I suppose I started the course with the Aims of the Course as my main objectives. These are:

• to use technical and visual skills appropriately
• to produce practical work which uses the above understanding and demonstrates skills of personal engagement, enquiry, imagination and experimentation
• to develop your understanding of contemporary and historical approaches to photography
• to introduce critical analysis and self-appraisal of ideas, processes and outcomes

Additionally there was my own motivation for taking this course which I have not recorded in any other entry on this site. On reflection, I think what I wanted to get out of the course centred on the second and third of these course aims and perhaps could be summarised as:

“to develop my understanding of contemporary and historical approaches to photography and thereby to produce practical work which uses this understanding”
My secondary aim would be “to develop my critical analysis and self-appraisal of ideas, processes and outcomes particularly as related to my own technical and visual skills”

These are large scale aims and need breaking down into more manageable and achievable parts.

I have reviewed my posts over the last year and summarise the objectives and themes I identified below.

First meeting with my tutor
explore “drosscape” as a concept
Examine works of: Richard Misrach, Robert Adams, The New Topographics, William Eggleston, Fay Godwin
start a sketchbook of ideas for my first assignment

OCA – North: Study Visit, 2 June 2018
Aims for my “Square Mile” project are to examine the re-use of old buildings and sites

Hit the North
To gain an insight into more contemporary photography – ongoing 01/06/19
To see the work of photographers who create images in similar geographical areas to myself
To gain some ideas for use in my “Square Mile” project
To visit an exhibition and try to understand the range of work shown and the rationale for inclusion – ongoing 01/06/19
To try and study the work more systematically to develop my own assessment/appraisal skills – ongoing 01/06/19

Willy Ronis Exhibition
Understanding Editorial Control of Output and use of images – ongoing 01/06/19

Peggy Guggenheim collection
Better understanding of contemporary abstract and surrealistic art – ongoing 01/06/19

Don McCullin Exhibition
The effect of the act of photographing on the photographer – rather than the viewer – ongoing 01/06/19
Use of film- ongoing 01/06/19
Interaction with subjects in “street” photography- ongoing 01/06/19
Rachael Talibard
Use of video
The work of Warren Keelan, Mark Littlejohn
“Kindly vacancies” and the ideas of John Ruskin

Project 2 contd – work of Fay Godwin
“I think there is scope for more work in the printing of these and that is my next step.”

Tutor feedback following Assignment 2:

Find out the process by which I submit my assignment for assessment
Expand the background discussions into a greater examination of how photography is used in the collecting ordering and exhibition of objects
Review the final images and see if there is scope for improvement in quality – where the backgrounds are obvious
Expand my thinking and argument about what is needed to establish these as a series

Expand my entries regarding the coursework
Expand my entries to my learning log to include other experiences
Gain a better understanding of other disciplines and influence on photographic work
Examine the work by Mark Dion, and the publications in Provoke magazine

MY PLAN:

There are a number of themes here which are still ongoing

Skills:
Film Photography
On the basis of a suggestion from my tutor, as well as my study of the work of Don McCullin, Fay Godwin and others I am restarting my use of film and printing black and white images using 35mm and medium format media. My most urgent objective is to start developing and printing my own work.

Videography
The presentation by Rachael Talibard used video as well as still images. Over the last year I have been encouraged by others outside the course to produce video (as yet I have not posted regarding this, but intend to). What I have learned is that this has helped me to develop my visual skills and understanding of another medium, but before I can go further with this I need to improve my skills of handling digital video media and editing video.
I started using the Linkd In Learning course for Premiere Pro, but after access to this was withdrawn for OCA students, I have been using the Adobe publication Premiere Pro CC: Classroom in a Book. This is ongoing.

Use of WordPress
My ability to edit the format of this site is limited and as a result my Learning Log does not entirely meet my aspirations for it. I am slowly improving my abilities in this area, but this is not a high priority if my tutor and others can access it as I need.

Assessment and appraisal skills
I am still learning how to critically assess a piece of work, including that of others as well as my own.

