Feedback

Number of images
The main gist of the feedback was that I had far too many images.  Ostensibly my reason for this was that I searched and searched for the correct figure to submit in the course document but couldn't find it - despite it plainly being there for all to see.  I have to wonder why that might have been and do think I found it difficult to separate my emotions from the images, and say as much in the accompanying text.  Whatever the underlying reasons may be for not editing it according to the course stipulations, a happy outcome of not doing so before submitting the assignment for feedback is that I now have an opportunity to edit with more space and time between taking the images and discovering what the narrative is really about.  (What that does for any possible assessment mark is anybody's guess but I've always been here for the learning and experience rather than the marks).

Following a Skype chat with Andrew I found editing down to 12 images relatively simple and painless, whereas I don't think that would have been true a month or six weeks ago.  I submitted at the end of June, having taken the images over Easter.  I did a final edit last night at the beginning of August.  I remember Elina Brotherus suggesting a six month hiatus between taking and editing so I'm almost there time-wise.

Having left things this long I am beginning to see the point of a break more clearly than I did before. For one, although I had set out to photograph my family on holiday in Italy in my mother's house, and to do so from within the walls of her house - signifying something to do with seeing through a daughter's eyes - I can now see that the narrative is very much about my mother and my relationship with her, which I wasn't totally convinced by before.  I also think the narrative is far more apparent and resonates more powerfully now that the set of images has been condensed, although 12 does feel rather too ruthless, to be honest.

Colour vs. Black & White
Another suggestion was to consider colour.  I must say right at the beginning of the process I was torn between the two and felt very sad to be letting go of colour as an option.  Andrew pointed out that black and white might be too obvious a route and so colour was certainly worth considering. I have to say it felt a relief to think I might present the images in colour and have so decided that will work better.  I talked about my reasons for choosing black and white in the A5 introduction and say:

"I chose black and white because there is a type of crystalisation in the images, a freezing of time, which feels more frozen without colour.  The colour edit I nearly used seems far more vibrant.  I can almost hear the cicadas and the silent buzzing or humming of the empty spaces as I went about photographing them.  But I don't get that in black and white.  By removing the colour I feel like I have removed the life and left only shadows and impressions.  I know of course this is all in my own perception and interpretation but that is how it felt.  I might actually prefer the colour edit personally... "

Reading this back I can't help wondering why I thought at the time that removing the life would be better.

Text
Finally, Andrew suggested that I include text to give the images some context as they are more subtle than work I've submitted before.  I did have text below each image to begin with then removed it following some peer feedback but I know if I'd been committed to the text I'd written I'd never have let go of it, regardless of what anyone said.  So I must have a good think about how and what I write. I do agree that context will be very useful, although I am thinking I will write something to go at the beginning rather than captions.

The chat Andrew and I had last week was really good and helped a lot.   I have to say learning this way is quite tough and isolating at times and having real live support feels incredibly useful.  I certainly felt a bit lost with this assignment at times, I suppose because I attempt to venture into something pretty difficult for me.  I know the blurry images of A2 or the light in A4 is something solid for anyone looking to grab hold of - and that people will either like it or not depending on taste. But the thing to grab hold of in A5 may be less obvious but perhaps feels more dangerous, for me at any rate.  Andrew and I also chatted about different ways of presenting the work for assessment (the thought of which still gives me horrors, I must admit).  And I will get on with that over the next couple of weeks.

Feedback here:

Overall Comments

As everything from The Waltons to The Kardashians demonstrates, popular culture has represented ‘the family’ in diverse and contradictory ways, yet it is consistently thought of as being at the centre of normative social life. What you’ve submitted here offers a characteristically interesting, well researched and personal take on the idea of ‘the family’, and your ability to spot and use domestic details in a poignant and tender way is really striking. Stylistically, the influence of Jim Mortram is clearly evident, and provides the viewer- or certainly this viewer- with a bittersweet frame of reference and entry point into the set. Your blog entries around this project give an extremely clear indication of the extent to which you’ve thought about the work, and while it’s not without its flaws, this is an assignment that once again shows you to be a thoughtful, observant, determined and highly promising artist-photographer whose work is personal and emotive.

This assignment features a lot of work. I cover this in my specific feedback, but a more ruthless cut would have been welcome! It’s hard to escape the feeling that we’re not looking at as tightly a focused series as we might have been, and a couple of photographs repeat the point of others without necessarily adding to the meaning of the work overall. But, this aside, you’ve produced a(nother) ambitious and engaging piece of work; one that bodes extremely well for your continued studies (and beyond).

Feedback on assignment

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity

In a recent chat you noted how each of your previous assignments had put you at their centre, and that for your final piece of work on TAoP you were keen to take a different approach. You’ve definitely done this, once again demonstrating the breadth of ideas that you’re having and your stylistic versatility and willingness to always take chances and follow your creative impulses. At the same time, I think this work absolutely does still have you at its centre, albeit in a more tangential way. Your voice is apparent throughout the set, and this submission acts as a subtle complement to the assignments that were much more directly about you. Equally, in spite of the shift in style, what you’ve submitted here is still recongnisably ‘your’ work. The portraits here show a growing range of technical skills and an awareness of how subtle inflections in a subject can communicate an entirely different set of meanings- good.

