Final Reflections on the Major Project and YOP Course Work (18 September 2015)

It has taken me two years and, I estimate, around 1000 hours of study to complete the “Your Own Portfolio” course. Why have I taken so long and has the extra time (600 hours recommended) and effort been worthwhile? To answer these questions I need to look at how I navigated the course, review my mistakes and failings and consider what I have learnt.

In contrast to the level 1 and level 2 courses, where projects are largely imposed, the level 3 courses offer the photography student far greater freedom to explore their own photography-related ideas and concepts and to work in genres that particularly hold their interest. My major interest lies in the field of wildlife (particularly birds) and the environment and, away from my studies, photographing wildlife has for many years provided a major part of my photographic output. Having been somewhat frustrated by the very limited opportunity to incorporate wildlife footage into my earlier course work I was keen to select a wildlife-related topic for the major project. Encouraged by my tutor (who also has an interest in wildlife) I chose to look at man’s interactions with wild birds through the process of feeding them, and this formed the basis of my major project proposal, which is summarised below:

“My intention for the Major Project is to produce a portfolio of photographic images that both illustrate some of the many different ways in which we feed wild birds in Britain and explore the reasons for our actions. Our roles, both as individuals and within groups such as charitable organisations and businesses, will be covered. Crucially, the content of the images will be used to encourage consideration of both the motivation behind our desire to feed wild birds and the benefits that this action provides for the birds and, in particular, for us.”

The images produced would cover the genres of wildlife and (particularly) documentary photography and, after discussing the plans with my tutor, it was agreed that all my other assignment work (Assignments 1-3) would be used as preparation for the major project work.

During my first year of study, various factors influenced and changed my thoughts and project plans.

Firstly, I took out a subscription to the “British Journal of Photography” (BJP), the leading UK magazine that addresses the subject of contemporary photographic art. I also visited many more exhibitions of photographic art, both by leading practitioners and by final year photographic art students, than I had previously done. Through these media outlets I have developed a much greater understanding of how photographers in the art world create, develop and complete projects. I cannot pretend that I was inspired by most of the work that I saw; indeed, the motivation behind a lot of the work seemed rather obscure, but by the time I entered my second year of study I had a much clearer view of what was expected of me, as an art student.

Secondly, I started to feel uncomfortable about limiting my major project to covering what wild birds can do for us, even though my images of people feeding birds could provide a consistent set, with a clear visual link. A high percentage of photographic art focuses on people and I feel that we are becoming so obsessed with ourselves that we have forgotten that we are supposed to share the world with other life forms. I decided that I wanted to broaden the project to cover not just what wild birds do for us (and feeding wild birds is essentially for human gratification, as I hope my images in the first section of the project will demonstrate) but also what we do, both directly and indirectly, for wild birds. In this way I would be able to introduce the environmental issues that I feel so strongly about.

Initially I chose to integrate the images by alternating the photographs of people feeding birds with the much wider-ranging set of images (wildlife, landscape and/or documentary genres) relating to “what we do for wild birds”, which covered habitat loss and creation among other things. Whilst this ordering of images (which I used to produce a story board for Assignment 4) worked for me my tutor found it confusing and, after a discussion, we decided that I would split the major project work into two sections: “what birds do for us” (feeding the birds)- and “what we do for wild birds” (environmental issues). Furthermore, it was agreed that I should produce a multimedia (images, video and sound) presentation that would complement my image portfolio, both by providing a link between the two sections and by providing an overview of the project rationale. I decided that the photo book, which I had always planned to produce, would be a more rounded and balanced view of aspects of our relationship with wild birds than the multimedia presentation, which would be somewhat more subjective.

The work was completed according to the revised plan. On the negative side, changing direction and expanding the subject area cost me a lot of time and resulted in the production of an image portfolio that cannot readily be interpreted without the aid of the multimedia presentation. On the positive side, producing the multimedia presentation allowed me to acquire new skills in the use of video and sound which, in combination with my images, will be harnessed for future work. Furthermore, adding the second section has given me the opportunity to present photographic work on a subject that I feel passionate about: I was highly motivated to do this, which must be an advantage. The photo book, which is essentially a brief overview of the relationship between people and wild birds in the UK, is a permanent record of my course work.

