‘Inked’ by Bethany Mildren.

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Does the essay address its hypothesis?
The essay addresses its hypothesis and this is seen in the introduction when it states “I wish to explore the intimacy that portraiture allows the viewer to have with the subject model in the photograph,”.

Does it provide new knowledge and understanding?
The essay provides a good understanding of new knowledge about the history of portraiture, discussing their origin and how it has been used for many years to show someone’s identity, going as far back to the Egyptian times. It also discusses her 2 photographers, Jono Rotman and Danny Alexander, work and the differences between the two then goes on to further analysis of their photographs later on in the essay.

Is the essay well structured with a sense of an introduction, paragraphs and a conclusion?
I think that the essay is well structured to an extent as there is an introduced which addresses her overall question for her essay then goes further to explain what she wishes to explore, in the first sentence “I wish to explore the intimacy that portraiture allows the viewer to have with the subject model in the photograph, with particular focus on body adornments such as tattooing.” Then the paragraphs which follow indicate a nice flow of progression towards her conclusion as they discuss the history behind portraiture, who she is studying and why then an analysis of a photo taken by each photographer. The conclusion is clearly stated which shares her overall comparison of the two photographers, providing an opinion on what she thinks they could have improved on as well indicated by ‘Overall, I believe that Jono Rotman and Danny Alexander successfully use portraiture to represent different identities to a certain extent.”

Use and flow of language, prose, punctuation, spelling.
I think that the flow of language throughout her essay is successful as it creates a good development to how she ends up with her conclusion and links it back to her main question. The spelling and punctuation works well as the sentences are not too long and wordy and the punctuation is used well too.

Use of specialist vocabulary relating to art and photography.
The specialist vocabulary which she uses that relates to art and photography is extensive throughout and this can be seen in numerous ways such as:
– “Subject model in the photograph”
– “Photographic gaze”
– “Experimenting with different expressions, poses, settings, styling (clothing and make-up), angles and lighting techniques.”
– “Portraiture is the best technique to capture the essence of ones identity due to the uses of lighting, backdrops, instructing the model,”
– “Mongrelism”
– “However, Danny Alexander takes his portraits in a studio setting,”
– “Personally, I feel that Alexander could have explored his idea in more detail,”
– “However, Rotman uses his techniques to instead leave the emotions of the model open for interpretation instead of their identity,”

Analysis of artist’s oeuvre (body of work) and key work(s).

Evidence of wider reading with reference to art history/ theory, political discourse and/or socio-economical context.
There is a strong evidence of wider reading and reference to art history throughout her analysis in the personal study. This is seen through the quote “Portraiture is an old art form going back at least to ancient Egypt, where it flourished from about 5,000 years ago.” therefore this backs up how portraiture has been used for a long time to represent peoples different identities and other factors which she states “They have been used to show the power, importance, virtue, beauty, wealth, taste, learning or other qualities of the sitter.” I think that this strengthens her analysis into portraiture and its representations as it shows how versatile it is when describing and representing other ways people have used it for their benefit.

Use of direct quotes, summary or commentary from others to make an informed and critical argument.
There is use of direct quotes from each photographer which she has decided to study which she uses in her analysis of the photos which she chose to look at. For Rotman she uses, “he felt the weight of precedence of photography depicting people seen as other” which further develops her analysis on how Rotman uses portraiture in his work, moving away from traditional documentary photography. For Alexander, the quote which is used is “highlight the dualistic nature of body art; on one hand body art can be and often is self-expressive but much like any art can be interrupted differently by each viewer” this quote discusses how he understands and sees subjectivity in photography and furthermore in his work which he produces.

Use of referencing system (eg. Harvard) and a bibliography.
At the end of the essay, which is found on the last few pages, there is a clear and well developed bibliography using the Harvard referencing system, although there is not a heading which suggests that it is one which would have been helpful to add in to make it clearer. This shows where she got the photos, information about her photographers and history about tattoos.

Use of illustrations with captions listing name of artist, title of work and year of production.
There is evidence of illustrations which she uses to show her development throughout her personal development but there is not any captions which list the name of the artist, title and year of production as they are found within the bibliography. I think that it would have been better for her to do this to add some more visuality in to her work as the reader may want to know what the picture is and what collection it is from.

