The brief
Drawing upon examples in Part Three and your own research, you can approach your self-portraits however you see fit. You may choose to explore your identity or masquerade as someone else, or use empty locations or objects to speak of your experiences. However you choose to approach it, use yourself – directly or indirectly – as subject matter.
Keep a diary for a set time (at least two weeks). Each day write two or three pages about yourself – what you’ve been doing/thinking. This can be as specific or poetic as you wish. You may wish to pick a theme for the duration. This is an open brief designed to give you freedom to create something personal which suits you best. Use the artists you’ve looked at in Part Three for inspiration. Select the most interesting parts of the diary (which could be the most banal or mundane) and interpret them into a photographic project. A good way to approach selection could be to ask a friend/fellow student/stranger to read it and send back a highlighted version. You could then base your project on those parts. This would take the pressure off you to find a ‘good story’.
You may choose to select a few days or phrases that stark an idea for you, or you may wish to exaggerate how you were feeling one day into a parody of yourself or the circumstance. You may wish to create a ‘document’ of that time in a re-creation of events – or direct a model to act out some of the content of the diary, making your own ‘film-stills’.
You could present your chosen diary entries as a visual diary or use it as a springboard for further exploration. You may choose to insert the pictures like snapshots into your diary and hand it all in together. You don’t have to restrict yourself in the diary itself; you may decide to use it to take you into new territory.
Introduction
This assignment began with my diary [1] and an initial idea that took its inspiration from Larson and Hindelmann. The idea was to use my diary text to choose a location using the What Three Words navigation software. The tool uses a combination of three words as coordinates and is used as a simpler way of navigating than GPS. I would then visit the locations in a similar way to the artists in their Geolocations project and photograph myself as a positional marker in the scene. I would also follow a similar approach in choosing a composition that related to the diary text. This idea picked up on advice from the feedback in my previous assignment about having a structure to my planning and looked promising until I ran into difficulties with the technology that prevented my using What Three Words in this way. After reflecting on what I wanted to achieve with the work, I realised that I could explore the differences between my expression through the words in diary and the cold, impassive way that technology processes this kind of information. I would contrast the two interpretations and invite the viewer to draw their own conclusions by creating a linear series of photographs containing contextual references to the themes in the text. The evolution of these thoughts are captured in the blog post ‘Preparing for Assignment 3′[2].
Summary of the Idea
My idea was to take the text from each day of the diary and run them through a software tool to count the most frequently used words produce a word cloud of the most used words. The words are subsequently sized by their frequency, with the higher counts being the larger font size. This crude analysis of the diary produced an impassive assessment of my writing, which often contrasted with the original intent. I wanted to highlight these differences by projecting the words onto my expressionless face. I would further add to the contrast by lighting the background of the portraits with colours that represent or invoke emotional responses both in me and in the viewer. It would be up to the viewer as to how they interpreted the image in terms of narrative. Arranging a week’s worth of portraits would present the linear passing of time through the series. During the preparation work, I had decided to stop developing the idea so that I could shoot it. However, during further reflection I realised that the viewer would actually have to read the whole diary in order to appreciate the series. I felt that this would significantly lessen the impact of the images, so decided to include short paragraphs of the respective days alongside them. Each image would now be captioned, which I felt would make the series stronger.
Technical Approach
I set up a small studio with a plain grey background and a studio strobe fitted with different coloured gels. The camera, key light (the projector) and fill light (continuous LED) were positioned on stands and the camera on a tripod. I enlisted my wife to set the final position of the words onto my skin and operate the camera. Each portrait was then further post-processed and had the text added to it.
