Now I am making the transition from set assessments based around family and environment to my own personal study and investigation where I begin to take control of what I do, I saw it necessary to felt on the work I have produced so far during the second year. I have been very archive when participating in workshops and completing tasks relating to my own personal archive and have shown a keen interest when observing the history of Jersey through it sown public archive at the Societe Jersiaise and following on from these early stages, I have really enjoyed producing my own photoshoots which encapsulates the notion of documentary and tableaux and through these processes I have had the chance to look at several new artists which have heavily influenced my artistic mind to aid my success for the rest of the year.

I have used these last couple months as a process of learning of elimination essentially; I have thrown myself into all activities to allow myself to get a full understanding as well as letting myself experience the full effects of being very much committed to my work in order for myself to understand what I personally enjoy and what I am not too keen on. This has allowed me to reject certain topics/themes that I don’t feel I can strive in as much  as others – which has therefore made my decision easier now I am deciding on the outlet I want to pursue for my own personal project which will conclude in a photobook.

Being able to work with professional and world-renowned photographers such as Jonny Briggs and Tanja Deman has really expanded my horizons and matured my artistic mind as well my eye for new perspectives when using a camera because the close relationship and intimate workshops carried out with the two have been a very useful experience. As well as this, out of school, I have been actively involved in what else they had to offer and have taken full advantage of their time on the island because it is not often that you have two willing professional photographers on your doorstep to aid your own passion for photography. Through attending workshops they have held in holidays and at weekends, I have been able to work very closely with both artists and the skills learned from this has essentially been transferred into my work at school where I saw myself experimenting with new techniques and the skills learned on the workshops have benefited my confidence to be different which will play a very huge part in my own personal work in the future. Through the workshops, I had the chance to meet other likeminded people of my age and the close proximity I have had with these people has made me appreciate the creativity on the island much more.

With he two photographers immersing themselves into two very different concepts of genres of photography, it has allowed me to see the direct contrasts of two styles of photography and allowed me to realise, in my work at school as well, the format for my personal study I want to pursue. I have always had an eager interests in photographing people since I started using photography as an outlet for being creative and this has followed me through my whole experience with photography at school, however had not had the confidence to use people as focal subjects of my work until recently. This concept will be the main focus point of my work this year and I look to interlink the ideas of documentary and very “raw life” images of the actuality of our lives themselves and the use of portraiture and people who are very present in my life currently.

One of my aims for the year is to experiment and explore much more than what I have done thus far. I want to be much more contemporary in my work – evident from the work I have recently produced where I made a link between family members and their childhood memories trough objects they treasure. This contemporary approach was influenced by the likes of Alfonso Almendros and Rita Puig-Serra Costa. As opposed to last year and recent times where I have relied heavily on editing to manipulate an image heavily and produce very overpowering photo montages where the meaning and raw visual concept of the images is often ignored, this year I wish to be much more simplistic and delicate with my editing process where in portraits I will only look to enhance certain colours if needed or make a few touch ups etc.

Certain themes I enjoyed were mostly based around family and the idea of photographing the faces of the people around toy to tell a story – another idea I wish to experiment with in my work this year – to tell a visual story and this is vital in a photobook. I hope to use other various concepts such as dairy entries, notes and drawings etc. to insert into series of works to tell a narrative. As well, I hope to be much more elegant and thoughtful in the work I produce and one of my goals is to not rush things and make sure I am taking time with my processes in order to get the best outcome. 

Personal Target: to be experimental and concise with my work - make sure I taking my time with my thought processes to benefit the outcome and to tell a narrative with my images - be different to what I done already.