I am happy to have been given the freedom to combine my keen interest in wildlife and the environment with my photographic output for this course. However, because of this I have found some difficulty in sticking to the remit of the major project, and I believe that I’ve taken the somewhat tenuous link between wildlife photography and photographic art (see my critical essay) as far as I can and as far as I want to go. In the future I plan to choose projects that develop other areas of photographic interest and provide more uniform, yet distinctive portfolios of images.

Final Status Report 8 September 2015

My portfolio of 22 images for the major project has now been printed, to A3 size, on Fuji “C-type” archival print paper. I sent five images each to two separate printers and compared the results. The prints that I obtained from “The Print Space”, a London printer, were both marginally sharper and also lighter in tone than those I received from the second printer, so I went with them. Although “The Print Space” offers a mail order service I chose to download the images on their premises, and return to pick up the prints a few hours later. In total, I spent over £300 on the prints and, when added to the cost of the portfolio box, storage sleeves and the cost of producing two photo books, this brings my total printing expenses in line with the original projected expenses of £450.

All that remains is for me to assemble and index my assignment files, tutor reports and logbook for submission both on disc and as hard copy, together with my prints (assignment prints other than those for the portfolio will be submitted at A4 size), my multimedia presentation and a copy of my photo book. I will update my blog with final thoughts and, as there is a large amount of material to be examined and I am aware that the assessors have limited time to look at each student’s work, I will also provide a concise explanatory note for the assessors, both on my blog (which acts as a primary source for the logbook) and in the hard copy presentation. All this will take time, but I intend to have the submission ready for handing in at the OCA offices on or around 23 September.

Costa Rica: A Photographer's View

In August 2014 I spent a fortnight in Costa Rica with my partner Helen, as part of a group on an organised “Exodus” trip. Costa Rica is very much a place to visit for tourists interested in its incredibly rich and diverse wildlife and environment, although it also offers excellent surfing and sun-soaked Pacific beaches. However, as befits a country with tropical rain forests the weather can be extremely wet! Whilst I was strictly on holiday I did, of course, record (where possible) the wildlife that we saw and, in the light of the “why feed the birds” subject of my major project, I was particularly interested in recording the Costa Ricans’ use of bird feeders to attract (mainly, but not exclusively) hummingbirds. During our fortnight I took 3300 photographs, ultimately keeping around 1000 as a photographic record of our visit. The following is a very brief commentary on our adventures.

Red-eyed Tree Frog, Manuel Antonio NP

The People

I’ve never been to an “exotic” country before where the people treated me as “part of the scenery”. They are not rude (quite the opposite), but they are presumably so used to seeing tourists that we don’t register as being unusual in any way. This was quite a revelation on the holiday. I also felt completely safe everywhere I went, although there is a small amount of petty crime at some of the major destinations. The Costa Ricans are clearly peace-loving people (they don’t have an army and have largely escaped the [civil] wars, which have recently affected some of their neighbours, unscathed).

The Landscape

Costa Rica has volcanoes and mountains reaching almost 4000 metres. But it also borders both the Caribbean and the Pacific oceans. The high rainfall (particularly in the east and in the mountain regions) produces lush vegetation (no deserts here!), which carpets large tracts of land and virtually all the mountain regions. As a consequence the landscape can start to look rather “samey” after a while: there are few exposed rocks or lone trees. This is not ideal habitat for landscape photographers! Upland areas are often hidden in a layer of cloud or mist, which can produce some atmospheric effects if you are happy to put up with a visibility of 10 – 50 metres. The limited numbers of landscape scenes that I photographed whilst in Costa Rica were mainly produced as representative images of what it was like to be there, rather than for their artistic or aesthetic qualities.

The Wildlife

Now you’re talking! Costa Rica has an incredibly rich, diverse and (importantly) colourful wildlife. It is possible to get close to monkeys, sloths, birds, snakes, frogs, spiders, crabs, butterflies and dragonflies. Not to mention all the orchids and other plant life. You name it, Costa Rica has it! With the exception of its secretive “big cats” (Puma, Ocelot and Jaguar), it is possible to find and take decent photographs of pretty much anything. The diversity of species reflects the diversity of habitats, so animals that are common at sea level may not occur up in the mountains and vice-versa.

