Overall Comments
Well done, you have achieved what you set out to achieve and produced a sensitive, considered body of work dealing with a difficult subject. I hope you got a lot out of the module, your photography has certainly progressed and you appear to be finding your personal photographic voice.
Feedback on assignment
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity
Below are the key points from our discussion:
- Generally, I thought the project went well.
- Normally I would struggle a little if a project switch formats (aspect ratios of the images) but I don’t find it overly jarring in this instance. It is something to consider in the future though.
- Regarding the book, I was very pleased to see you produce the maquette. If you notice, the pages are difficult to turn. This is because of the thickness of the paper, compounded by your gluing together of prints. If you were to make additional or later books, consider a thinner double-sided paper stock. Something around 200 or even less is ideal. I spoke with a professional book binder yesterday as it happens and they recommended 130-140gsm, but this is almost impossible to find in photo quality papers you can print at home. Something for you to consider in the future.
- We spoke about aspect ratios – I wonder if it will become multiple projects ala Alicia Bruce’s Menie work
I would certainly consider continuing this project alongside my BA. The reason for doing this is because the changes that have taken place since photographing each location in that flowers have been added along with ballons to mark the anniversary of at least one fatality. I would also be interested in documenting other points not just along this road but others locally with a view to exhbiting them in the public domain.
Learning Log
Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis
We went through the blog on the call and looked at any specific issues Scott raised (an exercise in part 1 had caused a littler confusion but the outcome was fine and the learning points had been digested)
Other than this the learning log and wider blog were fine. The presentation was easy to navigate and I couldn’t see anything missing. You might like to include documentation of your physical sketchbook and of the book layout ideas you have experimented with for assignment 4 (especially now that the assignment 5 book has been made).
Suggested reading/viewing
Context
Alicia Bruce – Menie: TRUMPED https://aliciabruce.co.uk/menie/
John Darwell – Just generally I think you will get a lot out of his wider methodology about photography http://johndarwell.com/
Keith Arnatt – In our discussion you were talking about the tactile nature of some of the sites photographed, especially the small details and it bought to mind some of Keith Arnatt’s later works, especially Miss Grace’s Lane http://www.keitharnatt.com/works/w53.html, Howler’s Hill http://www.keitharnatt.com/works/w54.html and Pictures from a Rubbish Tip http://www.keitharnatt.com/works/w55.html. You could do worse than looking through the rest of his work as well as I still place him as years, if not decades, ahead of his time.
Pointers for assessment
- Remember to signpost everything so that the assessors can quickly and easily locate the work. The blog is fine in this respect so it’s just a case of making sure the prints are well captioned and introduced.
- Print out each assignment and have the supporting work on the blog. Alongside the books, the prints should be approximately A4 (very generally) and have enough white border to allow them to be handled easily. I suggest a single sheet of A4 dividing each assignment with a brief synopsis in.troducing each series (50-100 words, maybe as much as 250 if really needed)
- Remember that whilst the grade isn’t terribly important in the overall scheme of things, the feedback that summative comes along with your grade is useful to help identify areas in which you can tighten up your approach to the next module.