Brief
Use you camera as a measuring device. This doesn’t refer to the distance scale on the focus ring. Rather, find a subject that you have an empathy with and take a sequence of shots to ‘explore the distance between you’. Add the sequence to your learning log, indicating which is your ‘select’ – your best shot.
When you review the set to decide upon a ‘select’, don’t evaluate the shots just according to the idea you had when you took the photographs; instead evaluate it by what you discover within the frame (you’ve already done this in Exercise 1.4). In other words, be open to the unexpected. In conversation with the author, the photographer Alexia Clorinda expressed this idea in the following way:
Look critically at the work you did by including what you didn’t mean to do. Include the mistake, or your unconscious, or whatever you want to call it, and analyse it not from the point of view of your intention but because it is there.
Exemplars:
Andrea Schwickart: https://eyvlog.wordpress.com/2017/08/21/the-distance-between-us-exercise-5-1
Morris Gallagher: https://morrisgdotorg.wordpress.com/exercises/exercise-5-viewpoint/exercise-5-1-viewpoint-explore-the-distance-between-you/ This link is to a protected blog.
Darryl Godfrey: https://darrylgodfrey.wordpress.com/category/coursework/part-5-viewpoint/
This has been an interesting exercise to work through.
My initial thoughts around the exercise were to do something based on my relationship with the church. I started attending church and became a Christian when I was a teenager. Over the years I’ve stopped attending church other than for weddings and funerals, have started attending church regularly again, got involved with the Parish Church Council, taught Sunday school, but then as a result of my transition found myself becoming distance from the church. The final thing that affected my relationship were a series of events around my son becoming ill that challenged my faith to its limits. As much as I still have a faith and belief in God, I have found that I struggle with the Christianity and the Christian faith when it comes to the buildings where it can be found.
To make the images below into something coherent, the captions of each are very important. They lend context to the images and help to tell a story.
“I’ll lend you for a while a child of mine,” He said.
“For you to love the while he lives and mourn for when he’s dead.
It may be six or seven years, or twenty-two or three,
But will you, till I call him back, take care of him for me?
He’ll bring his charms to gladden you, and should his stay be brief,
You’ll have his lovely memories as solace for your grief.”
“I cannot promise he will stay; since all from earth return,
But there are lessons taught down there I want this child to learn.
I’ve looked the wide world over in My search for teachers true
And from the throngs that crowd life’s lanes I have chosen you.
Now will you give him all your love, not think the labor vain,
Nor hate Me when I come to call to take him back again?”
“I fancied that I heard them say, “Dear Lord, Thy will be done!
For all the joy Thy child shall bring, the risk of grief we run.
We’ll shelter him with tenderness, we’ll love him while we may,
And for the happiness we’ve known, forever grateful stay;
But should the angels call for him much sooner than we’ve planned,
We’ll brave the bitter grief that comes and try to understand!”
By Edgar Guest
One day in October 2017 I spent a number of hours alone in the church taking photographs of everything I could. Stained glass windows, the bosses in the roof, the pulpit, the lecturn, carvings and plaques. I gave the church a copy of everything, to do with as they wanted.
This was to be one of the last times I set foot in the church. The last time was to spend some time alone praying to God and hoping that one of my friends from the church would just happen to be passing by. Alas that wasn’t to be the case.
The combination of words and photographs are designed to tell a particular story, one of growing to belong someplace but eventually to lose that sense of belonging. Each of the images, if taken standalone allow the viewer to interpret them in any way that they see fit, but when combined with the words I hope that the viewer will find a deeper meaning behind to the images.
Analysing the images
The following bullets relate to each of the images above.
- I think the main thing that I wouldn’t have included in this image if I’d noticed is the figure and arm reaching into the scene on the left hand side. I would have waited a fraction longer until they’d moved out of shot. Similarly with the disembodied foot. Looking at the image with regards to what is there, the sky seems just one colour until you notice the clouds just hovering above the rock that the children are standing on.
- In the second image, the building at the left of the shot could have been removed by a slight changed of position. Cropping the image would remove it but that would result in the lower branches on the tree no longer coming together. The thing that I’ve noticed with the image that I hadn’t picked up on properly was the tracks in the snow on the left hand side of the image. The tracks going up the path were obvious and showed that someone had walked up to the church that way. The tracks in the snow give a clue to the kind of wildlife that had been there before me.
- The thing I notice about this image when looking at it are the things that would have escaped my notice not just when taking the image, but also when in the church normally. The hook-like object on the wall, the signs of wear and tear on the lecturn and the footstool. This is a place that has been used, for centuries in fact, and is still capable of showing you more if you take the time to really look.
- This was a really hard photograph to capture. Stain glass windows are beautiful things but trying to get the detail of the window while still having some of the detail of the area surrounding it was a challenge. I had to carefully adjust the image in Photoshop to get it like this.
- Looking at this image, the one thing that leaps out at me is the book that is just dropping out of the shot on the left. This is annoying as I took a lot of care with positioning everything in the display.
- The one thing I’ve noticed looking at this image is the way that the windows to the right of the grave monument, look like two people. Something that was completely unintentional.
Jenna Powell - Expressing Your Vision 