With all of my films ready from the Japan trip I booked out the contact printers and a medium format kit for the colour enlarger using the SISO Smart Hub tool, then emailed Dan to see if the chemistry was all up and running in B&W and Colour darkrooms.
Dan emailed me this morning as I entered the School Of Art’s George Wallis Building to tell me that there was no chemistry in the Black and White or the Colour. His words were “Bone Dry”.
I jumped on the Epson Scanners to scan in the films I’d sent to AG Photolab after my return from Japan. Only after doing the 120 films did I realise I should have scanned in at a higher resolution so I altered the resolution for the future scans of the 35mm films.
Feedback on essay
Yesterday Emma on my course asked if I would swap my 2pm essay feedback tutorial with hers at 3pm to suit her schedule. I swapped it as I knew I’d be busy all day in the darkrooms or using scanners so it was no bother to me.
Sylvia said that the essay I handed on for Semester 1, “Artist Library” was good, and met almost all of the criteria that she was looking for. She noticed, as I had the day after submission, that I had not referenced any other photographers in the essay. If I want to change it to improve it any , the inclusion of another photographer would help. She was happy that I’d included some of my own work that was influenced by the graphic novel etc.
I mentioned that I thought some of it may have been irrelevant, the US Use Of Force graph for instance might have been a little off topic and down a rabbit hole but she was happy that I was contextualising the contents of the story.
We then talked about the contextual essay (2500 words) plan and that she hadn’t had a chance to examine them too carefully as she only recently found them in the Canvas system. She was happy that the plan looks ok and suggested that rather than just looking at the visual side of the work, research further into the photographer and the location, background etc.
She said that she had no concerns over my work so far, and was happy that the contextual essay plan has links to the artist library and my practice too. I feel that it all fits together quite neatly and naturally.
I mentioned that the trip to Japan left me with a lot of photos that I’m happy with but don’t feel as solid a connection as I do to the factory where I’ve worked for the last 35 years.
Sylvia also asked about the cyanotype image with the comic book text in the corners that I’d reference in the artist library essay, and asked the background behind it and the other images that I’d also treated the same, by adding text. I explained about the work to get these images with the text and how it had come about.
She said that I appeared to have a wide ranging practice and was pleased that I had lots of angles I was working along, which is a reminder of how randomly my work will wander sometimes. There always seems to be another subject to take a photo of, and I can’t seem to narrow down to one particular topic, as I worry I’ll miss something else along the way.
There is no mark at the moment as it’s a formative assessment but she said she’s happy for me to continue with the levels of work that I currently am.
Conclusion
I’m happy with the feedback that Sylvia has given me in regards to my Artist Library 1000 word essay , my plan for the 2500 word Contextual Essay and my practice. She is beginning to see that I do experiment with other forms of photography and art and is happy for me to continue on the same path.
I originally thought that the essay I handed in was a bit poor as my day job workload had prevented me from focussing on it totally, but I must have pared it down well enough to meet most of the criteria. I will alter it slightly to add another photographer and pick up some extra points in the Summative Marking at the end of the academic year.
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