Saturday 21 January 2012

Assignment 4 – some thoughts (and maybe a photo or two)

I’m struggling with sorting out in my head what subjects I want to consider for my re-shoot of Assignment 3 and for the first (hopefully only) pass at Assignments 4. Part of the problem is I get attached to ideas – irrespective of how workable they are – and lead myself up blind alleys.
While I was waiting for feedback on A3 I worked my way through a few ideas for A4 – the trick I felt would be to avoid touristy material, as described in the assignment text. I jotted down a few broad thoughts, analysed the pros and cons (in my written log) and eventually settled on The Solway Coast for a sense of place. It has a lot going for it – it avoids the tourist traps of Keswick, Cockermouth and further into the Lakes, it is a reasonably defined area and it has – to my mind at least - a definable feel. And there’s the rub... for me the feel is about the absence of people – the solitude, the lack of really definable features, the wind and the sound of oystercatchers. In other words, very little to do with ‘the place and the people who live and work in it’.
I tried re-working the idea around a historic sites theme, and even did some recce photos at a couple of locations. Maybe it was the weather but it simply didn’t gel – the aim of the exercise is to produce a series of images for a travel publication and although these photos have a certain ‘atmosphere’ I can’t honestly see them being used in a consumer publication because of their general drabness.
A dreary day at Beckfoot 1000/688: 31 Dec 2011: By the Solway Viaduct
Obviously I could wait until the weather improves, but I just beginning to re-establish some momentum on this module and I’m rather loathe to lose that. There is also another issue I had to face once I actually got out on the ground trying to take photos - the sheer size of the area I was planning to cover. So – time to reconsider.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Interesting. I think that going to a place that gives you space to breathes and offers relatively empty beaches and countryside would be very appealling to some holidaymakers. The trick with such a subject would be to suggest that while also covering the people who are there, as there is no place in the British Isles that is not marked by people. Quite a challenge really - look forward to seeing what you do next!

Unknown said...

Hi Eileen. The difficulty is that the assignment says "..the character of the place and the people who live there." and having just had to do a re-shoot for Assignment 3 because I didn't follow the brief I'm loathe to be too liberal this time around. The bits I find really interesting are almost devoid of inhabitants - so I think I'll be concentrating on a single village, and pick up the other bits when I get to the Landscape module. It has the feeling of an ongoing project that I can tie in to several modules moving forward. What I want to say about the whole area doesn't really fit with this assignment, so I think I'm going to have to be less ambitious in scale for the moment.