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.

Having just read this post which I wrote shortly after submitting A4  have to smile.  I am so silly and get a bit carried away sometimes because I am embarrassed about the work I've done, or because I'm having a bad day or something.  I don't hate the images at all, which is what I say there.  I was just frustrated with myself because I'm still learning an still have so much to learn.  I must be more gentle, or at least learn not to be quite so crazy!

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.

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.

A4 - Further reflection

I have looked at the images I submitted for A4 and hate some of them.  There is too much awful noise on quite a few of them and I need to think very carefully about that in future, I think, for this sort of photography.

After doing a job last night in really difficult lighting conditions I am really aware of noise.  Having spoken to a few much more experienced photographers I know that they go up very high with their ISO and convert to B&W in worst case scenarios and increase the grain so it looks like film to cover the noise - OK for small images.  But it's also really important to get the exposure absolutely spot on because there is no room for movement in LR or PS.  And I think I have not got the exposure spot on in the photos I'm unhappy with and have created too much horrible noise - which is really evident especially when looked at them on a big screen.  I guess I was so concerned with the story.  Also, without all the blur I relied on in the previous assignments which are quite a distraction really, it is really possible to see the technical flaws in my images.

I have always known that I would be less of a technical whiz kid than others because I find it very hard to engage with that side of things but I now feel I need to pay more attention to it all so I can avoid the issues I have seen in the images I submitted for A4 and found in many of the images I took last night in this very dark place where I was working.

Taking your time over editing

I just remembered something that Elina Brotherus said and which I forgot to mention in my post about her, so quickly want to write it down before I dash out.  And that is to take your time.  Oh - so many contradictions; here I am rushing as I write about taking your time, my time.

I know taking your time over editing is crucial.  I get so frustrated by the need to get things done within a short space of time for the assignments.  Brotherus  talked about waiting at least 6 months before looking at her work and then she makes small prints which help her to make up her mind about what she will use and what she won't.  I am already thinking about possibilities for both assignment 4 and 5 - I have slightly stalled on the exercises but will pick up again tomorrow when out with the kids - but I am very mindful of time, especially as I have so many other things to fit in too.  It feels like waiting 6 months at least to edit would be an amazing luxury.

I know I basically use Flickr as a scrapbook/dumping ground/note pad type of thing - it's a way to constantly be taking photographs and showing them to someone, anyone!  That's fine.  It keeps me involved but there is a lot of unutterable rubbish up there (mine I mean). I just post whatever happens to have come up - like a stream of consciousness.  All sorts of junk and occasionally something maybe worth keeping but mostly I ma just practising and trying things out.  I'm not trying to create a series of anything, or a comprehensive style or anything with any cohesion.

I have posted a few of the assignment images there but it always feels a bit like I shouldn't be - somehow that I'm not valuing them enough by chucking them into the vast chasm of Flickr and losing them really - even though they're always on my page - but I lose something intrinsic about them.  I want to keep them separate and maybe I should in the future.

Some words for A4 that have been floating about my head -  shame, embarrassment, foolishness, discomfort, dreams - forgetting your words, running, falling.

Sometimes I'm a twit!

I've been bemoaning online study and how hard it is to connect with others, which I feel is so important, and I went into the Other folder on FB today and found all these messages from fellow students offering encouragement and trying to connect.  Yikes! It's made me feel, a) I should stop moaning and thinking things would be better elsewhere and b) much better about things.  I still have a little dream about being in a bricks and mortar college but maybe that's just an avoidance thing. Thank you to all the people who were trying to be kind (I have thanked them privately too) and apologies for my extreme rudeness!

Some images I took today following a chat about the direction my photography is going in

After having quite a positive chat today about some photographs I had taken I took my camera out when my youngest son and I went to buy some chocolate and coffee.  There are also photographs here of my kids at home.  The point is that you don't need to anywhere far or exotic or exciting. There are photographs to be had where-ever you are. I am really enjoying black & white at the moment and I have been looking at two photographers whose work is fairly low key, or exposed on the lower side (to be written up soonish!)

