#defined personal practice

MODULE EVALUATION

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How well have you realised /achieved your original aims as described in your Statement of Intent?

While this module advanced from its inception through to its present conclusion I believe that whilst my intention evolved, the original idea which set the project in motion has changed little. For this reason my statement of intent has gone through just two revisions. Also I feel that the confidence I initially had with my original concept mitigated the need to continually evolve the project's intended outcome.

I remain satisfied towards the outcome of both the technical execution of my practice and the essential concept in relation to my second written statement of intent. I believe that this has been achieved through an understanding of the discourse present around the works and artists I researched and the growing assurance in the use of my chosen equipment and material. 

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Which research has had the most impact on the development of your work and why?

Of the many artists and works I researched for this module I feel that there are two that struck a particular resonance with my own intentions for my practice for this module. The first of these was the work of the photographer, Larry Sultan, whose body, Pictures from Home, although examining his parents whilst still alive, had a poetic but unfeigned quality that I felt I could appropriate for myself. The photographer's use of composition was also of interest in regards to my technical and aesthetic approach to the module's intended outcome.

The second photographer, Phillip Toledano, whose project, Days with my Father concerns the latter's battle with Alzheimer's after the sudden passing of his wife explores the relationship a son can have with his father when they are the sole remaining members of the family. I feel that this body of work emphasised for me not only the loss that is suffered but also it also examines that which is gained. Toledano's work also brought it home to me the universality of loss and the human capacity for empathy.

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What skills have you gained during this module?

Rather than any new skills learnt I believe that this module has been more, a series of refinements of my existing practice. Since the completion of my previous module, P10 – Negotiated Contemporary Practice I feel that my understanding of my particular aesthetic sensibilities, my use of colour negative film with the Mamiya 7 medium format camera and my understanding of how to ground my work within current social discourse has improved as I have become more confident.

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How well did you manage your time?

I feel that on this point that I could have made improvements towards the management of my time. Consequently I would have preferred more time to consider an edit for the images that were to be included in the book but I chose to concentrate my efforts on the completion of the module, P9 – The Public Domain which ran concurrently to this project and required a substantial amount of research and material. Saying this I feel satisfied that I have completed this project to the highest standard I was able to and completed all aspects within the relevant timescale.

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What could have improved the outcome of this module?

I believe there to be a number of minor technical issues that could have been addressed at the time more effectively. My main criticism would have to be that I need to keep an eye on the depth of field within my compositions. As the Mamiya I used does not allow the operator to preview depth of field, I was required to calculate this myself. Consequently I made a number of mistakes within images that I was otherwise happy with. As I have mentioned above, a better management of my time would have allowed for a more considered edit within the pages of my book but this is a minor issue as I remain adequately happy with the final presentation of my work for P11 – Defined Personal Practice.

P11 – Defined Personal Practice

Primary Statement of Intent Two

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For the P11 – Defined Personal Practice module

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Intention:

My intentions towards my response to this module and its expected outcome will be detail here.

After the perceived success of my previous module, P10 – Negotiated Contemporary Practice, I have decided to further explore the subject of memory through the exploration of the familial home. My mother passed away after a long illness in the summer of 2012 and my intended approach will be to examine this difficult subject through my fathers relationship with the space they shared for the duration of their marriage. Having not lived in this space for many years I have become less aquainted with the subtle changes within the space but on my frequent visits I was always conscious that my mother's tastes predominated.

Soon after the funeral my father (I had no input myself) had to decide what evidence of my mothers life he would keep but also far more painfully, which he would discard. This, I believe to be a slow process and one which is still ongoing. It is also one which, I feel gives a certain comfort to my father because he is now able to reconcile his feelings with that of the home they shared and he now has more control over how he choses to remember.

An example of this reconciliation is in the fact that my mother would never have dreamt of having a photograph of herself on show. My father now has many. Another would be that my mothers tastes went through different phases, especially for interior decor and colour schemes. Her favourite colour was always green but in the last months of her life she obsessed about the colour red. The house now has a curious mixture of red and green throughout the ground floor.

In conclusion, my exploration of the family home my father now inhabits after the death of my mother and how he has changed it in order to accomodate his memories will form the central motif of my visual and conceptual response to the P11 – Defined Personal Practice module brief.

For my initial research I will consider the photographic work of Kaylynn Deveney, Seichi Furuya, Larry Sultan and the book, Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes.

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Output:

I intend to produce a photography book from the edited body of work I create. The book will have a hard cover and there will be a small introduction to provide context to the photographs. As well as this book, I also resolve to generate a minimum of 12 high-quality prints for display at the Hereford College of Arts 2014 Summer Show.

