Saul and the road to Damascus

If week is a long time in politics clearly 12 hours is an eternity for me.  I went to university this morning thinking that I knew where I was going with my project.  I had sorted out in my mind what I was going to do - there was harmony in my collective (Sorry another Star Trek reference!).  Then bang.  A thought struck me.  Bad things thoughts not usually good things - tend to rock the boat.

Isn't it funny where ideas come from.  I was sitting in the journals section of the DMU library paging through back issues of Photoworks.   I came to some work by TONK and this idea plopped out...

'why not break the rules of flash photography?'

I thought about this for a while longer then I thought 'No titles/No Rules'  Suddenly everything started to fall into place.  Last week Paul Hill had asked my what I now called myself as I was no longer employed.  "Student but I don't really feel the need for any title anymore.  I have had 32 years of that" was my reply. No Title.   My previous work was all to do with rules and I am sick to the back teeth of that. No Rules.  It made sense.  No Titles/No Rules.

I know this sounds a little anarchic but what better way to experiment.  No Title/No Rules.

This is a little much to compare this to what happened to St Paul.  I am pretty sure I will not be motivated to shape a new religion but it does make sense to me at least.  So there it is No Title/No Rules.

Display 2007 - Helen Sear

Interestingly we had a talk by Helen Sear, much of whose work would appear to be challenging perceptions.  For me the lecture could not have come at a better time.

One final thing.  The photograph is of the rather excellent  cake that  David Manley brought in.  Paul Hill asked me to take a photograph which I did.

What to do?

We had our first meeting of the new year today at university.  Apart from Paul Hill's grumpy old man out burst the day was really a bit of a damp squib.  We were given our next assignments and told to go away and think about it.  After the formal bit- such as it was - a few of us discussed ideas - in truth we were none too clued up as to how we were to progress.  Perhaps the next meeting in 2 weeks might help - or perhaps not!  The staff seemed to think that the next assignment would be the most important we would do as is designed to take us out of our comfort zone - we'll see.

For what it is worth I am thinking about either the use of flash lighting or perhaps black and white film.  Not too sure yet which way to jump.

Feedback

Had a tutorial yesterday and as usual it made me think.   I am in the process of writing my essay.  Now 3000 word is not the problem.  The problem is making the words cogent and fitting together so that the result works.   Anyway, the tutorial.   This has helped me junk a whole section of the essay, the one comparing Winston Link's work with David Shepherd.   Perhaps not the immediate comparison that might spring to mind but one that I thought had validity.   What I was looking for was a way of examining the meticulous prep that Link did when photographing steam engines.  Shepherd on the other hand didn't.  This wasn't due to any slovenly approach on his part but rather pressure of work and a realisiation that steam engines were disappearing fast.  

Having discussed this with Paul Hill, well argued it with him, I have decided to ditch this section.   First he is probably right, although I am not totally convinced yet it could not have been a valid point.  Second, it gives me some extra space to rework some of the original ideas.  By ditching the Shepherd section I saved 500 words.   Always very useful to have when writing. 

Having discussed this with other members of the course it is clear that we are all slogging through this process.   None of us are enjoying the actual writing but I think we are all gaining new insights from having to undertake this.    However, I am itching to start the real work of talking photographs,  after spending the last few weeks just sitting and listening to other photographers talk about their experiences I just want to get stuck into a practical module.  Still, I need to concentrate on the task in hand and get this essay finish.