Introductory post 27 April 2012

Yesterday I received the result of the assessment in The Art of Photography. the mark was 62%, equivalent to a 2:1; it counts for nothing in terms of a degree grade, but that is not the point for me. I am unlikely ever to complete the degree so wanted at this stage some reassurance that I am not overstretching myself; that my methodology of using blog solely works; and that I am not wasting my time pretending I am a better photographer than I truly am.

The result satisfied me in all those respects. The breakdown of the mark was as follows:

Technical and visual skills              28/40

Quality of Outcome                       12/20

Demonstration of Creativity            10/20

Context                                        12/20

So, not unexpectedly I am strongest in the technical and visual areas. Have always said that composition is probably my strongest point. Quality and context are OK.Not quite sure what I can do about quality; whether that reflects slightly negatively on using blog is something I shall discuss with tutor. Equally I am not quite sure what is meant by context, again some tutorial help required. 

Clearly the weak area is creativity - it is alright (just) but I can see this being even more of an issue in this course. I have always said this course is one stage at a time - I have elected to do a second course because the first went well; if it transpires that I am simply not creative enough to progress far and this course reflects that problem, then so be it. To a degree, I have proved to myself what I wanted: I can claim to be more than your average happy snapper, now it is a question of extending and challenging myself a little more. If it works, it works; if not, have done what I set out to do and leave it at that.

Why People and Place? Previous tutor put me off doing DPP (what Freeman considers the normal second option) as he said I would not learn that much from it. Perhaps it would be a relatively easy 40 credits but hardly worth spending £675 to do that. I get work flow - use it all the time for my images - and am proficient in PS5 and related software. The alternative was a non photographic course: Visual Culture or Western Art; I will probably do one of those if P&P goes OK and thereby achieve 120 credits. 

But for now, concentrate on this course. Have done very little photography for two months; now is time to get back into it again. TAOP has been very useful in making me aware of the way the courses are structured, the time required; how to set out one's work; how to plan. I wanted to get on with TAOP, and completed in 10 months; this time I anticipate it will take longer. I am running the New York marathon in November and training for that will take up a lot of time (thought about delaying start for a few months because of that but eventually decided to crack on - do have two years to complete). Work may extend to four days pw at least temporarily too.

So let's summarise some aims:

1. Complete course in timely and organised fashion using blogs;
2. Learn more about context and quality and how they might be improved;
3. Try and get creative (do need some help here);
4. Learn some new techniques (TAOP got me taking still life and using flash for example);
5. Enjoy it - had one or two stressful moments with TAOP, and don't want to repeat that (less likely because the stress was caused by ignorance of the processes and now understand these)

I don't actually know a lot about the content of this course but it takes little guessing. In preparation for this course have taken some images that thought likely to be suitable for use so will be using these if and where appropriate.