I am still trying to gain a firm idea of how I will go about the course of this project. I will be quite a challenge but I am hoping if I organise what I need to do and break it down I will be easier to tackle.

This is a summary of what I am doing

• Learning more about my Granddad who I never met
• Visiting my Nan every week – photographing, researching and asking questions
• Photographing all the time – different locations
• Weekly blog post – recap every week and plan what I need to do in organised chunks
• Talking to friends and family: Nana, Dad, Steve, Cathy, John Heulin? old Salvation Army Friends? Old Vic College Friends?
• Re-tracing steps: go to his old house, Vic College, grave etc.
• Parade Road (Nana’s house) is a good exploration: he lived there!
• Look at themes that both directly and indirectly explore him; e.g. Nana is lonely. Good starting point.
• Keep looking at photographers work! – Richard Billingham, Alec Soth,  Yury Toropstov etc.
• Make any research relevant to this theme: otherwise it is basically a waste of time … this is my main project and everything should be a build-up to get best possible outcome
• Plan interviews and record conversations
• Try to enjoy it. It will be an interesting project
• Making mistakes are good – I will learn what and what doesn’t work
• Take risk in all areas
• Plan Plan Plan – Work in stages, it will be too overwhelming otherwise. Get specific sections done that I plan beforehand
• Stay organised

All in all I will have a lot of work to do. I am going to make the most of the time I have got to make an interesting and worthwile project which is personal to me. Completing the project will be quite difficult, my Nan does worry and get confused a lot (she’s 85). I have to do my best though to work with her in the project and slowly build up photographs of her, and take more risks in what I photograph as she starts to become more comfortable about the idea of being photographed. It might be quite fustrating at times, but I will do my best and work all the time to improve. This project is also new and a challenge for me.

Research and planning will be key. I will use the blog posts to track, plan and monitor. Staying on track will be very important if I want this project to develop and progress.

In most of my blog posts from now on I will try to link back to the project. This will be a good way of making sure that all the extra work I put in is actually relevant to what I need to do in the first place. Otherwise it will be a waste of my time, which I cannot afford to do.

I am just going to go for it and do my best. At the end of the day if it does not work out the way I was hoping, then at least I will have still learned a lot of interesting and revealing information about my Grandfather. I will try to be as creative and experimental as possible, taking risks and developing my own creativity in the process.