Male Resplendent Quetzel, Savegre NP

So is Costa Rica the wildlife photographer’s dream? Well, not completely. For a start it rains heavily throughout the year and particularly in the summer and early autumn months (i.e. when we visited!). This causes problems with water getting into the camera lens (as happened to me on more than one occasion) and steaming up: good waterproofing of your equipment is strongly recommended! Also, much of the wildlife is found in and around forested areas, which are shady at the best of times and particularly when the weather is overcast and/or wet. Consequently you have to rely on the subject being static or, if it is moving, using a high to very high ISO setting (say 1000+) to capture the action without blurring. I mainly used my Nikon D7000 camera in these conditions. The camera has many qualities, but does exhibit some graininess at higher ISO settings. Images would not print up well under these circumstances.

A second problem was evident when we made a nocturnal visit to watch green turtles laying eggs on a Caribbean beach at Tortuguero. Strictly no photography! This rule was essential, because taking photographs may disturb the turtles and cause them to abort laying, but watching the huge female turtles emerging from the sea, digging holes, laying eggs and then covering them with sand was an amazing “once in a lifetime” experience, which would have produced a dream photographic sequence….

The Hummingbirds

During the first part of the holiday hummingbirds were in short supply. However, we had the opportunity in Monteverde National Park to visit a “hummingbird garden”, equipped with sugar feeders, where several species of hummingbird were zooming around, sometimes within a few inches of our faces. What an amazing experience, and definitely one of the highlights of the trip! However, we only had limited time and the light was very poor (overcast with light rain in a forest clearing), so I had to settle for some static images of various species, taken at high ISO values. Fortunately the final lodge we visited, in Savegre National Park, had several (mainly hummingbird) feeders and attracted good numbers of three main montane species (we were situated at 2200 metres altitude). The staff had gone to some lengths to provide natural perches for the hummingbirds and I was finally able, on the penultimate day of the holiday, to get some decent photographs of the hummingbirds at rest. The commonest (and most photogenic) species was the Green Violet-ear: I took over 100 photographs of this bird, one of which is shown below.

Magnificent Hummingbird at Feeder, Savegre NP

Green Violet-ear Hummingbird, Savegre NP

Photographing the hummingbirds hovering and feeding on nectar proved challenging, even though they kept their bodies still during the process. My favourite portraits were all of static birds.

Do the hummingbird feeding stations in Costa Rica provide any insights for my project work? The feeders are easy to set up and common throughout the Americas, obviously benefit the birds and provide pleasure for tourists and locals alike. Monitoring birds coming to feeders provides useful information for conservationists and there is commercial gain for the manufacturers and lodge/hotel owners (the latter would attract fewer visitors if they did not provide feeders in areas where hummingbirds are common). The provision of “natural” perching posts close to the feeders encourages wildlife photographers. Unfortunately we don’t have hummingbirds in the UK, but many of the reasons for feeding the birds in Costa Rica are equivalent to our own reasons. Perhaps the biggest gain of all would be the personal pleasure gained by the private home owner or tenant, in the UK or overseas, who can get close to the birds and enjoy watching their activity by providing them with the food that they need.

Status Report 24 August 2015: Major Project Update and Preparation for Assessment

With submission for assessment due in the second half of September and holidays having taken up most of the second half of July and the first half of August I have now entered a frenetic period of activity in order to complete the course work in time.

·         Following on from my tutor’s comments and my own observations I have produced a revised photo book (see below). No further work will be carried out in this area.

·         I have made a final decision on which images/prints to submit for my major project portfolio and am getting some “trial” exhibition prints produced by two companies (see below).

·         Following on from the changes to my portfolio images I have made some minor changes to the multimedia presentation, which is now complete and ready for submission.

Photo Book

My tutor kindly offered to comment on the first draft of my photo book. His very helpful suggestions, which related both to the design of the book and to the image content, combined with my own reflections on having received the book from the printers (“Blurb”), encouraged me to make revisions to the style and content of the book. One or two of the images were not “up to scratch” and this allowed me to make a final choice regarding which images/prints to include in my final portfolio.

Having made modifications to the text and images, a revised photo book was printed by “Blurb”: the front cover is reproduced below.