Knowledge:
Gain a better understanding of other art disciplines and influence on photographic work
I am still trying to study other disciplines and investigate how they influence photography. I have made a start on this with things like the visit to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and my small research around Frank Bowling but have a long way to go…

To gain an insight into more contemporary and historical approaches to photography
I have studied the work of some photographers to whose work I have been directed but this is an ongoing objective.

Attitudes:
The main objective here I think relates to the Assessment area of
Demonstration of creativity – Imagination, experimentation, invention
I have concerns that this is an area in which I am weak, and I hope that a better understanding of the creative process used by other artists will help me develop this more.

These are the main objectives I have set for myself for the next stages in the course. I plan to work on them either, as opportunities arise in the coursework and assignments, or in parallel when the course does not suggest it.

I will provide an update on this in a future post – I aim that these updates should be monthly!

1 June 2019

I have now been using this site for a year as the basis of my “Learning Log” and want to take stock and review it before progressing to the next sections of the course.

In its current format it works well for recording

• My work on the coursework elements
• My work and development on the Assignments
• Experiences and learning activities such as reading, exhibitions, TV programmes and other activities
• Feedback and suggestions from my tutor and other students

In my records of this type I have also described

• What I learned from it and
• What I will do as a result

Over the last year I have used this method and as a result I have a number of things to do that I have recorded in each post, but there is no way of pulling these together in such a way that I (and anyone reading this) can easily see what I have then done as a result of identifying a gap in my knowledge etc.

What I plan to do is to use the section originally called “Notes” on the OCA template to periodically pull all these objectives together and record what I have done towards them and what new things I have found I need to do. I have renamed this in the menu as “My Objectives and Progress”. (As an aside while doing this I have successfully altered the list in the menus, but the posts still read “Notes” so my new objective is to improve my ability to work with the WordPress site and tailor it to my style of working.)

In effect what I am trying to do is to document a Personal Development Plan (PDP) based on my progress through this course.

I want to try and focus the objectives on the Course Aims and Assessment Criteria:

The course aims to:
• enable you to begin using technical and visual skills appropriately
• enable you to produce practical work which uses the above understanding and demonstrates skills of personal engagement, enquiry, imagination and experimentation
• develop your understanding of contemporary and historical approaches to photography
• introduce critical analysis and self-appraisal of ideas, processes and outcomes

Assessment criteria points
• Demonstration of technical and visual skills – Materials, techniques, observational skills, visual awareness, design and compositional skills.
• Quality of outcome – Content, application of knowledge, presentation of work in a coherent manner, discernment, conceptualisation of thoughts, communication of ideas.
• Demonstration of creativity – Imagination, experimentation, invention.
• Context – Reflection, research, critical thinking.

My previous learning experiences have been based on a framework using the categories:

• Skills
• Knowledge
• Attitude

Because I am familiar with this, I will be using it as my way of categorising my objectives as they relate to the course aims. The next post in this section will be a review of what objectives I have identified over the last year and what I have done towards them; followed by a summary of what I see as my objectives as of today. I plan to review these objectives monthly.

My path through OCA Course in Photography 1: “Expressing Your Vision”

Exploring with my Vision….

This website constitutes my Learning Log for the course, “Expressing your Vision” . In my posts here I try and show how I have approached and completed the coursework exercises and the assignments for the course.

How to Navigate this Site

I have created posts relating to each element of the coursework, with titles as in the course notes. These are filed under the relevant headings. Similarly there are a series of  posts for each assignment, with links to other posts on the site as necessary.

Under the “Research and Reflection” tab are a series of posts relating to other general, background work related to the course. In this section the post titled “References” contains the full reference to each work cited in the other posts on the site. These posts include a link to the “References” post. Some of the early posts do however have the full citation in the body of the text, as at the time when I made those I did not have the other system in place.

I have also added another category of post, showing my own learning objectives and how I have reviewed and achieved these or not.

The posts, however, do not reflect all the thinking and records of my research. I have working notebooks and electronic collections of images which I use.

I will incorporate these into my posts where appropriate, but do not include all this background to make this site more readable and concise.

I have shown key pages from my working notebooks, where they illustrate how my ideas have developed – like this:

Glossop Brook at Wren Nest Mill, looking West

I will also include details of research about individual artists, where this is relevant to the points I am trying to make, but much of this is likely to remain in my folder summarising my reading and research.