Evaluations – Laura Jane Parkinson
(Level 5 2013-2014)
International Markets and Contexts
For this module, I had to work in a team to create a photographic
festival that could take place anywhere in the world. We decided to collaborate
our interests of portraiture and create the festival “Realms of the Unknown”,
which took our love of photographing people surreal things together.
I used Maurice Heesen as my research, as I wanted to photograph
something I had never photographed before. Heesen took blood and gore to create
a series of images that looked on the lighter side of death; how we should die
smiling. His images inspired me to take the theme of blood and death, and
create some editorial inspired images that had a twist. Looking back over my
research, I did a lot of extensive research into other photographers who had
looked at blood and gore, although I wish I had looked at more fashion
magazines such as Vogue to find examples within print.
I then took to the studio to create some high fashion portraits with
fake cuts filled with blood. I think my images look really professional, and
the editing that I did made them not look as fake. I have learn a lot
technically from this shoot, as I had never shot on a white background before,
so had to change the lighting to stop shadows forming behind the model and
making the background pure white. Some of the background on my images did turn
grey because of lack of light from the left hand side, however, I have learnt
from my mistakes and next time will know I need three lights rather than two.
Our presentation went well and a lot of effort was put into the logo and
layout of it. We spoke about how we planned to lay out our exhibition within
Grizedale forest, as well as how we were influenced for our work and our own
work, which we had produced. It was also inspiring to see other people’s plans
and how they had conducted the module. It made us realise, to some extent, that
we had not done enough in terms of contacting people about pricing and seeing
the location. If I were to do this module again, I would plan a field trip with
my group to Grizedale forest, where we could have made a precise plan of where
our images would hang from and how we could incorporate our work with the
sculptures that are already there. Overall, I think we were really creative
with planning our exhibition in comparison to other groups. We planned to have
actors and dancers to make the overall feel of the festival more exciting, and
also thought about the smaller details when creating the invoice estimate, such
as candles and wire to hang the images.
Areas of Photographic Practice A
Areas of Photographic
Practice focussed on the topic of the circular narrative and what it represents
within a photographic environment. I decided to focus on a narrative of
someone who is suffering with OCD and how they cope everyday. Here, in this
report, I will be focussing on my progress and how I got to create my final
piece.
I began with researching
photographers who used the circular narrative within their work, such as
Gregory Crewdson and Duane Michals. I looked at how they constructed their work
from start to finish, and what it represented in the form of a circular
narrative. This helped, although looking back upon my research, I should have
done more research into photographers who focussed on mental illness earlier
within my research rather than later. This may have given my a formed idea
earlier on and given me more time to take practice photographs and formulate a
final idea.
I think that my final idea
went well, I planned in advance so I didn’t get to the location and have
nothing to do. As the location was not in my own house, I had to work around
the owner, which meant that availability was reduced. The biggest hurdle that I
came to was that the owner of the house suffered from OCD too, which affected
when I could go over, how much of her furniture I moved and when I could
photograph. This worked well with my project, as the photographs were taken in
someone’s home that actually suffers with the condition, making the series more
personal and meaningful, but it made my project difficult, as I had to work
with someone who was tidy and didn’t let me take full control of the location.
I guess this is good practice for the professional industry and working with
difficult clients!
I thought that the feedback
sessions were very helpful, and I am glad I took the advice of my fellow peers
when producing my idea as I could reform it if I thought that their ideas were
helpful and would work. I especially learned from cropping, and the cropping
assignment we undertook in Professional Frameworks a few weeks ago made me see
that simply by cropping an image you can change the whole perspective of
something.
Areas of Photographic Practice B
This brief shocked me in terms of content and work flow, I have never
looked into photojournalism before so having to attend exhibitions based on war
and journalism was different and took some getting used to. I am predominately
based as a fashion photographer, so to me, journalism is on the opposite end of
the spectrum.
Thinking of ideas was no issue to me at all. I firstly contacted the
Salford Choir who have travelled all over the country, but received no reply.
It was only until the 5th of January the chairman got back to me to
say she was okay to let me cover the story. I will probably undertake this as a
personal side project, but obviously it was too late for this module. I then
moved on to looking at Islington Mill when a friend mentioned she had recently
attended a concert there. I contacted the press and marketing manager and had a
meeting, and the gig was mine!
I met up with 3 artists during my time at Islington Mill; Andrew Brooks
of Andrew Brooks Photography, Paul Hallows of himHallows and the guys from
One69A Screen-printing. Meeting new people was something that I was not used to
and having to call and email to arrange times to attend was all new to me. I
managed to get all the photographs I thought I needed for the assignment in
time for the deadline for Quays News.