Using the mark scheme –

This was the mark scheme which I referred to when marking the personal essay. The grade boundaries for awarding the grade which they got were:
-E=1
-D=6
-C=9
-B=11
-A=14
-A*=17

I gave Bethany Mildren’s personal study about “How does Jono Rotman and Danny Alexander use portraiture to represent different identities?” an 11/18 which is a B grade and she actually got 12/18 which is also a B. This is because their is a strong understanding and deeper dive into the historical knowledge and how each photographer uses individual techniques to create their work as well as a good analysis of each photo from the photographers that she studies who she chose to provide a deeper analysis into. What I think would have upped her grade was if she used more citations which she could have added to her bibliography, which she could have also given a title. I also think that she could have included more of a visual aspect with photos that she used as well as providing their titles, dates of publication, where they were from and what set they could have been apart of and who created them.

The Butler

by Cian Cumming

HOW DOES PHILLIP EBELING AND PIETER HUGO, EXPRESS THE NOTION OF FAMILY HISTORY AND RELATIONSHIPS IN THEIR WORK

Does this essay address its hypothesis?

Yes as Sian repeatedly mentions how Phillip Ebeling and Pieter Hugo creates their work mainly using subjects from their personal lives such as people they grew up around- linking to the question how to they express the notion of family history & relationships

Does it provide knowledge and understanding?

Yes Sian shows clear understanding of what Phillip Ebeling and Pieter Hugo

Zine 1

In my first zine, as discussed in my research and ideas post, I am including mostly impersonal, architectural or urban landscapes. This zine is documenting mostly a more touristic view of my trip, definitely more than my other zine which will show a more personal side.

Final images for this zine

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Design

After selecting all my final images for my first zine, I made a zine document in Indesign. Below is my setup.

After that, I began to place my images into pages – at first, I used rough placement to figure out a pattern for my double-page spreads and single-page images. I left the front and back cover, and the middle spread until the end as these are the most impactful pages in my zine.

Placing my into my blank zine using the ‘place’ tool above.

Starting to place images in, and experimenting with orders.

Originally, I had this image as a double-page spread. After placing other images into a more defined order and pattern, I realised that it didn’t really fit the pattern or idea of my zine as a stand-alone image on a double-page spread.

Even though I didn’t want the image as a double-page spread, I still wanted to include it. I decided to make a sort of collage, as I had done with an earlier set of images (see my final zine below). First, I thought that this image would look better with a plainer image behind it, to not distract from the business of the main image. However, I found that this image did not look right with my image of the two girls – the tones in the image clashed and did not work.

In the end, this was my final page. I used a more busy image, from the same spot in the parade. Not only does this image work better with the tones in the other image, but it also creates a quite stark social commentary on the treatment of Native Americans in today’s society in the US. – I have analysed this below in my final zine.

Final zine

This is the front cover of my first zine. I created my front cover by cutting an image in half – the other half is my back cover. This creates a coherent start and end to my first zine. This image I think works really well as a start to my work – the picture itself was actually from the start of a rodeo that I photographed, and I feel like the flags represent my journey quite well to the viewer of where I went, but also signal the beginning of something. I like how the horse jumping over the fence on the outside of the image kind of signals the reader to turn the page – I think it helps to start the flow of my zine. I tried to edit this image, along with almost all of my others for this zine, with vibrant, crisp tones.

This is the first double-page spread in my zine. The image in the back of the spread is in black and white – I made this decision to highlight the shapes of the trees, as well as the contours of the mountains in the background. In my editing of this image, I cropped it quite a bit – this helped to bring more attention to the detail in the landscape and balance the composition. The image on top is another one from the parade which I photographed. I think the vibrant red tones in this image contrast really nicely with the black-and-white image below it, and help to highlight the subject in the top image. I think this collage also followed nicely from the front cover as it features similar tones to the front, as well as also featuring a horse and rider. This helps the zine to flow nicely. Also, the combination of the horse and rider in traditional Native American dress with the image of the wild mountains signifies the traditional landscape in which Native Americans lived, and how they have been pushed out of their native land by the white people – who now watch them for entertainment in parades such as the one I watched. I noticed quite a tense atmosphere throughout this day, as relations between the Native Americans and white people in the US are still difficult – I wanted to show this in my zine, as it reflects the real America that I saw, and my own personal view of what I photographed and the issues that lie beneath the surface.

