A lot has been happening since my
last update at the end of March. I worked hard to produce a total of 27 photographic
‘sketches’ for the project about my mother and my relationship with her during
the final years of her life, as she struggled to cope with Clinical Depression.
Most of the sketches were produced to accompany one of the 20 pieces of text
that I had written in advance for a proposed photo book. Each sketch consisted
of two or more images, blended together in various ways using ‘Photoshop
Elements’ and, in the main, they consisted of juxtaposing old digitised family
photographs with images produced since I started working on the project. In
addition to the consistency introduced by blending each of the images they were
all produced at A4 size (‘landscape’ or ‘portrait’). In other regards the
sketches varied significantly in terms of subject matter, complexity and style.
I got off to a slow start, with much experimentation and idea generation (ideas
came most often when I was visiting exhibitions and/or looking at the work of
other photographers). I speeded up as the submission date (mid-May) for my
second assignment approached and ended up producing roughly one sketch per day
during the final fortnight.
A ‘Skype’ tutorial followed
(thanks, Les, I find these tutorials really useful), in which we discussed each
of the submitted sketches. In general we agreed on the relative strengths of
the individual images, although predictably there was some disparity in our
views. Bearing in mind that these were just sketches (although some took
several hours to produce), the majority were considered to ‘work’ or ‘nearly
work’ or 'sort of work', with a couple considered by Les to be ’touchstone’ images (i.e.
important in the context of the project). Ironically, the ones that took
longest to produce were considered to be the least effective – perhaps simplicity
is best! Interestingly, my tutor recognised the influences of artists whose
work I had never seen in some of the images – I’m not sure whether this was a
good or bad observation! I was warned against using branding in the images.
A few weeks later there was
another ‘Skype’ tutorial (Assignment 3!) in which we discussed the text accompanying
the images and how it fitted with the images. It was clear by this stage that
my tutor had come to the conclusion that the text was an important part of the
project, both by acting as a key to the significance of each of the images and
as a means of expressing my feelings and emotions during the last few years of
mum’s life. Perhaps the images don’t convey my feelings strongly enough;
perhaps I find it much easier to express my emotions through my writing.
As a consequence it was proposed
that I produce (a) photo book(s), using the text that I had provided (with
minor changes), together with (say) 36-72 images. For my next (September)
assignment I have been tasked with looking at the work and (in particular) any photo
books produced by photographers dealing with similar subjects (I was given a
long list of names), re-working my submitted sketches (I reckon that I can use
21 of these, although they require varying amounts of editing) and continuing
to experiment and come up with ideas for further sketches / images. I’ve just
started this work, although at the moment I haven’t got out of second gear.
Hopefully a visit to Yorkshire next week will stimulate my creativity!