One of the other things that was discussed was editing - i.e. not putting just any junk out there but carefully choosing images.  This is something that takes time, I'm sure and begins to make more sense once you've got quite a decent archive of images behind you, know where you're putting them or what you're doing with them.  I'm not sure what I'm doing with these. I may use them in a family album.  I may print them.  I don't know.  For now - it is enough for me that I am taking them in the first place.  That reminds me I must write up the talk I went to on archiving and what a personal archive means to photographers.

Personal images

I have been taking photos of my children as I have been given an exercise to do documenting my day every hour using only natural light unless I'm absolutely certain I must use flash and then I have to justify it.  I've not done the exercise yet as I start then get distracted by day to day stuff so never really get beyond a certain time.  However, I have nevertheless taken some photographs I quite like but don't really want to post them anywhere.  Here is not open to the world though for now so I thought I'd pop them here and ask some fellow students for their thoughts.  

Making my blog private

I'm thinking about making this learning blog private.  Not because I don't want people looking at my work - I have a Flickr account and am always very pleased when lots of people seem to be viewing my page.  Rather, because doing this course in a remote way with relatively little support is incredibly difficult and rather frightening at times.  I want to be able to take risks and experiment, which will invariably mean producing work that fails as well as work that succeeds but that for me is what being here is about.  Doing it in online however feels incredibly unsupported - I wonder if this is inevitable or rather because of the way the course is structured.  If I were at a college in a physical building with a tutor on hand to give feedback, direction and advice regularly in person as well as a group of fellow students to progress with things might not feel so precarious.  Ever since submitting my work on Friday I have felt incredibly exposed and I don't think it's helping me.  I wouldn't want to stop myself from taking risks, pushing the boundaries of where I am and exploring ideas that might fall flat or might do the opposite.  But equally I don't want to leave myself exposed in the way I have felt this last week or so.  The online part of the course is brilliant for me.  There is just no chance that I could do it any other way at this point in my life.  So I am pleased to be living in time when this is possible but the sense of being isolated out here on my own with minimal support is not great.  I suppose the answer would be to get involved with the OCA forum but to be honest it's not that easy to navigate or to get involved in.  There is some idea of a small community on Facebook but it doesn't in any way come close to providing the sense of containment that I would expect to feel from a regular off-line college course.

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.

Colour thoughts

My assignment continues to evolve. I don't think this is a bad thing but it does slow me down which is fine if I'm working on my own projects but not ideal if I were trying to deliver a paid assignment with a deadline.  I'm struggling to know how to finish the project I have started, how to bring it to a satisfying close.  I have taken some risks with the photography and also with a decision I've made to include some images that I have not taken and I'm not sure if this is acceptable or not.  I am able to justify the inclusion of those images but who knows if it will be OK.  However, all of that is irrelevant if I cannot come up with a way to finish the project.

Each idea I try ends up being rubbish and I think what I need to do is settle on something and try to make it work.  Frustrating!!

My problem with Colour...

... Is that I prefer black & white!  I think I do.  I love how it shapes shapes and lighting changes and removes the image from reality further.  The book I wrote about earlier this evening on Lillian Bassman and Paul Himmel is filled with the most extraordinary black and white images. And I can't wait to move onto a section where I can start to try and figure out how to do some of the things I've seen there.  So, perhaps it's been good for me to look at colour like this as it's forcing me to open up how I work.

I've really struggled to find a way to do what is required for this assignment.  I am not sure what I've planned is right - I know there is no 'right' but I keep worrying I'm really missing something.  I think the only way to do it is with four sets of photos as we are asked to use different lighting, subjects, still life and found images, colour that is about light and colour that is about object based.  But the other work I have seen has very similar photographs which is why I'm a bit worried.

I have tried to stick to the original thoughts I had where childhood is the main theme.  I'm not sure I'm going to achieve the objectives but since the assignment is due in fairly soon I think I've got to go with what I've got planned.  I've a busy few days ahead.

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I've been feeling really strange about photography lately.  Recently I was just so cross about some dumb mistakes I had made at a shoot with a family.  And I'd been feeling disappointed with much of the work I'd been doing for a while, so that by last weekend I was really questioning whether or not I was cut out for that sort of work, but if not that then what?  And I knew that just giving up and walking away from one type of photography was not the answer anyway.  I actually know much of what was informing this mood was totally non-photography related but it was affecting my work nevertheless. 