This is the next spread in my zine. I like how this image is in black and white, as it follows nicely from the black and white element of my last pages. I think this is one of my strongest images out of my whole work from my trip to the USA – I particularly like the strong shapes in the image: the rectangular shapes of the building, as well as the perpendicular lines of the power lines. The leading lines are really strong in this image and take the eye from the focal point, the left third of the image with the pole and end of the building, towards the edges on both the left and right corners. I think this creates a really unique composition, which is what I like about this image.

This is my first double image spread in my zine – I used these images together because of their stark contrast – the left image shows the urban landscape of the town, which is quite a classic image, but I like how even looking at the signs in the image, you know it’s America. I liked how this was documented in a few of my images actually, as I think it tells a story of how the US presents itself to tourists, even in rural areas like the ones I photographed. The image on the left is again I think one of my best images, as I like the way in which the light subtly reflects onto the road signs, and the overall composition – I haven’t got many images from this shoot taken in portrait, and this one I like. I think that these two images work really well together also because of the similar tones, especially the orange and yellow tones in the picture on the right which match the colour of the border of the traffic lights.

This image is another double page spread from my zine. I think this is also one of my strongest images from this project. I really like the colours in this image, which I enhanced with my editing. I like how at the opposite sides of the images, the colours are completely different. This creates leading lines down through the middle of the image, that lead to the bottom middle of the image. This was helped by my use of cropping, to ensure my image was compositionally correct and fitting into the rule of thirds. The bold colours in this image as well as the composition were why I put this image as a double page spread.

In this double page spread, I wanted to show two sides of the American landscape that I visited. I chose the image on the left due to the vibrant colours of the foreground, as well as the mountain ridge in the background, with the varying blue tones which I like. I also really like the way the trees to the left create a natural frame for the landscape, and tone in with the bushes on the right. The right image, although contrasting with the vibrant colours in the left image, I think the darker tones of the trees on the left match well with the black on the right. Furthermore, I picked these images together to show the contrasting sides of the places I visited: on the left, a picturesque landscape, and the left, the stark image of the town’s prison. I think that this documents the two different sides to the place I visited, and different people in their society’s experiences.

Another double page spread from my zine. I chose this image particularly because of the composition. Even though if you look at the image with the rule of thirds it may appear unbalanced, I like how the figure in the bottom right appears so small, against the rock face in the background. I created this unique composition through my use of cropping – this helped to create a more clear focal point in the image – the edge of the lake on the left and the figure on the rock to the right. This fine detail was also helped by my editing, in which I focused on adding highlights, vibrance and clarity into the image.

This is my last double image spread in my zine. I chose these two images as a pair because of their similarities: they both feature similar lines and rectangular shapes, which makes them coherently match. The colours contrast in this page, but the pair of images still fit together because of the similar skies with wispy skies – they also both feature similar structures: on the left, the classic American flag, and the right the road sign. I’m glad I edited the right image as I think it ties in well with the quite historical landscape in the image- this image was taken on a road which overlooks the tracks of the Oregon Trail, and I wanted to create a more historical “vintage” looking edit with this image.

I think this is the most meaningful spread in my zine – there is strong social and historical context that lies behind the surface of this image. Aesthetically, this spread works together because of the similar tones and locations in which they were shot, and similar editing. However, I placed these two images in a montage because of deeper reasons. The placement of the white cowboys on top of the girls in Native American traditional clothing highlights the oppression that Native American’s face in modern day America, on their own land – stolen from them. Not only that, it also signals the tensions at the time I was photographing: during my day photographing this parade, the rodeo, and the Native American play that was on afterwards, I witnessed the reality of modern day Native and White relationships – Heckling and abuse given by the white people to the Native Americans, as well as a general feeling that some White people feel above those who they stole land from, and the misinformation that is so clear. – This is partly a result of the government and political beliefs that is most popular in rural parts of the US, such as Eastern Oregon (where I visited). I wanted to show this interesting observation in my work, and create a journalistic element to my work. In this spread, I think I did this quite successfully, and want to continue using aspects of photojournalism and social context in my personal study.

I think this is a highly successful image in my zine – I particularly like the shadows and light in this image. This image was taken from my most successful photoshoot, in which I shot in golden hour – This helped me to achieve the light in this image which I really like. This image also uses the rule of thirds successfully, which creates a balanced composition.

