We started off by adding a recording of the first coronavirus announcement in Jersey from the radio, right before we went into lockdown as the main sound to run underneath the whole film, because it adds context to the rest of our film and makes it more specific to where we live. For example when jersey was occupied the only source of information they could receive was through a radio and radios were banned. It was illegal to listen the the radio, which I believe to link in with the rebellion side of ourn film. The announcement was quite a bit longer than 90 seconds so we just cropped it down when it came to a natural pause in speaking around our time limit.
Then we incorporated a couple of other ambient sounds that we’d collected, like siren noises in the beginning and wave sounds later on, where we knew we would be showing footage of the ocean crashing against the rocks. We used the same skills of just cropping them to fit the timing of the associated footage, and raising or fading out the volume when necessary, using the Editing features in Premiere Pro.
VIDEOS-
We essentially used the same skills throughout the whole editing process, because we mainly only needed to crop video length, extend them by slowing down the speed, and also splitting videos into separate bits so as to make a more visually cohesive final product. We quickly learnt how to separate the video element from its original audio, because that would mess up our planned soundscape, and it would be a lot more effective and impactful if the videos were silent too.
Here is an example of the sort of effects/transitions we used. For these couple videos we thought it would be best if the previous clip faded into white at the end and the clip afterwards faded into black, because the beginning and end of the middle clip were quite bright/dark, respectively. We achieved this using the Effects and Video Transitions panels in Premiere Pro.
At this point we were roughly halfway through putting our short film together and we had finally decided on a title, which referenced the quote that features throughout the film, relating to Jersey’s historic Occupation period and also current affairs (lockdown/isolation). We thought a typewriter-style font would look good, and using a still image from the shoot at our location we switched to Photoshop to put together this title card, then imported it to Premiere and added it to the beginning of our film, leaving a couple of seconds of black screen whilst the audio started.
We had quite a long video which panned over the main quote as a whole, and we thought it would be good to cut it up into shorter parts, seeing as a lot of the rest of our clips were roughly the same length, and it would add some variety and make it more interesting if they were shorter. We had to slow the actual footage down to make the words easier to read, but it still had the intended effect, and we were able to incorporate much more of our footage by splicing it in-between each couple of lines.
By this point we had used most of our good footage and were coming up to the 90 second mark so we added a longer landscape clip to tie up the whole film, then switched back out to Photoshop and created a credits end card with the roles we assigned at the very beginning. We chose to have a couple of seconds of just black screen with the audio still playing as it finished, because it mirrored how we started the film and it was a nice conclusion that wasn’t so visually overwhelming, keeping with the simple and minimalist vibe of the whole thing.
The A-level coursework consist of two modules, Personal Investigation (worth 72 marks) and Personal Study (essay worth 18 marks) which are interlinked and informed by each other.
All the work that you produced (both coursework and exam) in Yr 12 also contributes towards A-Level coursework and overall equate to 60% of the total marks. The Personal Study essay account for 12%. The last week before H-Term 8-10 Feb is a Mock Exam and will count as final DEADLINE.
On Thursday 11 Feb we will handout Exam paper and begin work on the final component, Externally Set Assignment (Exam) that accounts for the remaining 40% of the combined A-level Photography marks
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. The unit is designed to be an extension of your practical work in your Personal Investigation module where the practical informs and develops the theoretical elements and vice versa of your ongoing project.
Your Personal Study is a written and illustrated dissertation, including a written essay (2000 words) and a lens-based body of work (either stills photography or moving image) with a number of final outcomes produced from your Personal Investigation unit.
This year you have a choice to make either a film (3-5mins) or a photo book, either online using Blurb or by hand using traditional book binding techniques, which you design to include both your essay and a final selection and sequence of your photographs produced as a response to your chosen theme(s) of LOVE & REBELLION.
In addition, you are expecting to produce an appropriate amount of blogposts that demonstrates your ability to research, analysis, plan, record, experiment, present and evaluate.
What it says in the syllabus (Edexcel)
Essential that students build on their prior knowledge and experience developed during the course.
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.
Develop your written dissertation in the light of your chosen focus from the practical part of previous coursework and projects.
Establish coherent and sustainable links between your own practical work with that of historical and contemporary reference.
Be aware of some of the methods employed by critics and historians within the history of art and photography.
Demonstrate a sound understanding of your chosen area of study with appropriate use of critical vocabulary.