Mistakes, however, are really important sometimes because they can act as a powerful stimulant to getting things right next time.  For various reasons I feel less despondent now having resolved that I actually just needed to take a bit more control over what I was doing.  And some clutter seems to have shifted from my mind.

Colour has been quite important to be honest as I have realised how much of a difference it will make to the images I take when working with families.  So I've started being a lot more proactive with clients about what they wear and giving them clear instructions before I turn up about choosing a simple colour palette and mixing patterns with block colours.   So although some of my lighting has been a bit ropey I can without a doubt see that when client's follow those instructions it has contributed to a more cohesive image and set of images.  I just hadn't thought about this before embarking on this section of the course. So that's good!

Some thoughts and some reading

Having not read nearly enough for the first half of this year I am now trying to make up for it.  I've just finished the Diane Arbus book; I am also nearly done with one of the books from the reading list, and mostly through a book about Lillian Bassman and Paul Himmel.  For some reason I have also just started Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes as suggested by my tutor, perhaps because my life isn't quite challenging enough!

Barthes talks about the photograph being a recent 'disturbance' for civilisation to deal with, whereby the self is for the first time able to confront itself as the other.  He dismisses paintings and etchings which came before.  I'm intrigued by his understanding of portrait photography.  I wonder what he would make of the current 'selfie' trend.  Whether we take the photograph ourselves or ask, possibly pay someone else to take it for us, there is no denying the level of activity related to this modern 'disturbance' has reached fever pitch in the last decade. I recently heard on one of the many 'fascinating facts' films my eldest son watches so avidly on YouTube that we have taken more photographs in the last... now, was it two hours, weeks or years... I don't think it matters... more photos in the last tiny amount of time than have been taken in the whole history of photography.  What is this desperate splitting of the self into two entities, whereby the self gets to gaze upon itself as an other so frequently and with such alacrity about?

(Splitting is an interesting phenomena in psychotherapy and one which I read a great deal about last year, which describes an individual's inability to see the self and others as rounded, mature cohesive entities or objects.  So someone who is split sees only fabulous objects or disgusting objects in the self and in others for instance.  A split person cannot see herself or others as good and bad at the same time.  A split person is polarised as described in a book titled Splitting: (1)"..unconsciously seeing people as all good or all bad, an extreme way of coping with confusion, anxiety, and mixed feelings.  Splitting is especially prevalent under stress...")

I can't help but wonder what we're doing as a culture when we split our selves so regularly as we seem to do with the constant compulsion to see ourselves as an other - the beautiful, acceptable, desirable other we want the world to see as opposed to that which we'd rather the world didn't see.  Are we and if so why are we polarising our Selves to such an extent  - hidden, undesirable self and shiny, highly marketable other by means of images which we either take ourselves or get someone to take for us?

It has struck me as I read about and learn to market myself online (I still feel hopeless in this regard but I continue to battle one with it, even though sometimes it all feels excrutiatingly gormless and uncomfortably clumsy) that the world we live in has pretty much always demanded an an outer persona, a mask or several which we present to the world.  Very few people get to know the inner world and person but in certain key relationships the outer persona dissolves to a greater or lesser extent.  Yet today, people have an added dimension to penetrate if they are to get to know someone well - the controlled, self-concious online persona that so many of us now feel obliged to construct; a marketing tool which can be used to market the self just as much as it might market a business or service.  Often people have websites or blogs, not to mention social networking pages that are primarily about themselves - indeed I do for work purposes as well as this blog.  A portrait or several (or many, many portraits) are nearly always crucial in these presentations. Photographs of many different standards and styles, but nevertheless images of the self as other are plastered all over the internet and people, we, most of us to a greater or lesser extent, are scrambling to load more and more images that represent the online persona we wish to present to the world. 

I will keep on with Camera Lucida - I have a feeling there will be much more in it to make me think about how, why, what in relation to the very modern habit of placing photographs of ourselves all over the internet.  The book is extremely challenging to say the least but has already fed into some questions and thoughts that have been on my mind. 


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I am feeling a bit lost about where I'm at with photography at the moment.  I go out and take photographs of families as that is what is coming my way more often than not.  I am focused on finding a voice or style but I feel at the moment I'm simply taking photographs that aren't really anything.  In a way, I feel that since attempting to find a 'voice' I've got worse not better with that side of the photography I do.  I imagine this is a normal part of learning and remember feeling something similar when I first started learning to use a camera in manual.  I suspect it has also to do with some lack of patience I have with myself.

