Tuesday 30th September 2025 MK202
Contextual
Effective Reading Session With Gavin.
Gavin gave Brian and I the essay on the Most Photographed Barn in America that I have reviewed and discussed in this post.
In the classroom I went through the first half of the essay with a red pen and annotated it with some notes. Brian must have been tired so took the opportunity for 40 winks.
When it came time to discuss the main points of the article with the rest of the class I stood and gave my description of the Barn article and my interpretation of it, including the issues I had with philosophy and wordy articles. I’m not sure how much of it Brian had read so didn’t want to throw him under the bus by handing over to him.
Gavin pointed out that the references are important too, what texts are the refs from? This is relevant to many different projects if required, the references can be used for many other projects or dissertations in the future.
Group Think
There were ten essays/articles in total and these were given out to small groups around the room. Their articles and their thoughts, as well as the thoughts and comments from Gavin are captured below.
Bryanah and Mamadu
New Fashion Photography by Paul Sloman and Tim Blanks
- More edited images today than there used to be, but it is recently turning around to less processed images.
- Some lovely examples of the images around fashion, the text is secondary to the article. Less of a wordy article and more of a graphically illustrated piece.
Joe, Grace and Evie
Surface Tension – Navigating Socially Engaged Documentary Photographic Practices by Gemma Rose Turnbull
- Ethics of perspective. Exploitation in some images.
- Rather than photograph Others, get them to photograph themselves.
- Sex workers project allows the photographers to be more real.
- Primary and Secondary audiences mentioned. Primary should be the people in the photographs, then the secondary are the exhibitions etc.
Alice and Gemma
Colourism and the politics of beauty by Aisha Phoenix
- Perception of women in colour in media and power.
- Darker skinned females using surgery and whitening to lighten skin and alter photographs to lighten skin.
- Hard to hear, uncomfortable but honest.
Callum,Dani, and Angus
Something and Nothing by Charlotte Cotton
- Too complicated, overly wordy , didn’t get any of the topic.
- Paris used this as her dissertation
- Joseph Kasouth exhibition of a clock four different wasy of interpreting the time
Joel, Sophie and Meg
Powers of Horror, by Julia Kristeva
- Fiction based text deigned to give the ick.
- Feels like a GCSE Drama text.
- Often quoted when discussing horror or death
- Makes you feel like when you ve seen a dead body
Nicky, Lou and Lilly
Socially engaged photography and wellbeing: reflections on a case study in the northwest of England by Gary Bratchford, Gina Giotaki & Liz Wewiora
- Social study of relations between art practices and health.
- Talk of class distinctions and housing with a view of the powerplant
- Shift in perceptions of art and the practice.
- Gavin says photography is good for you, this article shows the benefits.
- Enables social coherence.
- Feel a part of the arts and social community
- References based on projects that happened in the past.
Courtney
Politics of staring: Visual Rehtorics of disability oin popular photography by Rosemarie Garland Thomson
- Disabled people seeing the world.
- Change of how disabled people see the staring in 1850’s to today in 2002 when the acceptance is greater.
- Disability and photography are linked, identity and perception of identity
- Can be positive discrimination and fetishise the diasbility rather than normalising.
- Out of date, and would normally use a more up to date text.
Joe, Lou and Joe
Sick Woman Theory by Johanna Hedva
- Sick, disabled or unable to partake in activism.
- Social systems marginalise these people.
- Some of the quotes are not relevant
- Self deprecation and refers to the negative side of being white a few times.
- Quite American specific “country is built on racism”
- North Korean living in New York, unable to protest in BLM protest due to ill health
- Well written and referenced a lot in other works.
Conclusion
Some of the articles are wordy, some using complex structures and languages, some relevant, some about identity, some about the project you’re working on. Most of them will prove to be useful in the event of needing to communicate ideas about people, identity and even just in terms of setting up a portrait shoot.
As I mentioned in the reflection of my original post I find these exercises useful and thought provoking and will also help me in the future.
Tutorial
Practice and Exhibition
Discussed with Gavin about being a part time student and not producing a work for the Degree Show, but he said it would likely be for an interim exhibition around the middle of the year.
I discussed and we agreed that we could continue doing the tutorial on a Tuesday afternoon, then I would go to work on a Wednesday, apart from the Wednesday when I needed to attend a review with the rest of the L6 group.
We talked about the work that I’ve already shot for the Shirehall and that I was going to focus on “signs of Life” , touch points on doors, areas of worn carpet around a desk, the splashes of a water fountain etc. We discussed the fact that I had been in the factory for 36 years and how a member of his family was a security guard for a factory and had to guard the factory for two years after it closed and before it was demolished.
Diss Talk
With the tutorial underway, I was discussing with Gavin the dissertation and how I wasn’t sure about the topic.
“Grief” as a dissertation? With the discussions about Shirehall and his family we discussed Grief as a way of discussing Death without the uncomfortable nature of the topic. Grief of losing a factory, of losing a brutalist building of losing a family member. All seems to fit nicely together.
Can photography help in the grieving process? Grief and Photography.
Noisy Example
Gavin mentioned a project that made the hairs on his arms stand up, a project called Foghorn Requiem for the last fog horn to be sounded in the UK. It included a musical score that joined a brass band, tuned ships horns and the last ever note played by this last foghorn. https://www.autogena.org/work/foghorn-requiem
A project by Lise Autogena and Joshua Portway
Gavin said he shed a tear after watching the 30 minute video that shows the culmination of all the work.
It might help to think of the issue as “How can the loss of the Shirehall be grieved by the community?”
Gavin said that as a practical person with a technical manner it might be possible for me to create a template of helping people or communities deal with the grief of losing a factory, a mine, a brutalist icon, etc.
A useful practical outcome and perhaps a toolbox of stuff for winding down a building
He suggested that I took a look at the Longbridge arts project, future histories
We also discussed what Shirehall might mean to everyone who has dealt with it. Registered births deaths, court appearances, jury duty, meetings with councillors, Helen working there for many years (maybe interview)
Perhaps put a call out for wedding pictures taken at the registry office where countless weddings have taken place over the years.
Scanner Time
Then it was down into the basement, whilst the rest of the group were off to a museum, or a pub.
I sat down to begin some scanning on the new mac minis in MKb25 but as I was prepping my negatives, Sam informed me that the scanners would not yet work with the new minis. Luckily I had my MacBook Pro with me so I was able to connect directly to the Epson v850 pro and get on with creating some contact sheet worthy scans.
I managed to write up this post and scan in seven films of 35mm negatives ready to be used as contact sheets in my negative storage folder.
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