DPP - Half Way There!

Just had my Tutor's remarks on Assignment 2 that were most encouraging. Offered some extra work to consider (not compulsory) that I will do over the next couple of weeks. It will increase my overall knowledge and give me a better understanding.

I am about half way through the third part of the Course and have collected quite a few images that I think will work in black and white for assignment 3. Part of the comments from my tutor was to widen the scope so as to be faced with more variety and therefore more challenges. I had originally settled on a specific theme,  local ruins of Bury St Edmund Abbey and Thetford Priory both of which relied heavily upon the local building material of the time - flint. Clearly the theme is quite tightly bounded so I now need to think about how to widen the scope whilst being able to keep some of the images I have taken.

At this point it seems to be appropriate to review where I am at and the progress made. After a difficult start, due to confusion over the Course material that did not come to light until I submitted my first assignment, I received the comments back from my then tutor. The main concern was the approach that I had taken in which I had set out to photograph buildings of various ages to show the conflict between the new and the old. I deliberately chose to concentrate on 'form' rather than 'function' as I believe that when seeing a building for the first time we judge it by its form and that function is a secondary consideration. I chose not to include people unless they provided a sense of scale and certainly no-one that could give a clue to the purpose of the building.

My then tutor felt otherwise and suggested that I should have provided clues as to the function of the building. For example one of the shots was of Victorian Law Courts and he suggested that the picture would have been enhanced by the inclusion of a bewigged barrister or other clue. It is a valid point, leaving aside that barristers get dressed in robes and wigs inside the building, but I felt that it moved away from the purpose that I was pursuing.  In the end I decided to stick with my original plan.

The differences did give me considerable food for thought about the different approaches that photographers can take to the same subject and that there is no 'right' or 'wrong' way and that we have to go with our own instincts and methods. It also raised how the assignment as set out in the Course material can be added to by the Tutor  as he pursues his own interpretation or belief as to how it should be tackled. Whilst this is a perfectly legitimate approach and can provide positive creative tension it does leave the isolated student with something of a dilemma.

My own approach is to assume that the assignment is designed to test my knowledge of the preceding Course work. For example if the assignment refers me back to exercises earlier in the Course I assume that my work should reflect what the exercises were designed to test. To use an actual case we were asked in Assignment 1 to set out a workflow with particular reference to Exercises 1 & 2 and then use that to tackle a theme of our own choice. My tutor's response made virtually no reference to whether the workflow I had constructed was valid but concentrated on the images submitted. Whilst this may seem to be obvious in a photography Course I would still argue that the learning was about the organisation of our work so that the actual image taking is not frustrated by our lack of planning.

The 64000 dollar question is over the last two assignments do I feel that I have increased my knowledge of photography and am I a better photographer for it. The answer has to be 'Yes!' As I started work on the material in Part 3 - Processing the Image I noticed a obvious change in the way that I approached the task. I asked questions first and shot later which is the opposite to my previous way of working. In processing images my first thought is how can I bring out the best in the image before using the tools available rather than blindly following a path that seems to work alright and the result is not bad but could be better.

Here's hoping the remainder of the Course will be equally rewarding.