Show evidence for an ongoing critical and analytical review of your investigation – both your written essay and own practical work in response to research and analysis.
Develop a personal and critical enquiry.
Culminate in an illustrated written presentation.
How to get started: Link your chosen area of study to your previous work, knowledge and understanding based upon your chosen theme(s) of LOVE & REBELLION
Up until now you have explored both themes in class and produced two different outcomes; a photo-zine and a film. Both are exploring narrative in different ways and it up to you know to decide which theme and medium you enjoy most and feel will give you the best chance at producing a quality final outcome.
The choice is between making a photobook; exploring a subject and theme in depth using photography as a tool for visual storytelling, either through observation (documentary) or staging (tableaux) a series of photoshoots. Making a film might be more in line with your creative skills set and offer other elements to storytelling, such as moving image and sound. Either option offers its own unique set of challenges and opportunities for you to express yourself creatively as A-Level Photography student.
Its also important to point out that your work will presented and exhibited to a large audience in May next year through a collective newspaper and two exhibitions in the Channels Islands, Berni Gallery at the Jersey Arts Centre (21 May – 14 June 2021) and Guernsey Photography Festival (23 Sept – 24 Oct 2021
In this module we will re-visit how different narrative structures can be used to tell stories in pictures from looking at photobooks as well as cinema. We will consider narrative within a documentary approach where observation is key in representing reality, albeit we will look at both visual styles within traditional photojournalism as well as contemporary photography which employs a more poetic visual language that straddles the borders between objectivity and subjectivity, fact and fiction.
Some of the subjects you wish to explore within the themes may relate to issues already discussed and interpreted in your work so far, for example race, gender, equality and climate change. It may be useful for you to revisit some of the parts we have already covered so far here in our coursework.
PRACTICAL WORK: You have 6 weeks in lesson time and over 2 weeks at Christmas to complete principal shoots and make new images. This include all relevant blog posts demonstrating your knowledge and understanding of: RESEARCH > ANALYSIS > PLANNING > RECORDING, EXPERIMENTATION > PRESENTATION > EVALUATION.
DEADLINE: MUST complete 3-4 new photo-shoots/ moving image recordings this term that must be published on the blog by Mon 4 Jan 2020.
ESSAY: We will be spending minimum 1 lesson a week on CONTEXTUAL STUDIES where you will be learning about critical theory, photo history and contemporary practice as well as developing academic study skills to help you writing your essay. However, it is essential that you are organising your time effectively and setting aside time outside of lessons to read, study and write.
DEADLINE: Essay MUST be handed in Fri 29 Jan 2021
PHOTOBOOK / FILM: Returning after Christmas we will be spending the whole month of January developing, designing and printing the photobook which will include your essay and somewhere between 40-60 images sequenced to tell a story.
MOCK EXAM: 5 – 11 Feb 2021. 3 days controlled test (15 hours) Groups:
FINAL DEADLINE: Completion of photobook/ film with final essay Thurs 11 Feb 2021 .
EXAM (ESA): Exam Paper and preparation begins Fri 12 Feb 2021.
EXAM (ESA): Controlled Conditions 4 – 5 – 6 May and 12 – 13 – 14 May 2021.
Week 12: 23 – 29 Nov Introduction to Personal Study Review and Reflect
Lesson task MON:Inspirations Choose one Personal Study from past students, either from blog post below or photobooks in class. Look through sequence of images carefully and read the essay. Present the study in class and comment on the book’s, concept, design and narrative. Review the essay and comment on its use of critical/ contextual/ historical references, use of direct quotes to form an argument and specialist vocabulary relating to art and photography. Make an assessment using the mark sheet and calculate a grade.
Essential that students build on their prior knowledge and experience developed during the course.
From your Personal Investigation based on LOVE & REBELLION write an overview of what you learned and how you intend to develop your Personal Study.
1. Describe which themes, medium (photography, film), approaches (documentary, tableaux, conceptual), artists, skills and photographic processes/ techniques inspired you the most and why.
2. Include examples of current experiments to illustrate your thinking.
3. Produce a new mind-map and mood-board based around how you interpret the theme of LOVE & REBELLION now using new inspirations etc.
4. Write a statement of intent that clearly contexualises how you wish to develop your project further, including theme(s), subject-matter, artists and final outcome you aim to make; photobook or film.
