What is a Personal Study?
The aim of this unit is to critically investigate, question and challenge a particular style, area or work by artists/ photographer(s) which will inform and develop your own emerging practice as a student of photography.
Your Personal Study is a written and illustrated dissertation, including a written essay (2000-3000 words) and a photographic body of work (250- 500 photos) with a number of final outcomes.
This year you have to make a photo book which you design to include both your essay (with title) and a final selection and sequence of your photographs produced as a response to your chosen theme of FAITH, FAMILY and COMMUNITY
In addition, we are also expecting that those of you who want to go above and beyond to achieve top grades will produce a podcast i.e. mini film with sound and images based on the same above
All your usual research, analysis, planning, recording, experimentation and evaluation will be posted onto your BLOG
Link to Planner & Tracker Monitor and track your progress every first 5 mins of lessons on Fridays and upload onto the blog
Week 15 and Christmas Holidays: 8th Dec – 4th Jan
Objective: Criteria from the Syllabus
- Essential that students build on their prior knowledge and experience developed during the course.
- Develop your written dissertation in the light of your chosen focus from the practical part of previous coursework and projects.
- Select artists work, methods and art movements appropriate to your previous coursework work as a suitable basis for your study.
- Investigate a wide range of work and sources.
Blog: Produce a number of posts that show evidence of the following:
1.Reflect on your previous projects/modules and write and overview of what you learned. Link your chosen area of study to your previous work, knowledge and understanding based upon your chosen theme of FAITH, FAMILY and COMMUNITY. Include examples of previous work to illustrate your thinking.
2.Select artists/photographers work, methods and art movement appropriate to your chosen area of study. Find 3 different texts to read over Christmas that support your study from a variety of sources (books, articles, journals, magazines, websites, films/dvd.)
3.Write a specification that outlines your main focus, intentions and area of study, including what artists/ photographers you wish to investigate, respond to and write about in your essay.
4.Produce a detailed plan of a 3 photo-shoot for this Christmas holidays. MAKE PHOTOGRAPHS!
Link to folder with more examples M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Resources\Personal Study\student exemplars
A few Personal Studies from last year.
Bryony Sanderson: Gie us a wee word wi’ yer Mum: The title of this work is phrase I would hear both my Scottish Grandparents say almost every time I answered the phone. During this project, I focused on my Scottish Heritage and the difficultly living in Jersey has bought to our relationship with my Grandparents.
Bryony’s exam project: Artificial: Being surrounded and fascinated in the prosthetic world through my parents’ occupation, I felt that this to be an appropriate area to explore under the theme flaws and imperfections. From the moment the idea sprung to mind, I knew this was going to be a challenge, being well aware it would push my abilities as an amateur photographer. However, I was firm in my decision to pursue this, making it my goal to depict the power, strength and determination of amputees, and how in-fact, their ‘imperfection’ or ‘flaw’ as some would call it, is certainly not a flaw at all. Stuart Penn, the focus of my photographs, was such a pleasure to work and a huge inspiration, giving us the powerful message that anything really is possible. I feel honoured to have had the opportunity of taking his photographs and gaining insight into his incredible lifestyle.
Eve Ozouf A Lekker Christmas: For this project I captured the highlights of my family holiday to Durban, South Africa for Christmas 2014. The images were captured in a documentary style, which is my preferred approach as I enjoy capturing family life as well as landscapes where human activity has occurred. The word ‘Lekker’ which I used to describe my Christmas means ‘good’ in the native language of Afrikaans. My photographs show a variety of environments that South Africa has to offer with its vast land including urban built up areas to the deserted African plains. Some images show the ‘Durbanite’ way of life, including where my 14-year-old cousin demonstrates how to use my grandfather’s rifle to shoot the annoyingly noisy ‘Hadeda’ birds. South Africa is full of vibrant colours and textures which I particularly focused on when producing this body of work as a photograph isn’t just about how it looks, it’s how you imagine it feeling. A lot of experimentation was used to bring out different styles of photography including slow shutter speeds to dramatise events such as the bonfire sprites floating towards the sky. For me, these images capture the quality of life South Africa has to offer and should make the viewers want to visit this beautiful country for themselves.
Oliver Sharman You’s Company, Me’s a Crowd is a photo book in an autobiographical form, whereby I am re-enacting events that occurred in my recent life, venturing from visiting my brother at university and the hungover pain this brough, to partying and hanging out with friends in all manner of ways and the aftermath of this. So, here is an insight into me, often eventful life of a teen in the island of Jersey.
Matt Palmer: A Little Bit Longer: Not all disabilities are visible. You could know some your whole life and never know that they have a severe, life-long condition. On Tuesday 14th July 2009, I was diagnosed with an invisible illness; Diabetes Mellitus Type 1, a condition when the pancreas in the body loses the ability to produce insulin independently. Day to day, my life hasn’t changed; however, I have to inject myself four times a day, and manually balance my sugar levels for the rest of my life.
As diabetes is something you cannot see, it was very hard to photograph it. I took inspiration from Elinor Carucci, an Israeli-American photographer who photographed herself with her children from when she was pregnant, through the birth to her children growing up. Her work involves very revealing, close-up self-portraits to capture her emotions. I found this style to be inspiring in capturing one’s self, and adopted this style into my own.
This is the first time I have ever turned the camera on myself. You would think it would be hard, however, it was just like I was being a model for someone else, and since I’m very open, talking about my diabetes, I found it easy to show my emotions. Photographing events from having low blood sugar level in the middle of the night, to a regular check-up at the diabetes Centre, to an eye-screening at the hospital, and the different physiological outcomes I had to injure, all within one week.
Matt Palmer: I Need A Shovel is the story of my Granddad, the house he has lived in since the 1960s and the clearing out of the house as it is now need to be sold. The name of this project came from my Dad. Him and a couple of others when ahead to my Granddad’s house whilst I went with my Aunt to pick my Granddad up. My Dad had the job of removing the upstairs toilet, which, when it stopped working, my Granddad kept on using it until it overflowed. When my Aunt and I arrived the first thing my Dad said to his sister was ‘I Need A Shovel.’ We all found that line funny when we heard it and then that line just stuck with me.
Lots of people can see little bits of themselves when they see my granddad’s hoarding, be it from collecting newspapers, or postcards, or whatever they’ve collected, it can all be related to what my Granddad has done over the past 50 years.
It is a growing problem. The family need to sell the house as the people next door want to buy the house, however, my Granddad doesn’t want anything to go or be moved. I feel that this could be happening to lots of people across not just the UK but the world. This project will speak to lots of families who are facing the same problem.
Tom Rolls: Angel; The Perfect being? With this work, I am exploring Angels in relation to the project brief “Perfection/Imperfection” which I chose as part of my A2 final Photography exam. Throughout the project, my aim was to rekindle an idea of the Angelic being in relation to different people’s perceptions; for faith, protection, happiness, balance etc. I spoke with a number of different people about their definition of an Angel and what it meant to them. I interviewed my local church vicar who gave me a very brought insight into angels in both a religious and personal sense. I came away bewildered at the fact that Angels are a very important part of people’s lives, and realised that there is a whole other dimension to the subject. Having researched and gained enough primary knowledge, I began transforming these different perceptions into my own interpretations and pieced together a visual binding of all the ways in which an Angel spoke to me through others. I made a film which documents my journey in the sense of exploring what angels actually symbolise today, and how its image and meaning has changed over time. I hope you will also find this a journey for yourself and come away reflecting on this inner dimension from your own personal viewpoint. Are angels in fact the perfect being, or is it in fact their imperfections which make them so sacred?