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Equipment:

I feel that to accomplish my envisioned outcome for this modules final body of work I will use Kodak Professional Portra 120 colour film at ASA 400 with a Mamiya 7 medium-format range finder camera. This is due to the fact that I will be photographing subjects exclusively indoors which will entail uncertain lighting conditions. My choice of camera is simply one of expedience. I am comfortable with its use and am confident I can obtain the resultant aesthetic that I have anticipated for the final work.

P11 - Defined Personal Practice Research

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Seichi Furuya - Graz - 1978

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The image above is taken from the Japanese photographer, Seichi Furuya's book of 1989 entitled, Mémoires which details the photographer's memories of his late wife, Christine Gossler, who died in 1985 after enduring a long and painful deterioration. 

The book is constructed in a disparate photographic style with one image being a colour "snapshot" like so many that grace the albums of the average, western family and the next having the resemblance of heroic, Soviet propaganda in the mode of Rodchenko or the statuary of Vera Mukhina. 

What is made clear however is that Christine, the sole subject of our attention, is fading with every consecutive image and though we may feel uncomfortable in viewing another's pain, the photographer is undeterred. The book, although concerned with the slow passage towards death is full of the incidents and motifs of a life shared.

Within my response to the P11 - Defined Personal Practice brief, I intend to reflect upon the visible signs and motifs of a life shared but through the objects left behind. My visual approach will also differ from that of Mémoires as my intention is not to create the feel of a family album constructed over a considerable time span. Rather I resolve to produce a coherent and analogous body of work that has the feel that it was photographed on the same day. This is because, rather than a sense of history - and therefore sentimentality - being present within the work, I intend it to always be immured in one specific moment of examination and reflection.

P11 – Defined Personal Practice

Secondary Statement of Intent

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For the P11 – Defined Personal Practice module 

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Intention:

My intended secondary response to the P11 – Defined Personal Practice module will be detail below.

The place of my birth and upbringing held so many possibilities throughout its short history. Established after the Second World War in 1947 to provide a modern planned environment for those families affected by the previous decade of hardship and austerity, Hemel Hempstead was envisaged as a model for the way we should live within the brave new world of mutual understanding and the United Nations.

Having experienced the town and its people and the palpable sense of change engendered by the mismanagement of resources and the communities good will, by consecutive local authorities I would like to ascertain wether my sense of a collective apathy is in fact a reality.

My approach to both the project brief and my proposed intention will be to produce a series of portraits of the life-long residents of the town, which would consist of a variety of age-groups and demographics together with a concidered reflection of the environment they inhabit.

Along with my photographic response I also envisage the requirement to interview the subjects within the portraits regarding their experiences of living in my home town and wether this corresponds with my perspective regarding its degeneration.

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Output:

In view of the projected outcome of the P11 – Defined Personal Practice module I feel that the material would justify its colation into a book. I also Intend to create a series of high quality prints to be exhibited within the Hereford College of Arts Summer Show in June 2014.

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Equipment:

I feel that to accomplish my envisioned aesthetic for this modules final body of work I will use Kodak Professional Portra 120 colour film at ASA 400 with a Mamiya 7 medium-format range finder camera. This consideration is due to the possibility of the varying lighting condition I may encounter as the project progresses to its conclusion and also my growing confidence with both the Mamiya 7 medium format camera and the practise of using film within a project setting.

P11 – Defined Personal Practice

Primary Statement of Intent One

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For the P11 – Defined Personal Practice module

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Intention:

My intentions towards my response to this module and its expected outcome will be detail here.

After the perceived success of my previous module, P10 – Negotiated Contemporary Practice, I have decided to further explore the subject of memory through the exploration of the my fathers and my own reflections of a single person, my late mother and the home we all shared through my childhood. I intend to examine to what extent my mother is still “there in spirit” within the spaces of the family home and how they have evolved to service the memories of my father for the women he loved.

The realisation that my father might have distinctively divergent recollections of my mother and the home they shared than those of myself will form the basis for my own exploration of a space that over the past decade has become more distant to me through my attempts to carve out a life of my own.

Finally and perhaps most importantly the conciliation of our diverse recollections of the women we loved, I feel, through the process of my exploration will provide both my father and myself a new insight into the loss we both experience.

For my initial research I will consider the photographic work of Kaylynn Deveney, Seichi Furuya, Larry Sultan and the book, Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes.

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Output:

In response to the issue of its display for final assessment, I intend to produce a book from the edited body of work I create. As well as this book, I also resolve to generate a minimum of 12 high-quality prints for display at the Hereford College of Arts 2014 Summer Show.

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Equipment:

I feel that to accomplish my envisioned outcome for this modules final body of work I will use Kodak Professional Portra 120 colour film at ASA 400 with a Mamiya 7 medium-format range finder camera. This is due to the fact that I will be photographing subjects exclusively indoors which will entail uncertain lighting conditions. My choice of camera is simply one of expedience. I am comfortable with its use and am confident I can obtain the resultant aesthetic that I have anticipated for the final work.