This week: I had a brief chat with Paul Clements on Thursday 23rd June with two other cohort members but had a longer catch up the following day in which we went into much further depth regarding my project work and in particular my approach. He encouraged me to step back in the portrait work I had been taking over the last few weeks with my subjects at Brunswick Organic Nursery and bring much more of the environment into the image to expand the story – “the context is far stronger with the environment”.

He also encouraged me to start printing small copies out and look at sequencing and a narrative.

Notes

• On approach: think more about the placement of the background, especially text
• “Look for a frame and wait for someone to come into it or put them there” – referenced The Photographic Device as A Waiting Machine (I found this inscrutable to read but will have another go at doing a breakdown)
• Important: contextualise the image
• Important: have an informed position
• For WIP Statement of Intent: work in citations and in bibliography show points of research
• For documentary: things you can’t put in your work in process, work in clips of other photographers and use voice over.

Current reading

• Fleeting Truths: Thoughts on Portrait Photography
• The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence by Susie Linfield (ebook – quite readable critical theory)
• Photographers and Research by Shirley Read and Mike Simmons (ebook / pdf)
• The Civil Contract of Photography by Ariella Azoulay (in the post from Oxfam, should get it soon)
• Towards A Philosophy of Photography by Vilem Flusser (pdf – in recommended reading list)
• Tools for Sharing: Wendy Ewald in Conversation With Anthony Luvera (pdf)
• Whose Pictures Are These? Re-framing the promise of participatory photography by Tiffany Fairey (pdf)
• Politics and Language: Understanding the Disability Discourse by Mike Oliver (pdf)
• Jeremy Deller interviewed by David Alan Mellor (pdf – about Orgreave re-enactment project)