While the series, at least in the most reductive sense, is ‘about people’, the photographs where people are (in a literal sense) absent not only convey a very poignant atmosphere, but also help the viewer to fill in those all-important ‘gaps’ with their own readings. This said, I think this is one of the areas that would possibly benefit from a little refining/ editing: you’re cramming a lot in here, and I sometimes got the feeling that a smaller set would have made for a slightly greater impact. Indeed, sticking to the letter of the assignment’s law, in submitting 33 photographs you’ve gone way over what’s outlined in the guidance notes:

create between 6 and 12 images- you can choose.

33 is almost treble the recommended upper limit, so this is definitely something you’ll need to look at before submitting for assessment. What you’re trying to do/ communicate with the work is pretty clear, but it’s important to go through the series again and think about how you could hone it down to its core essence without losing any of its qualities/ meanings. As things stand, I’d be extremely surprised if the assessors didn’t pick up on the excessive number of images you’ve included and use it as a reason to question your judgment. It’s one thing to produce extremely interesting and promising work- which you’ve consistently done throughout TAoP- but this does need to be allied to a strong sense of discernment. The work and ideas are certainly ‘in there’, but with a more focused edit these would be much more clearly evident.

A practical example of how you could potentially scale everything down a touch: as the series heads towards its conclusion and the emphasis shifts more towards your mother, I did get the feeling that you could have culled a few images and been a little more direct. Photos number 29, 30, 32, and 33 of your mother are all interesting in their own right, but in terms of what they contribute to the overall ‘narrative’ I did wonder whether there was a little uncertainty on your part as to which ones to include/ exclude. #32 is most striking for me: you’ve captured something incredibly vulnerable and poignant in your mother. #33 is very much in contrast with this, and there’s something quite severe and defensive (and also very striking). While these two are very to the point and have a clear sense of purpose, #29 and #30 feel less essential: #29 is fairly interesting in its own right but, for me, doesn’t add a great deal more to what you’ve already said. #30, while showing your mother in a slightly different light, feels a little more throwaway and less vital. Whether you remove them from the series ahead of submission ahead of assessment is entirely up to you of course, and something I’m happy to discuss further… but I do think that a more ruthless approach to your final edit is what’s needed here. Perhaps because this is the final assignment on the unit- and because it’s featured such obviously personal work- it’s been harder to be restrained than might usually be the case. This is totally understandable, but do keep in mind that the process of creating meaning is not just something that happens when you shoot an image, but when you sequence a series of photos. In some ways, this can be the toughest part, but it’s really important to develop your ability to refine a project down to its core elements: less… is… more…

Having said all this, you’ve still produced a series that is touching and personal and says quite a few things about your family and your relationship with them. You’ve communicated an impressive range of emotions, from everyday joy to something altogether more ambivalent, and as the sequence shifts away from a focus on your children to your mother, we seem to reach the very poignant essence and emotional heart of the work. It’s really likeable stuff, and with some further thought could be even more affecting.

Just a couple of quick bulletpoints/ questions to end on:

- Are you sure that colour doesn’t work? I’ve only seen the people-less photographs in colour, but I think it would at least be worth giving some further thought to using them. I get why you’ve gone with b/w, but it does seem like it frames the work in a particular way- I won’t say ‘obvious’, but it does seem like a fairly standard device to have employed. Maybe when you’ve brought the number of images in the sequence down to something closer to the recommended limit, it’ll be easier to ‘see’ the project working in colour- the meanings you’re reaching for could even cause it to resonate in ways that you hadn’t anticipated.

- I appreciate that you’ve not wanted to include much in the way of text, but the assignment guidelines note that ‘…you are about to illustrate a story for a magazine. You have a cover to illustrate, and several pages inside […]. Even though there may be no text, you should write captions (of any length) to explain and link each picture’. In terms of what you’re doing, I can see how this could be problematic- but a short overview of the work that sums up your rationale for the work would certainly be useful. Let’s catch up on Skype and discuss this further.

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays

Context

As usual, your accompanying texts are highly engaging, dedicated, and clear indicators of how much you’re launching yourself into your photography and studies. Could you perhaps manage everything just a touch more efficiently though? There’s a lot on your blog- certainly not to any unmanageable degree, but would it be worth condensing a few of the sections?

Suggested reading/viewing

Context

This is another area where you’ve pushed on with real determination, and you’re always eager to look beyond the obvious in search of useful material- excellent stuff.

If you’re not familiar with them anyway, you might want to have a look at the following films, all of which offer reflections on the idea of ‘family’:

Buffalo 66 (Vincent Gallo)

Les Quatre Cents Coups (Francois Truffaut)

Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders)

(You might also find something useful in Julian Roman Polser’s The Wall)

Pointers for the next assignment steps

Your work on this unit has been consistently engaging, thought-provoking, personal, eye-catching, daring, and ambitious, and you’ve made the most of the opportunities that it has presented. This in itself is extremely commendable, as at this comparatively early stage it would have been entirely understandable if you’d taken a safer and more conservative approach to your work. I’m very glad that you didn’t: it’s been a pleasure to see how you’ve developed over the course of TAoP, and even from a very early stage it was clear that you were always striving to produce evocative and meaningful work. I don’t doubt that this will continue, so please do continue to challenge yourself and take the more difficult (but ultimately more rewarding) paths. The more you do, the more you’ll improve on both a technical and creative level and be better placed to successfully visualise your ideas. Keep pushing!!!!!

Quick catch up about where I am Narrative 5

I have come home from Italy with plenty of images and I do think I will be able to complete the narrative assignment with these photos.  I need to live with them for a bit before deciding on which route to go.  At first I thought I thought it would be a narrative about my time in Italy with my boys but the photographs do seem to focus primarily on my mother - so the narrative is about my relationship with her I suspect.

