Formative feedback
Student name
Alan Fletcher
Student number 515735
Course/Unit - Context and Narrative
Assignment number 1
Type of tutorial - Written
Overall Comments
Well done on completing this first assignment. This is of course an assignment that helps us to get to know each other a little and will not be a formal element at the assessment point.
At the heart of this assignment is an opportunity to interrogate how two sets of images can have opposite meanings and values despite them sharing the same environment. It was suggested that a snapshot or documentary approach might help to make the images more convincing. Even though you decided to generate a set of images and a set of connected texts I believe that the learning has been effective and that you appreciate the ways that images are manipulated to tell a subjective story for the viewer.
You obviously invested a considerable amount of time and emotional energy working your way through the maze of possible ideas and approaches that might map to the brief. The outcomes and the personal reflection that accompanies the work and research are commendable, but I have made a range of observations below that might enrich the work, or at least help you to think about contexts for new work.
Assessment potential
Assignment 1
You may want to get credit for your hard work and achievements with the OCA by formally submitting your work for assessment at the end of the module. More and more people are taking the idea of lifelong learning seriously by submitting their work for assessment but it is entirely up to you. We are just as keen to support you whether you study for pleasure or to gain qualifications. Please consider whether you want to put your work forward for assessment and let me know your decision when you submit Assignment 2. I can then give you feedback on how well your work meets the assessment requirements.
Feedback on assignment
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity
Look again at the exposures to ensure that they share a common tonality. The postcard needs also to be very neutral in terms of colour balance. As the picture of you and your wife was one of the key catalysts for the whole body of work this should be the touchstone for the rest. As well as this image projecting a strong emotional intensity from each of you, and between you, it does seem to be the key that sets up the dialogue and contrast between the image and the text sides of the set of postcards. In the images of your son and daughter I would try to edit these so that they achieve something approaching the aesthetic character of the picture of you both. I do agree with your analysis that you need to be consistent and use a tripod. Look at the skin tones to see what you are aiming for. With the cat picture – although you justified this more animated shot - you might want to stick firmly to your decision to juxtapose the deadpan records of your life with the much more expressive and open writing on the rear of each card.
I love the idea of creating the work that is directed to your mother who passed away some years ago and I appreciate the cultural and social landscape of the family, our lives (as complex experiences) and the place of the photograph. Try to track down the early work of Jo Spence who explored the family album and wrote extensively about this. There are many others.
The size and format of the card is working very well. This gives the final form of the work a touch of nostalgia, it offers something much more suggestive of tactility and human touch/scale and it returns the image back to a being a physical artifact and not something always seen through the screen.
You might consider if these images were being shown publically how they might be displayed. You have created a viewing experience where the spectator is looking in to a private and personal world of the family so I do think that it’s incumbent on you to develop your basic understanding of a few other photographers whose work falls into this area of practice. See the everyday post-it notes of Keith Arnatt to his wife – sadly Keith passed away a few years agao.
In your reflective evaluation you do identify a range of strengths and weaknesses. Some of these are simply bullet points at the end and some are much more detailed and embedded in your thinking and reasoning for the work.
At the heart of your endeavor seems to be a desire to explore personal grief and loss. This is such an important subject and as you say in our culture is often pushed out of social and cultural attention.
Just a note to remind you to proofread your writing before setting it free. There are one or two persistent errors – you use ‘to’ rather than the ‘too’ throughout. Otherwise you write very well and show that you are prepared to explore your thoughts about ongoing and finished work.
Coursework
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of Creativity
You evidence full engagement in all of the coursework elements and your blog reveals the learning that is applied between the projects/exercises and the assignment. Your writing and short visual experiments are good and should increasingly feed into and inform your central projects.
