Martin Brink

Some of you seem to be stuck, and I am sure it is not for lack of ideas. However, when we are thinking of a "story" it is easy to get trapped into the notion of wanting to control the meaning/narrative. This is something that may be possible in written texts, but even then,  language can have many interpretations and the reader brings along a whole lot of baggage to how they understand or feel the story. With photography, as you all know, the meaning is far more slippery. As you put one image next to another their meanings change by association. Then, if you add a word or a caption you can further direct the idea or intention. But, I suggest that if you are feeling stuck, forget for a while about the literal story and start shooting - just like a daily exercise, and then see what happens when you place images together. Here is an interesting photographer, Martin Brink, who does that. Look at his series "The Daily Round" and imagine the images as a book.

http://martinbrink.se/index.php?/portfolio/the-daily-round/

VOGUE Archive

I posted this on FB, but in case you missed it - the whole of the VOGUE archive is now digitised online and you can access it through the CIT databases. CIT pays (a lot of money) for these databases and it is a real privilege to see every single page of every magazine since 1923. You can see how design, fashion, photography, portraiture has developed over the last 100 years.  You need to login with your CIT number by clicking the PROQUEST database here.  From there go to Fashion and be patient as it is a huge archive and may take a couple of seconds to navigate.  Here is one example from the first issue of 1923:

Discovery

I've just discovered this amazing photographer (showing at the Ballarat Biennale now) called Cynthia Karalla. Here is a very interesting narrative body of work:

Have a look at the whole sequence and other work in her website if you find it intereseting.

Memories, Families & "Place"

Most of you are well underway in developing your book project, but in the process we must continue to read critically about photography so that you can push your book from being more than a nicely designed album.  On elearn you will find a short text by Val Williams about memories and family photographs - wether or not the topic is specifically relevant to yours, analyse it and reflect on it in your blogs. What do you think are some ways (visually or conceptually) that you can shift a collection of images from "album" to "book"?

Remember too, you must be posting images WEEKLY (this an ongoing formative assessment item) and as you post images on your blogs take some time to reflect on the development of the concept, your ideas as they change and grow.

Susan Lipper is an artist that generates a sense of narrative by juxtaposing two seemingly arbitrary photographs together, such as this one:

Look at her blog and think about how you make connections as you place images next to each other. Culturally we are trained to look from left to right, so you can change or activate this way of "reading" a set of images through the design of your book. The book allows you to dictate the order of viewing.

I am endeavouring to check all blogs weekly and leave comments - however, if you feel you need more feedback or direction please remember you can always email or fb me and we can have an online conversation.

Visit to NGA

I have been organising a visit to the NGA to see some fabulous artist books that are not usually on display. Please mark your calendars: WEDNESDAY 21 September 1.00pm - 3.00pm, National Gallery of Australia.

I am getting some wonderful artist and rare photographic books brought out for our viewing in the Collection Study room.

Duane Michals

One of my favourite photographers in terms of narrative is Duane Michals. This is a typical series of his, and it is both quite straightforward and clever. I always feel like he is talking to his viewers directly.

Writing about Narrative Photographs

Jeff Wall, "A View from the Apartment" , 2004- 2005

As you think about Narrative and how we might "read" narrative elements into a photograph it is useful to look at photographs that are intended to portray a story. Jeff Wall is a good example of a photographer who uses many types of visual cues to construct a sense of narrative, often with a single image. The  short essay (on elearn) by Wagstaff is beautifully written and proposes how we can critically look at an image and write about it.  Read it carefully - both for the content and for the writing style/approach.

Post a reflection on your blog about this essay. How might it be helpful in thinking about your work?


Also, keep posting at least weekly images of your ideas - even if you are not entirely sure what is happening yet, or what the story is. The process of developing a conceptual folio is organic and not necessarily linear, as it is not just about illustrating a story photographically but also about creating photographs that together might generate a whole new narrative for the viewer.

Artist Book - catalogue essay

In elearn you will find a short text about artist books written by Alex Selenitsch as an introduction to the NGA catalogue "Australian Artist Books".  The catalogue itself has some wonderful examples from the NGA collection, and when I am in Canberra (week of 19 September) I hope to go as a group to the NGA to see some of them.

I am in the process of selecting and scanning other relevant texts about narrative and photography, but I do not want to scare anyone off (yet) so we shall pace the readings.  I am looking forward to seeing your storyboard proposals and thoughts on the folio!

Narrative and Artist Books

Last semester a significant majority chose "Narrative" as your main subject, which is the perfect segway to the Concept Development project.  You are to develop a folio around/about your own story. We all have stories to tell, and you can decide on absolutely anything - it can be personal, it can be a family story, it can be something more abstract or not even based around the ideas of plot and narrative.  At the end you are to have a series of photographs (however many you think are necessary to tell your story) and possibly, but not necessarily, some accompanying text.

This week is for brainstorming ideas, and I suggest you use some storyboard layouts to do so. The idea at the end is that you present your folio as an artist book, and we will be investigating different artist books and why they are such a great way to deal with narrative.  Do not worry yet about the final format, the important part now is to think about your story.

Read this post by David Campbell, and the text that is available on elearn.

Post on your blogs some ideas for your story and a reflection on the readings. At this point, think broadly about your story, it is not a proposal set in stone.

Here are some examples of artist books to get your creativity flowing - although these are mostly handmade, the point is that a book can take many forms:

Introduction

Hello 2nd years!  I am very happy to be teaching this subject, or online jiggy as someone described it :) because I want to continue on from where we left last semester in terms of photography theory and put it into practice.  Concept Development, as the title suggests, is about an idea/concept and DEVELOPING it over time.  To do this, we will continue our format of regular blog assignments and you will be working constantly on producing a thoughtful and thought-provoking new body of work.

I absolutely love this subject because to me it is about jointly creating new conversations and new possibilities in photography. It is about being creative and taking risks, but also about articulating these thoughts to give your work a sense of depth that might be lost when you work quickly or to a very tight brief.  This is the class where you can let your hair down and experiment with approaches and techniques that are not necessarily viable in a commercial context. However, be aware that this freedom also means you can get quite frustrated and stuck, so here are some of the game rules:

1. Set up a blog for the class, as you have now done many times before. Link it to your main blog that should be listed and working from the www.citphotographycentral.com as that is the way I will find it. Please test the links! And, PLEASE make the blog title: YOUR NAME CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT - there are still some people with very creative blog titles and it drives me crazy as I need to know who I am looking at (try checking 65 blogs per week and you'll know what I mean!)

2.  Read the texts or look at the images/links that I will provide. Every time you do so, you write a short reflection on your blogs - both for yourself as a record and for me as proof of your comprehension/ reading.

3. EVERY WEEK you must post at least one new image in your blog. It can be a Crewdson like production of several images or a single iphone snap on the way into class, but you must have something every week that is working towards your folio. With each image, also write some thoughts - again, you might be inspired to talk at length about your motivation/intention, technique etc or you might just caption it briefly.  The only rule is that you post weekly to your blog. I will be checking blogs every Thursday, so make that your D - day for this class. The image that you post every week can be used for the final folio or can be discarded, that's entirely up to you.

Ok, so the general binding strategy for the concept is NARRATIVE, and the final form of your work is to be an ARTIST BOOK.   This will be the subject of the next post. All the texts to read, plus subject outlines and library resources can be found on elearn.