Assignment One: Asking for feedback.

1. Prepare a PDF document with the intention of showing it to an industry professional and asking them politely for a short piece of feedback. This should contain an edit of the work you produced for Body of Work. You may wish to include an overarching artist’s statement as well as the introduction you wrote in Body of Work. In the first instance, you’ll use this to introduce your work and your ideas to your tutor who will give you suggestions on the submission itself and how to enhance the PDF before sending it out. Please tell your tutor who the PDF is intended for and include some background information on how you’ll contact them. Make sure that you’ve researched the form your submission should take; some organisations still ask for a CD/DVD, for example, which you should prepare in advance.

2. Having taken your tutor’s comments on board, use your PDF document (or, if applicable, a hard copy portfolio) to get some feedback from a professional photographer or another professional from within the industry. This could be done via a portfolio review or by a contact you already have.                                    (Boothroyd, S. and Alexander, J; 30, 2020)

Reference: Boothroyd, S. and Alexander, J. (2020) Sustaining Your Practice Course Manual. Barnsley, UK: Open College of the Arts.

1. EDIT OF BOW

Reflections on formative feedback from assessment BOW

Positives:

• It was recognised that I have transformed the abstract concept of social disharmony into a visual narrative using the woodland as a visual metaphor.
• My intertextual couplets are important in bridging the ideas.
• Peer group participation.

Areas to develop:

• Develop/research my ideas psychosocially /anecdotally on the unseen ‘hostile forces’ in the local community. This will help with my audience presentation through my artist statement. See development point 2.
• Consider again the final set of main images – possible edit.
• Re edit my woodland images for a final selection.
• Consider the placement and presentation of the woodland images.

I revisited my BOW intentions:

Editing my BOW images

First I revisited the work on the various ways that I presented it for assessment making notes of any thoughts/observations – it has been some time since I visited this, which is helpful as I may be able to view it more objectively now.

Before I started I brainstormed my editing process:

Main images

I created a padlet as an editing board of my final BOW images  https://oca.padlet.org/nicola514516/niki-south-syp-editing-board-of-bow-final-portfolio-images-34wrm0q8udo7plnr

Revisit of the main BOW images:

1. 3302, 2) 3283, 3) 3305, 4) 3273, 5) 5279, 6) 5607, 7)3259.

 It struck me that the odd one out was image 6 (5607). This image doesn’t have a particular strong single element or object that draws your eye in.

I have 4 possible images that I could swap in and have asked peers in a Level 3 critique session to offer me their views. My choice would be poss.1.

Peer critique session 24.2.24

Padlet: https://oca.padlet.org/nicola514516/syp-image-edits-of-bow-for-final-output-what-lies-beneath-e4h3uylersvjzysh

I gave context for my work by sharing the power point I submitted for BOW. Then shared my editing board for SYP, as above.

We looked first at my main images. After some discussion there was a consensus that if I was looking for images to drop, it should be images 5 (5279), as the lighting is different, and possibly 6 (5607), as I thought. It was mentioned there could be some benefit in adding an image or two that offers different aspects of the woodland as image 3 does currently.

The group found it hard to decide on which to swap in but eventually agreed that images that showed extra aspects to the woodland would be good. Therefore, I have decided to add in possibility images 2 (5640) and 3 (5900) The group felt that these images added some extra woodland context to the other tree images.

SYP images: 1. 3302, 2.3283, 3. 5900, 4. 3273, 5. 3305, 6. 5640, 7, 3259.

Woodland close up images

I edited the woodland images, by reworking images 1.2.3.4.and 6. I added 3 new images 5.7. and 8. After reviewing I have eliminated original images 4 and 8 and have inserted new images 8 and 5. The peer group confirmed my choices.

• This padlet shows the outcome of the peer editing process: https://oca.padlet.org/nicola514516/bow-image-edits-for-syp-following-peer-critique-session-7b3a93s2udcqpdvb
• Link to peer critique session: https://nkssite6.photo.blog/2024/06/30/peer-critique-session/
• Padlet showing images chosen after final Assignment 1 editing: https://oca.padlet.org/nicola514516/syp-images-following-a1-editing-rph911g6pzthzjl3

Drafting the pdf

Having edited my bow images for SYP, I then wrote a new Artist statement, bio, and introduction to go with the work. I did this with support from the course book and my peers in hangouts, I also studied these on photographer’s websites.

