Micro History

I recently switched to the new OCA website and took advantage of the free courses to help students navigate the new website and provide advice, suggestions and ideas for studying. When working my way through these courses I came across an interesting article about Micro Histories, these are recorded events of small insignificant moments mostly

The Complete Guide to Light & Lighting in Digital Photography

The Complete Guide to Light & Lighting in Digital Photography (2006) Michael Freeman, Cambridge: ILEX. ISBN: 978-1-904705-88-8. I picked this book up in my charity bookshop last year and I have only now gotten around to reading it. This book is very general and will teach you very limited lighting skills, I always get and

Critical reflection

The Brief: Produce a story with a social theme. Your project should combine portraits, objects and spaces to describe your subject matter. You should produce between 8 – 12 images to demonstrate an ethical practice. At the time of producing this project, I found myself in the middle of a world pandemic as a result

Reading Photographs – In Our Own Image, by Fred Ritchin

Peter Kennard and Cat Phillips created the image, titled: Photo Op, in 2005. From Fred Ritchin’s book, In Our Own Image, his essay, Reading Photographs, (Ritchin, 2010) discusses the authenticity of a photograph. He asks, …after all that is happening in computer imaging can one safeguard the integrity of the photograph in its populist role

Self Image, Personal is political (1979) by Angela Kelly

Women’s Identity (1975 – 1979) Angela Kelly This essay, Kelly examines the use and mis-use of self portraiture, to quote Kelly: to determine what relevance a seemingly private practice has to a public audience. (p.410, Wells, 2003). Kelly suggests in her essay, that at the time of writing, self-portraiture had not been properly analysed. As

A critical reflection.

My brief The readings, research and exercises should have led you to think about self portraiture in a variety of ways. Some practitioners deliberately play with ideas of fluidity and multiple selves, whilst still being anchored to a nominal self. Selfies, often used as self promotion, are intimately linked to their intended audience. Create a

Exercise 2.6 – Candid Portrait

Working with my friend Graham, I set-up a basic studio with a barstool and a white background, I directed his poses using my camera fixed to a tripod. After 5 minutes I gave the control of the photographic direction to Graham, who firstly wanted me to take the camera off the tripod and then photograph

Preparing, producing and editing Assignment 2

For this assignment, the social theme was based around a current social issue that is affecting millions of people, myself included, being furloughed from work as a result of the COVID pandemic. I therefor used myself as the subject and my home as this is the location of my furlough. I used a Nikon with

Planning and preparing for assignment 1.

Due to the COVID epidemic getting photographs of anyone outside my household is proving very, difficult; so for my first assignment I have elected to keep it simple and use my wife and myself as the subjects. The photographers and their projects that have inspired me are Larry Sultan, Pictures of Home (1992) and Tina

Reading Task – I.D. Photo.

The singular idea of the meaning of an I.D. photo is the passport head and shoulders, facing the camera composition; but this not the only method to establish a form of identification. When photographing people I will more often include more information this may be a full body shot or half to three quarters of