Sunday, 14 October 2012

OCA Meeting 13 October

One of the difficulties of studying with OCA is being able to interface with other students. There are meetings at galleries etc but these are usually in London, and there are the online forums but they do not replace face to face contact.


So I was pleased to see a while ago that OCA South West had commenced, using a Flickr account to set up a forum, the group has met once before, in Laycock.

I made contact a few weeks ago when came across the group somewhat by accident, and found that another meeting is being established. After some negotiation, the venue was decided as Bristol Docks, a mere 20 minute drive for me, so it seemed an ideal opportunity to meet some fellow students.

About eight of us (I say about as was not quite sure of status of a couple of the group) met at 11am at M Shed on 14 October. There were two doing art, the rest of us  photographers, all bar one doing Level One courses. We chatted for an hour,; I gained some invaluable feedback on the experiences of other students, for example on their thoughts on tutors, assignments, timetables. It helped to realise that some of my own thoughts on the OCA experience (partially set out in the Conclusion to TAOP) were shared by others. I am very glad previous tutor put me off doing Digital Photographic Practice; the two who are doing the course presently were critical of the material, in particular that it has failed to keep up to date with the fast moving changes in software.

At 12, we set off on our own to take images of the docks area and to share these on Flickr. I took the opportunity to complete images for Assignment 3, and took some other images as set out below.

We met again for lunch and further discussion. A very useful few hours for me, so  pleased to  be able to engage with other students at a similar stage face to face for the first time.  

These are some of the images I took, a couple of which will be used in next Chapter's exercises:





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