All photos courtesy of Amano Tracy
On
the weekend of 20/21 June I visited Barnsley for a Level 3 study weekend
organised by fellow students Penny Watson and John Umney. We were also fortunate to have the help and
advice of two of our tutors: Sharon Boothroyd and Jesse Alexander, as well as
inputs by two professionals: John Davies and Laura Pannack. It was good to meet up with students who I
had only known through their blogs, but it was my first experience of such an
event so I arrived on Saturday morning with some trepidation. The first day began with a PechKucha session
where each of us presented and spoke about 20 of our photographs for 20 seconds
each, the timing being strictly controlled as they were shown as a timed
PowerPoint. The idea was to introduce
ourselves to the group by providing an overview of our photographic journey so
far. John kicked off and his
presentation was slick and professional.
I, and some others, thought that it looked as though it should be
straightforward, but when it came to it 20 seconds per slide was a very short
space of time. Although I found it quite
stressful, having experienced it once, I would look forward to doing another
one and being much better prepared. It
was an excellent way to be introduced to the group and to see each other's
work.
The
next session was to look at and discuss a wide range of photo books that both
students and tutors had provided. I
think we floundered a little here and became too involved in what we did or
didn't like; whereas John and Penny had hoped that we would have more
conversations centred on editing and sequencing issues
Following
lunch we had an input by professional landscape photographer John Davies,
illustrated with his images from the 1970s to the present. Son of a coal miner and born in 1949, his
grandmother was a school teacher with a rural background and this influenced
his work. Whilst at art school in
Mansfield, he became interested in how politics and art could work together as
well as using photography to capture surreal events. However, his work began with black and white
landscape work. He used a mix of preconceived
ideas and responding to a particular setting.
Initially he worked with 35mm but moved on to a 6x4 Mamya press camera
in order to be able to make large prints without losing quality. Having researched several types of black and
white film and finding that they responded to coloured light in different ways
he opted to use yellow filtration as standard to rebalance the tonal range of
the film. Gradually his work changed
from photographing the sublime. His work
sold well, but he wanted to make a response to 'Thatcherism' and he began to
photograph industrial and post-industrial landscapes, preferring to work from
an elevated position in order to get away from the limitation of the
footpath. He was interested in the way
that industry shaped the landscape in Northern England. He has an interesting catalogue of before and
after industrial landscape images, which illustrates how an inconsequential
shot one day might be important in the future.
He feels that his images contributed to a stereotype of industrial
Northern England. He moved on to work
abroad and feels that he is now better known in France than the UK. This was a very interesting talk despite the
brightness of the room detracting from his projected images.
After
John's talk we moved on to several critique sessions where we each had 20
minutes to display (mostly) prints of our current body of work. These sessions
were concluded on the second afternoon.
Seeing other people's work was at the same time daunting and
inspirational and it gave me much food for thought, particularly after my own
'crit'. For my body of work I have been
working on a set of images in a local woodland based on Eliot Porter's
'Intimate Landscapes' and bird photography. and had brought along a set of A4
prints on oyster paper. I also has a
couple of examples of flowers with an industrial background and landscapes with
industry in the background. The first
lesson I learned from displaying my work and looking at others was on printing
style. In future my work needs to be
printed on A3 with a wide (35mm) border and possibly on matt paper. The tutors and other students felt that the
work I presented was too much within my comfort zone and not risk taking or
challenging enough with only three images moving into this category. It was suggested that I look at the work of
Jem Southam, Helen Seer and Clive Landen.
Whilst not throwing this body of work out altogether, I have decided to
concentrate on certain aspects of it; for instance one photograph looking
straight down at the woodland floor was felt to be more challenging, and I
would like to work on some abstract macro images. I will also experiment with more shots of industry
within the landscape and flowers within an industrial setting. I also have a
couple more ideas based on psychgeography that really excite me but I will
expand on these in another blog. Susan
Sontag says in her book 'On Photography' that some photographers set up as
scientists, others as artists. (Sontag, 1977, P59) and think that I have been
photographing as a scientist rather than an artist, certainly with my wildlife
work.
The
following morning saw a session where Jesse updated us on the Sustaining Your
Practice part of the course. It would
seem that at a suitable juncture it will be suggested that we apply to start
this course and we have the option of choosing one of our current tutors or,
possibly, a third tutor. Also there will
be only one Level 3 assessment per year in March and all three aspects of our
Level 3 work will be assessed at the same time.
There was some concern among the group of the possibility of a 'work
experience' aspect to this part of the course, but this can be more about
extending our network in the professional world than working for someone else.
The
second input from a guest professional was by Laura Pannack. I was not familiar with her work so looked at
her website before the weekend. I found
her a very articulate speaker and a great presenter of her work. Her work is mainly in a portrait style, but with a social documentary
slant. Early work was of teenagers and
young British naturists, mixing tableaux with a documentary style. Although she has found inspiration in the
work of Gregory Crewdson and Philip-Lorca diCorcia, she is very cautious never
to imitate. Editorial work has been
undertaken for the Sunday Times, NGOs, One World Press and Save the
Children. She doesn't feel that she
needs to fit into a category and enjoys genre hopping.
Whilst
being in part daunting this was a very enjoyable and inspirational
weekend. I have much food for thought,
new ideas and a very long 'to do' list.
I found everybody extremely warm, friendly and helpful and hope that
contacts made will continue.
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