I am torn between colour or black & white but tending towards B&W for now.  I'm quite sad to be converting some of the images as they work so well in colour but the overall tone works better in B&W to be honest - well, that's how I feel for now.  I do not have a preference in the main for either and think it's best to see how each project progresses, but it's lovely to see colour images when they work well. (I have just learned about Saul Leiter who was big on colour and I am awaiting arrival of his book so I can write about him, having watched a marvellous documentary - what a lovely, lovely man he seems to have been, quite apart from anything else.)

Here is one image in colour that works very well and consequently I am not sure I will use it at all if I do decide to go the B&W route.  It's a shame to have to let go of images that I like so much - but I have to think about the whole rather than each individual image.

Evelyn in Italy
(c)sarahjanefield 2015

That reminds me, I am reading Family Frames which is wonderful although very difficult - there is a lot that goes over my head because I do not have sufficient understanding or knowledge.  I am learning all about Lacan and Gestalt theory at the moment - well, I say all about... what I mean is touching on it and getting a tiny inkling.  There is so much to learn!!  Needless to say what I am reading will inform the way I edit and present the work. I am eager to get the project in but I am learning that images can tell me an awful lot if I wait for some time to pass before beginning to try and understand them a little.

So, I have a rain picture to take, some reviews to write up about photographers, projects as well as the Family Frames book, and of course the editing to do for A5.  It feels a bit overwhelming (especially as I also have some paid work to catch up on, although thankfully not too much).  I can only do one thing at a time though so will use the time I have and not rush things I think.

Narrative A5 thoughts

I've been thinking quite a lot about this (obviously) and the idea of photographing my own family keeps coming back to me.  It seems an obvious progression from where I've come with all the self-reflective work.  I also started the course reading and learning about Sally Mann - she was the first person I wrote about and then Larry Sultan.  In addition I used a lot of photographs from my time in Italy last Easter holidays for A2 exercises, and I used my family in A1 too and so it will complete the circle and that appeals to me. It's simple, relevant and makes sense to me.  I know I need to ensure I show the progression from A1 which was a bit ropey - the idea was there, the execution not so much.

We are heading over to my mother's place in Italy soon and I think I will use this opportunity to play with this idea.  I've got time to ditch it if I'm not happy with the results.

I have also ordered Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory to read (bit of gentle holiday reading!)

At the moment I do most of my work on my Fuji x100s.  I like the restriction of the fixed lens and although it's not full frame the IQ is more than good enough (when I get it right!), so I will stick to just using that.  I think it's probably a good thing to do, and this was echoed by Jessie Alexander at the TV meet the other day.

I'm not sure how this fits in yet but here is a blog post from my other blog site about my own family which may or may not be relevant here. I feel like this is a project that has been bubbling away inside of me and A5 may the containment I need to do it.  I also quite like my family - they're pretty bloody great (and annoying and all the rest of it) and I think exploring that side of things will be good to do.

At this moment, today, this morning, this feels like the right thing.  Let's see what AC has to say about it.

Exercise: Juxtaposition

I have been procrastinating about this one for a while and then realised I had one which I took recently which would be perfect.

A still life or larger scale shot.  I have gone for the latter, in which I was asked to photograph someone with a possession of the result of their hobby or work.

Now, for someone who moaned an awful lot about how they didn't like the fact they were photographing themselves and who felt horribly narcissistic for doing so,  I am doing very well as including photographs of myself in here.  However, it continues the theme, the narrative of all my course work and it's a photograph I like. Plus it has lots of juxtaposition in it.

Technically I think that I have probably got too much black in this - It's something I have noticed recently, that I do, well I noticed it before but then just carried on regardless.  I might re-edit this and compare to see. I quite like blacks and dark shadows it's true, but I think I've gone overboard sometimes and this might benefit from having a little less; not sure though until I do it.  In fact, every time I look at it, I think - oooh, it's a bit garish!  Maybe that's just my mood today.

However, on the content side, I like this because it literally and metaphorically has lots of levels to it.
I am in it as I have been in so many of my photographs for this course.  But I'm not fully in.  I am doing what I love doing - my work and hobby, photography, and finding ways to express myself.  I am in a mirror - which is an obvious metaphor for self reflection, which is what all this work has been about, but I am obscured and I'm not sure if it is immediately obvious I am taking a photograph to anyone who is isn't a photography nut.  I'm in a car park with a bunch of discarded stuff and in a way all those boards could be suggestive of all the layers in me, or the layers through which I must get through before I get seen.  If I were to think of a title for this it might be "in the picture'.  Which ties in with what we were discussing at the TV meeting the other day, where it was suggested I try to inveigle my way into the family photographs I might take for A5 all the time - always trying to be seen.  Finally, the sign at the top could be about me or about the car park, could be about life - who knows?  Is that a bit pedestrian?  Not sure.  Anyway, I liked this photograph and thought it was heading in the direction of something distinctively 'me'.

A very long post: Jamie Diamond & the Reborners and my response to it.

"What good in a desert is a drop of water?  It's not my body that thirsts, it's my heart."

Yerma in the play of that name by Frederico Garcia Lorca

The quote I have used above is from a play that is all about yearning.  For the central character it is about yearning for a child which never comes.  "Barren... barren, I know I am!" she shouts.  I have used this quote here because I came across some work which immediately struck me as profound, intriguing and incredibly interesting - and spoke to me about yearning at a very deep level. Although this post looks at that work it really explores some of the things within in it that struck a chord with me and why, and how that might inform my own future work.  