My back cover of my zine is the other half of my front cover. I think this was a smart decision as it wraps up my zine with a sysinct ending – it links to the front cover, and also has similar tones to many of my images in my zine. This helps to create a clear idea and thread of similar style of images throughout my zine, making sure all images work well together from beginning to end.

Evaluation

Overall, I think this zine was really well. I was really happy to be creating a zine, as for my Anthropocene project for my last mock exam I made one which I really enjoyed creating. I think in this body of work I was able to develop my zine-making skills from my last exam and create a zine which tells the story of my travels through Oregon, which I think I have arranged quite well. When arranging my images, I used new techniques I didn’t think of using in my last zine, for example, photomontage on two pages. I think this added dimension to my project, and social context to the images that I was creating and the history of the places, as I was learning about them. I like my vibrant editing in this project – I normally like to edit in a more grainy, vintage style, but for this project I wanted to highlight the really American colours and places in my editing – I think this was quite successful. To improve my zine, if I was to do it again, I could have included blank pages or filled pages mixed in with objects from my trip such as tickets or receipts, to tell a more personalised and meaningful story. However, overall I think I produced quite a successful zine and developed my skills with Indesign further which I am happy about.

Link to Kevin’s work– Below I have showed evidence of analysing and marking a previous students work, with answering questions about their work to help me evaluate and assess the quality of their work. This was important and it helped me learn about what a good and not so good personal study essay looks like. In the future when it comes to writing my essay I will know how much to write, that I need to add images and also need to write around 4000 words.

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Does the essay address its hypothesis?

Yes, this essay is filled with details about how COVID-19 affected Kevin Freire’s family, social life and the world itself, I think it clearly introduces the concept of the virus and the essay links really well with the images selected in this photobook. The essay is nicely visual and the that means that the writing links well with the photographs next to it.

Does it provide new knowledge and understanding?

It provides the viewer with an insight into how the pandemic affected Kevin’s life, but not so much contextual information about life was before corona virus or how the world has been affected. Kevin has mentioned the number of cases at each time of COVID-19 and this shows that lots of research and understanding has been put into this personal study. Despite this just being about the affects of mostly Kevin’s life, he has explained his experience in a reassuring way that makes everyone feel like they weren’t alone, despite how they were feeling during lockdown.

Is the essay well-structured with a sense of an introduction, paragraphs and a conclusion?

The introduction is very good as it catches the reader’s attention, the main body provides information about the way in which the photoshoots were constructed and inspiration from certain photographs. There is a solid conclusion which is helpful in summarising the whole concept of the book.

Use and flow of language, prose, punctuation, spelling.

The whole essay is very well and clearly constructed, there is a lack of complex language, but this isn’t necessarily a downfall as it means that more people are likely to take time to read through all of this essay, which definitely been put a lot of time into. Despite this, the essay lacks some punctuation such as commas, I think that this essay could have been a lot better if Kevin used a wider variety of punctuation and better grammar.

Use of specialist vocabulary relating to art and photography.

There has been a lot of research and development put into this essay, but this has been through the lives of people and not through the relation to art and photographer. Of course, the photographs visually relate to Kevin’s selected photographers (Sarah Peart and Joanna Fursman) but there is no other relation to the artist world.

Analysis of artist’s oeuvre (body of work) and key word(s).

Throughout the essay the inspirations of Sarah Peart and Joanna Fursman have been mentioned not a lot in the main body of the work but there has not been much correlation between Kevin and the artists. His body of work is large and really filled with a lot of information, he has a whole white page filled with entirely black writing and I think that this part of his body of work could have made to look a lot more aesthetic and eye-catching for the reader.

Evidence of wider reading with reference to art history/ theory, political discourse and/or socio-economical context.

There is a reference to The Mass Organisation Archive during 1937 to the early 1950s and also Mass Observation Project which has been running since 1981. This links up with diary’s people have created important world events and this book is a visual diary in which corona virus affected one person’s life, the same way in which it happened in the past. This is important to note as it means that there is historical context put into the study and research behind this essay.

Use of direct quotes, summary or commentary from others to make an informed and critical argument.

