Rachel Brown // Work Review

This friday we had a group tutorial with Rachel Brown. Rachel is an artist and is currently working on a solo show. As well as being the photography director of Harpers Bazaar and Town & Country.

This was the first time I had met Rachel as I didn't make it to her last review so I took recent work, and also a few from Term 1 so she could see my project from the various approaches I have done throughout both Terms so far.

As it was a group tutorial, it was also interesting listening to the feedback she gave on others work as well as my own, and overall was just interesting to sit with and listen.

She gave me some great advice on the strengths of my project and what is working, and also areas to develop and experiment with, which I'm sure to take note of and follow in the next coming weeks.

The talk also got me thinking of the final exhibition and what images I include and different ways in how they can be displayed. An example she gave was to display them in old style frames, following this was advice to visit the 2nd hand outdoor market thats on a Thursday in Huddersfield. So this is on my places to visit when I get the chance to have a look and see what I can find. Even if not for my project, it may just be an interesting place to visit and see what's there.

Also suggested was displaying them in an album which I will take into consideration also, as I also would like to create a photo book to go alongside this project. Also looking at the images, she also spoke of how comfortable my Grandma seemed to be with me photographing her and this coming through the imagery. This is an interesting point as if anyone else were to take photographs of my Grandma she would hate it and most likely wouldn't allow it, so therefore, with me having the advantage and relationship with her to be able to take such photos, is more motivation to do it. 

She also picked up a few themes that was coming through the work so far:

• Looking at ageing through relatives
• Use of an existing archive
• Creation of my own archive of my Grandmother that can be kept in years to come

View Rachel's work here

Danny Treacy // Work Review

After talking about his own work, I attended one of the group tutorials to show some of my own work. He made some very interesting points that I can consider in the development of the project.

• Occupy the space without my Grandmother there. I thought this was an interesting point as so far I haven't been in the house alone whilst photographing, although I have been photographing in rooms within the house alone. This is something that may effect the images, and is something to experiment with to see if it affects the outcome.

• In terms of using the archive, this can be very personal, yet it can also be contemporary

• The photograph of the ornament with the finger broken was picked out. He said this demonstrated life within the home and is something visually that I can experiment with to portray the life lived in the house.

• Within my images of the ornaments with the black backgrounds, I could look into the way archives (museums etc) document objects in varied way. For example, the black background could contribute a certain value to the object. 

• I included the portraits I took of my Grandmother and this was also picked up on. That maybe I don't necessarily need these as the objects alone could be used to describe the person I'm portraying. 

• He commented on the variety of styles of photo I had produced and stated this is a good position to be in as there are now several different ways I can explore my project, and I could experiment with combining more than one way of photographing to see how they work together.

• Throughout the project, as well as it being personal, I also need to disconnect myself from it at times and not to be too precious about what or how I photograph and just see what works.

• Letting the viewer piece together who the person is rather than showing them. This is another interesting point as a lot of my work so far is quite specific so taking a step back and letting the viewer ask questions is something I can experiment with.

• The unexplained gives images greater life and not everything needs a title or to be explained. Which so far in the project, I feel like I haven't left much room for interpretation which is something I can experiment with in future shoots.

• Use texts as research to inform the work throughout doing it, this will allow a wider understanding of the themes and media that I am experimenting with.

• The archival imagery can be used to inform the work but not necessarily be the centre of it. 

• And finally, He also mentioned the scale of the work, and to consider this in ways of what I want to achieve with the final piece. 

Overall, I got some great Feedback on my own work, that I can review and consider when shooting and researching from now, and how these ideas can help develop my project.