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Photographer Investigation

Photographer / Artist investigation.

Read around, take notes and think about the artist before you begin any writing. Read interviews, ask me for articles or related artists, styles, and movements that might be relevant. Ask pertinent questions related to the work. 

Tasks:

1

Complete the 'Super Grid' sheet. It's HERE. This should focus your research. Please ask me for help if you are struggling to find information or you need assistance with how to word a feeling you have. 

2

Take an artefact belonging to the photographer or artist. 

• Describe the feeling that the artefact is communicating. What is its personality?
• What is the audience immediately getting?
• Is this Pragmatic or Poetic?

Discuss the choice of:

• Iconography (what is included and why?)
• Colour scheme
• Rendering approach (what is it made from and why?)

AL Art and Design 2019 Exam

Comp 2 Start

Link to Task List is HERE

8 college weeks and 1 half term.
April 5th, 8th and 9th = 15 hours.
Final deadline is Thursday 2nd May.

Learner statement

Learner statement link is HERE
Example and help HERE

Final deadline for essay.

Final word count for your essay should be 2000-3000wrds.
Deadline: Thursday 24th January.

• Read back through your personal investigation. 
• The practitioners that you have chosen will suggest a theme that is reflected in your practical work. 
• Please ensure that you are including examples from your own work and writing about how the photographers you have chosen have influenced your practical work. Comparing and contrasting is essential.
• Come up with a good two-part title. The first part should grab attention. The title will be answered or explored in your writing.
• Write until you have concluded your investigation. 
• Make sure that you have evaluated the approaches of artists, compared and contrasted, asked suitable questions and searched for relevant answers, and present your own, considered points of view
• A. B and C grade students will revise their essay. Going back in and editing, taking bits out that are irrelevant and tightening it up. 
• Give it to a friend or relative. Ask them to feedback- does it make sense? Does it explore? Is there a clear introduction and a satisfying conclusion?
• Correct spelling and punctuation.
• Include a bibliography.

Extended Writing 1000-2000wrds

Word count for AO1 should be 2000-3000wrds.
Deadline: Thursday 20th December.

• Read back through your personal investigation. 
• The practitioners that you have chosen will suggest a theme that is reflected in your practical work. Ensure that you have written in detail how your work reflects the IDEAS of the chosen practitioners. 
• Come up with a good two-part title. The first part should grab attention. The title will be answered or explored in your writing. 
• Write up to 2000 words or more. 
• Make sure that you have evaluated the approaches of artists, compared and contrasted, asked suitable questions and searched for relevant answers, and present your own, considered points of view 
• A. B and C grade students will revise their essay. Going back in and editing, taking bits out that are irrelevant and tightening it up. (Don't be afraid to cut out practitioners that are now no longer relevant. If you do this, tell me.) 
• Give it to a friend or relative. Ask them to feedback- does it make sense? Does it explore? Is there a clear introduction and a satisfying conclusion? 
• Correct spelling and punctuation. 
• Begin a bibliography.

A* Photography Sketchbook

Rationale writing prompts.

Use these prompts to help you arrive at a deeper evaluation of your current work.

 

Extended Writing

What is the extended writing element of the Personal Investigation?
The Comp 1 Personal Investigation must include a ‘written element’ taking the ‘form of 1000-3000 words of extended response’. This Ofqual requirement effectively means that continuous prose must be submitted in addition to any short tracts of written annotation in sketchbooks or other formats.

I have created a help sheet called 'Extended Writing' to help.

Over the next few weeks, we will continue the process of researching and writing. Luckily, you don't have to complete all of the sections in one go. It is better if you write in short bursts of well-written prose and allow that to inform your work.

Let's focus on A01 first.

Task 1
Read through the help sheet thoroughly and ask questions of any parts that don't make sense.

Task 2
Create a Google Doc, name it 'Your name_Written Element_Personal Investigation' and share it with danhaycocks@me.com.

Task 3
Choose a photograph that is relevant to your investigation. 
Work through the Photography Analysis sheet. Write 500+ words
Include images within the document to illustrate your writing.

Deadline Monday 19th of Nov. 1000+ words.

Annotating a contact sheet.

Annotating a contact sheet.

• Surround images that are good. This might be due to them being in focus, correct composition etc. 
• Cross out images that are not to be used. Out of focus, badly cropped, wrong position etc. 
• Write notes against the photos, 'out of focus', 'too far away' or 'too dark', 
• Make your annotations obvious - write in Posca?
• Discuss the technical details - did you change the shutter speed, aperture?
• Produce a drawn plan of the shoot.

Comment on the following:

• What were your intentions for the shoot? Why take these images? 
• What are the successful elements, What worked well? 
• What were the unsuccessful elements? What didn't work well? 
• If you were to take these images again, what would you do to make them more suitable? 
• Do you believe that you have all the shots you need for the project? If not, what others do you need to take? 

The next week.... Number 15 / 15

Thursday's Lesson

Expand and deepen your research mood board. Annotate it thoroughly and clearly.