5. Plan your first photo-shoot as a response to initial ideas. Must be published on the blog by Wed 2 Dec.
Week 13: 30 Nov – 6 Dec Theory & Practice: Artists References Contextual Studies: Conversations on Photography
THEORY > ANALYSIS
Objective:Criteria from the Syllabus
Select artists work, methods, theories and art movements appropriate to your previous coursework work as a suitable basis for your Personal Study.
Investigate a wide range of work and sources
ARTISTS REFERENCES: Select 2-3 artists/photographers that have inspired your work already and that you would like to research in depth as a basis for your Personal Study. Compare and contrast their practice and work following these steps:
Produce a mood board with a selection of images and write an overview of their work, methods, style, approach and subject matter.
Select at least one image from each photographer and analyse in depth using methodology of TECHNICAL > VISUAL > CONTEXTUAL > CONCEPTUAL.
MEANING & METHODS: Identify meaning and methods behind selected artists/photographers work and research at least 3 different literary sources (online articles, books, Youtube clips) that will provide you with different critical perspective and views other than your own.
The literary sources will also provide you with something to read for further contextual understanding and critical thinking in preparation for writing your essay. Make sure you save hyperlinks photocopies etc in a new folder: Academic References.
Incorporate quotes and comments from artist themselves or others (art critics, art historians, curators, writers, journalists etc) using a variety of sources such as Youtube, online articles, reviews, books
Make sure you reference sources and embed links to the above sources in your blog post.
PRACTICE > RESPONSES
PLANNING: Plan a shoot in response to researching and interpreting artists work above. Make sure it relates to your ideas on how you intend to develop your project. Follow these instructions: what, why, how, when, where?
RECORDING: Complete planned photo-shoot and bring images in to class. Begin to edit and show experimentation with images using Lightroom / Photoshops/ Premiere as appropriate to your intentions. Make sure you annotate processes and techniques used.
EVALUATION: Upon completion of photoshoot and experimentation, make sure you evaluate and reflect on your next step of development. Comment on the following:
How successful was your photoshoot and experimentation?
What references did you make to artists references? – comment on technical, visual, contextual, conceptual?
How are you going to develop your project from here? – comment on research, planning, recording, experimenting.
What are you going to do next? – what, why, how, when, where?
PHOTOGRAPHERS / ARTISTS
You can find other alternative inspirations and artists references here:
Raymond Meeks (Halfstory, Halflife), Theo Gosselin (Sans Limites), Jen Davis (Eleven Years), Diana Markosian (Inventing my Father, Santa Barbara), Doug Dubois (My Last Day at Seventeen), Alessandra Sanguinetti (The Illusion of an everlasting Summer), Justine Kurland (Girl Picture), Jim Goldberg (Raised by Wolves) Sophie Calle (Suite Vénitienne), Nick Waplington (Living Room), Nan Goldin (The Ballad of Sexual Dependency), Corinne Day, (Dairy), Martin Parr (Signs of the Time, Common Sense, The Cost of Living), Chris Killip (Isle of Man: A book about the Manx), Lauren Greenfield (Fast Forward, Girl Culture), Nicholas Nixon (the Brown Sisters), Robert Clayton (Estate), Valerio Spada (Gomorrah Girl), Martin Gregg (Midlands), Alain Laboile, (At the Edge of the World, Sian Davey (Looking for Alice, Martha), Laia Abril (The Epilogue), Rita Puig-Serra Costa (Where Mimosa Bloom), Carole Benitah, (Photo Souvenirs), Richard Billingham (Ray’s a Laugh), Larry Sultan (Pictures from Home), Matt Eich: I Love You, I’m leaving, Yoshikatsu Fujii: Red Strings, Junpei Ueda: Pictures of My life, Sam Harris (The Middle of Somewhere), Dana Lixenberg (Imperial Courts), Philip Toledano (Days with my Father, When I was Six), Mariela Sancari (Moises is not Dead), Yury Toroptsov (Deleted Scene, The House of Baba Yaga), Amak Mahmoodian (Shenasnameh), Colin Pantall, (All Quite on the Homefront), Mitch Epstein (Family Business), Jason Wilde (Vear & John, Silly Arse Broke It), LaToya Ruby Frazier (The Notion of Family),
Doug DuBois: My Last Days of Seventeen The title, “My last day at Seventeen,” was first uttered by Eirn while I was taking her photograph in her parents’ back garden on the eve of her 18th birthday. Although Eirn argues her remark was more properly phrased, “ it’s my last day as seventeen” the sentiment is the same: there is a time in everyone’s life where the freedom and promise of childhood are lost to the coming of age and experience. The process can be gradual or abrupt; it can begin at age 18, 12 or 40.
