Semester 1 – Week 9 | Review, Exhibition & Practical Skills

Tuesday November 18th 2025

Arriving early this morning I sat in MK202 and although it was very cold, the sun soon started streaming through the windows and warming me up as well as the room. The sun on my back was lovely and although I was sat in my coat it was wonderful. Until the others arrived and closed the blinds due to it reflecting in their laptop screens. I simply tilted my screen back so I had no issues with the reflections but I wasn’t going to argue. It started to feel chilly again after a while.

I got on with some research for my dissertation finding articles about how loss of homes and structures affects people’s mental health. There were a few articles based on Palestine and Lebanon where the residents of areas have been forced from their homes and doesn’t quite fit with my application but some of the feelings experienced by the people in the results of the study will no doubt have been similar.

Brian fell asleep again, he tends to every week, his hand still seemingly automatically operating his laptop touchpad. I get it, it’s a tiring day and it’s sometimes tricky to stay awake but it cracks me up how his hand still scrolls up and down even when he’s fully crashed out.

After lunch there was to be a lecture room meeting where we would look at the new photo submission tool that gets the photo to Jim in the print room ahead of printing it for us. I sat in the basement and made some notes about the morning and what was to come.

As I was sitting there going through some research Clare started talking to me about dissertations and how Gavin had advised her to look at Dylan Trigg’s work, I’ve just ordered his book The Memory Of Place, which sounds like it might have some good info in it for my dissertation. Thanks Clare!

Review Preparation

Tomorrow sees us all engage in a group review of our work towards the interim exhibition.

Ensure that the review consists Work made recently, no need to start from the beginning of the story and introducing from scratch

Don’t have more than 12 images, this process teaches us to select for a brief as we would in the real world.

Outcome for each person is : Which image will I put forward to  be in the interim exhibition?

The selection process should happen as a collective – use this forum to help fit it in with everyone else’s work. Democratic processes work well in this environment.

The submission should be 300ppi TIFF format, sRGB and submitted to the 6FP012 portal.

The image size must also match the final printed image size, add the size, media, framing method and colours to the comments, the choice Jim has is between floating frame and frameless (with black or white borders)

This process of adding to an assignment is new, once it is marked as passed, it means that it is approved to be printed.

TIP: Don’t use Ikea frames etc. Consider using the anti-reflective glass especially for the Degree show in the greenhouse on the 7th floor where there are some huge pieces of glass.

My Questions:

• Am I showing in the Interim? Yes I am, although I don’t need to as part of module 6FP011 (Even though it’s included in the course modules)
• Where is the interim to be held? The exhibition is similar to a salon hang and will be in the foyer of the MK building.
• In S1W10 it says to upload to the 6FP012 Portal but I don’t have access. Where should I upload my photo to? Onedrive and share the link with Jim, Dan, Gavin and Euripides.

Wednesday 19th November 2025

Presentation of project review, my review slide deck will be available in the next post.

Drill Instructor Dan

This afternoon after the initial Reviews of the morning we were to be shown and experience using an electric drill to drill into masonry. This is for all the students who may never have used a drill before, Dan did a great job of explaining the features of the drill, using safe methods and clear instructions. Every person in the class, nearly, took it in turns to grab the electric drill and make a hole for the rawl plug and screw in a concrete block.

It was interesting to see different peoples’ methods and confidence levels. I have used a drill a few times because I’m a 50+ year old man who is quite practical so when asked to join in I thought about saying, I don’t need to, but thought that might be super arrogant and it wouldn’t do any harm to just join in. I kept my gob shut and got on with it. Earlier on, Dan had bigged me up a bit as I had done a lot of drilling in the Centrala exhibition last year so I was eager to not foul up. The group really enjoyed themselves and had a bit of fun whilst learning a practical skill, what’s not to like.

Exhbitionists

After this I decided to head into the city to do some street photography and noticed that the Wildlife Photographer Of The Year exhibition was on in the Wolverhampton Art Gallery so I popped in and visited the Pop Art gallery as it’s been changed around since I was last there. There were som egreat pieces of work in here too and it was good to see something different.

In the special exhibition room, there were two pieces of work by Grayson Perry, one being a huge tapestry showing a scene of a “tech bro” who has just sold his scratch built company to a large corporation. The contents of the tapestry are amazing, from the titles of the books on the Penguin Mugs to the newspaper headlines etc. The thing I noticed first though was the mirror in the top of the work, showing a reflection of Grayson himself taking a photo, with the scene reversed.

After this I headed into the WPOTY exhibition but was told there was an entrance fee. Upon visiting the ticket desk I was asked for £8 before remembering I have a Student Art Pass so the price came down to £4. Bargain.

Back up the stairs again with my wristband on I headed into the dimly lit room showing some amazing photographs by photographers with some incredible levels of patience and perseverance.

A couple of photos that took my breath away included one of a Leopard in an urban environment, that was highly commended by Chaitanya Rawat An Unlikely Refuge. The literal framing is amazing. There were tonnes of amazing photos by some serious togs and also some serious young people in the Young WPOTY competition.

The main winner was a photo from a camera trap that captured a wild dog in front of a derelict building and it is a fantastic photograph but I felt for those photographers who had laid in a tent/hide for a week solid to capture a picture of a rare sight. I know it’s not cheating but it feels a little lucky compared to a composed and realtime capture. I also know it is not luck and it’s taken ages to work out where toplace the trap and set it up correctly, and then wait.

Conclusion

Overall it was a busy couple of days this week. I’m glad that I was spared the time off work to attend both days because I think I might have missed some very useful information had I missed the afternoon sessions. This is because the course staff have a time with me being a part time student and organising the group meetings and content to allow me to see what I need to. The reviews were helpful too to see what the others were up to. Now I need to finally select the image I’m submitting and then uploading to Onedrive (due to not having the portal access). I am not sure if I want Jim to print it or whether I want it on a different media to make better use of the final image. It needs to be ready in two weeks time though so it might be tight.