Nicola South Student: 514516

Present your final portfolio to your tutor, along with your introduction and your evaluation. Let your tutor know any preliminary ideas you have for realising your publication and presenting it to a public audience in Sustaining Your Practice.

WHAT LIES WITHIN

INTRODUCTION

This work is a personal response to a dynamic landscape, both internally and externally. It is informed by my learning and research for my Contextual Studies, on ‘affect’ (expressing what is in a photographer’s mind) and ‘effect’(realism), in the landscape photography of Minor White. In essence this is the difference between photographing a subject realistically, and photographing a subject to represent something else, including abstract ideas. In Contextual Studies I explored how a photographer may express their thoughts and emotions and share a realistic representation of a subject; in doing so I explored methods for finding meaning in images through shared visual language and decoding, using semiotics, and the viewer’s contextual experience.

I have been influenced by twentieth century photographers, such as Alfred Stieglitz, and John Blakemore, who created images as metaphors for something beyond the subject being photographed, as well as contemporary landscape photographers. Particularly those of The Inside the Outside Collective, particularly Rob Hudson and Guy Dickenson, who talk of combining in photography the world within us, and the world outside us, and suggest that that going out, is really going in.

This Body Of Work positions an ancient woodland as a visual metaphor for community. The motivation for this concept is my experience of the local community who are often disharmonious and driven by difference; this as a contrast to woodland societies. The concept is stimulated by humans, though they are not evident in my work. Ancient woodlands are complex communities, with trees at their heart; they envelop your senses, encouraging you to slowly absorb what you see and feel, wake your subconscious, and inspire reflection. I am drawn to aspects of their community which could apply to human communities; such as communication, cooperation, support, diversity, resilience, inclusion, networking, adaptation, mutual exchange, and adaptation.

This photography portfolio explores the possibilities of transforming abstract ideas, in my subconscious to something concrete via a visual representation of another subject. Through this work I have learnt that combining the world within my head with the one in front of me, can be cathartic. Developing this body of work by an internal and external passage through landscape, has helped me to accept and heal certain of the wounds that inspired it’s beginning. I have given some signposting of my intentions, though I accept that a photograph carries no fixed meaning. Whether such images can convey the ‘invisible’ the ‘visible,’ how this work falls between documentation and artistic expression will be for viewers to decide for themselves, as they will complete the gap in the meaning.

PORTFOLIO OF IMAGES FOR MAJOR PROJECT

See also my A4 PDF two-page spread for a flat form dummy book. To view as a book dummy, click view-page display- two page scrolling

This is my draft portfolio for my Body of Work Major Project, “What lies within.”

What lies within #1

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Parts #1

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What lies within #2

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Parts #2

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What lies within #3

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Parts #3

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Parts #4

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What lies within #8

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What lies within #10

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Parts #5

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What lies within #11

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Parts #6

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What lies within #12

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Parts #7

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What lies within #13

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Parts #8

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What lies within #14

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To view the Major Project as a dummy book download then click view-page display- scrolling view

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EVALUATION

The starting point for my Body of Work, was to explore using visual representation what an ancient woodland community could teach a human community. This I developed by experimenting with a variety of visual strategies such as, changes in scale and perspective, abstraction, metaphor, and symbolism. This linked to my research for my Contextual Studies on ‘affect’ and ‘effect’, or ‘mirrors’ and ‘windows’ in landscape photography.

As I worked into the project I became more concerned with being a ‘mirror’, than opening a window for others to a world of realism. To do this I developed a keener sense of seeing, slow looking, and immersion in my surroundings. I experimented with psychogeography and mindful photography. Eventually my looking became increasingly defocused, or ‘bottom up’, led by the landscape and my subconscious, rather than led by conscious intent. This to the point towards the end of the project where I was less keen to photograph and happier to pre- visualise; certainly, my image capturing decreased significantly.

My intention was to represent  my feelings about community through equivalents in the unnoticed and ordinary within the woodland landscape. I have explored my ability to transform abstract ideas in my head, my subconscious, into something concrete, via a physical representation of another subject. I challenged myself in my last assignment to put something of myself in the landscape without intervening in it, and believe that my voice, my subconscious, is in these images. I have discovered how a photographer may use the landscape to form new relationships and meaning. During the project I moved to cropping postproduction to a 5:4 ratio, to share a more human view. I edited in an increasingly purposeful way, with stronger confidence – combining instinct and reference to my intention, through working titles.

I am still developing methods for signposting my intentions or messages. Currently I find it a difficult path to tread between sharing my message and leaving some ambiguity for the reader to fill the gap in meaning. I have tried various techniques to signpost my images to increase access to their meaning, using definitions as captions, poetry, poetography, and binary suggestions. I shall develop this and find my own way, with the right balance during Sustaining Your Practice.

Looking forward I need to find ways to successfully share the messages in my photography with an audience, whilst not excluding the opportunity for viewers to decide for themselves what meaning they take from the images. I am also interested to discover whether a readers’ impact can shift an artist’s meaning from their intent, and how it might add to any hole in the meaning? I am looking forward to developing a final product for my work, which I think most likely will be a book, magazine or zine presentation in SYP.