Jamie Diamond has produced two series' of photographs titled "I Promise To Be A Good Mother" and "Mother Love".  In these she uses a hyper-realistic doll as as a prop, reenacting scenes and memories from her own childhood, dressed in her own mother's clothes and playing the role of her mother in the images, as well as the future mother she may become.  This sort of doll is used usually for a variety of reasons and costs anything from $250 to $10 000.  Originally they were designed for comforting alzheimer's patients, people suffering with empty nest syndrome, or miscarriage and the loss of a child. However, there are also a community of artists called Reborners who have these dolls in their lives permanently, living with them as one would with real babies, as far as possible.  Jamie Diamond has embedded herself within this community and even set up an online shop making and selling them, and says she has learnt a great deal from these women. The doll she uses in her images is called Annabel.

Jamie Diamond is a truly interesting artist and I will write more fully about her in another post.  But for the meantime;  

I find this particular work absolutely fascinating for a variety of reasons:

I am really beginning to get to grips with the fact that photography-as-an art is about so very much more than  pretty or cleverly manipulated pictures.  The type of photograph that draws 'oohs and aahs' is one thing but certain photographic art has the potential, although sometimes subtler and quieter, to be deeply moving, powerful, and thought provoking in the same way a book, play or a film might be, with a narrative. In fact, I think that photography has an advantage over spoken art forms.  Theatre in particular can be quite frustrating - music, mis-en-scene, atmosphere can all be set up and then broken suddenly by an actor's failure to be convincing or truthful.  A series of photographs whether looked at in a gallery or on the screen at home, or in a book gives the viewer a moment to really reflect upon things within his or herself very privately, either at the time or later in a way that is ongoing.  I felt this when I looked at Larry Sultan's work at the beginning of this course and was surprised to be so very moved by his Pictures from Home.  Seeing Sharon Boothroyd's work the other night also reminded me of this, and then looking at the work by Jamie Diamond did too.

The photographs are indeed beautiful (as were Sharon's) but as I say, in a quiet and unassuming way. There is none of the flashy trickery and showing off that I am used to seeing on Flickr for instance, some of which is very impressive, it's true.  Jamie Diamond's photographs in these two series' are skilfully and expertly taken, beautifully lit with delightful clarity, not even remotely over processed, and with gorgeous depth of field that suits the dreamy quality of them.  I aspire to be able to do this. The beauty of the images also contrasts quite dramatically with the subject and content which is searingly painful, I think.  Not all her images employ the same aesthetics - some are harshly lit and very vibrant such as the one with models dressed and made up as her mother.

The subject matter is just so up my street it's not true!  Aaaah - so exciting!!  And for so many reasons: 

Years ago shortly before I had my first child I was pregnant with another and miscarried at 16 weeks. Miscarriage is fairly common; 1 in 4 pregnancies are said to end in miscarriage but even so it was devastating for me. I can absolutely see why  someone might feel the need for a hyper-realistic doll, although I have to say I have not yet got to grips with what the artistic community of Reborners are doing.   However, following my miscarriage, all I wanted was to hold my baby and seeing other people's babies intensified my sense of feeling bereft and heartbroken.  I wonder if it might have helped to have some sort of transitional baby to hold at the time, or if that would have caused more problems when the time came to let go of the pretend baby.  I can't say, of course as I did not have a pretend baby although I was overjoyed when I got pregnant again.  

Transitional toys are I think quite particular to our own society; or perhaps more fairly said, to societies where a child's emotional needs are not always met as fully as they might be as I do believe it is in childhood that the blueprint for our coping mechanisms are formed.  And we as a society certainly continue to utilise transitional objects throughout our lives, sometimes allowing those objects to become permanent. Tranquilisers, alcohol, things that we buy to try and feed some unmet need we don't always understand.  

Thumb sucking, perhaps an example of the earliest form of transitional satisfaction, is thought to be an emotional form of self-soothing that is desirable by many in our society but not by all. 

"When signals are missed, babies stop signaling; they withdraw; they suck their thumbs; they turn away; they try to right the system themselves by not sending out any more signals" (1) 

If you think about thumb sucking, and any further self-soothing transitional behaviour as a pattern that stems from unmet needs then you have to question what it is that is missing in our society and perhaps in the community of people who live with these fantasy babies (although, I must reiterate, I have not thought enough about what is going on in this artistic endeavour).

I think it is fascinating that we exist in a society where hyper-realistic dolls are manufactured in the first place; that they might be given to people who are grieving for the loss of a child; and even more extraordinary that there is a community who exist with these dolls in fantasy relationships.

But what really strikes me as profound is that a baby/mother relationship is a reciprocal symbiotic relationship; or at any rate the biological blueprint suggests that it ought to be.  The baby feeds and oxytocin flows in both parties.  If it weren't that way mothers might find it all too much to bear and babies would die, which of course does happen because our in our society there is much to thwart the whole process.  Even in cases that are not extreme, babies across the social spectrum grow up without satisfactory parenting and the cycle continues as they have their own babies and inflict the same lack of 'feeding' on future babies.

"In a more evolutionary infant-caretaker scheme, the infant is a social partner, part of a dyad*.  Both mother and infant are interested in being in equilibrium, that is in a stable and contented state.  This goal is achieved by a mutual regulation, by reciprocity, and by keeping tabs on each-other." (2)

It is therefore quite challenging to consider what the Reborners might be receiving from their hyper-realistic infants? 

However, is it really any weirder than the trend in our society to have faux-communities online rather than genuine communities in the real world for instance because that is what this makes me think about.  We in our world do all we can to negate real experience and have instead pale and less fulfilling ones.  

