Assignment Four of the Open College of the Arts Art of Photography Module deals with light and its use and challenges in photography. The assignment and underpinning exercises required a structured and technical approach to the management of light both outdoors and in a studio situation. From the outset the assignment and exercises appealed to my technical background and the dredging up of long forgotten physics topics such as Raleigh Scattering. And therein lay an area for development – astutely observed by the feedback from my Tutor; ‘You have demonstrated a good technical approach and your work on this is strong’. I will come back to this below.
The overall feedback from the tutor was that the exploration of the exercises was robust and comprehensive and that there was real engagement with the technical practice. Interestingly the tutor observed that some of the images used in the exercises were more visually engaging than the exercises used in the assignment. I remember at the time of working on the assignment images being very engaged from a technical perspective and being very satisfied that I had been able to previsualise what I wanted to achieve and then execute my vision. However, I also remembered that this was technical rather than emotional satisfaction. I kept being reminded of an earlier observation by the tutor that I should be thinking about why rather than how I make images. The final set of observations in the feedback dealt directly with this question; use the techniques to develop messages and not as end in themselves; be conscious that the exercises lend themselves to just taking an image to demonstrate a technical approach but the assignment can be a body of work with a theme or identified outcome.
Having received the feedback I realized that my plans for the final assignment would have to be revised because it had become obvious that where I had some emotional rather than technical engagement with images they resonated more deeply than where images where engagement was solely technical. This posed a problem because while I had some vague idea about the types of images to which I had an emotional attachment and/or a need to make my knowledge was not sufficient to help me make choices about what I wanted to work on. As a result I spent some time going back over my images both for the course and not to see if patterns emerged. This proved a rewarding exercise because it became clear for both my underwater and overwater photography that certain broad types of image engaged me more than others. Whilst this exercise of working out my ‘voice’ is ongoing I am in a much better position now to move on. A related point is that using the Peter Honey classification of types of learning I am a ‘pragmatist’ meaning that my default is to learn only if it meets a particular purpose. The drawback to this approach is that less time is devoted to reflection and this may be a block to growth and development.
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