To accompany the PDF I built a website, using adobe portfolio, and an Instagram account; so, I could include links to them on my publicity PDF. These were all big learning curves for me.

A peer hangout on the 4^th April was particularly helpful. See link: blog post: https://nkssite6.photo.blog/2024/06/30/peer-hangout-level-3-and-oca-photography-post-graduates-3/

Having reviewed my PDF my peers approved of the format and layout, though gave further advice on the artist statement, introduction, and bio. I subsequently altered these to be more explicit about the work, remembering earlier advice that viewers will be coming to my work cold.

I sent the PDF to my tutor on 8^th April and had a reply from her on 22^nd April advising me to go ahead and send out, taking into accounts her comments below:

• Consider whether I should include the ‘footnote’ images as in her opinion they ‘crowd’ the document. I’ll take her suggestion to ask for feedback on this element.
• She reminded me to make a bespoke approach to each addressee, explaining why I’m contacting them, encouraging them to respond by a certain date.

I now need to finish the draft above and send it out, then scheduled a tutorial to discuss responses.

Assignment 1 part 2:

I contacted a past OCA photography Graduate Anna Sellen to ask her if she would review my portfolio PDF. Anna is working as a professional photographer both individually and as a part of a collective of 6 photographers, I had not had any contact with her before.

I chose Anna, a UK based artist, living only an hour away from myself, as she graduated in 2023 and yet has successfully put her work out there and has had her work featured in many exhibitions and won several awards, for instance:

Work featured: at New Blood Art Emerging art prize 2023 at Saatchi Gallery, Open Walls Arles Vol.4 2022/23 in France, FORMAT International Photography Festival 2023, Earth Photo International Photography exhibition 2023, the Royal Photographic Society International Photography Exhibition 2022, Photoworks UK Graduate Showcase 2022, and other events.

Won awards, including: Earth Photo Sidney Nolan Trust Prize, RBSA Photography Prize 2023, Single Image Award at OpenWalls Arles and FORMAT Shutter Hub portfolio award 2021.

Also, as her projects often start autobiographically and evolve through extensive research. Transition and migration are a common thread in her work, as is belonging, so I believe that she would be interested in my work and be able to offer me some useful advice on dissemination it.

This was my contact email to her:

Hi Anna

I am in the final part of my Photography degree with the Open College of the Arts, Sustaining Your Practice, which you are familiar with. Incidentally, I am based in Newport Pembrokeshire, not far down the coast from you!

 I am currently completing an assignment, which asks me to seek feedback from someone in the photography industry on a PDF preview of my work and the introduction to it. I would really value your feedback as a recent photography graduate and a visual artist, who I know sometimes works autobiographically and with transitions, and has been so successful in having work featured and awarded in events.

 Any comments or suggestions you have will be gratefully received. My final product will be a book in which I intend to end with ‘footnote’ images with accompanying definitions, four of which I include in this PDF. I wonder if these samples should be included in a preview of my work, or possibly only two of them, and if you have any comments on this ‘signposting’ element of the work? I know that you will also understand the sensitivity of such work, so any suggestions on the line I am trying to tread between ambiguity and yet honesty would be helpful.

 Thank you so much in advance, any insights you can give me will be really appreciated.

 Many thanks

 Niki South

https://nikisouth.myportfolio.com

 Anna indicated that she could respond to me after early June.

In the meantime, I used parts of the PDF as my submission to the Lens culture critic’s choice Global Call 2024—Deadline: April 17, 2024.

I paid for a written portfolio review:

This as it happened was a very useful critique of elements of my PDF as well as my work. Whilst my Publicity PDF has an Introduction, Artist Statement and Bio, Lens Culture asked for a statement about the work and a bio of under 2000 characters.

I used the bio that forms part of my publicity PDF, and to conform to their word count I combined elements of my Publicity Introduction (80%) and Artist statement (20%).

I asked the following specific questions of the reviewer:

1. Do the footnotes combined with the artist statement adequately signpost the story behind the series?
2. Can a viewer understand the concept of the woods as a visual metaphor?

The reviewer’s feedback below was very useful, especially reference parts of my Publicity PDF:

Reviewer Portfolio Feedback 26.4.24

Hi Niki-

It isn’t happenstance that you are using a forest as a metaphor for community. Fungi, aspen groves and many tree species are known to have elaborate networks of communication that bind them together. Not to mention all the other small organisms that make up the ecosystem that sustains the life of what we are seeing in your photographs. You pull any single member of the community out, and the whole forest suffers. Despite that the knowledge is out there for humans to make sense of it all, we continue to make the same, irreversible mistakes, over and over. And this project brings these questions, and more, to my mind. 

