Live Forum Google Hangout – 9 September, 2018

Agenda

1. Alan Fletch – The importance of layout/ presentation and the impact of transitions of layout/ presentation for example digital linear presentation changed to a physical gallery setting or visa versa, other examples could be photo book to gallery etc etc.
2. Lynda – WiP – https://lyndakuitphotographylandscape.wordpress.com/2018/09/05/live-forum-feedback-request-for-assignment-6-presentation/5
3. Nuala – Project concerns what remains of the Baltimore Fishery Industrial School:
   https://landscape235.wordpress.com/category/book/3
4. Stefan – please see post near end of thread for specifics, link to woo is https://ocasp.stefanvisualart.com/?p=30604
5. Nuala – Writing an artist statement – https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-4-tips-writing-good-artist-statement?utm_medium=email&utm_source=14348586-newsletter-editorial-daily-09-03-18&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_content=st-V5

Attending were Alan F, Julia, Kate, Stefan, Nuala, Alan B and myself.

1. Alan F had some questions around how to present for a gallery. Not just about the physical prints but going from wall to book – do you reinvent the work in a different way each time? Julia mentioned this years Deutsche Borse participants – one photographer’s work was presented via book and gallery wall and both approaches were totally different. Need to approach it as what is appropriate to the medium. One doesn’t always have complete control over the environment as the venue may dictate the format of the work. Clive confirmed that the work is made according to the environment. One doesn’t always know the space upfront and you may need to rework it. Some students create scale models of the gallery room and scale models of the art work as a 3D model and mock it up. Helpful for assessment for SYP. Further discussion on entering these competitions ensued. Julia stated that it was good experience to enter if not just for the learning curve. Clive advised that it was good just to start – don’t wait until you are ready because you never will be ready. Use Instagram and Twitter to get your name out there so it becomes familiar. He cautioned to be selective with the competitions as some of them are nothing more than a cash grab.
2. My WIP for Assignment 6. Pacing of the slideshow worked well for Kate, Julia would have preferred longer pauses between the slides, Alan F advised to speed it up. A little all over the map really :-). Consensus was that music was not needed. If anything needed to be added, maybe some nature sounds. Work could run as a loop as seasons are in a cycle. Clive suggested to try and line up certain points in each photo – I could try but that might be a little harder to do as I may have had a slightly different focal length for some of the images. He also advised to keep the presentation as a slideshow. Kate suggested I look at Michael Marten’s diptychs of tidal images –
   http://michaelmarten.com/gallery.php?catNo=2&gallNo=2&photoNo=146 (it was the same photographer that I was thinking of Kate – thanks for the reminder) as well as Rob and Nick Carter’s work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSa_pgdirdM . The Carters’ work is very creative – animation of Renaissance still lifes – plenty of CGI which is way above my pay grade :-).
3. Nuala’s Assignment 5 is to be presented as a book. She wanted clarity on putting in maps or archival images in the book that were from third party sources. And as she had to represent the story symbolically, wanted to know if it was working. All agreed that the narrative was strong and sensitively put across. Images and text work well together. Clive confirmed that it was “enough landscape” for him, but suggested putting the documentary material at the back as an appendix so that Nuala’s voice stands out more.
4. Interesting discussion around Stefan’s video of unboxing and collaging. The ideas of unboxing brought up all the videos on YouTube, Bento boxes, hazardous waste for Kate. Title is fantastic “Objects and Fetishism”. Reminded her of artist Miro’s work – bright colours and abstract, also industrial, inside out landscape and Russian dolls. Discussion fetishes – everything nowadays is a fetish – functional – how does packing become a fetish? Inside/outside aspect. Cognitive bias – attach meaning to something – always been there but never seen. ASMR videos – niche fetish – controlled movements, unboxing, folding actions. Julia’s suggestions: ASMR unboxing: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=unboxing+asmr
   and Chef who serves food directly from the table: Chef’s Table Season 2 Episode 1 Grant Achatz – short clip here: https://chicago.eater.com/2016/5/5/11599500/grant-achatz-chefs-table-netflix-video-clip . Video seems to have secrets. It is mysterious and opaque.
5. It was decided to leave the artist’s statement topic till another session. Nuala would start a thread on the forum about it.

Live Forum Google Hangout – 26 August, 2018

Just some very quick notes to serve as reminders. I did not submit anything for feedback on this forum.

In attendance were Alan, Chloe, Kate, Peter, Julia, Clive and myself.

1. Peter: C&N Assignment 3 self portraiture assignment. Video created out of PowerPoint. Silhouettes. Background – tomb-like – Egyptology theme. Choices – influences. Associations with colour – blue represents infinity. Some had reservations about the music – felt as if it was choreographed which seems to make the music the main focus. Suggested to turn it into Egyptian-like drawings and present as a lenticular work. Suggested that the title “judgement” be parred away to leave it more open. There is nothing rational about the objects used. Clive advised to learn Premier Pro, others suggested Vimeo and Windows Movie Maker.
2. Kate: WIP – personal project of other people’s underwear. Photograms of panties and bras. Ubiquitous at real life size. Had a forensic feel – typology. More veracity as a document – unique images. No negative to make other copies from. Clive confirmed that it is OK to put photograms in for assessment.
3. Julia: photos on material – Clive suggested to fold it up and put in a portfolio – looks like a Turin shroud – very effective.

