Gail Timms
Falmouth University MA Photography
Surfaces and Strategies 703 tasks
Week 6- Exhibition guidance
For this activity, find and post one example of an 'alternative space'. Try to think outside of the (traditional) white walls of a gallery, such as a supermarket (see above), a billboard, or even a shoe. Don't be afraid to post what might seem obvious, or unexpected, or even crazy, but please include an image. A brief repository of possibilities here could easily benefit all in the not-too-distant future.
Two bunker in Berlin, Germany, July 27, 2017. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch
A general view shows the location of the exhibition entitled 'Hitler - How Could it Happen?' about German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler during a media tour in a World War
It examines Hitler’s life from his childhood in Austria and time as a painter to his experience as a soldier during World War One and his subsequent rise to power. Other exhibits focus on concentration camps, pogroms and the Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews.
It ends with a controversial reconstruction of the bunker room where Hitler killed himself on April 30, 1945 - replete with grandfather clock, floral sofa and an oxygen tank. The exhibit is behind glass and is monitored by camera, with visitors forbidden to take photographs.
Dark tourism will always be successful, whether that is a morbid fascination or a desire to pay homage, the exhibitions usually work. My own work doesn't have this kind of historical depth to draw the crowds so I need to wow them with the beauty and creativity.
Week 5- Workshop
Whereas exhibitions and publications provide an opportunity for audiences to experience photographs as outcomes, a workshop provides an opportunity to experience how images are produced. In this way, workshops provide a direct link to the photographer, which can often have a long-lasting impact upon the audience, especially within a learning environment (e.g. a school or university). This activity, therefore, asks you to create a workshop that relates to your current project, the experience of which may help you with your research.
Week 4- 24 Hrs
I placed an invite on facebook for a kids workshop. Keeping it cheap as it was for children. At the time I felt I should keep it short and sweet but on reflection, I feel it is too short and so I need to find the time to look at what I am teaching and use that as the information in the advertisement. So far I have one booking and I wanted to have at least five.
In this webinar, you are asked to present a series of five 'photographs' produced during the week's earlier 24-hour activity: Hands off! and discuss it in relation to your current project / practice. You may also use this opportunity to reflect upon the first four weeks of the module and what they have / haven't done for your practice.
After signing up for one of the nine webinars, please do the following:
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Post your images below in the relevant discussion thread, along with a title and short description (maximum of 90 words)
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Prepare questions, observations and comments you would like to share in the webinar.
I found this very interesting. My interests lie in the historical art from all different eras but just lately has been baroquely focused. So when I had to think how I could use something else to create my otherwise very edited images I was a little stumped. The last few weeks has got me thinking very much out of the box in terms of realising that there are more ways I can add to my images. I often use a lot of flowers in my photography and will be adding them to more images I make and so for this task I used a scanner. I do not have many other forms I could use that I haven't used already to make a photograph
I decided to take the last image and edit in my style to see if I could use the image within my work. After a short white editing, I came to the conclusion I liked it.
I instantly could see it on the wall and ordered myself a frame from Amazon and printed it out. With a little more time I can see it work in future images.
I am also left with a new piece of work and a story to tell for the studio
The only real limiting factors are that the images are pretty two dimensional. But a fellow student suggested that I put a scanned copy of other flowers on top of the flowers instead of the scanner lid alone to create more depth of field. I will give this a try.
Week 4- Human
Basically, I struggled with this, absolutely everything I could think of, I could then put a human somewhere in the chain unless it was a Martian taking a photo of earth and just as all was lost I found the Veil of Veronica and became interested, I had heard about these miracles before.
It is a Christian (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.relic (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. of a piece of cloth which, according to tradition, bears the likeness of the face of Jesus not made by human hand (i.e. an acheiropoieton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_Veronica (Links to an external site.)
Which then led me onto Icons- Acheiropoieta (Links to an external site.). (Medieval Greek: ἀχειροποίητα, "made without hand"; singular acheiropoieton) — also called Icons Made Without Hands (and variants) — are Christian icons which are said to have come into existence miraculously, not created by a human
Week 3- Making Zines
Download the Zine here.
Reflected Selfie
For this activity, you are asked to work in teams to crowdsource and produce a zine (digital or paper) from personal networks and / or within the university:
Step One: Using the comments box below, organise yourselves into six teams. Then make your groups official via the people page.
Step Two: Establish a team leader. This is not everyone's ideal role but it may be a useful experience for some.
Step Three: Using the dedicated group discussion pages, establish a theme for the zine and create a call for participants: a one-sentence objective you would like people to carry out. Keep in mind your respondents may not have much time to participate, so instructions should be clear and achievable
Step Four: Share the call for participation and collect contributions.
Step Five: Collate images and arrange into a zine. There are no restrictions as to size, style or format for the zine. You may wish to use free versions of online tools (eg Issuu (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. or Madmagz (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.) or go low-fi and make it by hand. You might also wish to produce variations of your zine, if that is appropriate to the concept. Team deadline for finishing zines is Wednesday 23:59 (BST).