In response to your request for feedback, I am still a little confused by the overarching idea that you are going for. If what I have said above rings with you, I think it would be helpful to state it somewhat directly and concisely. For example, instead of saying “The photography transforms abstract ideas in my head, into something concrete,” and defining your work as a “conceptual project,” I would simply say “What Lies Within” uses the forest landscape of [name the forest] as a metaphor for human communities and civilization.” Or something like that. 

That being said, I still want to understand how you see human communities as stark contrasts to this forest communities but are using the forests as a metaphor for the human communities. Perhaps they are not a “metaphor” but a “model?” In other words, are you suggesting that these woodland spaces are a model for what it means to be a part of a community and to live in an ecosystem where all things must coexist and support each other’s life processes? Again, I am very interested in the ideas. I just think it’s a question of being clear and concise: especially when submitting to a contest like this where jurors have so little time to spend with each submission/statement. 

I also don’t know if you need to include the words with their definitions beneath the photographs. I think you can say everything in the statement and then rely on the viewer’s intellect to realize that what they are seeing are prime examples of what those words represent. Perhaps you can include those exact words in your statement and then give an example of how that plays out in the woodland environments. But my sense is that this project could exist as two separate entities: image and text. 

Otherwise, I haven’t talked about the images themselves. And I personally find myself getting lost in the beautiful, dense, and elaborate spaces you are creating/seeing. The compositions are complex, often surprising, and always seductive. These are hard landscapes to render, and it feels like you have an eye for figuring them out. 

It’s a pleasure to discover this series, Niki. Wishing you the best of luck. 

I have taken away from this review in terms of my publicity PDF:

Intro:

• Be concise/direct with my overarching idea – E.g. revisit my wording “The photography transforms abstract ideas in my head, into something concrete,” and defining my work as a “conceptual project,”
• Consider if I mean that the woodland is a model for an effective community rather than a metaphor – calling it a model makes sense to me and I think it is more explicit.

I used this advice to edit some of my statement info when entering my next competition:

“What Lies Beneath’ expresses my thoughts on community, using landscape of an ancient woodland to create a visual model where things coexist and support each other. Footnote images signpost its inherent qualities like diversity and cooperation. My experience of local human communities provokes the project’s concept, where conversely they are often disharmonious and driven by difference. Sadly, incomers are never accepted as local, no matter how long passes or what they contribute to their neighbourhood – a story common to settings across the globe. This work has helped to heal some of the wounds that inspired the story’s beginning.

What lies beneath the emerald wrapping, embracing their collective realm?

What lies elsewhere beneath man’s disguised demeanour, civil but deliberately divisive?

I replied to the reviewer:

Thanks for the review. It comes at the beginning of my journey to ‘put my work out there’, so is very timely.

I understand your message to be more explicit and concise when conveying my ideas to viewers/reviewers and thank you for the practical ideas that you have given that I can consider in a reformatting of the project.

It was a very thoughtful, useful review.

Thank you!

Ann Sellen OCA Post graduate photographer, met with me by video call 17th June to review  my portfoilio PDF. These were the main points of her review:

• She understood the concept/intention of my work easily.
• Said the images strong and particularly like them when presented largest. Many reviewers never read the text so the images must stand out.
• Thinks the ‘footnotes’ are confusing in the context of the publicity pdf as the images are so different they jar with the rest.
• Suggested that I shorten the introduction, explaining that reviewers want their attention grabbed quickly or they just move on.
• Suggested renaming the ‘introduction’ as ‘project statement’
• Liked my poetry and thinks it sits well with the images.

My learning and action points for the PDF:

• Shorten the introduction and rename it as project statement.
• Omit the footnotes from the publicity pdf but include at the end of the book as I intended and at the end of any portfolio review.See if I can enlarge slightly the images that sit with the poetry, and/or add a separate page for the text as I will in my book.
• Have some extra images available for any portfolio review

I will combine this with the suggestions from the Lens Culture reviewer and my Tutor:

•   Be concise/direct with my overarching idea – E.g. revisit my wording “The photography transforms abstract ideas in my head, into something concrete,” and defining my work as a “conceptual project,”

•   Refer to the woodland as a model, rather than a metaphor, for an effective community.