Front cover of my revised photo book (against a black background)

All the portfolio images are incorporated into the book in (7x5) landscape format and a few additional images use this format too. The result is a rather orthodox and clinical feel to the book’s design. However, I wanted to show consistency in the different sections of the submission (images/prints, multimedia, photo book). One “letterbox” and one square format image are included in the book: neither of these is included in the portfolio. I’m happy now that the photo book represents a fair overview of my project work which, in conjunction with the multimedia presentation, will provide necessary insight into why and how I carried out the project. The photo book will be submitted for assessment without further modification and I will purchase further copies for personal use and possibly to accompany a future exhibition.

Portfolio Images and Prints

I finished practical work in July. All the portfolio images for section 1 had been chosen by then, as had most of the images for section 2. I had hoped to complete the portfolio with a strong image of a bird in natural habitat, (such as a reed bed) on a nature reserve. Unfortunately, for various reasons, a suitable image could not be produced or reproduced. This necessitated a slight re-ordering of the final few images and the inclusion of a photograph of wild swans being fed at Welney Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust reserve. These changes are reflected in the second photo book. One advantage of using the Welney image is that it provides a link between the two sections of the portfolio and reinforces the direct connection between people and birds that was evident in the first section.

I spent a lot of time researching how to go about producing a print portfolio. This involved producing A4 prints of a variety of my images on standard matt and glossy and “fine art” A4 papers, using my own printer. My tutor had a look at some of these prints. It became clear that, for the subject matter involved, using specialised fine art paper would not offer a significant advantage over “standard” archival print paper. Indeed, some of the best results on my (Epson) printer were achieved using “Permajet” inkjet gloss (271gsm) (this is my favoured combination for competition prints). After further research I chose to have the portfolio images printed on C-type gloss archival paper, costing about £10.00 per print. At the time of writing I am getting a small selection of prints produced by two separate companies. Assuming that the results are satisfactory I will choose one company to print the remaining images in early September.

Multimedia Presentation

I have made slight changes to the multimedia presentation, in order to incorporate the final portfolio image set. The videos and accompanying sound remain unaltered. My only remaining challenge here will be to ensure that the 238Mb presentation copies satisfactorily to disc, so that the assessors can watch it! A screen grab of the opening slide from the presentation is shown below.

Multimedia Presentation: Opening Slide

Future Work

I have updated my logbook/blog with details of exhibition reviews, status reports etc. and plan no further work here. In addition to putting my print portfolio together I will write two more blog posts / logbook entries, one describing how the major project has developed and changed since its inception and the second discussing what I have learnt during the two years that I have been working on the course. Finally comes all the indexing and organising that occurs with every assessment submission……

Exhibition Visit: Two Exhibitions in Cornwall

Having a partner who is an art student and exhibition addict, it is hard to get away from art galleries, wherever in the world we may be. A week’s holiday in St Ives inevitably involved a visit to the Tate gallery there and another rainy day later in the week prompted a visit to the Newlyn art gallery. Both held exhibitions of interest, which are briefly commented upon here.

“Images Moving Out onto Space” (Tate St Ives)

This exhibition featured art works that relied upon movement to produce their effect. Old and new works by almost 20 artists were featured, with a series of kinetic sculptures from the 1960s by Cornish artist Bryan Wynter (example: Image 1) lending the exhibition its name. Wynter’s sculptures involved placing rotating mobiles in front of a refracting lens to achieve a pleasing, constantly-changing abstract effect. Sadly, Wynter died before he could fully realize his concept.

     Image 1: “Imoos 6” (Bryan Wynter)  

 Elsewhere, the gallery featured abstract, minimalist and kinetic works of art by (mainly) living artists. I was particularly taken with Liliane Lijn’s rotating conical structures, which are wrapped in enamelled copper wire to produce constantly changing lines of reflected light (see Image 2). As far as I could see not every work of art moved, but the exhibition did raise the question of whether it would be possible to produce a kinetic work of art involving moving photographic prints (as opposed to the obvious example of the moving image) and, if so, how? Photographs depicting change were part of the exhibition (along with several typical works by Bridget O’Reilly), but they didn’t move!

Overall, this was a thought-provoking and appealing exhibition.