Kevin argues that corona virus has heavily impacted the world along with his personal life and this is most of his argument through his work, he has strong evidence that this is true as he mentions that at one point, we had around 1,000 cases of covid throughout the Island. Along with this there is lots of real-life examples such as Ballarat international Foto biennale which is an international photography festival in Ireland which was created to showcase corona virus itself. This is proof that he has a well-formed argument as he has real life example to back up his opinion.

Use of referencing system (eg. Harvard) and a bibliography.

There is no bibliography within the front or back of the photobook, and I also couldn’t find out throughout Kevin’s blog, this puts his work at a disadvantage as it means that he has no referencing system throughout his work and the credibility of his facts could be challenged.

Use of illustrations with captions listing name of artist, title of work and year of production.

The title and message of the work is clear straight away when looking at and opening the book, there is no date so I didn’t know what year this piece of work was produced, this means that without the link at the top of this blogpost, not as many people would take their time to look through Kevin’s work and appreciate the time, he has put into it.

Overall Analysis and Mark

I would mark ‘Locked In’ 12/18 marks, meaning that Kevin would achieve a C grade in his essay. I think that the strengthens of his work are apparent, as the overall quality of the book and his images are very good, however, I think that the essay wasn’t as good as the rest of his photobook. I really liked that Kevin explained his own experiences yet also made a photobook that everyone around the world could understand if they looked through this final piece. The fact that COVID-19 has affected all of us means that his book if filled with a concept that is easy to grasp. Therefore, I think that his paragraphing and sentence structures are very legible, despite having some punctuation issues I think that everyone would enjoy reading Kevin’s final essay as it’s filled with both factual and contextual information, as he thoroughly explains how he has been inspired by Sarah Peart and Joanna Fursman and this proves that his work has been related off someone else, like the rest of photography. Unfortunately, the weaknesses in Kevin’s work are just as obvious as his strengths, with some punctuation and grammar issues, he also has a chunks of lack paragraphs/ bodies of work with very long sentences. This means that readers may not be as enticed to read his essay, I think that it could be improved if he were to add more images into his essay, as he has consistently shown in the rest of his photobook that he can produce great outcomes.

Analysis:

The essay was overall very detailed in terms of its historical context and inspirations, deep diving into how family albums came to exist along with thorough analyses into her key photographers, making sure to include quotes and references throughout which she then placed into a small bibliography at the end of the essay. She referred to her hypothesis ‘can the recreation of family portraits show how relationships have developed and changed over time?’ throughout the essay, linking it back to her key photographers and answering it thoroughly. She also focused on describing how she struggled to recreate photos due to the way she and her family had aged. Despite this, she showed a clear understanding and passion for what she wanted to accomplish within her personal study, providing copious amounts of information on the steps she took in order to be prepared for each photoshoot and how she worked her way around problems she stumbled across along the way, using some basic photographic terminology to describe how careful she was to recreate each image to her best abilities.

Throughout the essay, she used a variety of images from her different key photographers which helped to express her point in certain paragraphs, however, they lack captions making it difficult to see what photographer each image belongs too, especially as she mentions how similar each photographers style is visually. Along with that, her paragraphs don’t flow from one to the next like a typical essay which can make it hard to follow in certain places as she occasionally starts her paragraphs quite bluntly, especially as she doesn’t use a typical essay structure, lacking an introduction as she goes straight into her plan.

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Grade Boundaries: E=1 D=6 C=9 B=11 A=14 A*=16

My Mark: 13/18

Grade: B

I decided to give her a 13 as she consistently writes about her inspirations and communicates her thoughts on the process of taking her photos along with taking into account how her key photographers took their photos as a reference too. She expresses her ideas briefly in the essay, however, lacks detail in terms of specialist terminology as she only uses basic terminology towards the end of the essay, making her fall short of an A.

Book: The Butler by Sian Cumming

• Does the essay address its hypothesis?
  • The Question for the essay starts with “How does Phillip Ebeling and Pieter Hugo, express the notion of family history and relationships in their work?” The essay does include and hypothesis of both photographers and how the student was inspired by them.