The photographs were made over a five year period in the town of Cobh, County Cork in Ireland. I came to Cobh at the invitation of the Sirius Arts Centre in the summer of 2009. Ireland had just begun its sharp decline from the boom years of the Celtic Tiger. I spent my days trying to ingratiate myself with contractors to gain access to building sites that lay abandoned throughout the Irish countryside. I got nowhere.
Raymond Meeks: Every summer, since as long as anyone in the area can remember, groups of teenage boys and girls have been congregating by a single-lane bridge that spans the tributaries of Bowery and Catskill Creeks in the Catskill Mountain region of New York. Just below it, in the wilderness, a waterfall drops sixty feet above a pond. Those daring enough to take the leap usually take a small run-up before flinging themselves off the precipice. Within the act of the jump and its timeless ritual lingers the last fleeting moments of youth, of endless summer days and reckless abandon. Beyond that, the unknown.
Known for his slow-burning chronicles of rural America, Raymond Meeks turns his attention to Furlong and its intrepid summer dwellers in his most recent book Halfstory Halflife. Sketching out his local area with a sensitive lyricism, Meeks observed its energy and atmosphere over the course of three years; the spectacle of the wait, the anticipation of the climb and the final leap into darkness, where time comes to a standstill as bodies are frozen in motion. These everyday experiences and rituals, simple and carefree in their nature, gain a weight and significance through the lens, as the bodies fall somewhere beyond the threshold of youth and into adulthood.
Theo Gosselin ( Sans Limites): The much anticipated follow up to his highly successful debut book Avec Le Coeur, Sans Limites by Théo Gosselin presents a glimpse of a life beyond boundaries – unrestricted by limitations of geography and social conventions. The result of the photographer´s most recent road trips across the US, Spain, Scotland and native France,
At times, Gosselin´s work approaches something akin to poésie bucolique; his photographs representing modern day pastoral landscapes that resemble 21st century equivalents of Poussin’s Et in Arcadia ego, Manet’s Déjeuner sur L’herbe or Cézanne’s Les Grandes Baigneuses. At other times, his images capture moments more resonant of Bacchanalian scenes. Deliberately cinematic, Gosselin’s photography reveals friends in the act of escaping from their regular lives into newly enticing and perilous modes of existence, ever in search of the persistent though elusive idea of freedom.
Jim Goldberg: Raised By Wolves. The personal story behind the making and the legacy of Goldberg’s seminal work about marginalized youth, which occupies the liminal space between documentary and narrative fiction
Jen Davis has spent eleven years working on a series of self-portrait ’s dealing with issues regarding beauty, identity, and body image. Her poignant and beautifully articulated photographs have recently been published Kehrer Verlag in a monograph titled, Eleven Years.For over a decade Jen has bravely turned the camera on herself revealing a journey of self analysis and self awareness that while very personal, it incredibly universal. Her work reflected a mastery of light and color.
Haley Morris-Cafiero: Wait Watchers For my series, Wait Watchers, I set up a camera in a public area and photograph the scene as I perform mundane tasks while strangers pass by me. I then examine the images to see if any of the passersby had a critical or questioning element in their face or body language. I consider my photographs a social experiment and I reverse the gaze back on to the stranger and place the viewer in the position of being a witness to a moment in time. The project is a performative form of street photography.
I place the camera on a tripod and take hundreds of photographs. The resulting images capture the gazer in a microsecond moment where the shutter, the scene, my actions and their body language align and are frozen on the frame. I do not know what the people in my photographs are looking at or reacting to. I present the images to the world to start a conversation about the gaze and how we use it communicate our thoughts of others.
For most of my life, my father was nothing more than a cut out in our family album.
An empty hole.
A reminder of what wasn’t there.
I have few childhood memories of him.
In one, we are dancing together in our tiny apartment in Moscow. In another, he is leaving.
My father would disappear for months at a time. Then, unexpectedly, he would come home.
Until, one day, it was our turn to leave.
The year was 1996.
My mother woke me up and told me to pack my belongings. She said we were going on a trip, and the next morning we arrived in our new home, in California.