I do not think I quite got the hang of photojournalism from the off, as
an arts and fashion based photographer at heart, I went out with the intention
of taking interesting and lovely looking photographs that I thought people
would like. I never really thought about the content and if the viewer would be
able to understand. After a meeting with Les, the module leader, he told me
that my photographs would be more suitable for a gallery wall rather than a
newspaper. I then researched into photojournalism for papers rather than solely
looking at the work of artists like Sean Smith and Steve McCurry. I wish I had
conducted this research earlier, as I would have taken the right photographs
from the offset. However, everyone learns from their mistakes, I certainly have
from mine.
Overall, I found this a challenging but rewarding module. I feel like I
have grown as both a photographer as well as a person, as I now know that I can
speak to people I have never met before and direct them as to what photographs
that I want. I have learnt that less is more when it comes to photojournalism,
images need to be as simple as possible without confusing the viewer into
believing something else.
Professional Practice for
Photographic Communication
For this module, we had to
work to one set brief, and one project of our own choosing. We were assigned to
look at the topic of re-photography within a given area in Salford, as well as
being given the opportunity to either conduct an interview with a professional,
secure a work placement for the length of the module or work with Barclays in
producing their staff portraits. Here, in this report, I will be concentrating
on my development and what I have learnt from this module.
I used Nicky Bird as my main
focus of research for this brief, looking at her work on re-photography and how
it directly influenced my practice and ideas. I wanted to capture the common
misconception that the landscape around us is constantly changing. I replaced
the modern day view, with an archived image, and lined the two up perfectly to
show how they have remained similar over the course of 60 years. I learnt a lot
technically from this module, as I had to concentrate on the angle and
direction that I was capturing the shot from to make sure it lined up correctly
in postproduction. On the other hand, I did not spend enough time on each
photograph, and took a lot of photographs but from the same angle. This did not
help as when I arrived back at University to begin editing, I realised that all
the images I took of one of the locations were from the complete wrong angle.
This meant a lot of time was spent in Photoshop trying to correct this error,
which could have easily been avoided on location. I can safely say that my
Photoshop skills have improved significantly throughout this module, as it has
been a long time since I have used Photoshop for anything other than correcting
the skin of models from personal projects.
I originally planned to work
towards to Barclays brief, capturing portraits of their apprentices in fun and
exciting ways. The meeting went well, and I befriended a group of girls who
liked my idea and thought I was a fun person. Having to speak to people in a
formal situation (as we were made to “speed date”), was a big thing for me, as although
I look like the sort of person who would have no problem talking in a public
place, my anxiety usually takes over and I struggle to communicate my ideas.
This project fell through in the end, as a few members of the group were not
contactable and the others left the apprentice scheme for personal reasons.
Instead, I decided to conduct an interview with a freelance photographer, for
means of learning more about the freelance industry and if it is the correct
career choice for me. I sent my interview questions to Erin Trieb, who is a
photojournalism photographer who documented the war in the past few years. She
also runs a scheme called the Homecoming Project, helping people who have just
come from the war and are struggling with depression, or people who are left
behind whilst their significant others are deployed. We spoke over Facebook
briefly and organised an informal chat over Skype for a few days later. The
time difference of her being based in the USA and me being based in the UK, as
well as her work commitments and my University and work commitments meant that
we could never agree on a time we were both awake and free to chat, and
eventually she stopped responding to my emails. Instead, I emailed a good
friend and professional with the music video industry, Samuel Andrew Fenton of
Fentonography.co.uk. His work has always interested me, and linked more closely
with my overall career aspirations of wanting to be a advertisement and fashion
photographer, as well as my hobby of filmmaking and scripting. I am glad I
ended up having to conduct an interview as part of this project, as it really
pushed me to not give in when someone says no. Erin Trieb obviously became too
busy to help with this project, which was not a problem at all. However, I did
not give up at the first hurdle, and continued until I completed the task.
My final images turned out
better than I expected; because of the nature of this project and my lack of
knowledge on the subject, I thought my images would turn out to be
unprofessional looking and look out of place in the gallery situation. The
re-photography images are my favourite images that I have produce this academic
year, and I am proud of my progress.
Professional Frameworks 2
Professional Frameworks 2 has been my favourite module of
the course, as it concentrated on our future goals and aspirations, as well as
how we were going to achieve those and arming us with advice and knowledge to propel
us in the industry. I have found this module especially helpful in securing
what I want to do after my degree, as well as give me the confidence to search
and secure a summer placement in America.
My favourite part about this module has had to be constructing
a Personal Development Plan about goals we want to achieve in the future. This
encouraged me to complete them so I could make new, more challenging goals.
Through this assignment, I managed to develop my darkroom skills by attending
workshops with John, secure a solo exhibition in my hometown in October, as
well as build my own professional website and network with more models and make
up artists in the industry to work together and build my portfolio. Through
this module, I have also managed to build my own personal brand on Facebook and
my website. Through doing this, I managed to gain a couple of hundred likes on
my Facebook page, as well as get some paid work doing family photo shoots and
weddings.
I have also enjoyed the aspect of visiting exhibitions and
reviewing them as part of the module. It has given me a new hobby as well as
the knowledge I have taken from each exhibition!
