Feedback and my response

I was pleased to receive very positive feedback because as usual I was a bit nervous about the direction I had taken.  I have inserted my responses below in blue.

Tutor report

Student name	Sarah-Jane Field	Student number
Course/Module	AoP	Assignment number	4

Overall Comments

This is another engaged and engaging assignment that provides further evidence of how you’re committed to your studies, specifically, and to exploring photography (and beyond) more broadly. From A2 onwards there’s been a real sense of someone finding their feet in artistic terms and of being able to articulate this with their camera. It’s also reassuring to see how you’re not losing sight of the technical issues that underpin your efforts, and the accompanying text that critically reflected on the outcome of some of the assignment’s photographs gave a very clear indication of you determination to improve and move forward.

Re the specifics of the brief and what was required, this is always something that is going to be open to interpretation- such is the nature of art and the expectations of higher education- but if there’s any suggestion that you’ve veered off course, your accompanying notes provide an eloquent counter, and are expressed with a level of conviction that mirrors the approach to the photographs you are taking.

In spite of your concerns over how appropriately your response to the brief has been, I still maintain that you absolutely should submit for assessment. Each assignment has been underpinned by a sense of inquisitiveness and a willingness to take chances and experiment. While this is a virtue in its own right, it’s by no means the only one: experimenting is one thing, but experimenting with purpose and achieving consistently interesting and worthwhile results- which you are doing- is another. Certainly from A2 onwards, while there’s not been- as I’m sure you’d be the first to admit!- a ‘flawless’ submission, this is perhaps less important than the fact that you’re taking chances and avoiding any internal policing that might whisper that it would be better to play it safe. So in this sense your approach to the course is most encouraging, and if you carry on in this way it seems almost certain that your work will continue to improve.

Technically, I think I will always have holes and flaws, but the more I work at it creatively, as you say, the better that will become just through doing it and making the mistakes that I make.  

Assessment potential

I understand your aim is to go for the Photography/Creative Arts Degree and that you plan to submit your work for assessment at the end of this course. From the work you have shown in this assignment, providing you commit yourself to the course, I believe you have the potential to succeed at assessment.  In order to meet all the assessment criteria, there are certain areas you will need to focus on, which I will outline in my feedback.   

Feedback on assignment

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

I really like the way your accompanying text discusses the stylistic shift for this assignment. After A2 and A3, which had obvious stylistic parallels, I did wonder how you’d approach A4, and whether you’d look to develop your interest in blurred, slightly elusive imagery. The emotional resonance of the images here is similar to A2 and A3, but stylistically there’s a world of difference, and whatever it is that you’ve been ‘reaching for’ is being expressed in a more muted and ‘controlled’ fashion than the previous two assignments. The blurred images express a certain chaos, whereas the images here aim for something much more precise. I can’t help but think that this shift in style represents a shift in something else- the blurred images by definition obscure you, but here everything is that bit more ‘direct’. But, nevertheless, a shift in style hasn’t meant a complete shift in mood and tone. These images are still very clearly ‘yours’.

I have certainly not abandoned blurry images for good but for now I think I am looking for clarity and definition.  

I notice on a follow-up thread on your blog you’ve been very critical of the amount of ‘horrible’ noise in these images. This might be overstating things a bit, but in any case, I don’t think that this has an overly detrimental effect on the series as a whole. Nevertheless, it’s obviously a good thing that you’re scrutinising your work to the nth degree, and should keep on doing this (but with a sense of proportion!). If you continue to apply yourself in the manner that you clearly have been on AoP, such technical niggles will eventually be ironed out as your methodologies become more established and your sense of what works/ doesn’t work is further honed. 

Last night I spent some time looking through the images I have taken over the last two years and I have to say the chaos in my head is evident in many of the choices (or rather the inability to make choices) about exposure and composition.  I saw how much I have learnt by comparing what I was doing 18 months ago to what I would do now without thinking about it.  So although I can be hard on myself I do appreciate how far I've come.  I do get frustrated with myself though.