Make it look exceptional. Restart aiming for your target grade.

Extra hour

Complete the super-grid for one of the photographers that you have chosen.

Weekend Independent study

Shoot/start responses relating to 2 of your mood board ideas or photographers studied or next step ideas.

Basically, get two shoots down to work on for Monday. 

Monday Lesson

Present your super-grid analysis - if you haven't done so already.

Twilight

Work on presenting 2 new contact sheets. 

Edting in photoshop / projection / ripping / folding etc.

Photography Research Guide

A Level Photography - Tips and Ideas

Please watch this video all the way through. It is really helpful and will give you a load of tips as t how to achieve the best from your work. 

PhotoPedagogy

Here is a great website (that I'm sure you are already aware of) called PhotoPedagogy. Link is HERE
Have a search through all of the pages and look for ideas and tips that will help your work. Loads of great stuff on here from things to try to analysis and articles. Don't waste this excellent resource.

500 word artefact analysis

Objective:
To complete the first stage of your written element.

Task:
Pick one of our artists that you have found during some of the earlier stages of research and then pick an image or series of images.
Write 500 words analysing an artefact from a chosen artist.  Use the link below to help.
link

Steve Pippin

Steven Pippin first experimented with temporarily transforming washing machines into cameras in 1989 after he had noticed a number of similarities in the workings of washing machines and the development of photographs. For him 'the elaborate and precise mechanism of the washing machine was a perfect system for making photographs. The eye of the machine (with the addition of an aluminium hood combining lens and shutter device) adapted to the transition of camera lens with the slightest of intervention. The pre-wash, rinse, main wash and final rinse cycles adapted to the chemical process of developer, rinse, fixer and final wash all of which were accurately temperature controlled.' (Steven Pippin, 'Pictorial Troubleshooting', in Discovering the Secrets of…, p.56.)

London-based Pippin made his first Laundromat images in 1991. In 1997, using a row of twelve commercial washing machines in a laundromat based in Bayonne, New Jersey, he made a number of more ambitious series titled Laundromat-Locomotion. The title of these series refers to the analysis of human and animal motion undertaken by pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904). Published as Animal Locomotion in 1887, Muybridge's study examined movement through sequential images using a number of cameras furnished with mechanically tripped shutters. There is a direct relationship between Muybridge's work and Laundromat-Locomotion. Pippin has written that the more he thought about Muybridge 'the more it seemed necessary to pay some kind of tribute' and added that the excessive scratching caused by the negatives being spun at 500 rpm in a washing machine unexpectedly gave his images 'some degree of authenticity by making it look like an original Muybridge from one hundred years ago. The scratches on the negative surface becoming a substitute for time, an artificial ageing process lending the pictures an accidental air of authenticity.' (Steven Pippin, 'Applied Photography', inLaundromat - Locomotion, pp.153, 154.)

Pippin's Laundromat-Locomotion series of 1997 mark the ambitious culmination of his washing machines project and Laundromat-Locomotion (Walking in Suit) is especially remarkable for the range of clarity to abstraction as the sequence progresses. It was produced in an edition of five (of which this is number one) and consists of twelve black and white contact prints made frompaper negatives which were fixed to the back of the washing machines' drums, opposite the opening. Having previously set up twelve cotton tripwires in front of the adapted washing machines, the artist triggered the shutters sequentially by walking across the tripwires. The photographs portray him in profile, wearing a suit. Pippin often wears a suit while working and in this case he purposefully wore one both to install his apparatus and in the photographs as an 'ordinary' counterpoint to his eccentric activities, in order to blend in with the laundromat's customers.

The suit worn by Pippin and clothing in general are a critical element of this work. Indeed, as the artist has stated, the idea of 'the physical mass of clothing inside the machine being replaced by the more ephemeral image of the clothes, projected inside by the action of light reflected from a suited figure walking past the outside, was the primary concept or meaning of the work, and is crucial to any understanding of it.' ('Applied Photography', p.157.)

Further reading:Laundromat - Locomotion: Mr. Pippin, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 1998, reproduced pp.18-9
Discovering the Secrets of… Monsieur Pippin, exhibition catalogue, Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain Limousin, Limoges 1995

Giorgia Bottinelli
June 2002

Book list

Over the next coming weeks you will need to read books in order to gain an understanding of artists and photographers that you are interested in looking at for your essay.  The more research you complete the better your essay will be.

By the end of the lesson, I want to see a list of 3 books you want to read for your essay.  The best way to find a book is to type 'books about...' in google or search for an artist you want to research in amazon. Don't worry about buying the books, in all likelihood you won't need to buy any book. At this stage just make a list of the books you want to read and include the author, publisher and year of publish.

Task 1: Create a list of 3 books, include the; title, the author, the publisher and the year of publish

Task 2: Find the books you need, first see if they are available on amazon, then see if you can get them at a library.  Use the following link for the Shropshire libraries catalogue.

Raw V Jpeg

Artist research

You have to complete at least 3 artists to research for component 1.  Use this sheet to help you