Introduction
Once again the Tutorial/Feedback received is purely in written form. My Tutor will have taken a great deal of time to produce such a detailed response. Thank you. My reflections on his comments are set out below. They are in the order appearing on the feedback.
Feedback on Assignment
Tutor: ‘The fundamental thing about your photography at the moment is that you have taken the opportunity of making work and thinking about the core themes of the course by turning the medium inwards onto you and your life. This comes with a heightened responsibility, which can only be positive’.
The first comment I would make is that under the Covid-19 shielding guidelines, namely strict isolation for ten weeks with such limited human subjects, it seems impossible to not turn the medium onto myself regardless of how comfortable I might feel about that. Which, by the way, I don’t.
But my main problem is that I don’t understand what the ‘heightened responsibility’ is and therefore why that ‘can only be positive’. Does it mean that by opening my life to the ‘world’ that I have to be careful to protect myself and others and that it is the need for greater thought which is positive? Or that inward reflection is inherently a positive thing, but that care must be taken (heightened responsibility)? Or does it mean that I need to exercise better judgement and sensitivity when showing images that could be viewed as displaying privilege (see below)? I will discuss this with my Tutor in due course.
Tutor: In summarising his Assignment Feedback my Tutor says ‘In this way they can be firmly placed within the artistic agenda of constructive tableau that invoke a psychological atmosphere’.
This comment pleases me because I set out to produce a disturbing psychological series highlighting some of the frustrations many of us must have felt during this strange time. I intended to touch upon the work of Hopper, Crewdson, and Di Corsia – and perhaps I managed to achieve that.
Feedback on Coursework
Tutor: ‘I’m glad that you mentioned the other social factors such as privilege and inequality as this was going through my mind when looking at the final assessment work’.
My Tutor’s comments regarding the perception of privilege and social advantage portrayed by these images have really bothered me. Particularly when considered against the backdrop of the racial inequality highlighted again by the disgusting event in Minneapolis.
I am a deeply private person who would not dream to flaunt my position. Or at least I hope so? But needing to produce work in the current restricted circumstances, I chose to utilise the facilities available to me. With hindsight perhaps I should have chosen less overt images. Going forward I will bear that in mind.
Feedback on Research
Tutor: He discusses the impact of the displayed scale used by artists such as Jeff Wall, Andreas Gursky, and Thomas Struth.
Quite obviously OCA assessment is, for now at least, a fully digital process. I’ve always enjoyed printing the work and took pride in being able to submit it for assessment in A3. Inevitably fully digital submissions lose some impact which is understandable but disappointing.
Feedback on Learning Log
Tutor: My Tutor suggests that once an image is decided, I should try out subtle changes the colour balance, for example, to ‘fine-tune the delivery’.
II realise my tutor was only picking colour balance as one possible mechanism to fine-tune delivery, but this is an area that I don’t really consider properly. I will look at some online training to gain a better understanding. I will produce a blog about this.
