LEARNING LOG

Initial thoughts

Following my tutor feedback on assignment 2 I first focused on refining my project ideas.

I worked to clarify the how and why of my concept.

The why I am clear about already: my appreciation of the effectiveness of the woodland community, as a contrast and stimulated by my general disappointment in human communities. The how is more difficult and I am still working into.

I then focused on developing a working title, which was at first harmony in the woodland versus dissonance in the human community; as I worked into it this became, A harmonious community.

My key words were: Flourishing, harmony, cooperation, resilience, network, diversity, exchange, mutual, nurture, partnerships, mutuality, collective, co dependence.

I briefly noted down some of my previous reading on ancient woodlands, trees, fungi, moss, and lichen. By noting down some of my reading I was able to check that nothing important in their nature or relationship had escaped me. I have noted down further material that I may return to. Reading the science and the ecology behind the species reinforced my feelings about the uniqueness of ancient woodlands.

Refining thoughts mind map:

Shooting

In assignment 1 I shot and shared a variety of aspects of the ancient woodlands that signify community to me, general landscapes, close up, and abstract studies. This time I set out to shoot to capture the various types of organisms that make up this ancient woodland community, trees, lichen, fungi, ferns, moss. Of course, it proved impossible to separate these species as they are interwoven together in many forms. This proved to be the point eventually, the harmonious coexistence of these various parts into a thriving community. For their success they depend on each other, they provide for each other, they exchange and nurture.

I had planned to experiment with scale, perspective, and distortion. However, when photographing I found I was keener to expose the details than disguise them. I shot closer and closer to expose these details, until I had accidentally collected almost a typology of the woodland community.

I returned to shoot many times, but within the same month. Each time I had reviewed previous images and sought to improve technically. Sometimes I returned to the same subject, though I learnt that this usually proved impossible as the landscape changes quickly in response to weather, even though many of these species are slow growing.

Fungi was naturally the most aesthetic, but other subjects gave a strong message of a harmonious community. Moss was always there in the background, and I only realised with hindsight that this is becoming of more interest to me.  

At the same time, I considered the methods that I would use to signpost my message and give an entry point to my viewers. I focused mainly on definitions of the keywords that apply to the ancient woodland community. I narrowed down those that I would use by checking actual dictionary terms, and decided that the most relevant were exchange, network, diversity, interdependent, nourish, harmony, reciprocal, and cooperation. I reviewed the images that I’d shot to check whether I had some of each species that would align with the definitions, which I had and then began to edit.

Editing

I reflected on the images and their meaning, for instance which of these two fern images I should use:

I considered what they each might be saying and decided that the fern emerging from the moss signalled harmony, whilst the ivy and the moss had less desired meaning.

I asked myself whether this image of the fungi said anything about community, so I substituted it for another image which I cropped tighter to show the relationship between the fungi, tree, and moss.

When I shared the images without text, some of my peers were underwhelmed and suggested that the needed more of an angle of some link. Also, I was concerned that the images were rather “straight”, and did think to reshoot in more artistic manner as portrayed below:

However, on sharing this possibility with peers again they like myself preferred the original images. I felt disillusioned when my peers I might add humans as comparisons to the images in some way, but I knew this was not where I wanted my work to go. I know that I will not be producing a documentary project, but that my work sits between the genres of landscape and expressionism. I do realise that I need to find a point of difference so to speak, however I do not want to do this to merely tick a box, or make my work look unusual. Therefore, I decided to stick to my own path. This work is in any case this is nowhere near the final product of the course, merely a steppingstone along the way.

My intention was strengthened when I referred to my tutors’ words that though dissonance in human community may have stimulated my work on the harmony in woodland communities, that doesn’t mean that they must be present in my work – this motivation may just underpin the work.

The images that I’m using depict coexisting/co-dependent ancient woodland plant species. Some are more ambiguous because of their scale of their unusualness, but I am not attempting to disguise them but photographing them in a way to make them and their relationships clearer. I have chosen images that emphasis relationships.

Editing mind map:

Presentation

I contemplated using the definitions that I had chosen as a border of underlying text. Eventually I decided that by simply adding definitions to a border on a print that the message was stronger.

The future

This work is already leading me forwards. I do not intend to develop te work in this style, studies of species that live harmoniously in the woodland community, but it was a process I had to go through, to move myself forwards. Seeing, studying and photographing them, has enabled me to appreciate more clearly and their interrelationships. At this point I feel my next springboard will be to use images of trees and moss to contextualise the success of this community and I might look at overlaying close up images of species onto these i some way.

Next post: https://nkssite6.photo.blog/category/body-of-work/bow-assignments/assignment-2/a2-contact-sheets/