During the first Seminar, the following task was sprung upon the class – an Informal Presentation. My fellow students and I were asked to give a 5-to-10 minute informal presentation of our initial research idea and direction for our projects verbally.
This was to include a brief summary of our project idea, a very basic contextualisation of this idea – specifically in relation to important and fundamental references for our project (photographic and otherwise), and a suggestion of how we plan to proceed through the creative process and final production of the work.
Following each presentation, there was to be a brief discussion to contribute constructive feedback and suggestions to one another.
I have to admit that this was a bit of a curveball for me. As someone who does like to plan and hates change, it was a bit like an electric shock to the system. I realised I had spent so much time in the first Semester consumed and distracted by photographic theory and the practicality of essay writing, I had given little brain space to anything creative. Also, having been used to the tight brief of my studies over the previous four years, this ‘freedom’ of no limits was quite daunting.
Despite my initial brain freeze, I did have a few things in mind, which I explained to the class:
Concept 1:
A time-lapse piece inspired by music by the composer Colin Riley. I had worked on a project involving this talented individual in November 2019 and one of the featured pieces literally struck a chord with me. This would be a combination of my particular time-lapse technique with my own style of portraits. The subject would be involving a dancer moving to the music and expressing both this and the accompanying words.
Concept 2:
The use of camera-less techniques, specifically Cliché Verre. This method involves either etching, painting or drawing on a transparent surface, such as glass, thin paper or film and printing the resulting image on a light-sensitive paper in a photographic darkroom. It is a process first practiced by a number of French painters during the early 19th century. I saw an example of this at the Dora Maar exhibition at Tate Modern, which I will explain further in another blog entry. I also mentioned the use of photograms, which was also sparked by this exhibition.
With a set date of the 17th March as the deadline to present the first stages of work, the next step was to brainstorm and mind map these and other potential concepts and start producing some work. There was also a selection of photographic workshops to attend. Time for the creative process to begin.
Jennie Meadows MA Photography 