Research – How to do it and what’s expected
Click the 'New' image for link to a video explaining how to analyse the main image in your research.
Also see this video here more instructions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JK4VfqXBzY
For each Photographer you’re expected to produce 2 pages of work using the "The design sheet" see link in side bar. One page is made up of images and a small bit of written work (250-300 words)… your “Initial reaction”. (Here below)
The other page is made up of one Primary image and the written research work that addresses the criteria from the brief. In this case for Unit 09 you have to write about how and why the Photographers have used materials, techniques and processes to communicate creative intentions.
It's therefore beneficial to clarify the definitions of Techniques and processes first and then think about these in terms of what they mean in Photographic practice.
Technique - A way of carrying out a particular task, especially the execution or performance of an artistic task.
Process - A series of actions and steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.
Creative intentions
Most of you up till now would have taken ‘Snapshots’ with your phones and DSLR’s, with little or no thought to the ‘Creative intention’. Now that you’ve signed up for a level 3 course in photography you now have to work with a ‘Creative Intention’. Your first assignment is ‘Cardboard camera’ and you’ll be making your own camera out of junk and taking pictures with it.
The theme/subject for the cardboard camera assignment is ‘Sinister’. Therefore the ‘Creative intention’ is that you’re going to make pictures that are sinister.
You now have to think about aspects such as design. You have to design your images so that when the viewer looks at them is able to see that your creative intention was to make the images looks sinister.
You’ve been given two artists whose work has a sinister aspect to them. This sinister aspect is a result of the way the images have been designed and comes about through a whole range of different attributes that the photographer has considered and incorporated. These decisions about what is in the image and what is not, is a part of the creative intention process and is something you need to write about when deconstructing and analysing the images in your research.
Photographers design their images, they don’t just happen and they’re not snapshots, their images come about through a series of conscious decisions where they construct and design all of the visual elements. These visual elements include designing and making decisions about…
• Where you take the pictures.
• When you take the pictures.
• What’s in the background.
• Who or what the picture is of.
• What props are used in the images.
• How body language is used.
• How facial expressions are used.
• How hair and make-up is used.
• How big the subject is in the frame.
• How much negative space is in the image.
• What is used in the image to create mood.
• Shape.
• Line.
• Form.
• Texture.
• Colour or black and white – the impact this choice has on the image/s.
• Contrast.
• Tonality.
• What camera you use.
• What film you use.
• What process you use.
• What post-production you apply.
• How the image is cropped and framed.
• How the images are styled.
• How narrative is used .
• Whether the message is conveyed through the use one or more images.
All these elements are potentially components of your ‘Creative Intention’.
Further information re Creative Intentions can be found in this blogpost here
Hopefully you’ve got some sense of what you need to do, now you need to do it.
• You know you’re looking to research images that look – Sinister/Creepy/Scary/Dark/Gloomy that have been shot by the 2 Photographers indicated in the Summer Task brief. Watch the videos that are linked on the assignment to get a sense of the feel and mood you’re looking for.
• Choose which artist you’re going to research first and make yourself a folder on a Hard-drive or a USB and call it Unit 09. Inside that folder create another folder and name that Unit 09 research. Inside the 2nd folder create a new document and call it Unit 09 bibliography. Typically each of the folders for the inits you do over the year should look like this...
• Using Google search - using the artists name and then have a look at any of the websites that come up with a decent amount of written material. Look out especially for high quality content websites and use those as much as you can. Another really good way of researching is to pre-fix the name of the Photographer with the words “Interview with”. This comes up with very good quality research because it’s not opinion, it’s the facts direct from the Photographer. If you like any of the website you find, copy the HTML link (Web address) and paste it into the document you’ve named Unit 09 Bibliography; do this with any and all of the websites you read as part of your research.
• Images when you see good images that you think convey the feeling of sinister or spooky, or you feel are going to be useful in your research click on them, open them up and Save as into the folder Unit 09 research. You need to find about 12-18 images in order that you fill up that first page in your design sheets almost. Remember you need to leave some space for the written part.
