … I was at an exhibition at the Guggenheim on Monday (‘One Hand Clapping’, an exhibition of contemporary art from China; a post on this in my CRJ to follow, when I can catch up) and I thought I’d take a look at the permanent collection. Part way through, I remembered this discussion topic, and took two photos in about 5 minutes – see below. On the way out, I stopped by the gallery door and took a few minutes to look closely at the people going in, particularly the colours they were wearing. I reckon I could match the appearance and colours worn by several people to particular works in the gallery, and could wait for them to get to the relevant work to get the shot. On the basis of this, I think that, given a good deal of patience, a feel for ‘camera syntax’ and quick reactions, you could build up a decent body of work in the style of Draschan. And no need to set up shots (as he stands accused by some). Like Vincent, I certainly don’t think I have the patience, and also don’t feel comfortable hanging around galleries doing this kind of work, but an interesting exercise to try, if only for a short session.

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