Image 2: “Red Line Koan” (Liliane Lijn)

Exhibition Review: “In Search of the Miraculous” (Newlyn Art Gallery)

The exhibition was inspired by the life of artist Bas Jan Ader, who set sail alone in July 1975 from Massachusetts to cross the Atlantic to Falmouth in Cornwall. He was lost at sea and never seen again.

The exhibition features grand concepts and designs, mainly involving video work, by an international group of artists. In common with Jan Ader, many of the artists have embarked on journeys in pursuit of new experiences and recorded these journeys for the viewer. For example, at the start of the exhibition we see a looped 10 minute video of artist Guido van der Werve, walking across sea ice in Northern Finland, followed by an icebreaker (Image 3). The video is trance-like in its monotony, but somehow manages to convey a grand picture of cold Arctic scenery.

Image 3: “Everything is going to be Alright”, Guido van der Werve

As I live within a few hundred metres of the Greenwich meridian line I was interested to see Simon Faithfull’s video of his journey along the meridian line from Peacehaven in Sussex (where he walks out of the sea) to Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire (where he returns to the sea). In between we see him using ladders to climb over hedges and walk through peoples’ gardens as he attempts to keep exactly to the meridian line. Did he really follow the meridian line so exactly? I have my doubts, but Faithfull’s work is certainly a classic example of a grand concept put into practice. The depiction of artists’ journeys, using a variety of art forms, is becoming more and more popular. As a keen walker myself, who is also becoming more interested in video art, here is an area that I can consider developing as part of my own practice.

Other videos in the exhibition featured an Icelandic trawler going round and round in circles, creating a circular vortex of water, and a work called “blind date”, in which a blindfolded Mat Collishaw  travels to The Prado in Madrid to view (blindfold removed) Velasquez’ classic painting conundrum, “Las Meninas”.

Final Thoughts

Both exhibitions feature classic, concept-driven works of art. Whilst the exhibits at Tate St Ives are material they are also changing. At Newlyn the art is largely ethereal, representing (artistic and/or real) journeys, often on a grand scale. Here is “art for art’s sake”, a pure representation of artists’ pursuits of new experiences.

Exhibition Visit: "Environmental Photographer of the Year" (Royal Geographical Society, London, 4 July 2015)

This exhibition featured the shortlisted photographs from the 10.000 images submitted for the 2015 Atkins CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the Year competition. The competition encourages participants from around the world to “share their images of environmental issues to encourage our awareness and understanding of the causes, consequences and solutions to climate change and social inequality”. Whilst largely concentrating on human issues, such as poverty, culture, population growth and human rights, environmental issues such as biodiversity were also covered.

My interest in this competition was threefold: to observe how winning entrants in the portfolio competitions presented their selections of photographs, to understand better how some of the drier subject areas could be given aesthetic photographic appeal and to study how photographers dealt with wildlife-related issues such as biodiversity (a subject of particular interest to me).

The exhibition was visually stunning: beautiful photographs highlighting important environmental issues. Most of the portfolios, in particular, had been taken by professional photo-journalists. I envied them their opportunities to travel to spectacular places in order to highlight important environmental issues. Having said that, having recently returned from Vietnam with around 2500 images I have nothing that remotely compares with Ly Hoang Long’s beautiful night-time image of fishing net checking there (Image 1)!

Image 1 (Ly Hoang Long)

Some familiar themes were highlighted, such as the growing accumulation of (mainly) plastic waste in our oceans and on land and the shortage of (clean) water in many parts of the world. Burtynsky’s epic photographs of the massive ship-breaking yards in Bangladesh have encouraged many other photographers to visit the Chittagong area and some beautiful images have emerged, with Michael Blach’s photograph (Image 2) being my favourite from the exhibition. Work in these yards is fraught with danger and many deaths have resulted: Bangladesh appears to be one of very few countries that are prepared to take on the task of breaking up massive container vessels and dealing (or not) with the resultant environmental legacy.

Image 2 (Michael Blach)

The exhibition was quite small and easy to negotiate in under an hour. It was also very popular: when we visited (admittedly on a Saturday), the crowds were such that it was difficult to get close enough to the photographs to read the accompanying texts or fully appreciate their impacts.