We also fill our days with work; pre-industrial communities tend to have a better work/life balance (3).  And with material objects rather than living relationships.  We over-value things and material matters, as well as the prizes we strive for such as cars, houses and holidays instead of the things that truly matter such as family connections for instance.  And we do it all without thinking about it, without questioning it in the main.

The Reborner community for me epitomises some part of our society; and I say this with little value judgement.  I'm as addicted to my 'pacifiers' as anyone else is, believe me.  In fact I think perhaps their project is about mirroring back to us something about our capacity for avoiding real experience.

The quote above refers to a deep and urgent need in Yerma for a child, she is desperate for a burst of fertility, for growth, to give birth.  I have included it as I think the play is a wonderful metaphor for the yearnings many of us have.  I certainly do, for a sense of fulfilment. For me the manifestation is a desire to make art, the photography and perhaps writing, the ability to create and express.  My fourth child that I yearn for is not an actual child (heaven forbid!!) but the ability to express whatever it is in me that I long to shout about.  

I am intrigued by the Reborners.  I am reminded of Pinocchio which I have just read with Alfred, my middle child, and wonder if there is something in there worth thinking about.  Pinocchio so wants to be a genuine child, to be flesh and blood.   To be real.

The other significant part of Jamie Diamond's work is the relationship with her own mother which she re-enacts as well as the very poignant future mother/child relationship she hopes to have.  The series titled 'I promise I will be a good mother' would evoke something emotional in most women I should imagine and of course for me that is no different.  I suspect most women have difficult and awkward aspects to their relationships with their mothers; but I have to say it is an extremely important part of the work that I did for A4, and in the work I do outside of that - the ongoing work of being a mother myself, understanding who I am, and the lifelong work of exploring my relationship with my own mother and how that has affected me.

Not long after I gave birth for the first time I started reading.  I read so much about the nature of motherhood; books that were difficult to understand because I had not studied anthropology or sociology but were nevertheless compelling because that bond between a mother and a baby is so strong, so primordial, and deeply ingrained that it is really, really difficult to understand how it can go wrong.  But it does; women suffer from devastating post natal-depression which in the most extreme cases can lead to infanticide; women don't bond fully with their babies; women sometimes leave their children as my own mother did because there are such barriers within them preventing them from fulfilling the role of mother  - and in all these cases, we are terrified by the reality of it and sometimes find it impossible to understand.  I know if ever I talk about my own mother leaving to friends they are shocked and find it bewildering and at times upsetting. For me the thought of leaving my children is unthinkable - so trying to understand how that could have occurred is something I have spent a lot of time with, one way or another, and it seems I continue to do so through the photographic work I do.  In fact, I am certain that the idea of photographing a family is very much to do with that.  The family I have chosen to work with is one that has a very different history to mine and exploring some aspects of that mother/daughter relationship is going to be interesting for me.  

But back to Jamie Diamond's work:

"Working with the Reborn community has allowed me to explore the grey area between reality and artifice where relationships are constructed with inanimate objects, between human and doll, artist and artwork, uncanny and real," Diamond says in her statement. "I have been engaged with this community now for four years and while working and learning from these women, I’ve become fascinated by the fiction and performance at the core of their practice and the art making that supports their fantasy."  ( 4. quote taken from the Huffington Post article below)

The community of Reborners keep their fantasy going indefinitely and it's difficult not to wonder why.  It's something that interests me deeply.  And reminds me of something I read yesterday where a photographer talked about her whole life being 'the art' - at which point the camera almost becomes an irrelevance.  (This post is so long already I shall have to go into that in more detail another time if at all - the sense of nihilism there is just a bit strong for my tastes.)

The pictures themselves are strange - they are are disturbing and almost harrowing for me at times. The one that I find most difficult is one where the 'mother' is in bed with her pretend child.  For me this space, the most intimate of spaces, is so tricky so see like this.  It takes the photographs I took of me in my bed alone for A4 a very large step further.  To think of someone lying there next to a body that is not alive, can never be alive, is only ever pretend and in effect dead is harrowing - and evocative of relationship structures in my childhood, and I imagine in Jamie Diamond's.

I was profoundly moved by these pictures for many reasons.  I think the image quality and simplicity is something to aspire towards, as is the deep involvement the photographer has with the community of Reborners.  I am fascinated by their practise - it seems surreal and peculiar but they are not really doing anything stranger than what so many others, myself included, do online - whole lives are lived on the internet rather than in reality and this is another big interest of mine.  The only difference is that online living is deemed normal because its something that has swept through our culture and been absorbed thoroughly with great speed.

And nor is it any stranger than trying to feed an unmet need with tobacco leaves on fire which is really odd when you stop to think about it, or any of the other things we do to satisfy the deep sense of yearning that people are capable of experiencing, and that Yerma feels when she longs for a child to make her life complete as explored in the quote at the top of this post.  I do hope I haven't gone on too long here about these things but I think that all I have discussed will inform the next assignment and future assignments and work because it covers so much that I am interested in.

Yerma quote from Act 2, Scene 2, Yerma by Frederico Garcia Lorca, translated by Peter Luke and first performed at The National Theatre, 19th March, 1986, Methuen.

*Dyad - a dyad as I understand it is the space in which the infant and mother exist.  When allowed the mother creates a space in which her infant can be, attached to her in its earliest months but always able to return as the infant grows into a toddler, and when in need of contact and grounding.  It is a physical and metaphysical space.