It was quite inspiring to see these works in progress and the different methods of presentation. I shall have to see how I can vary my presentation methods.

Live Forum – 12 August, 2018

Attending: Adelina, Alan (Canada), Clive, Dorothy, Hugh (Printmaking), Jennifer (Illustration), Nuala, Peter (Painting) and myself.

This was probably the most lively hangout I’ve attended. Nuala has a few questions around her idea for Assignment 5 Landscape. She wasn’t sure whether a documentary style photograph would fit the landscape genre. She was contemplating doing an assignment on the abuse that happened in the laundries run by the Catholic Church and also in the boat building yards.

Industrial scopes & laundries. Local school present as documentary. Don’t want to present as film, rather as book. How does it work, how should it be produced? Material is historic – photos are not own. What does OCA think about material from library? What is best way to produce this – very little photographic work on it.

Suggestions: Projections as in Shimon Attie’s work and use of word art; ideas from interviewee, concentrate on the present.  Look at Mark Neville – and his ‘Port Glasgow’ (2004) and ‘Deeds not Words’ (2011). The Library & Archives Canada have a great resource about their residential schools. Might be worth a look: https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/aboriginal-heritage/Pages/residential-schools-photo-sets.aspx.

Clive: just start & see where it goes. Evidential, forensic, don’t romanticize. Boat building – metaphor; historical.

Jennifer: Could be like a portraiture. Survivor – not being acknowledged as human being.

Jennifer’s topic for discussion – Banu Cennetoglu. List of refugees who have died, taken something found and presented in different situations as art. Definitions of “what is art?” has changed. Historical records – present out of archives and put somewhere else. Testimony/witness – memory – bear witness to this – used to belong in a religious category. Not going to change the past. Intent to create environment that it comes unthinkable in the future. Archive impossible to go through – most part of history. Vietnam Wall – names presented as a book.

Suggestions for Hugh’s work: Martha Rosler House Beautiful – Bringing the War Home and the uncanny valley – term coined by Masahiro Mori in 1970 and with some relation to the Japanese Bunraku puppet theater. See Stefan’s blog post https://ocauvc.stefanschaffeld.com/?p=1270.

Live Forum Google Hangout – 15 July, 2018

Another good hangout chaired by Canadian Alan! Attended by tutor Clive White (thanks for offering up your time Clive), Alan, Hugh, Jean, Nuala, Kate, Karen, Peter, Julia and myself.

 

Agenda

• Printers
• Kate WIP
• Lynda WIP
• Karen – Feedback on Textiles assignment

Printing

Not every paper manufacturer makes custom ICC profiles. Buy test packs to figure how which paper to use. Don’t use high gloss for assessment as it reflects too much. Use as heavy weight as possible.

Kate gave feedback on using Fotospeed and how she obtained a custom profile. Printed required image on paper, then sent it to the manufacturer and they email a custom profile back based on your printer’s output.

You need custom profiles for 3rd party papers. There are different results with different papers. Do digital test strips or test prints on 6 x 4 so you don’t waste the larger sized papers. Printing encourages you to refine your prints – sharpen & lighten areas you want to bring attention to. Also creates a physical object.

Kate’s WIP

She had queries about background used in the photos. Consensus was the pink shades work. It was suggested she look at the Pantone colour of the year – Millennial Pink which would underpin the work without making it too pretentious. Clive suggested that the work looked like greeting cards and that appropriate text could deliver the sting in the tail. The work should be uncomfortable and challenging and encouraged her not to make it easy to understand. The text will support the images. Further suggestions were that she could use glitter, emboss the corners or apply burnishing foils.

My WIP

The group (bar Alan who is also from Canada) had difficulty in understanding the concept that the majority of the country is still real wilderness i.e. thick forests with old growth trees. Canada is almost as wide as Africa is long and is bigger than the USA. The province that I live in is 4 times the size of the United Kingdom.  The group advised me to be more dramatic and perhaps to change my composition a bit and possibly get closer. Alan suggested that I try and aim for finding some boundaries between forest and farm land in the middle of the frame. My images of the various objects e.g. pallets and hay bales are a little stronger in passing along the narrative. Clive reminded me that “place” is in the head. So its back to the drawing board to see what refinements I can make.

Karen – Textiles

She is presenting a theme book and wants to know if her ideas are clear. Architectural details of the buildings she had photographed were discussed and various methods of transferring photos onto different textures/media.

The live forum is at around 3:00 am my time so I will attend the next 6:00 pm one in a month’s time.

