OCA North Meeting, Manchester 15/06/19

OCA North Meeting, Manchester 15 June 2019

Venue: Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester

This was the second of these meetings I have been able to attend.

The plan for the day was:

a presentation on her work by tutor, Dr Rachel Forster (drawing and creative arts tutor)
general discussion
presentation by participants of their OCA work– three students (myself and two others presented their work). I presented the images I had put on my website for the “Frozen Moment” exercise, as the latest work I have done for my course. There was a presentation of an exercise in progress by a textile student and another of images depicting “forgetting” by a level 3 photography student.

I had several aims from attending.

These included general aims similar to those I had for the last one I attended in Leeds, which was to gain a greater understanding of studying with the OCA. In addition I had aims based on my objectives I have described in my plan

Assessment and appraisal skills – how to critically assess a piece of work, including that of others as well as my own.
There were opportunities to see photographs of the work Rachael and the prisoners had produced. I found that as these were mural paintings and so it was interesting to evaluate these. One point I was interested by was the incorporation of emotionally loaded words in wall coverings for spaces for psychological therapy/work. I have seen this in many other settings and I am unclear why it seems to be considered important in a primarily visual medium. When I asked about the rationale Rachael said it was the one element specified by the group commissioning the work (the psychology department!).
Similarly the presentation by the other students enabled me to see and discuss other styles and media of work.

Gain a better understanding of other art disciplines and influence on photographic work
I think the day has helped me primarily in this objective. In particular, the presentation and discussion led by Rachael Forster was around the development of murals and other artworks by groups of prisoners. The discussion was around the effects of art on both the observer and artists and the effect of art work on spaces.

The presentation of work by a textile student was of a medium very different from photography. However there are elements of shared understanding around colour and texture particularly, and the differences seem to be mainly in technique rather than purpose and output.

My personal development in the Assessment area of “Demonstration of creativity – Imagination, experimentation, invention”
I do think that my own development of imagination has extended by looking at examples of what can be achieved and also the use of techniques other than photography.

Another aim of the day for me was to present my own work. I wanted to be able to explain what I was trying to achieve and then get feedback on this. Up to now I have made images and while they are on my website, I have rarely actively sought reactions from others about them. There is an element of desensitisation involved in this for me. I think I do make the images to share; if I believe in them then I need to share them!!

This was the first time I have done this. I think I was able to explain the rationale as to how I approached the exercise. The feedback was positive, and I was pleased that others appreciated the same aspects of the images of the fountain which I did. In particular the quality and nature of the light as it illuminated the droplets of water. The moss on the fountain has a distinct textured effect which was appreciated particularly by the textile students.

For improvement the suggestion was made to crop one of the images to make it more removed from context and more abstract. I had been thinking this myself, but kept it in to show the setting for the later pictures. However the cropped image is very effective and making it more abstract enhances the appearance of the shapes revealed by the fast shutter speed:

2019-06-06 Holker-52-2

Part Three/Project 1: The Frozen Moment: continued

I examined some of the work by Jeff Wall, an artist whose work, Milk, is presented in the course notes. One of the other works by Wall I came across also explores the ability of the camera to freeze time. That is A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai). This image is, like Milk, also displayed in a light box, and is a collage of images made by Wall of actors in a landscape photographed over a five month period.

A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai) 1993 by Jeff Wall born 1946 — A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai) Jeff Wall 1993

It is based on a woodcut, Travellers Caught in a Sudden breeze at Ejiri from the portfolio, The Thirty-six Views of Fuji, by the Japanese painter and printmaker Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). (https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/wall-a-sudden-gust-of-wind-after-hokusai-t06951 : Accessed 14/06/19)

travellers-caught-in-a-sudden-breeze-at-ejiri-ca-1832-a-woodprint-by-katsushika-hokusai — Travellers caught in sudden breeze at Ejiri. Katsushika Hokusai

This image also captures the frozen moment as the travellers’ papers are scattered by the wind.

When I then investigated the portfolio of Hokusai, I came across the iconic image, The Great Wave off Kanagawa.

Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa Hokusai — Great Wave off Kanagawa. Katsushika Hokusai

While I have seen this image many times before, looking at it with fresh eyes, I noted that Hokasai has captured the frozen form of the wave – the tip of the wave shows fine detail, reminiscent of the images made by Rachael Talibard.

My thought on this is that while we began this exercise in photography to see how short shutter speeds can freeze a moment and show us what we cannot otherwise see, Hokusai has achieved an understanding and, therefore, depiction of the frozen structure of the wave without this technology.

Rock ’n’ roll sculpture helps save the sea. The Times, 8 June 2019

Rock ’n’ roll sculpture helps save the sea. The Times 8 June 2019

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2019-06-08/news/rock-n-roll-sculpture-helps-save-the-sea-j5c2t8xt6 (accessed 09-06-2019)

I saw this article in the paper and realised there was a contrast here between what the sculptor, Emily Young, is doing with her artwork and that which I described by Damien Hirst. Young is creating artworks which she then sinks onto the seabed – and leaves them there to protect the marine environment from illegal trawling. Whereas Hirst created artworks in such a way as to simulate them having been submerged and then recovered.

The works by Young, appear to be similar to others she has created without the intention of submerging them – she has made several of “heads” and images of these are on her website (http://www.emilyyoung.com/), such as this:

emily-young-blue-sea-head-private-sale-christies — Blue Sea Head. Emily Young

While the submerged sculptures will be available to view by divers, they will be changed by the marine environment and gradually covered in encrustations and marine life. They will become part of the environment. She is quoted as saying “I use raw, uncut stone that shows its natural weathering, its billions of years of history,” this will then be enhanced by the processes it undergoes with colonisation by marine life.

She describes the work as connecting “us with the planet instead of being separated from it and in charge of it”. This artwork by its positioning is protecting the planet from the influence of humans.

Part Three/Project 1: The frozen moment

Project 1 The frozen moment

Exercise 3.1
Using fast shutter speeds, try to isolate a frozen moment of time in a moving subject. Try to find the beauty in a fragment of time that fascinated John Szarkowski. Add a selection of shots, together with relevant shooting data and a description of your process (how you captured the images), to your learning log.

I had previously experimented with trying to capture images of water dropping from my kitchen tap into a container in the sink, and lit this with flash. I attach the contacts from this exercise and one interesting image which begins to capture the shapes and forms of the splash caught in time.

Exercise 3.1 Contacts 2

However before I did more work with this approach I visited the gardens of a country house in the Lake District (Holker Hall). It had not been my intention to complete the exercise while there, but in the grounds were a number of water features It was a bright sunny day which lit the drops of water from behind in a very interesting way. I had already researched some of the work and images of Muybridge, Worthington and Edgerton. With regard to this, I was therefore somewhat familiar with the appearance of splashes and drops of water recorded by Worthington with very short shutter speeds and the more stylised images by Edgerton. I wanted to try and capture the appearance of the water in these garden features in a manner more naturalistic than I had set up in my home. I therefore made a number of images of the water as it flowed variously over the features or fell back into pools from fountains.

Methodology

I used a telephoto lens – (100-400mm focal length) to enable me to capture the splashes from some distance. I have used fast shutter speed of around 1/2500sec to freeze the movement of the water. It is my more usual practice to use a long shutter speed for images like this to show the movement of the water with blurring, so this was quite a novel approach for me. I also used high speed continuous shooting and took bursts of 3 or 4 images at a time in order to see how the splash and droplets developed and regressed. This process obvious in some of the images on the contact sheet.

I have included contact sheets of all the images I made of the water features and have labelled them with the exposure data, rather than filenames so as to better show how these were made.

Exercise 3.1 Contacts

I have further developed a number with cropping and local exposure adjustments and think these show the patterns in the water only revealed to us by the use of very short shutter speed freezing the water in a moment in time.

1 June 2019: My objectives

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!

My Learning: Objectives and Progress 1

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.

“All things bright and beautiful” The Times 31 May 2019

“All things bright and beautiful” The Times 31 May 2019
A review of a retrospective of the work of Frank Bowling at Tate Britain.