We never said goodbye to my father.
For my mom, the solution to forget him was simple. She cut his image out of every photograph. But those holes made it harder for me to forget him.
I often wondered what it would have been like to have a father.
When I was seven years old, living with my family in Moscow, my mother woke me up in the middle of the night and said we were going on a trip. The year was 1996. The Soviet Union had long collapsed, and by then, so had my family. We left without saying goodbye to my father, and the next day landed in a new world: America.
Inspired by the 1980s American soap opera Santa Barbara, my mother enrolled with an agency in Russia that posted listings in American newspapers and catalogs for so-called mail-order brides. She was 35. We arrived to the coastal town of Santa Barbara, and were met by an older man who would soon become her husband, and take the place of my own father. And this is where the story begins. The idea of touching something that felt untouchable.
I returned to Russia to visit the scattered remnants of my father’s memory. In fact, I hardly know anything about him. He died before I turned two. I have no personal memories of him. Almost nothing that could have recalled its existence has survived. There was just his camera. When I was nine, I found it in the closet where my mother had kept it safe for years. I took it apart to the last screw as if I was looking for something hidden inside. With my own unconscious hands, I destroyed the last object that bound us to my father.
There are still his photos, which he had taken and drawn himself. My father was an amateur photographer. In one of these photos, I am a five month old baby lying face down on my parents’ bed. My eyes are fixed on him, the photographer. My father, who has only thirteen months to live.
His untimely death made him an abstract character, a shadow at the gates of nothingness. He was almost forgotten. No one spoke of him anymore. His grave has been abandoned. All I knew about him was from a few stories that people who knew him told me. Despite everything, these stories told and repeated with more or less precision depending on the witness maintained a semblance of memory. Just as folklore is passed on, repeated and revised from generation to generation.
LaToya Ruby Frazier (The Notion of Family); In this, her first book, LaToya Ruby Frazier (born 1982) offers an incisive exploration of the legacy of racism and economic decline in America’s small towns, as embodied by Braddock, Pennsylvania, Frazier’s hometown. The work also considers the impact of that decline on the community and on her family, creating a statement both personal and truly political
Sophie Calle’s practice is characterised by performances using rule-based scenarios, which she then documents. Venetian Suite consists of black and white photographs, texts and maps that document a journey the artist made to Venice in order to follow a man, referred to only as Henri B., whom she had previously briefly met in Paris. Although Calle undertook the journey in 1979, the texts describe the actions as taking place in 1980. Venetian Suite records Calle’s attempts to track her subject over the course of his thirteen-day stay in Venice. She investigates and stalks him, enlisting the help of friends and acquaintances she makes in the city. Eventually Henri B. recognises Calle, and they share a silent walk. Even after this encounter Calle continues her project, shadowing Henri B. from a distance until his arrival back in Paris. The work was initially produced in book form in 1983; the same year Calle also presented the work as a sound installation in a confessional booth. In 1996 she configured Venetian Suite as a gallery-based work, the appearance of which deliberately recalls a detective casebook, with texts written in a style that mimics and deconstructs the narrative tension typical of detective novels or film noir. The text begins as follows:
For months I followed strangers on the street. For the pleasure of following them, not because they particularly interested me. I photographed them without their knowledge, took note of their movements, then finally lost sight of them and forgot them. At the end of January 1980, on the streets of Paris, I followed a man whom I lost sight of a few minutes later in the crowd. That very evening, quite by chance, he was introduced to me at an opening. During the course of our conversation, he told me he was planning an imminent trip to Venice. I decided to follow him. (Calle and Baudrillard 1988, p.2.)
Matt Eich:I Love You, I’m leaving Love You, I’m Leaving is my meditation on familial bonds, longing, and memory. The series borrows from personal experience and the visual language of the everyday in order to create a fictional account that mirrors my reality. Made during a time of personal domestic unease, I photographed as my parents separated, and my family moved to a new city.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/102344549
Yoshikatsu Fujii:Red Strings I received a text message. “Today, our divorce was finalized.” The message from my mother was written simply, even though she usually sends me messages with many pictures and symbols.
I remember that I didn’t feel any particular emotion, except that the time had come. Because my parents continued to live apart in the same house for a long time, their relationship gently came to an end over the years. It was no wonder that a draft blowing between the two could completely break the family at any time.
