Within the brief it stated that our final pieces had to be exhibition ready, which means we had to have full sized prints, framed and we have to know for definite how we wanted them displayed.
Each of my prints is 8×10 in size and they’re each framed in a medium thickness black wooden frame. I originally had 6 images, so it would have been 3 above and 3 below, but because I had to remove George I changed it to be displayed like this:
In a way, it worked out slightly better, as it meant I could have the landscape and portrait images together without worrying about having to pick a final portrait image to fit the display.
I want them displayed at roughly eye level so that you don’t have to strain to see the images. I would like the persons eye line to fall in the centre of all 5 images, so that you could see all 5 images equally. Each image would be spaced 3 inches apart, with the top and bottom row being 3 inches apart too.
The reason I have chosen to display them like this is because I wanted them all as separate prints to reflect the notion that everyone has their own separate identity, but as I mentioned in my idea development, identity only becomes relevant when compared to others. This is why they’re next to each other, but still separated.
I have titled my work Ipseity. I originally planned on calling it identity, but I felt that was too simple and didn’t properly reflect my idea. So I put identity into a thesaurus, and it came up with ipseity. Ipseity is defined as “not exactly identity and not exactly self, but both and also something between the two meanings; it can also mean nature or self-nature.” I thought this definition was a perfect explanation of my work. For my work I would like to have a contact card underneath my prints which is a short explanation of my project/title:
As part of my university studies this year we’ve been thrown head first into a module called Professional Experience. The aim of this, if it’s not so obvious already, is to search the world of media for work experience to help us gain knowledge and opportunities that will benefit us in future.
As my aim for the future is to preferably have my own photography business and work freelance creating either art, or doing events such as weddings etc, then it means I’m focusing more of my work experience for this module on being a freelance photographer. This means I’m searching for event opportunities that will highlight my skill and provide me with the chance to improve my service skills to individual clients, as opposed to working for big businesses.
The first piece of experience I have completed for this module is an exhibition that I took part in with the majority of people on my course. In preparation for the exhibition, I had a few problems with time constraints and production issues. Having been ill before the submission it meant to produce a piece for the event was incredibly constricted with time and I had to rethink how I wanted to present my piece. I had originally wanted a magazine spread, but given that the only way to do that was either online or travelling to Birmingham, neither of which I had time to do, I had to change my idea and produce a single print with a frame instead.
Despite this set back though, I was really pleased with my outcome for the exhibition.
Although only a select number of students had a hand in organising the exhibition, I went along early and helped set up the remaining prints with them. It was beneficial to see the issues that can come with setting something like this up, because we ran into several problems along the way; prints wouldn’t stay up, we ran out of room and we had issues with the computer; all of which had to be sorted before the exhibition opened the next day. It was good fun, and the exhibition was a success in the end, with 100+ people coming to see it.
on the 13th Jan, we took a trip up to Bradford in order to pay a visit to the National Media Museum. We had two main exhibitions to visit within the museum, and after quite a lot of excitement over a Doctor who section within the museum (that contained David Tennant’s signed Converse, I might add) we made our way to the first one; Copper Horses. It’s an exhibition created by Chris Harrison in an homage to his father who inspired him greatly from his early childhood through till now.
The exhibition didn’t allow photographs, but if you want to take a look at some pieces, then the above screenshot is from the website…
I really enjoyed the exhibition as I’d never seen anything photographed with quite so much intricate detail. It was obvious from the photographs, and the explanation video (see below), that Harrison admired his father and his work from an almost childlike perspective.
He regards his dad very highly in his own opinion and the photographs were mainly focused around the factory machinery that his dad used when he was working. One of the things he says in the video is that he was “interested in industry and how it’s forgotten about.” Although he was talking about his father’s work and how industry is being replaced by technology, it relates to what we’ve been studying within this module. Considering how the digital age has taken over the monologue form of photography, we need to be thinking more critically about what it means to be losing this quite incredible form of photography.
Harrison had photographed the tiniest detail in these machine pieces. They were in enough detail to see the singular scratch marks that all blended together on the silver surface, which showed you how much they had been used. The dirt on the gloves and the shoes portrayed how much his dad did every day and how hard he worked for his family. You just got a sense that there was something so much more important to the young child within Harrison about his father’s relationship with the family. They became much more appealing and significant after reading the handwritten captions beneath each framed image that depicted why he’d chosen it and why it was there in the exhibition. It made you realise that even the smallest pieces in anything are still not insignificant. It gave me a sense of grandeur; like there was a bigger purpose than just being acknowledged. No matter how small you feel, things wouldn’t function without you.
The final part of the exhibition was a storyboard-like set of images of his father on a beach. Again, the handwritten notes came into play and Harrison explains how his father was something of a ‘world-class’ swimmer. He explains that he could have been anyway, if he’d had the time. They used to visit the beach and his Dad would swim away when he returned he’d say: “Where’ve you been, Dad?” “Denmark, Son.” he goes on to explain some more;- ‘Denmark’s only 600 miles away. There was a time when I couldn’t understand why he came back. I understand now what brought him home.’ As the story progresses so do the photographs. All of Harrison’s father on the edge of the beach, as in each frame, the sea comes in further until his legs are beneath the waves.
I was really intrigued by this series because it really hit home just how much admiration he has for his Father and also what it means to keep your family as close to you as possible.
After then some more fumbling about in the Games arcade, the TV exhibition and all the other sections we probably had too much fun in for 18 year olds, we headed to the second one; a Kodak Gallery that displayed nearly every single camera that Kodak has produced, several sections on their advertising campaigns, how Kodak had helped the rise of the amateur photographer by making cameras affordable for everyone and also pieces on the invention and development of photography itself. It was really interesting to see how much there was to know just from the one company. We saw a reconstruction of an old fashioned dark room and how they had makeshift studios and developing tanks in their baths. It made me more aware of just how much photography has developed in the last 175 years.
Amy Elizabeth Photography 