I recently watched a short clip online of photographer, (2) Gregory Heisler, whom I did not know.  His work is very powerful and distinctive, so I'm glad I came across it.  In the clip he discusses how finding a style is not an aesthetic thing - it's about how you see the world.  He advises, as he was advised, to take photographs that you cannot help but take and that that more you take these photographs that you cannot help but take the closer you will get to knowing your style.  In theory this sounds great - but I am just not sure what it is that I cannot help but take.  I want only to take close ups of children's faces sometimes.  I'm intrigued by the capacity and promise for what they might one day become that exists in their faces even when they are very young.  And then I find them intensely difficult to work with and think I'd prefer never to take another photograph of a child again.  Then there are times when I just want to be the master of my own mini productions with an image or series of images that explore some of the themes I touched on in my last assignment.  (Pictures of self as other taken by self!) I also have found the last few months that I like landscapes sometimes - something that I had no idea about a few months ago.  I think I just have to keep searching but I do wish I felt better about the family portrait stuff for now. Because as things stand I feel stuck.

1. Spitting, Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD & Randi Kreger, Raincoat Books, 2011, Kindle Edition 6%
2. Gregory Heisler video: http://vimeo.com/100946762

Some reflection on where my photography might be going... ???

I realise I have not written much or perhaps even anything under the heading of reflection on this learning blog during assignment 2.  This is not because I have not been reflecting:  I have been but rather than witter on as I usually do I have needed and wanted to allow my thoughts to swim around in the cluttered place that is my mind for a little while if that makes any sense whatsoever.  


I have in the past spent quite a lot of my time looking at photographs by other photographers on Flickr and sharing some of mine there too, although not as much as I used to.  Now I also read and look at books and sites about other photographers which is of course a very good thing.  Nevertheless I have found Flickr educational and enjoyable, and during a stressful time last year distracting, perhaps even therapeutic.  (For anyone who isn’t aware Flickr is a community of people at all stages of their photography education, and from any different style and genre you can think of.)

One of the ways Flickrites identify themselves and their work is by joining different groups. Recently I was invited by someone whose work I have followed, commented on and liked for about a year and half now. William Keckler, a poet and arty kinda guy, invited me to join a group he set up called I was Alive Today.  I have to admit I was pretty flattered to find myself associated with these tricky and rather ‘edgy’ on screen photographers (shallow of me perhaps??).  But what was more satisfying was that I also became aware of photographers whose work I hadn’t stumbled upon before, some of it incredibly interesting indeed.  (I might add that William Keckler has generously also pointed me in the direction of websites and photographers that I really should know about, so thank you!)

This is how I came across Bill Dane, amongst others. I didn’t know who Bill Dane is – this is not surprising and says more about me than Bill Dane! I don’t really know very much to be honest and find myself learning now in the same way I do everything - in snatched, brief, hiccups of activity in between the never ending task of loading and unloading the dishwasher, shovelling sheets that have been on our beds for too long into the washing machine, making sandwiches for school lunches and changing dirty nappies.

I was pretty thrilled then and surprised when the other day Bill Dane invited little me to join a group he started on Flickr.  Not to begin with, because remember, I didn’t know who he was but when I read some of the commentary another group member had added there I realised his background is impressive in it’s own right,  and this super accomplished artist has worked with Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander too amongst others. I have to admit that they are all names that have only begun to settle into my consciousness over the last two or three years.  I am sometimes overwhelmed by how very much there is to learn - in amongst the dirty laundry I must deal with daily.  But now I have another name to add to the list – as well as beginning to understand what informs his way of working and broadening my appreciation of what's out there.

Bill Dane has been taking photographs since the early 60s and has collated an enormous body of work all of which he makes available to everyone now online at his site billdane.com. Up until 2007 he chose to make postcards and sent them to a mailing list of people, which he did in an exercise of democratisation and de-sanctification of art.   By sending the postcards out he made his art available in a way that art isn’t usually; he demands no hushed reverence in a stuffy art gallery for people who might want to appreciate the way he sees and renders his world for us. He has though had plenty of shows and one of his first I think was at MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York).  I thought his approach was really interesting especially after reading the argument for removing Rothko from the Tate Modern for being too populist a location by Jonathan Jones in The Guardian the other day, which I re-tweeted. (Listen to me; I was one of the last few people in the world who insisted tweeting was something only birds did until roughly two weeks ago!  But ‘branding my online presence' for commercial purposes was something I read about recently, so signed up and will discuss here a little further down.)

