The reflection post considers the following topics:
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Activity Networking
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Activity Meet Someone New
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Draft Oral Presentation
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Chelmsford Museum Open Day
The activities this week have made me think further about my practice and the regular activities I need to undertake to ensure that the practice can become sustainable. When putting together the outline for my Oral presentation one of the things that I have listed as an objective is to be a respected local photographer which is going to be difficult in nobody knows that you are a photographer. This means I need to invest time in making sure that people know me as a local photographer within Chelmsford and more broadly Essex. I can achieve that by attending relevant events and making sure my attendance at those events is publicised. I intend to do that through a variety of channels for general awareness via social media and secondly by direct mailing and word of mouth communication. Entering competitions is an activity that I can use to generate publicity and providing details of behind the scenes images is another way to show that I am an active photographer. My own assessment is that the basics are in place I now need to focus on using events and channels to generate awareness of me as a creative.
The activity to ‘meet someone new’ was an interesting challenge I am not some who is comfortable walking up to a stranger in the street and striking up a conversation however once I engage with someone I feel I am good at getting them to relax and tell me details about themselves that would allow me to create a photographic story about them that would allow another person to gain and understanding of the people without actually meeting them. Though regularly creating short visual stories of individuals could be a useful way of developing micro projects and allow me to tune skills that could be useful if I ever undertake documentary, lifestyle or photo-journalistic assignments.
In the Strategy and Surfaces module I left creating my Oral Presentation draft until very late in the module and as I result the final submitted presentation was the weakest assessed piece of work in the module. Creating and outline for the presentation is week 5 is a significant advance on the previous module and will allow me to create a draft recording 5 weeks earlier than the last module.
Sustainable-Prospects-Oral-Presentation
In the outline for the Oral presentation I have focused on the learning activities we have completed in the first 5 weeks of the module identifying weaknesses in current practice and what needs to change to ensure practice objectives are achieved to reach a position where the practice is sustainable. At the current time the two priority areas are improved use of networks and the creation of an initial client base for my work. Though as those areas improve I will need to determine if that will then require me to make changes in other areas of my practice. I will therefore ensure that I review my business plans on a regular basis to reappraise areas for improvement while recognising those areas that have improved. Self belief is an important factor for anyone running their own business and just focusing on negative could be demoralising so I need to celebrate successes as well and maintain a balanced outlook.
Attending the open day for the Chelmsford Museum is a case in point around developing networks. The Mayor of Chelmsford attended the event so I used it as opportunity to generate some social media publicity for the event via my Instagram feed.
In addition the event allowed me to speak to the curator of Chelmsford Museum and firm up plans to record events when they start the redevelopment activities at Oaklands Park in the centre of Chelmsford. Nick the Head Curator informed me that a number of the exhibits will remain in storage post the redevelopment work so creating a photographic record would allow visitors to view objects while they remain in storage. The redevelopment of the site is an important event for the museum as main of the rooms have remained unchanged for a long period of time. In addition to this project I was also provided with a contact for the redevelopment of the Filter House which is likely to become the new home for the Chelmsford Sea Cadets, this would allow me to follow through on the advice given to me by Mark Power an the Magnum Photography event that I attended in the summer. It is these types of contacts that I will need to develop to help achieve my objective of becoming a respected photographer in Chelmsford and Essex. I feel I have a course plotted it is now all about the execution.
