For me the video presentation represented a chance to share an early preview of my critical review of practice that will be submitted at the end of April. When preparing the video I had to make specific choices about what to include and what not include in the presentation. Broadly I felt the video was successful in communicating the intend of my practice. In the Critical review of practice expand on a number of different elements:
Critical Contextualisation of Practice
- Philosophical: In the video i did not mention Jeff Walls discussion about photographer as Farmer or Hunter though I do not feel my own practice fits into either grouping. Instead I describe my self as experimental explorer, in my photographic approach consists of layer in both bodies under discussion in module 2, I am a hunter when recording the source material but them cultivate those images into the final end results. Yet for other bodies of work I am a hunter of inspiration and the image is totally cultivated.
- Historically: Digital Image making is the tools that make my creative processes possible and I need to reference those key historical events within the CRP something that I did not include in the video presentation. I also plan to compare my images to the work of similar photographers such as Idras Khan and Ian Brown.
- Ethically: The landscape images are obviously constructed artefacts presenting limited ethical considerations. However childhood memories where I am using images from my child do present additional ethical considerations in terms of exploiting images of my family in a way that the different from their original intent. In this case the ethical considerations are contained. However if I were using found images from other family albums I believe there would be more significant ethical factors to consider. This worthy of a short discourse in the CRP.
- Economic: My primary audience for my images is the towards the art market. This presents me with interesting considerations with respect to the investment I make to create the work compared the potential value within the art market. As an example do you publish the images as editions to create a rarity value which might not make the work accessible to others.
Professional Location of Practice
My primary audience for consumption of my work is via the art market however to achieve the objective I will need to develop a strategy the uses a number of other contexts to achieve that goal:
- The targeted use of social media to help develop my potential audience though sharing information about the different projects that will generate the bodies of work. Including making some images available exclusively via social media
- The photobook to act as a calling card that has greater availability than exhibitions that impose geographical and time restrictions.
- Exhibitions as I believe for work to value it has to be tangible / physical
My secondary audiences could provide useful input to the development of my practice and making it sustainable and these include:
- Museums especially in the case of Tilbury to Harwich which will record our coastline at an important time in the history of the United Kingdom was the country negotiates is exit from the European Union.
- Charitable organisations as root to establish my brand by working for organisations that share similar values to myself.
Critical Analysis
During the first module I struggled to contextualise my practice. Generally I was comfortable with my technical proficiency which I would assess as being towards the upper end of the cohort in that I am able to use multiple photographic techniques to express my vision and create an engaging narrative. However I was less comfortable with my ability to define the purpose of my practice and contextualise my work alongside my peers within the cohort, then more broadly within commercial practice. The multiple exposure work for city canyons can be compared with Idras Khan, Ian Brown and Sir Francis Gilton’s Eugenics experiments. While my childhood memories body of work has parallels with photographers like Andre de Freitas and Christoffer Relander.
Written and Oral Skills
Based on my work during this module I feel for me it is case of refining skills and improving the production value of the written and visual presentations. Over the last 11 weeks i believe I have become more confident with my ability to contextualise my work based on the work of others and appropriate quotes from experts within the field.