The Series: Mark My Words
“Where there are questions or challenges from the team about what they are being told, I endeavour to resolve them if I can. It’s not always possible though,as the engineering leadership team isn’t currently involved in some of the higher-level discussions or decisions. At the point that we are, some of the information that is being briefed will be easier to explain. For now, though there is a sense of ‘no news is good news’ – a bizarre expression that suggests that ignorance of something happening is better than knowing”
“The meeting itself for me is only about 50% effective in discussing the important topics, so I find myself questioning the point of it. As Tuesday progresses, the topics become more interesting as more people are involved in their debate. Perhaps my reticence about the first meeting is more about it feeling like a morning prayers session than a constructive meeting”
“As we were all working from home, there was little to no risk of it causing an issue in the business, but it was still a theme that people would tell us about their symptoms on the morning call. On this particular morning, I realised how that doesnt happen at all now. Isolation was indeed a good way of reducing the risk to our health, it would seem. Today, everyone was in good form”
“The need to de-personalise the workspaces is something that we aren’t undertaking lightly, but it won’t be seen that way by the people who work for us. I have a team member with four computer screens who is going to go mad when I tell her she can have only one. If I think about my own sense of home, I’m reminded of the time when home was the last place I wanted to be. I was being driven slowly mad by noise from our upstairs neighbour, which became the trigger for a series of serious depressive episodes that eventually landed me in hospital. I had no axe to grind with our neighbours and they could never have fully understood the damage they were doing to me”
“On this occasion one of her neighbours who has been looking out for her during lockdown, called to say she couldn’t get hold of her. While the neighbours have been great, this one is a bit of a busybody. She had become accustomed to watching Hazel’s routine of putting her recycling bins back in the garage after they had been emptied in the morning. On this day, the bins were still out in the afternoon. The neighbour had tried the house but got no answer, called her mobile and got her voicemail and, after some time called Jayne”
“I’ve always felt proud of my own distance swimming achievements, though. My first distance swim was 2 miles open water, which is a massive challenge in its own right. Even though COVID has put paid to my training this year, I am determined to swim the 11 mile length of Lake Windermere before I am 50 in just under 2 and a half years’ time”
“One the way home, we started planning our next holiday. We have had two cancelled this year so far, with a number of triathlon events that would include long weekends also being called off. With the rest of the year provisionally planned, we turned our attention to 2021 and 2022. Towards the end of this year, we have hired a camper van as a trial with a view to buying early next year. It’s something we are both very excited about because it give us a little more freedom to take off for short breaks whenever we like”
Reflection
This assignment was a labour of love. The process of developing an idea and trying to learn from my previous work was an interesting experience. One of the driving forces in this evolution was the need to not overthink what I was trying to do. Past experience has led to me shooting what comes naturally or is the most comfortable. I believe this to be the main reason for choosing to be in the photographs in the way normally associated with self-portaiture as opposed to one of the alternative interpretations. Although I was hugely inspired by Morrissey, I set out to create something different. The idea of projection as both communication and visualisation came to me when I was thinking about becoming a canvass. I was immediately drawn to the way that light bends around a curved surface, so with my face and body as the canvass this would be emphasised in the images. I’m happy with the way that the pictures are not of me, but are a carriage for my words. In essence, the diary and the computer’s highlighting of my impactful words is what is about me. The mood colours were essentially chosen by my wife, based on both my words and how she knows I feel about certain events or memories. This series has therefore become a very personal narrative about me with internal and external context leading through it. I still don’t like being in photographs, but here I believe I’ve succeeded in being both present and absent at the same time. I deliberately tested this assertion in the series itself as two of the photographs have slightly different poses to the others. When I was editing the series, the shot for Saturday was the one that naturally stood out when looking at them all on the same screen. However, the more subtle ‘eyes closed’ shot for Thursday went almost unnoticed. I found myself reading the words and taking in the bright colour of each frame, which was my original intent.
In preparing the text for the captions, I naturally re-read the diary carefully. It was interesting to see what my wife saw when she read it. The two weeks that I worked on it were a rollercoaster of emotions, actions and reactions that I could see more clearly in the context of the photographs I had been shooting. Monday to Thursday told a story of a man who was in control of his daily working life. Themes of acceptance, opportunity, boredom and frustration were evident, not surprising given the COVID-19 situation. The rest of the week centred around my creative time, my passion for photography and study, as well as planning ahead for more adventurous days. When I think about it, that is exactly what life is like for me at present.
Against the Assessment Criteria
Demonstration of Technical and Visual Skills
This assignment used multiple lighting sources in a challenging mini-studio setup. The light level of the project could not be adjusted, so using it as the key light presented exposure challenges. The main issue was that the background light could not be reduced in power any further, so selecting an exposure that flattered my skin was extremely difficult. However, I wanted to create the sense of emotion ‘aura’ by using real lighting instead of adding a background in post-processing (as Moffatt did in Scorpio) so I was happy with the result. Visually, I think the images all have very similar composition with the exception of the ‘Saturday’, which was shot near the end of the day. I liked the way that the slightly cynical expression echoed my experience of the diary and the duration of the shoot, so I left it in the series to add something different. When I look at the sequence together, I’m reminded of the pop art style adopted by Warhol and his peers, which was an unexpected visual but one I actually like.
Quality of Outcome
I set out to show my words as seen by me and by a machine set against the context of what I was experiencing emotionally in the diary. I believe that the series achieves this through as series of subtle layers to each image. Visual tension is maintained by the words on their contoured canvass. The connections to the diary are strong through use of a single paragraph and the contrast between the human and machine interpretation stands out. All of these elements distract from my being in the picture and to an extent I achieve anonymity in each composition.
Demonstration of Creativity
This assignment was the first time that I’ve rejected the notion of creating a work that a viewer may like. Instead of wondering “will my tutor like this?” or “will anyone understand what I mean?”, I simply created what I wanted. I drew heavily on influences from Part 3, but the end result is not in any way a facsimile. Each picture is different from the previous, so there is no sense of repetition or lack of originality between them. I also pushed myself further out of my comfort zone in the use of my face and body as the canvass. My initial thinking once I had the concept of projection onto my skin was to use my body more than my face. I liked the idea of curvature distorting the words, but ultimately rejected the idea because it could be the body of anyone rather than obviously mine. This was a creative decision based on how to give the photographs impact, something that I have learned throughout Context and Narrative.