So, for me, it’s the expressive/ ‘artistic’ side of things, and your creative response to what is quite a deceptively tricky brief, that most stands out here. Nevertheless, it was very interesting that you were thinking about leaving this image out…

I can appreciate your misgivings, but in terms of a) how it responds to a particular part of the brief and b) its initial impact as part of a wider series, it’s a striking, arresting image that uses light and colour to evoke a lovely mood- one that provides a nice counter to the almost abrasive impact of some of photographs in A3. It was an inventive way to respond to the brief, and one that, for me, transcends the technical problems you’ve identified in your notes.

Good, I'm glad to read that.  I was just annoyed by my clumsiness with placing the reflector in-shot which meant I had to crop so much.  I still make these mistakes and need to stop doing it really.  I really like the mood of the image as well as the light and colour and am glad I kept it in.

If there’s one image in this assignment that stands in total stylistic contrast to the work done in A2 and A3 it’s perhaps this one:

It’s not a ‘showy’ image, is pleasingly pared-down in a compositional sense, and uses light in a simple and unobtrusive manner, demonstrating that there’s a growing range to your palette.

I am very pleased this image has been picked up on - I am beginning to like less 'showy' images quite a lot.

Overall, in spite of any reservations about stretching the limits of the brief, light clearly leaps out here as being central to the construction of these photographs. It’s also a series of photographs that works really well as a set, and has managed to respond very creatively to a brief that can be quite restrictive in some ways. I’ll leave it for you to decide if you think some reshoots are necessary so as to lessen your feeling of ‘horrible’ noise, but one thing that might be worth revising is the captions that accompany each photograph- if you stress which part of the brief each is a specific response to, it’ll tighten everything up in relation to the assignment outline and serve to work alongside your accompanying text that explains your decision to position yourself as the series’ ‘object’.

I am very happy to put some captions in that highlight which part of the brief each image responds to.

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays

Context

This side of your work on the course represents an impressive accompaniment to the photographs you’re producing, and is consistently thoughtful, engaging, and demonstrates someone who’s making a good deal of progress. Even just a cursory glance at your blog points to the fact that words are as important as images in all this, and text-based posts are certainly not marginal, reluctant, tokenistic entities, and are eloquent and engaging in their own right, giving a clear sense of how you’re progressing through the course.

Words are very important to me especially as someone who comes (albeit quite a long time ago now) from a background in text based theatre.  I am very keen to keep developing the writing side of what I'm doing here, both artistically and academically.  I think I probably could do with more concentrated effort in the latter, although only when I have more head space in the future, i.e as my youngest grows.

Suggested reading/viewing

Context

With the final assignment looming, this is something we should discuss on Skype (particularly as the piece of work you were looking to undertake might be logistically unfeasible now).

(But having seen you mention on your blog being bowled over by Frank’s The Americans, take a look at Mishka Henner’s gloriously nihilistic Less Americains).

Pointers for the next assignment

Again, this is something we can discuss on Skype. But as a general- and rather insipid!- pointer, just keep going. You’ve certainly ‘taken control’ of your studies here, and throughout Art of Photography have used the assignments as a way to explore your growing photographic, thematic and personal interests, and to develop your technical skills. Perhaps as a general principle, it might be an idea to move away from self-portraiture for this last one: it’s something that’s accounted for three assignments now, assignments which have demonstrated a range of growing technical skills and an evolving artistic voice.   

I am certainly planning to move away from self portraiture - it took a little leap of something internally but I have documented that 'struggle' in one of the exercises for the next section of TAOP.  I may use something I have already been doing where I have found a narrative emerging - I will need to speak with you about this in our Skype call though as I have some questions.

An assignment that rounds the course off with some work that foregrounds something a little different might be worth considering- but this is up to you, of course. I get the feeling that, such are the steps that you’ve taken, even taking an approach where the subject matter is beyond what you’ve produced for the course so far, that the work would still be identifiably ‘yours’.

Tutor name	Andrew Conroy
Date	11/3/15
Next assignment due	11/6/15