• Does it provide new knowledge and understanding?
  • The essay includes lots of knowledge and understanding on how the photographers inspired them for the students final project

• Is the essay well structured with a sense of an introduction, paragraphs and a conclusion?
• Use and flow of language, prose, punctuation, spelling.
• Use of specialist vocabulary relating to art and photography.
• Analysis of artist’s oeuvre (body of work) and key work(s).
• Evidence of wider reading with reference to art history/ theory, political discourse and/or socio-economical context.
• Use of direct quotes, summary or commentary from others to make an informed and critical argument.
• Use of referencing system (eg. Harvard) and a bibliography.
• Use of illustrations with captions listing name of artist, title of work and year of production.

Lesson task Thurs: Personal Study
Read the essay and comment on its overall written and interpretative quality as well as its use of critical, contextual and historical references, eg.

Does the essay address its hypothesis?

Their work clearly focussed on the topic of the Pandemic and the effects of it and they tell a clear narrative throughout.

Does it provide new knowledge and understanding?

There is lots of knowledge and understanding of the Pandemic and the artists revolving around it.

Is the essay well structured with a sense of an introduction, paragraphs and a conclusion?

Ye its good their images tell a narrative from the start of COVID-19 being locked in to the back cover being on the exterior of a front door locking the door being able to leave again.

Use and flow of language, prose, punctuation, spelling.

Superb spelling and punctuation if I do say so myself.

Use of specialist vocabulary relating to art and photography.

There’s quite a bit of specialist vocabulary however their essay tends to focus on the Pandemic and the meaning more than Photography vocab.

Analysis of artist’s oeuvre (body of work) and key work(s).

Follows their artists work throughout describing what they do in detail.

Evidence of wider reading with reference to art history/ theory, political discourse and/or socio-economical context.

Their essay focuses on the world wide impact of the Pandemic as a whole for different places in the world rather than isolating their work to Jersey.

Use of direct quotes, summary or commentary from others to make an informed and critical argument.

Use of referencing system (eg. Harvard) and a bibliography.

No Bibliography

Use of illustrations with captions listing name of artist, title of work and year of production.

Descriptively talks about artists which captured the impact of COVID-19 and shows their images.

Level 4- 10 or 11

Link to the whole photobook

Does the essay address its hypothesis?

“The male gaze: How are women represented in photography?”

It does as it explores what the male gaze actually is and how Cindy Sherman and Kourtney Roy present women in their work. These pieces of work are heavily edited and show women as being very innocent and obedient, in the sense that they do all the house work and care for the children.

Does it provide new knowledge and understanding?

Yes

Is the essay well structured with a sense of an introduction, paragraphs and a conclusion?

Use and flow of language, prose, punctuation, spelling.

She did this, but there are some spelling mistakes through out the essay.

Use of specialist vocabulary relating to art and photography.

Yes

Analysis of artist’s oeuvre (body of work) and key work(s)

She didn’t analyse any particular body of work, but she did look at two artists and gave us information about their work. To improve she should include at least one analysis.

Evidence of wider reading with reference to art history/ theory, political discourse and/or socio-economical context.

There ae references to wider reading in this essay. She uses quite a few quotes from other pieces of work that are listed in her bibliography.

Use of direct quotes, summary or commentary from others to make an informed and critical argument.

These were used and sourced at the end of the essay.

Use of referencing system (eg. Harvard) and a bibliography.

In this essay, Stephens attempted a bibliography and a referencing system at the end of essay. Through out her essay the quotes are identified with numbers which are then put into bibliography so that they’re easier to identify. I would’ve personally made the bibliography and quotes two separate things.

Use of illustrations with captions listing name of artist, title of work and year of production.

She used illustrations, however, they were not captioned with name of artist, title of work and year of production. Some had the name of the artist and the name of the collections the pictures are from, and other had the year of production and name of collection.

In this blog post I will be looking at all of my past projects from year 12 and year 13. I will be starting with the ‘Heritage’ project, as it’s the first one we did at the beginning of the year 12. I will then look at the ‘Identity’ and ‘Anthropocene’ projects, they were also part of our first year course. Lastly, I will look at the ‘My Rock’ project, which is the most recent project and the first project of year 13.

Heritage – pg2

Environmental Portraits – pg3

Identity – pg4

Anthropocene – pg5

My Rock – pg6

Best and Worst work – pg7

Analysis of “The Butler” by Sian Cumming

Link to the full book: https://www.blurb.com/books/6950946-the-butler

Does the essay address its hypothesis?