Live Forum Google Hangout – 17 June, 2018

Another interesting session on the live forum today. There were twelve in attendance: Morris, Julia, Alan, Andrew, Fitz, Carolina (Karen), Jayne, Karen, Kate, Nuala, Alan from Canada, myself and of course tutor Clive White. Andrew Fitzgibbon should have chaired this session, but he had problems connecting and other people were automatically muted when they logged on. Alan took over the chairing function in Fitz’s absence. There may be some restrictions as to how many can attend a session. Andrew F is going to check into this.

Clive gave a quick run down to the new comers as to how the live forum works reminding them that basically anything that can be brought to the online forum can be brought to the live forum – work in progress, queries, complainants etc.

Nuala had some queries about video equipment as her tutor had suggested that she purchase a few accessories in order to help her improve the quality of her video if she wanted to go forward with this sort of presentation. Morris gave some feedback on how he tackled this problem when he first did a video and that was to track down a video student who advised him just to get a separate audio recorder, but to get to grips with the video settings on his camera. Clive stressed that the most important criteria was to keep the camera steady and to use an external mike so that the audio track could be sync’d – it would also be a better quality. He also advised Nuala to think of the rhythm of her presentation and to aim for smoother transitions in order to allow the viewer to take in what they were looking at.

Morris wanted to know how does one know when to stop shooting for an assignment. Various comments were made around this, but basically the work is always in progress and should probably be presented as such. Clive also stressed the need to stand back from the work, allow time to pass and then go back and reflect again. Time elapsed can often give a different perspective.

Carolina (Karen) is on the fine arts stream and is doing work around save the rhino projects. She was interested in rendering some of her work with the rhinos as daguerrotype images and was looking for input on this. Flickr was suggested to her as a possible source to spark ideas. I mentioned that she also look at Greg du Toit’s wildlife photography. Kate mentioned Michael Marten’s work on tides.

Alan had presented some WIP for C&N – a combination of abstracts and other images containing blue dots. Clive stated that the images were working well but that Alan should cut down on the text as this was too explanatory and not allowing the viewer to have his/her own interpretation.

I find these connections with other students invaluable. It is so nice after three years of seeing an icon of someone on Facebook or on the fora to actually talk face to face (virtually) with those people. It definitely helps to cut the distance somewhat and bridges the isolation of distance studying.

Live Forum Google Hangout – 20 May, 2018

We had a lively discussion session today. Attending were
Kate Aston, Context & Narrative Level 1 Photography, UK; Peter, Context & Narrative, Level 1 Photography, Switzerland; Nuala, Landscape, Level 2 Photography, Ireland; Alan Fletcher, Context & Narrative Level 1 Photography, UK; Michael M, Level 2 Documentary UK; Karen on Textiles; myself in Canada and of course, tutor Clive White.

While we were waiting for the stragglers to sign in Kate gave the groups some feedback on the bookmaking course she had attended at TVG. Karen also reported on the SW group’s bookmaking course offered by the same instructor. Kate’s big takeaway was that a book can be seen as a device for receiving as well as transmitting ideas.

We had a look at Peter’s unseen images for Context & Narrative’s Assignment 2. He had created interesting double exposures of images taken forty years ago in Nepal which he showed in colour and his recent trip there which were superimposed in black and white. This use of colour for the forty year old images was quite intriguing and added a layer of ambiguity and possibly some confusion too. Peter briefly explained he was trying to reference the three stages of man (according to Siddartha) and wanted to know at what stage did anchor text become relay text. There was some discussion about what his “unseen” was exactly. Was it time or was it change? Clive gave him some pointers on bringing forward the conceptual idea.

My question regarding essay writing/getting inspiration for the essay/framing the initial argument was dealt with next. Clive suggested that I start with a question – reverse engineer it. Use bullet points in the introductory paragraph to indicate where the essay/train of thought is going. Then use the bullet points as subsequent section headings. (Apparently there is not time during assessment to read the entire essay so highlighting the sections is crucial). Don’t quote from too many sources, make sure to include personal opinions, keep it concise and above all remember it is about form. The assessors want to see that you can write a proper essay. Michael suggested keeping a list of quotes that you come across in course work or research as possible springboards for inspirational topics, which I think is a great idea. I’m definitely going to try this and hopefully will come up with a good topic which I can flesh out into an interesting essay.

Nuala’s question was about linimal spaces and what we understood about linimal. We had an interesting discussion around this and offered some suggestions to her regarding her assignment. Some of the work by others suggested to Nuala was: James Russell Cant – Take a look at Divided by the Ocean http://www.jamesrussellcant.com/, Rineke Dijkstra’s beach portraits and student Emma’s WIP for Expressing your Vision: https://emmieeyv.wordpress.com/2018/05/03/a5-for-peer-review/ and Elina Brotherus’ post divorce self portraits.

Michael wanted to get feedback to the question “Can photography elicit social change?” as he was considering this topic for his critical essay. After quite a bit of discussion it was suggested that he might want to choose one or two images to discuss as the topic was extremely broad.

The next live forum will be on 3rd June at 11:00 am GMT which is 3:00 am my time so I’ll be skipping that one, but will join in for 17th June at 6:00 pm GMT which is a more civilized time for me (10:00 am).