In Japan, legend has it that a man and woman who are predestined to meet have been tied at the little finger by an invisible red string since the time they were born. Unfortunately, the red string tying my parents undone, broke, or perhaps was never even tied to begin with. But if the two had never met, I would never have been born into this world. If anything, you might say that there is an unbreakable red string of fate between parent and child.
If you are interested in exploring the themes of LOVE & REBELLION within the notion of family have a look at different approaches within documentary and tableaux photography here
Family can be interpreted in different ways, one is to consider it in relation to the concept of HOME – which can be interpreted as both family or community. Home is also more than just the four walls of your house where you live with your family. Jersey, the island where you perhaps are born or where you grew up can be considered a home too. Home can be interpreted as a community. If you are away from home you often think about your home with a sense of nostalgia. Home can be associated with memories, feelings, hopes, fears etc.
Or Laura El-Tantawy and her project the uprising and protests in her homeland of Egypt , In The Shadow of Pyramids
GUERNSEY PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL (GPF): The theme for 2021 will be Acts of Love and Rebellion. Below is a list of photographers who will be exhibiting at the next festival with work relating to the two themes of LOVE and REBELLION. If we manage to produce a newspaper it will be exhibited at the festival in Guernsey in Sept 23 – 24 Oct 2021.
Week 14: 7 – 13 Dec Theory & Practice: Art Movements & Isms
THEORY > Art Movements & Isms
The syllabus states clearly that you have to be aware of some of the methods employed by critics and historians within the history of art and photography.
To demonstrate your knowledge and understanding you will have to write a paragraph in your essay providing historical context about your chosen artists/ photographers and how their their work and practice is linked to a specific art movement, ism or theory.
For this task you need to select an art movement and ism that is relevant to your Personal Study and make a 2-3 minutes presentation in class. You can choose to work alone or pair up with a fellow student:
Pictorialism
Realism / Straight Photography
Modernism
Post-modernism
Follow these instructions:
Start by watching the films below, study PPT presentations and read articles here which will provide you with an overview.
Select two literary sources from above and identify relevant quotes (at least two) that you can incorporate into your paragraph.
Your paragraph must include visual examples of artists making work within that art movement that is relevant to your Personal Study.
PRACTICE>Photographic responses
Respond to the art movement/ ism that you have researched and make an image or a set of images that represent the methods/ techniques/ processes/ approach/ styles / aesthetics used by artists working within that is ism or movement.
Make it relevant to your own project.
Produce a blog post and publish by – Wed 15 Dec
Week 15 + XMAS: 14 Dec – 4 Jan Practical work: PHOTOBOOK / FILM Photo-shoots & Experimentation
Objective: Criteria from the Syllabus
Show evidence for an on-going critical and analytical review of your investigation – both your written essay and own practical work in response to research and analysis.
PHOTOBOOK
PLANNING
STORY: What is your story? Describe in:
3 words
A sentence
A paragraph
NARRATIVE: How will you tell your story?
Images > new photographic responses, photo-shoots
Archives > old photos from family albums, iPhone
Texts > letters, documents, poems, text messages
PRACTICAL WORK
PLANNING: Produce a detailed plan of at least 3-4 photoshoots that you intend on doing in the next 3-4 weeks – including Christmas break. Follow these instructions: what, why, how, when, where?
RECORDING: Produce a number of photographic response to your Personal Study and bring images from new photo-shoots to lessons:
• Save shoots in folder on Media Drive: and import into Lightroom • Organisation: Create a new Collection from each new shoot inside Collection Set: LOVE & REBELLION • Editing: select 8-12 images from each shoot. • Experimenting: Adjust images in Develop, both as Colour and B&W images appropriate to your intentions • Export images as JPGS (1000 pixels) and save in a folder: BLOG • Create a Blogpost with edited images and an evaluation; explaining what you focused on in each shoot and how you intend to develop your next shoot. • Make references to artists references, previous shoots, experiments etc.
EXPERIMENTING:
• Export same set of images from Lightroom as JPEG (4000 pixels) • Experimentation: demonstrate further creativity using Photoshop to make composite/ montage/ typology/ grids/ diptych/triptych, text/ typology etc appropriate to your intentions • Design: Begin to explore different layout options using InDesign and make a new zine/book. Set up new document as A5 page sizes. This is trying out ideas before we begin designing photobook in January. • Make sure you annotate process and techniques used
EVALUATION: Upon completion of photoshoot and experimentation, make sure you evaluate and reflect on your next step of development. Comment on the following:
How successful was your photoshoot and experimentation?