• Once you have all your images, you simply have to open up your design sheet name it “Unit 09 research Deborah Turberville” and save it in the Unit 09 folder.
• Title the page Deborah Turberville and bold it.
• Now using the ‘Insert pictures’ command in word, import the images one by one and adjust the images to the correct width as you place them on the page. Do this by holding the shift key and dragging the corner, this will maintain their aspect ratio.
• It’s good practice to label the images with numbers or letters beneath the images so that when you’re discussing the images in your work you can write things like… Image 7 is particularly sinister because Turberville has…
• Once you’ve nearly filled the page up leave some space at the end for the initial reaction. In this section, aim to write 250-300 words analysing the work in terms of your initial thoughts on the processes, techniques and materials used in the production of the images. Also have a go at saying what you think the creative intention is – what are the images about, what are they for, what are they trying to convey, are they intentionally creepy or sinister – what do you think at this stage, prior to reading about the Photographers actual rationale and reasons.
• Remember to save your work frequently when typing it up and importing the images. Also save it in a 2nd place as well as on the primary drive you’re saving the work to as you go along.
See here for guidance on 'Workflow'.
The 2nd page.
• Now read the articles that you looked at you thought might be useful and start to put in the facts about the work.
• Creative Intention what is the creative intention – what are the images, what are they used for, what is the photographer trying to get across to the audience, are they intentionally creepy or sinister and why. Where did the images appear, who commissioned them or is the work personal work that was never used editorially?
• Processes; what processes has the photographer used to convey the feeling, mood and message in the images, how has narrative been incorporated into the images?
• Techniques; what techniques have been used in the image design to convey the Creative intention? Explain, deconstruct and analyse.
• Once you’ve addressed these points above, which are the most important as they address the assignment criteria, you can then move on to generic points about the work and the Photographer. General image analysis – see the prompts list on the blog www.secphotofun.blogspot.com
• It’s useful to select one image that you know you’re going to discuss the most and use that in the centre of the 2nd page. When you place the image on the page stretch it out so that it is relatively big and the click on the little icon on the right-hand side and choose the tight option and then choose the option below for fix image on page. When you add or write the text into page two it will neatly sit around the central image.
• DO NOT COPY ANY TEXT all the work has to be your own. Read it and re-write it in your own words, use the technical language that you see in your research, but take ownership of the work, do not copy up lines or even groups of text as this is plagiarism. Note at the end of the Unit your work will need to be converted to a single PDF file and submitted on-line before the deadline via a website that checks whether you have copied anything. https://www.turnitin.com/regions/uk
• Quotes Within the 2nd page you are allowed to use quotes. Quotes cannot make up anymore than 10% of the written work and it’s the only copying that you can do, but you must identify the fact that you are using quotes.
• How to use quotes in your work…
“It’s done like this. First of all, the text has to be ‘Indented’ e.g. it sits in further from the margin like this. This is done by using highlighting the quote text and then whilst in home at the top of the page in word selecting the indent symbol which looks like this here.
The other thing you should do is set the quoted text to Italics (this slanted writing) and change the text colour to blue. Also use the speech marks to show that you’re quoting. The last thing you need to do is indicate where the text has been copied from. This is done cross-referencing the quote with the website (HTML) link by numbering each of the quotes that you use. This is the first one in this document, so this is shown by this little number used at the end of the text in brackets. The number also appears next to the website link” (1). So it should look like this...
• Bibliography As mentioned earlier, as you decide which website’s you’re going to get your research info from you must acknowledge them by creating a ‘Bibliography’. It may be the case that you use many websites and perhaps even books and journals when you do your research, but you’re only required to list 4 or 5 with each research task at the end of page 2
The work once completed should look something like the example above. (This is an Art version).
The completed 2 pages should have around 1000 – 1,200 words including the bibliography. You can do more – simply convert the text to a smaller size 9.5 or make the central image slightly smaller.
Once you’ve completed the work, ideally you’d convert it to a PDF and send it as a PDF. Other than that, send the 2 word files to your course leader… (See your previous emails).
Once you're at college doing the photography, you use the same design sheet to record all of your work in.
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