Research
Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis
In your writing you could start to demonstrate that not only have you deployed a ‘deadpan’ approach to each of the portraits, but also that you understand some of the theories that underpin this methodology. See the portraits of Rineke Dijkstra and Thomas Ruff as examples of this approach using a large format camera and stripping away any attempt to photograph the individual personality below the surface. If you explore both the work and the writing that sits alongside this type of work you will start to form a more academic understanding. You might even track back to the topographic movement in landscape which was epitomized by the exhibition New Topographics and the lifelong work of the Bechers. They are the pivotal image-makers historically speaking because they then taught that approach to their university students in the Dusseldorf School of Photography in the 1970s. You might also explore the connection between Conceptualism and the deadpan approach. See also the work of Ed Ruscha in the 1970s.
In your practical research I was taken by the plausibility of the image called Skin Tear. I thought that this could be a good starting point for something in the future. I particularly liked the shot taken in the first person which makes it very believable with the hint of the paving slabs in the background.
Learning Log
Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis
Your text oscillates between very personal writing, which touches on an urge on your part (I could have this assumption wrong) to capture and express your feelings which are very complex and deeply felt, and a more formal practical analysis of the methods deployed and the progression and development of your reasoning for the work and how it looks. This is healthy but you might signal to the reader what is what by sub-dividing your writing. You show that you have an excellent appetite to developing a deep understanding of the subject and of the creative problem in hand.
I would liked to have seen how this work could have been extended - or is it limited because of the numbers in your family? Does the work grow outside of you and your loved ones or do you think that your deceased mother would like to ‘see’ more about you and how you live?
Suggested reading/viewing
Paul Wood (Ed), Conceptual Art, Delano Greenridge, 2002
New Topographics, Steidl, (2009)
Various books and articles relating to Dijkstra and Ruff - quite expensive books
Pointers for the next assignment / assessment
Dr. Andy Langford
Date 11 January 2018
Next assignment due
Please remember to include a date here, even for Level 3 students, and even if it is nominal – it is helpful for HQ.
Student name
Alan Fletcher
Student number 515735
Course/Unit - Context and Narrative
Assignment number 1
Type of tutorial - Written
Overall Comments
Well done on completing this first assignment. This is of course an assignment that helps us to get to know each other a little and will not be a formal element at the assessment point.
At the heart of this assignment is an opportunity to interrogate how two sets of images can have opposite meanings and values despite them sharing the same environment. It was suggested that a snapshot or documentary approach might help to make the images more convincing. Even though you decided to generate a set of images and a set of connected texts I believe that the learning has been effective and that you appreciate the ways that images are manipulated to tell a subjective story for the viewer.
You obviously invested a considerable amount of time and emotional energy working your way through the maze of possible ideas and approaches that might map to the brief. The outcomes and the personal reflection that accompanies the work and research are commendable, but I have made a range of observations below that might enrich the work, or at least help you to think about contexts for new work.
Assessment potential
Assignment 1
You may want to get credit for your hard work and achievements with the OCA by formally submitting your work for assessment at the end of the module. More and more people are taking the idea of lifelong learning seriously by submitting their work for assessment but it is entirely up to you. We are just as keen to support you whether you study for pleasure or to gain qualifications. Please consider whether you want to put your work forward for assessment and let me know your decision when you submit Assignment 2. I can then give you feedback on how well your work meets the assessment requirements.
Feedback on assignment
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity
Look again at the exposures to ensure that they share a common tonality. The postcard needs also to be very neutral in terms of colour balance. As the picture of you and your wife was one of the key catalysts for the whole body of work this should be the touchstone for the rest. As well as this image projecting a strong emotional intensity from each of you, and between you, it does seem to be the key that sets up the dialogue and contrast between the image and the text sides of the set of postcards. In the images of your son and daughter I would try to edit these so that they achieve something approaching the aesthetic character of the picture of you both. I do agree with your analysis that you need to be consistent and use a tripod. Look at the skin tones to see what you are aiming for. With the cat picture – although you justified this more animated shot - you might want to stick firmly to your decision to juxtapose the deadpan records of your life with the much more expressive and open writing on the rear of each card.