Quotes 1, 2 & 3 are from Our Babies, Ourselves; How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent by Meredith F. Small, Anchor Books, 1999.

Huffington Post article

Jamie Diamond's website

Prints & other things

Just had some prints back from the printers and whilst I am used to editing and then printing family portraits, I seem to have a little to learn about printing other work. I tend to push the darks and blacks too much which works on screen mostly (or does it?) but not on prints at all.  In the past blacks have just been too dense for my liking and if I were to use the images I've just got back, which I'm not planning to now, I would need to redo them for sure as everything looks far too dirty and dull. This is something I've noticed before and must remember for the future.

The other night I went to Sharon Boothroyd's opening of her They All Say Please exhibition which I really enjoyed for several reasons (not least the very positive and encouraging feedback I received from fellow students - thank you!)  One of the most interesting things for me was to hear about how Sharon had printed herself.  As soon as I went in I was struck by how beautiful the colours were.  I have to say I have always been a bit wary of printing myself and had pushed that to the back of my mind.  I recall being quite impressed by some of the prints I saw at the last Thames Valley (TV) meeting which had been done by students themselves rather than a lab but I had dismissed that for me because I didn't really believe I could ever get to grips with it.  But having seen Sharon's prints I am wondering if I should think about printing myself at some point in the future.  Something to chat about with others tomorrow at the next TV meeting.

Finally, I was very pleased when I pointed out a particular image to Sharon that I liked very much and she replied, "Yes, that's very you", which I took to mean the photograph was somehow reminiscent of the work I have submitted.  Yay, there is a recognisable Me - which suggests I have a developing and recognisable, distinctive voice.  A friend also just had a look at some of the work I've submitted and said the images were like mini-plays which pleased me no end.

Brief post-script to previous entry

Now that I have reached part 5 of this module I can look back and see what it is I have been doing on the course, since that was something I was unsure about when I began.

In many ways I feel that all the work I have done on the course is part of an ongoing narrative and the next section is simply an extension of that.  The assignments I have submitted have been part of a very personal journey -

a) one that shows me learning about photography
b) that shows me developing as a person post divorce
c) that looks at a kind of grieving process for the marriage and idea of a 'family' I lost -
i. a type of celebration, dance, but lacking in definition in A2, (denial, shock)
ii. entering into a very dark place with colour A3 (anger, depression)
iii. exploring adolescence with the frilly dress and infantile object relationships in A4 (depression, acceptance, & reconstruction)

The previous assignment feels really important as it may also have allowed me to visualise and make real some developmental 'misses' in my history - giving me a firmer internal core from which to move forward with this work

c) and if I go ahead with this family idea, then I am sure it will be some sort of personal search for a more substantial family than the one I feel I grew up with. (reconstruction, turning outwards, rebuilding, exploring).

As some will realise, I have loosely used the Kubler-Ross model of grief in my explanation here.

So, although I am just beginning the narrative section of the module, I now have a clearer idea about why I came on the course in the first place, or at least a happy happenstance aside from learning more about photography.  And that entire process has a very strong sense of narrative as far as I can tell. And being here has also given me a clear and sound structure from which to explore these things as well as develop as a photographer, or what ever it is that I'm developing into (if that makes any sense).  I don't think I would have done any of these things without that structure.  Having come from a very unstructured background I am am pleased to have it in place event though I tend to go off in directions that put some pressure on the structure provided.  I suspect that is a good thing but it's also helpful to have someone steering me back into the realms of reality when I need it.

Skype chat re Narrative project

Yesterday Andrew Conroy and I had a chat about my ideas for the narrative project.  I offered up my first idea, an abstract and somewhat intangible concept about walls, internal and external, which was met with a somewhat blank and then mildly puzzled response.  No! Sarah-Jane, something simpler and more accessible.  So, we went through some other ideas I had and the one that seemed more appropriate for me, given my interests, where I'm at, the need to expand on the sort of work I have so far submitted for the course is one that I had a while ago but have popped on the back burner for a while.  You can't do everything at once and I needed to get the other stuff out of my system first.

I have been thinking about hanging out with a family for a weekend or a series of weekends and recording family life, smiles, tears and all the stuff in between with any luck.

This idea stems from several places:

1. I have been doing family portraits anyway it's a natural extension of that.
2. Being able to spend more time with a family, as opposed to an hour or two, gives me an opportunity to try and capture something more substantial than usual.
3. In the long run this may be something I can offer to potential clients  - resulting in an album, and a bigger fee than I have so far charged for my work.
4. Alternatively it might grow into something else that is less about commercial photography and perhaps more interesting for me... we'll see.
5. I am fascinated by the way families work.  There are some universal traits that you find in families from all over the world and even across species and then there are others that are culturally specific, either on a macro or micro level.   
6. The sense of alienation or 'culture shock' one can feel when they spend time in someone else's family is interesting, and added to that - having a camera and trying to 'take' some of their lives gives another dimension worth exploring.  What is this for, is it art? Is it documentary?  Is it just an exercise to fulfil a course expectation?
7. Childhood memories I have of how I felt about other people's families in relation to my own are still very clear and vibrant in my head.  I spent a great deal of time trying to exist in other people's families during my teenage years, even bunking off school when my best friend who was at a private school was on holiday so I could inveigle my way into her family.  Some of us tend to find out own families very awkward and difficult. 
8. I wonder if that desire exists still in some other form and by embedding myself into another family for a few weekends I am continuing those earlier patterns of behaviour.
9. What is family?  What is kinship? Why does it matter so much?  Does it matter (yes of course, I would say, but there are those who cannot access that and are very dismissive, choosing to blank out ties to kinship, which seems weird and difficult for others to understand.  Why?)
10. I am absolutely interested in what is going beneath the surface within human relationships.  Whether or not I have the skill and experience to find any of that at this point is another matter - we will see.