“Frank Bowling is a Guyana-born British artist. His paintings relate to abstract expressionism, color field painting and lyrical abstraction” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Bowling Accessed 31/05/2019

I have previously indicated that I am unfamiliar with styles and practitioners of abstract art and so read this article to further my knowledge. I noted that Bowling is described in his Wikipedia entry as practicing “color field painting”. Researching this a little I read that “The term colour field painting is applied to the work of abstract painters working in the 1950s and 1960s characterised by large areas of a more or less flat single colour” https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/colour-field-painting Accessed 31/05/2019

An example of this is this work by Martin Rothko

Untitled c.1950-2 by Mark Rothko 1903-1970 — Untitled Mark Rothko c.1950-2

Retrospectively I think it was this style of having bold blocks of colour which I was trying to emulate in this landscape image from a few years ago.

The Times article describes a painting by Bowling, Moby Dick.

“Moby Dick, painted in 1981, couldn’t be more like an underwater scene;”

Frank_Bowling__Moby_Dick__1981__acrylic_on_canvas__258_x_190_cm_270_01 — Moby Dick. Frank_Bowling

“Bowling also began to enjoy the unexpected effects his paintings had on the viewer. He welcomed the interpretations and responses, though they had nothing to do with his own intentions, which were entirely formal. It is nice to know this because it frees the viewer to allow their imagination run with what could otherwise be rather opaque images.”

This painting is to me reminiscent of encrustations on the rocks underwater, the colours likewise are those of some underwater scenes.

It reminds me of scenes like this:

2017-08-29 Loch Nevis-26 — Loch Nevis 26

This made me consider incorporating this influence into my depictions of underwater objects for my “Collections” assignment.

Feedback from my tutor and others

My Tutor’s Comments

I have had written feedback from my tutor (9/2/2019) about this submission and my course work to date.

He was positive about the technical aspects of the work, and considered the research “fundamentally sound”.

He suggested areas for further development of the theme of the project as he suggested that my work reflects a “photographic expression of the dominant ideology by which public institutions shape our understanding of history, knowledge, and the natural world” and that there is potential to “consider further the ‘normal’ archeological and scientific methods of collecting, ordering, and exhibiting objects”.

Regarding the coursework he suggested adding more detail to the entries about the exercises.

The other elements he commented on and suggested are to expand the range of entries in my learning log to add further experiences/conversations or events. He also suggested I try and expand my thinking across other arts disciplines. He gave me some suggestions for journals and artists’ work to look at including “Oceanmania by Mark Dion.

Feedback from other students

I also posted a link to my site on the student discussion forum and invited any comments from fellow students.

Overall these were positive about the technical aspects of the images. Some colleagues suggested removing some artefacts and replacing with others to create stronger links.

Action Points:

Overall my actions from this feedback are going to be:

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

Coursework and other elements

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 images of Drosscape

Looking around Glossop for images for my “Square Mile” assignment, I visited the derelict site of the Howard Town Mills and the Hawkshead Mill in Old Glossop, and took a number of photographs while I was there and it is only on re-examining these images and re-reading my post on Drosscapes that I realised how similar some of my images are to those I referred to in this post.

The most striking similarity is between the compostion used by Katherine Westerhout, in her images of Yonkers Power Station and Palace Theater.

Yonkers Power Station 2. Katherine Westerhout

Palace Theater Gary. Katherine Westerhout

and some of these of the derelict mills:

All the images look into the derelict spaces and have strong lines of vertical and horizontal drawing the viewer into the space. I had seen Westerhout’s images before taking these, but only now have been aware of how I was influenced by them.

Part Two/Project 2: Lens Work Continued

It has been suggested to me by my tutor that I try using medium format film for my images.

I have recently obtained a medium format film camera and am exploring this medium. At present I have not got my darkroom back in service and have only just found a medium format enlarger, so my initial attempts have been processed and printed commercially.

In the shots I took with my first film have tried to emulate some aspects of the work of Fay Godwin. In particular I have used a long exposure with a small aperture to maximise the depth of field. In this way the viewer is able to explore all the image. I have composed the images to emulate some of the images of Fay Godwin from “Remains of Elmet” and “Land”, such as this:

My own images were taken quickly on a short walk along lanes near to home.

Overall I think that my basic aim has been achieved, there is a deep depth of field. I think there is scope for more work in the printing of these and that is my next step.