See final Publicity PDF:

In this I reduced and revised my introduction, Artist statement and Bio as below:

Original introduction

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. This body of work is a personal response to a dynamic landscape, both internally and externally.

The photography transforms abstract ideas in the photographer’s subconscious into something concrete, via a visual representation of another subject, positing an ancient woodland as a visual metaphor for community.

Though humans provoked the concept of the work, they are not evident in the images. The Photographer’s local community often disharmonious and driven by difference, contrasts with harmonious characteristics of these woodland societies. Inherent qualities like cooperation, support, diversity, resilience, inclusion, networking, mutual exchange, and adaptation, could be beneficially adopted in many human communities.

As an observer of her neighbourhood, well known and accepted for numerous years, the photographer finds in common with others that incomers here are never adopted as local, no matter how long passes or their contribution to the community. This story is common to settings across the world.                                                                                                                                                  (177 words)

Project Statement

 ‘What Lies Beneath’ expresses my reflections on community using the landscape of an ancient woodland to create a visual model where things coexist and support each other. Here I transform my subconscious thoughts into something concrete.

Though humans provoked the concept of the work, they are not evident in the images. Unlike woodland communities, the local community is often disharmonious and driven by difference. The woodland’s harmonious, inclusive characteristics would benefit human communities where sadly ‘incomers’ like me, are never accepted as local, no matter how long passes, or what they contribute to society – a story common to settings across the world.

In this work combining the world in my head with the one in front of me, has helped to heal some of the wounds that inspired the story’s beginning.                                                                         (132 words)

Original Artist Statement

I use landscape and documentary photography as mediums for expressing my observations and reflections on communities. ‘What Lies Beneath,’ a conceptual landscape photographic project, builds on my previous documentary work ‘Layers of Truth,’ where in my insider-outsider position, I highlighted the issues and various truths arising from ‘incomers’ relocating and trying to integrate into a small traditional community.

My photographic style is shaped by research on ‘affect’ (expressing what is in a photographer’s mind) versus ‘effect’(realism); I photograph in a metaphorical manner. Artistically I am influenced by photographers who create images as metaphors for something beyond the subject photographed, such as Minor White and Alfred Stieglitz; and by writers like John Szarkowski who explore the differences between photographs as mirrors for expression, beside images as windows that share reality.

I find combining the world within my head, with the one in front of me, cathartic. This internal and external passage through the landscape, has helped me to accept and heal some of the wounds that inspired it’s beginning.                                                                                               (168 words)

New Artist Statement

I use landscape and documentary photography as mediums for expressing my observations and reflections on communities.

My photographic style is shaped by research on ‘affect’ (expressing what is in a photographer’s mind) versus ‘effect’(realism); I photograph in a metaphorical manner. Artistically I am influenced by photographers who create images as metaphors for something beyond the subject photographed, such as Minor White and Alfred Stieglitz; and by writers like John Szarkowski who explore the differences between photographs as mirrors for expression, beside images as windows that share reality.

I find combining the world within my head, with the one in front of me, cathartic. This internal and external passage through the landscape, has helped me to accept and heal some of the wounds that inspired it’s beginning.                                                                                                                  (126 words)

Original Artist Bio

Niki South was born and grew up in Surrey in England. From 1995 she began holidaying in Pembrokeshire in Wales with her husband and two children; this culminated in buying a second home there in 2009 and transitioning to a ‘dual centre’ life, between the two places.

She is currently completing her BA (Hons) Photography degree with the Open University. Her previous documentary work ‘Layers of Truth’ was informed by her life as a ‘second homer,’ observing local issues from afar, when unable to travel to her favourite home by the Covid 19 safety enforcements. In 2019 she relocated there permanently.                                                  (101 words)

New Bio

Niki South is a visual artist born in England, now living in Pembrokeshire Wales. Visiting Pembrokeshire she found a hiraeth (deep longing for the place) and spent many years living a ‘dual centre’ life, between the two places, until relocating there permanently. She is currently completing her BA (Hons) Photography degree with the Open University.

Her previous documentary work ‘Layers of Truth’ was informed by her ‘insider/outsider’ position where she highlighted issues arising during Covid 19 from ‘incomers’ trying to integrate into a small traditional community.                                                                                                                 (86 words)