Research:

Richard Billingham's Ray's a Laugh

Diane Arbus Matthaei Family shots and Westchester image

Jim Mortram Small Town Inertia

Tina Barney Family Album
Larry Sultan Pictures from Home

Most of these show quite extreme situations, apart from Larry Sultan's.  Which makes for interesting and dramatic images. However, I'm more interested in the mundane, the 'normal'.  Is there such a thing.... let's see.

Some books I have read that I know will come in handy:

What are Children for? Laurie Taylor and Matthew Taylor

Anthropology and Child Development Edited by Levine and New

Punished by Rewards Alfie Kohn

John Bowlby & Attachment Theory  Jeremy Holmes

Mother's and Others Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (Yup, no vowel in case you're wondering).

Finally, it was great to chat with AC.  I do wish OCA had the resource to offer more Skype (individual and group) tutorials. 

Narrative idea & progress

I think I will continue with my collection of walls which I have been building for a few weeks, or perhaps a couple of months for the narrative project.  This may seem a bit odd because what sort of story can you tell with a collection of wall images?

I am thinking I shall use an old Reader's Digest book that I remember from my childhood, and which thankfully my mother still owns, as a source of information to create a narrative about how to build walls.  I don't suppose I can quote directly from it the whole way through, but I would like to mention it as the source and obviously refer to pages etc for any direct quotes I do use.

I may want to interweave short parables (inspired by Louise Bourgeois' "He disappeared into complete silence") but I am not sure how that would work yet.  I am writing down ideas for these though as they come to me as it may be that I can find a way to do this.  I wonder if having two narratives would work: one with 'how to build walls', then turn the book over and with the same photographs have the other narrative, my parables, going the other way.   I have a while to think about it... it's an idea for now, although of course one that has been done plenty, I'm sure.


As for prisons:  I have had a very nice response from the media department saying that it is something that requires a lot of resource to organise and so would only be considered if the photographer could guarantee a lot of people seeing the work.  So I replied and I said I would get in touch again when I had built up a significant body of work.

I responded to a request to do some voluntary work with a charity so if that comes about then it might be the start of building up that work.  I know I have been taking photographs of people for a while now but I'm not sure I feel ready to take the sort of photographs I'm thinking about, which need to be sensitive, respectful and kind, and peer into something difficult that also feels dangerous.  Maybe I never will be - think that's a pretty hard thing to get right.

A realisation

I may have found a way to photograph a subject that interests me but it's not certain yet so I'm going to wait until it is before talking about it in full here.  But it may be a really good alternative to one of the impossible ideas I had earlier for narrative, although thinking about it, either of those ideas could and should probably take a lot longer than the time I have for the course work.

But what I have realised for certain is that I have not in any way yet earned the right to have access to virtually impossible places like prisons and/or places where vulnerable adults are cared for.  I do not have a body of work behind me and am a just a student, albeit one that also sometimes works professionally and commercially.  I have yet to build up any serious work though so why would anyone say, sure, come in and take photos of our secretive, sensitive places, places where no other photographers are allowed??? Hopefully the thing that may happen which I mentioned will happen and that will the beginning of building up some work and experience and then when I have built up a richer background of work, I might be able to tackle the very difficult things.

This week has a been a good week despite the frustrations because I have learnt things that are integral to going forward - it's OK to have ambitious ideas but it's important to be realistic too.  I often think maybe the thing to do is just go and get a job as soon as my youngest child starts school and just do photography as a hobby - which may well turn out to be what I should and will do. Nevertheless it's important to learn these things as of course I may keep persevering.

I have also been asked to do the stills on a short firm shoot in May which will be fun to do - and certainly worth doing for experience if nothing else.

I am still thinking about what to do for the narrative but I'm leaning towards the idea of abstract images related to inner fantasy coupled with quotidian details from my daily life.  Will have to chat about it when Skyping AC.

A5 ideas

So I have been told under no circumstances by Mind and by Wandsworth Prison - either I am overly ambitious or suffering from allusions of grandeur and need to set my sites a little lower.  I don't even know why I want to enter into these places which I must admit are fairly frightening but I do. So I have emailed people higher up the chain to see if I can get any inkling of possibility there - I am beginning to see though how difficult it is to get projects off the ground especially when wanting to do something a bit tricky.  And am beginning to understand just how much effort goes into these sorts of projects just to get them going in the first place.  Anyway, let's see what comes of my further emails.  Maybe I should just photograph the outside of all the places I have tried to gain access to and not be allowed!

In the meantime I have had other ideas for the final assignment which in any case may be more in keeping with the work I have done so far for this module.  I am interested in recording two things - a) the monotonous, mundane, quotidian details of everyday life and pairing it up with the inner fantasy world that most of us carry around - inspired I guess by Carl Jung's writings on inner fantasy and how integral that is to our lives.   For now I can't work out whether to photograph the fantasy and write the daily mundane details or the other way round, so photograph details through out the day and pair those images with a fantastical story.  I have written two of these sorts of stories already and could either use one of those or write a new one.  This is something I have more control over and can certainly achieve in time for the course whereas the other ideas are more reliant on circumstances outside my control.

I have thought I could aim to record the daily lives of people living and working in my area -but that really is a very long term project as I'd need to get to know quite a lot of people and then get them to allow me to photograph their daily existence.