The point about Jonathon Jones’ argument and Bill Dane’s approach to his art is that I suspect there is more than enough space in this world for both those philosophies. Hushed reverence as well democratic sharing.  What both these positions bring up for me though is a question about elitism and art.  Photography is a tricky art form (as is Rothko's work) – and I think possibly one of the most difficult to understand and appreciate hence the continuing rhetorical question, is photography art?  This potentially makes it inherently elitist because in some or many examples there needs to be at least a basic level of education to appreciate it in any meaningful way unless the viewer is one of those lucky human beings who simply responds instinctively in an unadulterated way to life.  I’m not one of those people, and have found that as my own immersion into this photography world I am discovering continues, I can begin to appreciate work I look at more and more deeply, but feel there is great distance yet to travel before I will really begin to get to grips with some of the work out I'm interested in.  There is of course some work, which is instantly impactful in a way that is accessible for most of us and some which is harder to tackle.  I think Bill Dane’s work falls into the more difficult category along with work by Lee Friedlander and Diane Arbus (who is fast becoming a hero of mine).  There is a level of sophistication to this work which makes it difficult to understand.  And so the democratic way in which Bill Dane shares his work and always has done is countered by the very nature of the work.  But I like that he refuses to patronise anyone – it appeals to something in me.

The point about me feeling flattered and excited that I was invited to join the group is that I have no idea where I’m going as a photographer and feel daunted sometimes by the endless amount still to learn about every aspect of it, but it was a bit of nice external validation even if I was only invited because I happen to like, comment and copy some other people’s pretty cool work on Flickr – work that, to quote the Bill Dane Flickr group's headline, is ‘edgy and poignant’.  I have not added anything to the group and I am a little tentative about doing so to be honest, but perhaps in time the confidence to do so will come. 

As far as my own photography is going: I had a little hiatus in April ‘work’ wise.  I say work in speech marks because work is something that makes you a living I think and I am far from that point just yet.  Hang on, I work really hard at the job of being a mum and that is unpaid altogether (although there may be someone who disagrees!) so maybe the meaning of work is rather ambiguous in relation to my photography, and is difficult to define for now.  

Nevertheless I am driven by the need to reach a point where I am making a living of some description in the future if at all possible because I have three children, and the complications of post-divorce fiscal responsibility loom large in my life.  So I take risks which may seem tiny to some but are huge to me putting myself and the ‘work’ I do out there in order to try and generate some kind of career path that I might follow.  Having taken a useful albeit worrying and not exactly planned breather in April I was beginning to wonder what the next step would be and how to continue the momentum, building contacts and ultimately getting work that pays.  I stumbled across an article which talked about how important it is to build an online presence in today’s world, and that that doesn’t entail simply popping examples of your work on the internet but requires a conversation with the world about who you are and what you’re doing.  So I started using Twitter to do this and have sort of semi-consciously decided to be upfront about my learning process and interests and see where that takes me.  I also read the actor, Stephen Mangan’s comments, who when asked what one of the most important things he has learnt was, said, ‘the realisation that everybody is just making it up as they go along’.  This made me think, oh, thank goodness, because that is what I have begun to grasp – you have to just make it up as you go along.  I have no idea what I’m doing with the whole thing and am sure I will screw up at times leaving me feeling like I have a metaphorical train of loo roll hanging from my metaphorical knickers as I stride across the internet dance floor but so be it.  It seems to be working though because I posted something online and received over 50 responses which was pretty exciting given that I often feel like I’m posting things just for the benefit of my mum – who dutifully likes pretty much everything I chuck up there!  Thanks, mum!

Right - that's enough photography for now.  I'm off to tackle the laundry basket although no doubt will be thinking about photographing people at an event and the technical requirements I need to consider in order to ensure I get it done as best I can.


Links:
William Keckler
Bill Dane
Diane Arbus
Garry Winogrand
Lee Freidlander



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