Elizabeth Chandler - BA(HONS) Photography - Level 5
Areas of Photographic Practice A - Circular Narrative
Project Rationale (Deadline Tuesday 30th October 2012 - 1:30pm HT013)
In my initial proposal I explained how I was highly enthused by this brief and had many diverse ideas which acted as my spring board. I gave an overview of each of those at our first feedback session and the one which received the most positive commentary was the one I decided to further peruse and take forward for this assignment.
Each week I produced work in progress and through discussion with fellow peers and tutors I feel I developed my project at a steady and productive rate. I afforded myself plenty of experimentation time by deciding on my concept very early This I feel has been invaluable and meant the work produced has exhausted many other ideas and experiments to find it’s most effective delivery.
My initial working title for this piece was Visual Change, for very obvious reasons. As the project developed and my understand of the issues surrounding the work has also the title has been extremely changeable and something of key importance in my mind. I have decided on the title. “From The Soul”.
I like this because I think it is a little obscure and doesn’t spoon feed the message of the work, nor does it control the reading of it in a stringent way, yet once the viewer sees the visuals I personally feel the text becomes key and plays a vital role in taking my work to the next level, beyond visuals and into the conceptual underpinning which informs this project.
The project sits as an attempt to put into imagery the impact of both man and nature on our habitat. There is deeper meaning in the work, I would describe it as having layers. On initial viewing I feel it is very easy to understand the basic message of the body of work which is simply a depiction of the effect we and other natural elements have on our territory over a period of time.
There is also elements which indicate a lack of engagement with our surroundings as I don’t think this is the first issue that comes to mind when we think of our impact on the environment. When I first received the image I wanted to do this series as I feel when we discuss such negative effects on the world we instantly think of the natural environment and how that is being destroyed. I find it ironic that the land and areas we destroyed the natural environment to create is also subject to deterioration and too needs maintaining.
In terms of the narrative of the project and the significance of me using the same image throughout, I felt it was key to do so. The work I was proposing to create depended on the idea of typology and things remaining the same yet changes occurring within that. As both the first and last image in the series had to be the original one I received, re-shooting even the most alike area thereafter would diminish the illusion or erosion over time which i have created in photoshop. I feel viewers wouldn’t have engaged with the work and their attention would have been lost. As it stands at present I do think there could be some uncertainty and it could well be believed that these images were taken once a month over the course of a year (12 images in total)
The significance of the circular narrative in this series is the illustration of our need to repair such problems. It is a constant cycle which repeats itself annually. I feel this says a lot about many other issues for instance the need for such instructional signs and the people who’s job it is to maintain them.
A lot of my understanding has been informed by very in-depth research and the reading of a book titled ‘fragile earth’ which talks all about the earth and how it is rapidly changing due to global warming and other affecting factors. The work of Jem Southam has been a pivotal reference point in terms of what i mentioned previously about typology and the importance of showing the same scene in the same way, only revealing the changes, rather than showing the same place from a different angle and in turn a whole new perspective.
My target audience for this series would be the gallery wall. Although in a way it could be argued that the work could also be seen as an awareness I personally don’t envision it that way. I have played around with different numbers of images, different forms of delivery, different layouts and so on. After much experimentation I feel I have got the balance just right. As briefly touched on earlier, there are 12 images in the final series. Throughout the weeks I have created both lengthier and shorter pieces. Each week when presenting these to class I observed the engagement of my peers to see which ones seemed to keep them engrossed the longest and tried to establish the elements from each which resulted in that.
In the final series I have combined all those elements.
I even played around with presenting the work as slide show and as a slideshow with sound. Although fellow students generally liked the presentation that way there engagement with the work was then controlled. This is something I never wanted to a certain extent. The slideshow controlled how long the viewer spent with each image. As there is an element of illusion with this series i felt it was important to afford to audience the opportunity to choose how long the spent with each single image and also have the freedom to go back, perhaps once the understand the gradual deterioration is happening. Again this is informed by research which suggests our eyes and brain quickly memorise the general appearance of an image and only when the relaisation that change is occurring do we actively hunt for in within a picture.
My research taught me the scientific chemical structures of most paints used to make road markings and that the breaking down of these often occurs in a very specific way, From the outside in, meaning the sign is still recognisable for longer. Although I visually tried depicting this it didn’t seem to work and I soon realised that we don’t always acknowledge these things. In essence sometimes what we assume to happen is visually stronger and much easier to understand and relate to that the actual fact of a situation to which we are ignorant. This in itself I find interesting as, like I mentioned previously it highlights our lack of awareness and engagement with our surroundings.
Below I have included some of the layouts which give an idea of one way I envision the series being presented in a gallery setting. Although it is not to scale you can imagine the arrangement spread across one long wall which had small bends/corners in it. The images would be mounted a little lower that what would be a comfortable viewing height making the experience of looking a very physical one.
Alternatively, the same arrangement but not so low down the wall I would mount the images but scaled a lot smaller meaning this physical act of looking in this instance would be via a magnifying glass mouted alongside/below the image.
I have created a virtual gallery online which can be viewed and navigated around via my blog. Although the sizing of the images wasn’t completely adjustable you get the idea of the general setting of a room I would like to utilise. I constructed the space to be quite dark and industrial with an almost snake feel, there are sharp turns and corners. Almost the feeling of a disjointed corridor.