Context
In the context of my learning on the course so far, this assignment takes influences from the photographers studied and results in something that I believe meets the brief. The scope of the assignment brief was very open, stating that we had freedom to experiment with our interpretation of it. My interpretation is very different from any other coursework completed so far; to that extent I am very happy with the outcome.
Special thanks to my very patient wife Jayne, who helped set up and was ultimately responsible for the shooting.
Post-Feedback Changes to Assignment 3
During the feedback session with my tutor, a number of ideas were proposed to enhance both my submission and my appreciation of similar work within the genre of self portraiture. In addressing the feedback, I conducted the recommended further research, described in the blog post Reflecting on Assignment 3 Feedback[3]. However, one of the suggestions related to my assignment photographs was to change the crop from square format to portrait. This would not only tie in with the idea of them being portraits but it would also emphasise the main subject by reducing the amount of background colour in the frames. I could immediately see the benefit of re-cropping so decided that my final submission should incorporate this change.
Revised Series
“Where there are questions or challenges from the team about what they are being told, I endeavour to resolve them if I can. It’s not always possible though,as the engineering leadership team isn’t currently involved in some of the higher-level discussions or decisions. At the point that we are, some of the information that is being briefed will be easier to explain. For now, though there is a sense of ‘no news is good news’ – a bizarre expression that suggests that ignorance of something happening is better than knowing”
“The meeting itself for me is only about 50% effective in discussing the important topics, so I find myself questioning the point of it. As Tuesday progresses, the topics become more interesting as more people are involved in their debate. Perhaps my reticence about the first meeting is more about it feeling like a morning prayers session than a constructive meeting”
“As we were all working from home, there was little to no risk of it causing an issue in the business, but it was still a theme that people would tell us about their symptoms on the morning call. On this particular morning, I realised how that doesnt happen at all now. Isolation was indeed a good way of reducing the risk to our health, it would seem. Today, everyone was in good form”
“The need to de-personalise the workspaces is something that we aren’t undertaking lightly, but it won’t be seen that way by the people who work for us. I have a team member with four computer screens who is going to go mad when I tell her she can have only one. If I think about my own sense of home, I’m reminded of the time when home was the last place I wanted to be. I was being driven slowly mad by noise from our upstairs neighbour, which became the trigger for a series of serious depressive episodes that eventually landed me in hospital. I had no axe to grind with our neighbours and they could never have fully understood the damage they were doing to me”
“On this occasion one of her neighbours who has been looking out for her during lockdown, called to say she couldn’t get hold of her. While the neighbours have been great, this one is a bit of a busybody. She had become accustomed to watching Hazel’s routine of putting her recycling bins back in the garage after they had been emptied in the morning. On this day, the bins were still out in the afternoon. The neighbour had tried the house but got no answer, called her mobile and got her voicemail and, after some time called Jayne”
“I’ve always felt proud of my own distance swimming achievements, though. My first distance swim was 2 miles open water, which is a massive challenge in its own right. Even though COVID has put paid to my training this year, I am determined to swim the 11 mile length of Lake Windermere before I am 50 in just under 2 and a half years’ time”
“One the way home, we started planning our next holiday. We have had two cancelled this year so far, with a number of triathlon events that would include long weekends also being called off. With the rest of the year provisionally planned, we turned our attention to 2021 and 2022. Towards the end of this year, we have hired a camper van as a trial with a view to buying early next year. It’s something we are both very excited about because it give us a little more freedom to take off for short breaks whenever we like”
Updated Conclusion
I believe that the re-crop makes the pictures more impactful. On reflection, the area of background colour was distracting from the main subject and although I liked the Warhol-esque feel that it created, I don’t think it has been diminished by making the area smaller. The revised crop also makes it easier to read some of the smaller words being projected. Overall, I’m happy with the revised set.
References
[1] Fletcher R, 2020, “Assignment 3 Diary”, OCA Blog Post, https://richardfletcherphotography.photo.blog/2020/08/23/assignment-3-diary/
[2] Fletcher R, 2020, “Preparing for Assignment 3”, OCA Blog Post, https://richardfletcherphotography.photo.blog/2020/09/19/preparing-for-assignment-3/
[3] Fletcher R, 2020, “Reflecting on Assignment 3 Feedback”, OCA Blog Post, https://richardfletcherphotography.photo.blog/2020/10/09/reflecting-on-assignment-3-feedback/
Richard Fletcher OCA Photography Blog 
Pingback: 3) Exercise 3: Childhood Memories | Richard Fletcher OCA Photography Blog
Pingback: Research Task: Gregory Crewdson | Richard Fletcher OCA Photography Blog
Pingback: Assignment 5: Making it up | Richard Fletcher OCA Photography Blog
Pingback: Reflecting on Photography 1 – how things have changed so far | Richard Fletcher OCA Photography Blog