The hypothesis in this essay: “How does Phillip Ebeling and Peter Hugo express the notion of family history and relationships in their work?”

I think the essay does mostly address this hypothesis, but more the notion of relationships and general history than specifically family history. For example the student explores Peter Hugo’s images talking about socio-economic problems in South Africa, as well as a very poignant image of his pregnant wife, telling the story of his family. I think that this essay could have been improved more by linking the artists studied to her subject in the conclusion a little more.

Does it provide new knowledge and understanding?

To me this essay provides a lot of new knowledge and understanding. It explores history and context behind the artists used for inspiration very well, and provides the reader with new and intriguing historical elements. This links well to the historical work of the students book, where they have included archival material. This creates, I think, a well linked and well researched book.

Is the essay well structured with a sense of an introduction, paragraphs and a conclusion?

Yes – the essay features an introduction which talks through both photographers chosen: Phillip Ebeling and Peter Hugo, and how they each address the topic of home and family. The essay then goes on to talk about the first photographer, Peter Hugo, and his book “Kin”. The essay talks then about the context behind his work, and how it relates to her own work. The second paragraph focuses on the second photographer, Peter Ebeling, his work and social context behind his work. The links to social context and history in this essay I think are very good, and created and informative and interesting piece to read – they link well to the historical elements of the book the artist created, and the subject, her father and his job at Governement House.

Use and flow of language, prose, punctuation, spelling.

The essay flows generally well, with good links between the beginning and end of new paragraphs. There is a few spelling errors, one on the first page, which is a shame when you open the book. There are a few grammatical errors in the essay itself, which cause the essay to not flow as well at times. There are a couple of missed commas as well within the essay, which create quite long sentences. Overall the essay flows well, but it has a few errors which stop the flow a little.

Use of specialist vocabulary relating to art and photography.

The student has used some specialist vocabulary, however not much. I feel like their analysis could have been improved using more photographically technical vocabulary.

Analysis of artist’s oeuvre (body of work) and key work(s).

The student didn’t really analyse the artists’ work that much – she gives basic descriptions of them but doesn’t go into much detail except the social context of the images. However she did analyse her own work, archival images, in the end of the essay – this was slightly limited though, and lacked specialised vocabulary.

Evidence of wider reading with reference to art history/ theory, political discourse and/or socio-economical context.

There is evidence of wider research within the artists used for inspiration and the reasons behind their work. For example, Peter Hugo’s work in South Africa, and the social context behind his work – his experiences as a white south African, and how this influenced his life and work. The student explores this really well, including quotes from both artists. For example from Peter Hugo, on what he calls his work – “conflicting personal and collective narrative’. I think that, after looking at the photos in the book itself, the student used this in her own work as well.

Use of direct quotes, summary or commentary from others to make an informed and critical argument.

The student has used multiple quotes in this essay, which help to inform her arguments and provide context and evidence to the reader. Thry have used commentary and summary as well from both artists studied, which helps to show an informed argument.

Use of referencing system (eg. Harvard) and a bibliography.

In this essay, there is no referencing or bibliography. There is references to specific books but within the essay, and not in a separate part. To improve this essay, the student who did this essay and photo book could have included references and a bibliography.

Use of illustrations with captions listing name of artist, title of work and year of production.

There is a use of illustrations in this essay which have been referred to. However, they are not captioned, with the title of the work, artist or year of production. The year of production is referred to in the essay, but not captioned.

Overall marking for the essay

D – 6, B – 11, A – 14, A*-16.

Overall, I would give this essay 13/18, a B grade. – Level 5, confident and assured ability. “All descriptions for level 5 apply in addition to the level description below. Use of written communication and specialist terminology is confident and assured, and expresses ideas fluently.” The student was able to express their ideas fluently, using evidence from artists through images and quotations, as well as references to social context. However, the essay lacks specialised vocabulary, which is why I did not give the essay an A grade. The overall written communication in this essay was fluent and competent, but had a few grammar and spelling errors that stopped the flow of the essay at times – This is another reason why I didn’t feel this essay was A grade level. Overall I think the essay was good, and gave me new information and historical knowledge on her chosen topic, however I think it didn’t answer the hypothesis fully and could have had deeper analysis using technical vocabulary – the use of a referencing system and bibliography would have improved it too.