Anyway, that is where I am at the moment.  Torn between several strands and ideas.

Reflection about Exercise 1&2

I spent time today taking photographs for the early exercises in the Narrative section of TAOP and came to a couple of conclusions at the end of it all.

Lighting - I have been reluctant to use my lights over the last few months preferring instead natural light.  I love natural light and there are often times when natural light works best.  But after some thought I think there are certainly times when lighting is useful and desirable.  I took some photographs today that really would have benefitted from some extra light for the type of photograph I was taking.  In the end the images were no good and I didn't use them because I just couldn't make them work.  Had these images been for the final assignment I would have needed to start again.  As it was I was able to make use of other images I took to complete the narrative essay.

The narrative I have created is very much open to interpretation.  To be honest I am probably still working out what might be going on in them.  What is true though is that the narrative works on two levels and is ostensibly about me taking photographs however, like most of the work I have been doing since staring this course, there are also other things going on which for me is what the narrative is really about.  I don't really like putting words with images but we were asked to and so I stated very clearly what the picture showed, but again the words are working on several levels.  I'm not sure how successful this is - and I guess that is something to think about.  I think I would rather have found an article and used words from that which was somehow linked to some of the underlying themes.

For Exercise 2 I think if I am honest, the image as it is is more an idea than a finished image.  Again I would need to think about lighting and if this sort of image were to be used in an advert for instance (although who knows what for  - but something to do with momentary fantasy, escapism, freedom) there would be a well considered set, rather than my messy cramped kitchen.  I'd also have the children sitting round the table looking up at their mum dancing on the table.

I'm thinking hard about the final assignment and am torn between two routes at the moment but will discuss this with AC (tutor) hopefully soon and see where to go from there.

Exercise 2: Evidence of Action

Produce one photograph in which it can be seen that something has happened.  "Symbolism is one of the main techniques in illustration"; the symbolism of this to me is obvious but it was also obvious to me in the previous exercise and I think the point was missed by some fellow students so perhaps I'm being a little too abstract.

This image in a way follows on from the previous exercise, which was an expression of leaving a place in my head that was insular and about the past.  This photo is a bit of a joke saying, yes, I have left that place and graduated downstairs to my kitchen, which is a step in the right direction, AND I'm having a bit of a good time, albeit a little crazy.

Added later: I am not sure why I do this sometimes- actually, I am sure - when I think the photo isn't any good I play around with photoshop or Filters and the photo I originally put here had one on, but I have replaced it with an image without a filter below.  I still don't think it's that great a photograph but it's an idea and I discuss this in another post.  I will say however I like using filters sometimes on the more abstract stuff but I think I need to learn to be a bit less full-on with them. When my PS updated it didn't seem to take the ability to edit in Efex with it, so decreasing the filter layer isn't so easy but I can presumably have a look at that and fix PS so it does or just use the older version - or play around with them a bit more in Efex Pro which I have started to do recently.

Exercise 1: A Narrative Picture Essay

Set yourself an assignment and then photograph it. In a set numbering between 5 & 15 images tell a story. Vary the size if necessary to enhance the narrative.  Write a short caption underneath each picture describing what it shows.

Inside my bedroom I take photographs

A picture poem by Sarah-Jane Field

Inside my bedroom I take photographs.  I often use myself in these photographs and sometimes like slow shutter speeds.

I photograph this chair in quite a lot of photographs.  I use the light from this window.

The door to my bedroom is closed. 

I photograph how I feel in this room and keep the door closed.

The door is closed.

Dresses hang.

When I am finished I can leave.
Today I am finished here.

All images (c)SarahJaneField

Reflection

Demonstration of technical and visual skills
I suppose I have shown that I have carried forward some of the elements of design we learned in assignment 2.  Some images show clear lines and shapes, as well as an awareness of framing.  I think I have pushed myself technically but probably fell short in many aspects because perhaps what I was trying to do was rather beyond where I'm at.  I enjoy seeing what can be done and experimenting; sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I have to say I am not sure if some of these images would work as prints and if I were to print them I might need to re-shoot.

Quality of outcome
Well - this depends a lot I think.  To be honest at the moment I am so unsure of the work, I can't tell you.  A few images may be interesting but I suspect some might just look ridiculous to a few or to many.  I rejected images that would have required too much 'work' in Photoshop such as the backdrop being lit because I was short on space and had to really think about things to overcome those sort of problems .  I felt that it I were going to take so many risks with shutter speed, subject and exposure in some instances then I had to make sure that the images didn't fall short in other areas such as the backdrop being in the shadows properly.  I am not sure what the quality is.  Perhaps it shows promise. Perhaps it just shows a lot of awful rubbish.  As time passes and I think about them there are some images which stand out for me as falling short of what I was aiming for and some which are growing on me.

Demonstration of creativity
I know I cannot be accused of failing to be creative.  I am prepared to try things out and fail and try again to find something interesting.  I think I am creative but perhaps struggling to find a way to express that adequately.  I kept waiting to have a moment where I knew what I was going to do which happened after weeks of thinking with Assignment 2 - but that didn't really happen.  Instead I went round and round in my head, changing my mind, going back to what I'd planned, dropping it again.  I felt compelled to keep photographing these shapes and expressions.  By the end of it if I feel if I never photograph me again it will be too soon.

Context
I have certainly read more this time and have tried to incorporate that into my blog.  The commentary here was so long and rambling that I had to edit it heavily and I think I might have removed everything interesting so that what is left says nothing much.