The photographs in this exhibition resemble those one might expect to find in an issue of “National Geographic” magazine. They are beautiful to look at, as well as highlighting the many environmental problems that the planet and its people face. But will they have any impact on dealing with those problems, and does this matter for a visual arts exhibition? These are the issues that I find hard to come to terms with. As a former scientist I have spent much of my life tackling problems and trying (usually unsuccessfully) to come up with solutions in order to make the world a better place. Using photography as a documentary tool to record and highlight social and environmental issues is an area that I am particularly interested in and to see how other photographers have managed this in a creative and aesthetically pleasing manner is inspirational. However, do these images represent photographic art? The photographs of Daniel Beltra, discussed in my critical essay, occupy the same area of documentary / photojournalism. Beltra is a photojournalist (or so I’m told) and his work is commission- rather than concept-driven.  Nevertheless I would argue that he and many of the photographers whose works feature in this exhibition are artists and that their work holds far more relevance for us in our daily lives than does that of photographers whose work is entirely concept-driven.

Exhibition Visit: "Fresh-faced and Wild Eyed" (The Photographers' Gallery, London, 4 July 2015)

This exhibition, now in its 8^th year, presents the work of 25 recent graduates from photographic and visual arts courses across the UK, showcasing the best emerging artistic talent. The works were selected by a panel of judges. As such, it presents an overview of current practices and gives a boost to talented recent graduates at a critical time in their careers.

As a potential graduate from a visual arts course, the concepts and ideas behind emerging graduates’ work was of particular interest to me, as was the way in which these ideas had been exploited.

Looking round the exhibition, a few obvious themes emerged. Most of the works were (loosely) portrait based, with images of (male and female) naked bodies to the fore. Whilst the aesthetics and story lines behind the works were very varied, it seems that many students prefer to stick with the type of photography with which they are most familiar, namely taking photographs of themselves and others.

I was impressed with the globe-trotting capacities of the graduate photographers. Jonathon Simpson (“I am Fine”) spent time travelling between Bangladesh and Singapore delivering video messages of love and support between Bangladeshi workers in Singapore and their families, in order to investigate the exploitation of Singapore’s migrant workers. Betty Laura Zapata ("X-Ray, Inside Venezuelan Public Hospitals”) returned to her home country to work undercover to expose the appalling state of healthcare facilities in Venezuela. James Bell (“Beach Boys”) managed to wangle time in Barbados to portray members of the local community who are dependent on the tourist trade.

Intermingled with more hedonistic pursuits, one or two projects were of a distinctly personal nature. Sian Davey’s project, “Looking for Alice”, features her own young daughter, who was born with Down’s syndrome, and reflects on how Alice’s disability influences family relationships, whilst also examining prevailing attitudes in society towards “difference”. However, the work that had the greatest effect on me featured very little photography. Aida Silvestri’s work, “Even This Will Pass”, features a small number of portraits of Eritrean sitters, blurred to protect their identities, together with passages of text describing their dreadful and traumatic experiences on journeys to this country, as victims of human trafficking. At a time when many thousands of migrants are attempting to enter our country illegally, this project is a timely reminder of the other side of the story. We should also appreciate how lucky we are to live here, when we compare our lifestyles to those of others around the world. Silvestri was born in Eritrea. Her work reminds me that when a project revolves around a concept as powerful as this, photography becomes just a simple tool to assist the narrative.

Some of the projects were video-based. I was particularly impressed by the short film from Alexandra Vacaroiu’s project: “I Want to Remember Everyth”, in which she attempts to recreate memories that were never photographed. Her work concentrates on objects that trigger specific memories and its potential benefit for patients living with Alzheimer’s disease is explored. Here is a creative and imaginative project, with an aesthetically pleasing output and a worthy goal: what more could one ask for?

The creative energy and output of these graduates is to be admired. As expected, many of the works were of little interest to me in my perpetual search for ideas and inspiration. However, some of the works (in particular that by Aida Silvestri) were quite moving and demonstrate that sometimes the photographs themselves can play a relatively minor role as part of a bigger concept (a reminder of the work of Sophie Calle).

In looking to the future Sian Davey’s work reinforces my wish to develop a very personal photographic project relating to the relationship with my mother between 1995 (when my father died) and 2007, when my mother passed away.

The increasing use of video by the students encourages me to incorporate more video work into future projects, following its introductory use in my major project for this course.