This assignment is diagnostic and does not count towards the final grade.
Part 1:
Begin your project by going out on a shoot. Submit it to your tutor with a few images chosen as a potential starting point for how you can move the project forward.
Part 2:
Accompany the images with a reflection on how or why the images you’ve selected may help you take the work forward. Detail how you plan to relate your practice to a particular genre or which genre you took inspiration from.
Since June this year I have been adding to the ‘work in progress’ section of my blog SEE HERE. However, its taken me nearly six months to submit this assignment and rather than procrastinate any longer I have chosen some of the images from this section that I feel exemplify how I want my BoW to go forward. My current work incorporates fictionalised autobiography and archival imagery. My proposal is to continue working with a combination of both contemporary and archival material. I hope to continue creating a selection of montages that explore the somewhat nebulous connection between past and present, in addition to conceiving new images that augment this concept.
The thing with old photographs is their pathos, their context altered by time. I’ve created some montages using a few of my scanography images with personal archival photographs, whether this is something I can develop further I’m not too sure but have included these in my initial edit. Also included in this first selection is a montage combining one of my orphaned/bought photographs with a personal archival photograph, this again is something I would like to expand on. I have some more old black and white images I’ve recently bought from eBAY that I intend to incorporate into my next assignment. I would possibly like to include in my final BoW a small selection of the original images I work with, perhaps displayed in a vitrine, but that’s some way off yet.
Photographs can function as a memento mori and my collection of old family photographs have always elicited in me feelings of nostalgia, a longing to return to a time that no longer exists. Some make me laugh out loud yet also be the cause of melancholia as I contemplate the smiling faces looking optimistically out of the frame, gaze at youngsters grown old, long dead. I cannot possibly have a real memory of them at that age yet they all look so familiar, I imagine their stories. I look at photographs of myself as a young girl, someone who is a stranger to me now. How much of what we remember is accurate or true? My ‘orphaned’ images too have the power to suggest past events, memories and emotions; they can be used to invent an alternative (non-existent) reality. (Work in progress on this, post to follow).
Since commencing with this course there has been a marked decline in my now 93 year old mother’s health and mental capacity. She recently told my youngest daughter she has had enough, is tired and just wants to go to for ‘the long sleep’ peacefully. This led to my digital montage entitled Forget Me Not, a visual representation of the person she has become. I feel sad that I’ve ‘lost’ her even before death, I miss the person she was.
I’ve been thinking of a title for my BoW that encapsulates my thought and feelings, the Welsh, Cornish and Portuguese languages have such words with no equivalent in English.
1. Hiraeth / Welsh
2. Hireth / Cornish
3. Saudade / Portuguese
My personal preference is to title my work Hireth, a nod to my personal connection to Cornwall (this might change as the work evolves). I feel a familial connection to the place but I don’t want to restrict myself too much by only creating images based around that area. Hence, although some of my work could be felt to fit into the Psychogeography genre, my interest lies within subjective narrative.
Artists who influenced my work for this assignment :
1. Astrid Reischwitz Stories from the Kitchen Table. There is a fragility about her juxtaposed and layered imagery that is touching. The faded and frayed materials, treasured objects and present day images connote the passing of time as Reischwitz conceives new memories.
2. Chris Dorley-Brown uses a combination of personal and archival imagery. I particularly enjoyed his book The Longest Way Round. It unravels and reassembles the lives of his deceased parents using a mix of archival material originally excluded from the family album in addition to Dorley-Brown’s own contemporary imagery.
3. Josh Huxham Silence. Huxham’s exploration of his collection of archival family photographs highlights the nebulous nature of the past as he re-interprets his own family album.
4. Nicky Bird FOUND : Question for Seller (2007). The poignancy when looking at discarded photographs is one of the reasons I collect them myself, I like to rescue them from obscurity.