What references did you make to artists references? – comment on technical, visual, contextual, conceptual?
How are you going to develop your project from here? – comment on research, planning, recording, experimenting.
What are you going to do next? – what, why, how, when, where?
WED 16 Dec: CONTEXTUAL STUDIES Conversations on Photography: As a case study read one interview, identity 3 quotes and apply theory to a analysis of one image
Visuals > new photographic responses, photo-shoots
Sound > ambient, sound fx, voice-over, interview, music
Archives > found imagery, footage, audio
PRACTICAL WORK
STORYBOARDING: Based on your specification and narrative produce a storyboard with details of individual scenes, action, shot sizes, camera angles and mise-en-scene (the arrangement of the scenery in front of the camera) from location, props, people, lighting, sound etc.
PLANNING: Produce a detailed plan of at least 3-4 video/audio recordings that you intend on doing in the next 3-4 weeks – incl Christmas break
RECORDING: Produce a number of photographic response to your Personal Study and bring footage from video/ audio recordings to lessons:
• Save media in folder on local V:Data Drive • Organisation: Create a new project in Premiere • Editing: begin editing video/ audio clips on the timeline • Adjusting: recordings in Colour / B&W appropriate to your intentions.
EXPERIMENTING: • Video: experimenting with sequencing using relevant transitions and effects • Sound: consider how audio can add depth to your film, such as ambient sound, sound fx, voice-over, interview, musical score etc. • Title and credits: Consider typography/ graphics/ styles etc. For more creative possibilities make title page in Photoshop (format: 1280 x 720 pixels) and import as a Psd file into your project folder on the V-Data drive.
EVALUATING: Write an evaluation on the blog that reflects on your artistic intentions, film-editing process and collaboration. Include screen-prints from Premiere and a few ‘behind the scenes’ images of the shooting/ production for further annotation. Comment on the following:
How successful was your photoshoot and experimentation?
What references did you make to artists references? – comment on technical, visual, contextual, conceptual?
How are you going to develop your project from here? – comment on research, planning, recording, experimenting.
What are you going to do next? – what, why, how, when, where?
Week 16: 4 – 10 Jan Essay writing: Academic study skills Contextual Study: Decoding Photography
MON: Academic Sources
Research and identify 3-5 literary sources from a variety of media such as books, journal/magazines, internet, Youtube/video that relates to your personal study and artists references .
Begin to read essay, texts and interviews with your chosen artists as well as commentary from critics, historians and others.
It’s important that you show evidence of reading and draw upon different pints of view – not only your own.
Take notes when you’re reading…key words, concepts, passages
Write down page number, author, year, title, publisher, place of publication so you can list source in a bibliography
Bibliography
List all the sources that you have identified above as literary sources. Where there are two or more works by one author in the same year distinguish them as 1988a, 1988b etc. Arrange literature in alphabetical order by author, or where no author is named, by the name of the museum or other organisation which produced the text. Apart from listing literature you must also list all other sources in alphabetical order e.g. websites/online sources, Youtube/ DVD/TV.
Quotation and Referencing:
Use quotes to support or disprove your argument
Use quotes to show evidence of reading
Use Harvard System of Referencing…see Powerpoint: harvard system of referencing for further details on how to use it.
TUE: Essay Question
Think of a hypothesis and list possible essay questions
WED 6 JAN: CONTEXTUAL STUDIES Decoding Photography • Select one of the questions listed • Read text in detail, make notes and identify 3 quotes • Select one image from examples mentioned in text and apply your own interpretation of the photograph by applying theory and critical thinking • Incorporate the 3 quotes above into your interpretation of the image and make sure you comment on the quotes.
THUR: Essay Plan Make a plan that lists what you are going to write about in each paragraph – essay structure
Essay question:
Opening quote
Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study? Which artists will you be analysing and why? How will you be responding to their work and essay question?
Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian. Link to powerpoints and resources above about art movements and isms.
Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced
Bibliography: List all relevant sources used
FRI: EssayIntroduction In this lesson you will write a 45 mins draft essay introduction following these steps:
Open a new Word document > SAVE AS: Essay draft
Copy essay question into Essay title: Hypothesis > if you don’t have one yet, make one!