I love the idea of creating the work that is directed to your mother who passed away some years ago and I appreciate the cultural and social landscape of the family, our lives (as complex experiences) and the place of the photograph. Try to track down the early work of Jo Spence who explored the family album and wrote extensively about this. There are many others.
The size and format of the card is working very well. This gives the final form of the work a touch of nostalgia, it offers something much more suggestive of tactility and human touch/scale and it returns the image back to a being a physical artifact and not something always seen through the screen.
You might consider if these images were being shown publically how they might be displayed. You have created a viewing experience where the spectator is looking in to a private and personal world of the family so I do think that it’s incumbent on you to develop your basic understanding of a few other photographers whose work falls into this area of practice. See the everyday post-it notes of Keith Arnatt to his wife – sadly Keith passed away a few years agao.
In your reflective evaluation you do identify a range of strengths and weaknesses. Some of these are simply bullet points at the end and some are much more detailed and embedded in your thinking and reasoning for the work.
At the heart of your endeavor seems to be a desire to explore personal grief and loss. This is such an important subject and as you say in our culture is often pushed out of social and cultural attention.
Just a note to remind you to proofread your writing before setting it free. There are one or two persistent errors – you use ‘to’ rather than the ‘too’ throughout. Otherwise you write very well and show that you are prepared to explore your thoughts about ongoing and finished work.
Coursework
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of Creativity
You evidence full engagement in all of the coursework elements and your blog reveals the learning that is applied between the projects/exercises and the assignment. Your writing and short visual experiments are good and should increasingly feed into and inform your central projects.
Research
Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis
In your writing you could start to demonstrate that not only have you deployed a ‘deadpan’ approach to each of the portraits, but also that you understand some of the theories that underpin this methodology. See the portraits of Rineke Dijkstra and Thomas Ruff as examples of this approach using a large format camera and stripping away any attempt to photograph the individual personality below the surface. If you explore both the work and the writing that sits alongside this type of work you will start to form a more academic understanding. You might even track back to the topographic movement in landscape which was epitomized by the exhibition New Topographics and the lifelong work of the Bechers. They are the pivotal image-makers historically speaking because they then taught that approach to their university students in the Dusseldorf School of Photography in the 1970s. You might also explore the connection between Conceptualism and the deadpan approach. See also the work of Ed Ruscha in the 1970s.
In your practical research I was taken by the plausibility of the image called Skin Tear. I thought that this could be a good starting point for something in the future. I particularly liked the shot taken in the first person which makes it very believable with the hint of the paving slabs in the background.
Learning Log
Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis
Your text oscillates between very personal writing, which touches on an urge on your part (I could have this assumption wrong) to capture and express your feelings which are very complex and deeply felt, and a more formal practical analysis of the methods deployed and the progression and development of your reasoning for the work and how it looks. This is healthy but you might signal to the reader what is what by sub-dividing your writing. You show that you have an excellent appetite to developing a deep understanding of the subject and of the creative problem in hand.
I would liked to have seen how this work could have been extended - or is it limited because of the numbers in your family? Does the work grow outside of you and your loved ones or do you think that your deceased mother would like to ‘see’ more about you and how you live?
Suggested reading/viewing
Paul Wood (Ed), Conceptual Art, Delano Greenridge, 2002
New Topographics, Steidl, (2009)
Various books and articles relating to Dijkstra and Ruff - quite expensive books
Pointers for the next assignment / assessment
- Arrange your writing to help differentiate between formal analysis and other personal or poetic forms
- Pay particular attention to the process of taking the images and in post-production to ensure the images are tonally consistent.
- Identify and develop your knowledge of the keys terms of deadpan, conceptualism and explore other photographers whose work is concerned with the family, loss and memory
Dr. Andy Langford
Date 11 January 2018
Next assignment due
Please remember to include a date here, even for Level 3 students, and even if it is nominal – it is helpful for HQ.