5. Albarrán Cabrera (photographers Angel Albarrán & Anna Cabrera work together as Albarrán Cabrera). This is you (Here) is a mix of personal and found photographs that explores the intriguing relationship between the past and present; how a photograph connotes concepts and feelings that words alone cannot convey. Memory is inconstant, hence a tangible object (the photograph) can become the substitute for a notional recollection. Individual perception of a photograph is instinctive, dependant on personal memory, lifestyle and knowledge. Whilst the manipulation of images is incessant a photograph still retains the aura of truth, which in turn enables us to visualise the unseen.
6. Lorena Guillén Vaschetti Historia, Memoria y Silencias, (Unopened) 2012. An exploration of remembrance and the fabrication of memory through photography.
Final selection of images (see WiP for context )
Contemporary and personal archival images (digital montages)
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Personal archival images (digital montages)
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Personal archival image and eBay purchase combination (double exposure)
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Personal archival photographs and my own scanography images (digital montages)
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Two archival images, one is a personal photograph whilst the other is an eBay purchase. Both combined with downloaded images from Pexels .
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Possible stand-alone images ?
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Self evaluation:
Demonstration of technical and visual skills
I’ve immensely enjoyed creating my digital montages that combine archival and contemporary imagery. I’ve also experimented with double exposures, plus some of my work selected for this assignment incorporates a few of the scanography images that I love doing using a flat bed scanner. Working with archival material has meant that I have not taken an exceptional number of new images for the assignment. However, I don’t feel a vast number are necessary at this stage, I am happy with those that I have taken and have recently taken some more new photographs that I will write about in a future blog post. My Photoshop skills are vastly improving but often its been hit and miss when creating my digital montages, I spend hours in front of a screen and I know there is a lot more I need/want to learn.
Quality of outcome
I spend quite a lot of time simply gazing and thinking about combinations of images, how they will work, and what it is I am trying to convey. I am been pleased with the outcome of my images, both the screen and printed versions. Printing is an important element of my work and I’ve been especially pleased with the paper I’ve been using to do my test prints on. In the past I’ve used Permajet Fibre Base 325g Baryta, which has a semi-gloss finish. However, I ordered some Fotospeed Platinum Etching 285g which has a matte finish and am really pleased with the results, the paper is nice to handle, heavy and has a velvet appearance, the prints and colours are lovely.
Demonstration of creativity
Incorporating a variety of imagery I think my personal interest in the photograph as a mnemonic device is evident. My work is subjective yet I hope can be universally understood, that they convey the passage of time and the poignancy of old photographs. My work is intended to preserve, re-create and re-invent the past.
Context
My blog is gradually becoming a useful resource but my plan to post each week has fell by the wayside due to increasing difficult personal commitments. I’ve enjoyed the research done so far but need to read a lot more, a huge pile of books is growing on my bookcase, all unopened. I have lots of links to artists I want to research too, I hope to catch up a bit on some reading and research over the next few weeks.
Future development
I intend to do some work with my ‘orphaned’ images. I hope to create some cut and paste collages, which to my surprise I greatly enjoyed doing for my previous course. Continue to take more new images that supplement my WiP with archival photographs. Read those books !
References / Bibliography
Boothroyd,S. (2013) Photoparley online Available online @https://photoparley.wordpress.com/category/nicky-bird/ Accessed 20/8/18
Boothroyd, S. (2012) Interview with Lorena Guillén Vaschetti Available online @ https://photoparley.wordpress.com/category/lorena-guillen-vaschetti/ Accessed 5/7/18
Dorley-Brown , C. (2015) The Longest Way Round. UK : Overlapse
Smithson, A.(2012) Interview with Lorena Guillén Vaschetti:Historia, Memoria Y Silencios Available online @ http://lenscratch.com/2012/02/interview-with-lorena-guillen-vaschetti/ Accessed 5/7/18
Smithson, A. 2017. Astrid Reischwitz: Stories from the Kitchen Table. Available @ http://lenscratch.com/2017/05/astrid-reischwitz/ Accessed 15/7/18
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