Copy your essay introduction (from Essay Plan) which will give you a framework to build upon and also copy your Statement of Intent.
Identify 2 quotes from sources identified in an earlier task using Harvard System of Referencing.
Use one quote as an opening quote:Choose a quote from either one of your photographers or critics. It has to be something that relates to your investigation.
Begin to write a paragraph (250-500 words) answering the following questions below.
You got 45 mins to write and upload to the blog!
Think about an opening that will draw your reader in e.g. you can use an opening quote that sets the scene. Or think more philosophically about the nature of photography and and feeble relationship with reality.
You should include in your introduction an outline of your intention of your study e.g.
What are you going to investigate.
How does this area/ work interest you?
What are you trying to prove/challenge, argument/ counter-argument?
Whose work (artists/photographers) are you analysing and why?
What historical or theoretical context is the work situated within. Include 1 or 2 quotes for or against.
What links are there with your previous studies?
What have you explored so far in your Coursework or what are you going to photograph?
How did or will your work develop.
What camera skills, techniques or digital processes in Photoshop have or are you going to experiment with?
Week 17: 11 – 10 Jan PRESENTATION – Work-in-Progress
Prepare a 3-5 mins presentation on something that you are working on right now in your project. For example:
An idea An image A photo-shoot An experiment An inspiration New research New development
Use blog posts to present in class. As a class we will give constructive feedback on how each student can develop their work and project.
Lesson TUE-FRI: In anticipation of the possibility of producing a newspaper based on the themes of LOVE & REBELLION we will this week focus on designing 4 versions of a newspaper spreads based on using movie stills from your film. Shannon O’Donnell uses the technique of selecting key frames from the timeline in Premier and presenting them as still-images. We will also print your spreads as final outcome for mounting.
SEQUENCE: Duane Michals.
Michals is an American photographer whose work makes innovative use of photo-sequences. The 1960s in which he worked was heavily influenced by photojournalism, which Michals manipulated to communicate narratives. The sequences he created take a frame-by-frame format.
The spirit leaves the body, Duane Michals
Michals is grateful for never having studied at a photography school, as he feels he didn’t have to unlearn all the rules they teached. He claims that ‘I always tell students you’re either defined by the medium or you redefine the medium. And most people are defined by the medium, those are the rules you are taught… I simply turned the glove inside out…’. He claims to have redefined the medium by being the first person who, rather than capturing death by photographing a corpse or photographing in a funeral home or a cemetery, he used living people and characters to encapsulate this idea. Michals didn’t want to present the ‘facts’ about death, which is present in “Death Comes to the Old Lady.”. He claims that critics didn’t know what to write about it, that they viewed it as being flawed as there wasn’t a decisive moment.
Death comes to an old lady, Duane Michals
Response:
Removing a necklace,
Using raw footage from the film, I took screenshots of one scene that I felt could have metaphorical meaning beyond the actual actions of the subject. The subject’s face remains neutral throughout and so the main focus is on the removal of the jewelry. This can be interpreted as the subject removing the facade they present to the remainder of society and beginning to transform into the individual they are in private.
The layout of the piece is similar to Michals in the way it has the format of 4 on the top and 3 beneath. The process to create this involved the following steps:
Choosing and exporting 7 frames within premiere as TIFF files.
Using the rectangle frame tool to create seven frames the same size in InDesign.
Importing (Ctrl+D) each still photo in to the frame, adjusting the fitting and placing in the desired order.
MONTAGE: Select an appropriate set of movie stills and create a montage of layered images. You may to choose to work in Photoshop for more creativity and import into InDesign as one image (new document in Photoshop 420mm(h) x 280.5mm(w) in 300 dpi)
MONTAGE:
Create in photoshop and export as a TIFF file.
JUXTAPOSITION:
JUXTAPOSITION: Select 2 movie stills and juxtapose images opposite each others or layer them to create new meaning.
Response:
The juxtaposition shows a potential conflict between the subject and the social aspect of jewelry. Connotations of jewelry represent prestige, wealth and power, yet can also be seen as entirely materialistic, pointless and vain. The subject’s loose grip in on the ring (present in the shadow) implies ‘letting go’ of beauty standards. Additionally could show the incentive to let go but not putting it into practice as you cannot actually see the ring.
FULL–BLEED: Select one movie still as a full-bleed spread.
