This is mostly an update post on my current projects and directions, as I am aware I have been lacking in the blog post department as of late, mostly due to focusing my efforts and energies on the work this blog aims to bring to light.
Last semesters work culminated in a final piece of 36 displayed images on an A1 soft white mount board, each image was roughly 5x3 inches, some with irregularly shaped edges. I received the most overwhelmingly positive feedback I have ever achieved on any work of mine to date, both inside and outside of this degree; This included comments such as "A very strong and at times moving body of work with a clear and quirky aesthetic" and "reverberate with the sense that a very creative and astute mind is at work behind the constructions" which left me feeling elated and as if the message and feeling I was trying to get across was heard and communicated successfully. I know I have spoken before both on here and on my Instagram account about how emotionally exhausting this particular project has been and will continue to be. Regardless of what mark I were to be awarded it was always a project I wanted and perhaps needed to do for myself, as it is as much an exploration of my own feelings and anxieties as it is an exploration of my fathers relationship with the landscape and his illness.
As positive as the feedback was, my project isn't perfect (although I hasten to say no project ever can be, and that's the nature of art, but that's for another post another day) and I know there's a lot of room for development in not only my techniques but my concept as well, which I hope to explore as fully as I can in the given time frame. Perhaps in another post I will dive more in depth into my projects concept and reasoning, something that in my opinion deserves to be in the spotlight and focus of its own post; for now I will just discuss the evolution ahead.
I was always going to worry that my project was going to peak in January submission, and that is something I am fighting desperately against happening now, whilst also trying not to force any narrative and to let my work decide its own course as I always try to do. I am going to be revisiting some directions and ideas I had for this project last semester, such as full body silhouettes of my father, a reintroduction of colour into my images, and hopefully an exploration into cine film if this is at all financially feasible. Material choice is important for all of these facets of my exploration, I already have some full body shots of my father I prepared last semester, and I have ordered Stuart Semple's "colouriest colour" paints to use over the top of my images, as well as organizing the use of colour toning in the darkroom. The cine film is the harder road to travel down mostly due to the cost of not only the film itself, but the development and reversal of the film to be shown via a projector, due to this it will be limited in my project, with hopefully no need for more than 2 reels of film, a tester reel and the real thing; however the idea of incorporating cine film into this project is one that fills me with child-like excitement, so trust me when I say that I will do everything in my power to make this a reality.
For now I am just going to try and have fun with the processes involved in my project, I have a camping trip planned for next week to get me back out into the landscape with my camera, where I feel most at home.
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