Next week sees my return to the University Of Wolverhampton to begin my second year of studying part time towards a BA Honours Degree in Photography. I’m not as scared as I was this time last year, but still a little nervous as I will be joining in with a new year of students and my colleagues from last year will be moving into their second year proper.
Part Timer
As a result of working full time and doing my degree part time it’s going to take 6 years. The normally three year course is split up to allow part time students to study one module per year rather than the two per year that Full Time students complete. One consolation of starting with another bunch of students is that I will stick with this group through this year and then also into my first module of Year two. Then I’ll split again and repeat the process until I finish..
Making An Exhibition Of Myself
For me this year will be the module called Experimentation and Dialogues which sees me having to complete a full year project including a journal, work, contact sheets, and a portfolio out of it, as well as a number of contextual works. These will consist of an exhibition review that I’ve been to this year. I could pick from a. number of exhibitions that I’ve been to, BAS9 at Wolverhampton, The Photo London at Somerset House, Helen Levitt at the Photographers Gallery, Ikon Gallery’s Arrivals programme, Vivian Maier in Milton Keynes, the Degree Show for the third years and also the Art Exhibition at Shrewsbury Sixth Form college.
We’ll also be having other lectures which will leave us producing some essays and getting into the Harvard Referencing system which I have yet to put into practice. Overall I’m really looking forward to getting back into it again and being able to produce some work in the big dark rooms.
Summer Shooting Stats
Over the summer I’ve continued to shoot on film as well as on digital. There has been a few trips to London, Birmingham, Chester, Manchester, Leeds, Llandudno, Glasgow, and a 1000 mile trip around the NC500 in Scotland and the Isle Of Skye. The NC500 trip will be worth a post on its own as it was an amazing trip through some breathtaking landscapes.
I’ve shot around 15 rolls of film over the summer with a mix of 120 in my Bronica ETRS and 135 in my Canon A1 and little cheapie cameras I bought in charity shops etc. In my Lightroom Library since June I’ve added 3000 pictures, some will be ultimately weeded out for being duplicates, or blurred etc. With digital I tend to photograph people with High speed frames per second and then narrow it down to the one with a preferred walking gait or facial expression.
I’ve had a few sets of prints back from AG Photographic with my Colour films and the quality on them is superb. I also needed at one point to get a print quickly so I ended up in Boots using their self service machine and the 7×5 with margin came out fine. I’ve framed four of these and plan to sell them or have a little exhibition once I’ve added a few more.
Project Ideas
I’ve been writing down some ideas for projects throughout the summer break and hope to discuss with whomever gets assigned me to look after and talk through the requirements of the project.
Some of the ideas briefly noted are:
- Parents health
- Things or people reaching
- People in the underground network in London
- Traffic cones, meanings, symbolism and use.
- Hi Vis Jackets on people.
- Text on signs that has faded or been damaged
- Prime Numbers
- Avogadro’s Number
- Fibonacci
- Golden Ratio
- Burning photos with a blow torch or natural materials fire
- Burning or melting negatives before printing from them
- Night time photos of houses, pubs, shops etc with the light pollution and weird shadows etc.
There will no doubt be more to follow and I don’t know what I can do for some of the topics I’ve noted down but I like to set a goal and then let my reticular activating system go wild and find things that fit in with a topic I’m considering..
Thanks for reading, if you got this far, feel free to leave me a comment and I’ll read every one of them.
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