The subject was already chosen when I joined the team, so there was not much thought personally given to topics. a couple of opinions on numbers and agreement with titles but for the most part, I didn't really much input in putting the zine together even the final presentation was decided without any ideas, and so when you see other people have printed for example it makes you think you need to much more effort in to produce great results..
I then posted on my facebook page that I asked my friends if they would send a reflected selfie. The first person to reply was an MA student and then a friend. The others I had to bully and push family members or I would have come back empty-handed.
Seifles Detcelfer is the new name!
I was disappointed that more of my friends couldn't take a quick selfie. Especially when a lot of my friends post them all day, maybe it was my assumption that people would want to collaborate. Or my request just wasn't catchy enough to inspire people to want to be a part. The idea of crowdsourcing is using people who want to be involved in a project so it is very challenging to produce things when most of my images are forced ones to meet a brief, and so that I produce nothing within the assignment. As it was my input was limited, I had never heard of a Zine so felt a little on the back-foot. We felt it would be good to know who the people are and where they are from and had a wide range os geographic selfies.
Moving forward I feel that I need to work more on incentive. What will people get by wanting to be a part of a project? Does it need to pull on heartstrings like another team has to get willing victims? Another team used "Dads" and as it was fathers day peoples Dads would have been at the forefront of peoples minds so it was a very clever idea to use a sentimental goal.
I have also learned I need to think a little more proactively instead of just joining a group, thinking more deeply about what I personally want to achieve out of it.
Images I contributed
Week 2- Teaser
The task this week was to create a trailer for our project. My first thoughts were oh here we go, another platform for me to spend hours getting to know. Second thoughts were I have no idea how to video to any professional standard and thirdly my thoughts on my project are still a little unclear and so where do I put my focus?
I decided to stick to vintage styling as any images I took I could maybe use. Set up my back up 610 and pressed record. I did try to be clever and artistic but very quickly realised why I take photographs and not video.
I went to iMovie and played around with their templates and found they didn't meet my needs. So started from scratch. I found some music I could use for free from https://www.classiccat.net/
I have a very hectic week so needed to be ahead of the game. I played around pretty much all weekend and ended up with a teaser a little longer than I should have. But ran out of time. I think I am about as happy as I can be. Since posting it I realised I didn't put the Title on and haven't credited the other people in it, so will remember to do that next time I video. To access the password is falmouth
Week 1- Ed Ruscha inspired.
During the break, we were given an optional task of looking at Ed Ruscha and remaking one of his ideas. I chose 'Records. In Ed's book, it is very clean, and uncluttered book. Photographs of 30 LP record albums from Ruscha's personal collection, depicting their sleeves and one side of the records themselves. Artists include the Velvet Underground, James Taylor, the Rolling Stones, Wilson Pickett, Chuck Barry to name a few. As iconic as Ed is, I felt I could give a deeper meaning to this book by not using records of my choosing. I chose the style of music and then asked for volunteers to sit for me.
My response to the Ed Ruscha challenge was a two-fold. I took a trip down memory lane and tied it in with other projects of mine where nostalgia plays a huge part. I used 'Records" for my inspiration as music has always played a part in my history. I took his view of just the record speaks for itself as I wanted it to convey a further meaning and so along with the local Scooter Club wanted to show individual favourite records. The aim being so that other scooterists or northern soul fans can get a taste of some great music being recommended.
I loved this challenge as it is a cult following close to my heart as I was into Northern Soul during the 80's revival. I called it "keeping the faith". as it is a quote by followers of northern soul or Mods. So secondly this also ties into my projects with the importance of nostalgic photography. The images are scooterists, who hold their favorite record with a closer look at the record opposite and the music over playing is one of my favourites. As I will also be in the book with my record I won't have to worry about playing the tune on the web without violating copyright when I can get a friend to come with a spare scooter for me. I do feel that overplayed music adds to the emotion I personally feel
I intend to print the book as I feel it will be better in hard copy and have it for sale but will be adding more pages first, when I can reschedule my sitters, they don't tend to bring out scooters in the rain. So it will be within a few weeks, but this is the work in progress.
I took my studio lights and speedlights outside to a stable area and make a makeshift studio so that the scooterists could drive in.
The assignment took me out of my comfort zone, not only was I dealing with adults but needed to think about professionalism whilst enjoying the music I had playing in the background to get people in the mood.
Week 1- Strategies of Looking
"Methods and approaches we use to produce our work (the strategies) and the places, spaces and platforms we adopt to put our work out there (the surfaces)"
Activity 1: Place Over Time
As I traveled to Boston to re-photograph some historical places I felt would go with my project, the huge scale of migration distracted me. I used to live in Boston and haven’t been there much at all since I left so when I got to West street and took a slow drive, in 600 meters I passed seventeen shops of Eastern European wording I decided to take a photo of one of the many roads that are mostly foreign. Many with signs in Polish or Latvian and no English to be seen. The town has in the last ten years become the UK's biggest residence of immigrants and migrants. I was distracted because I thought over history this has not been the first time we have had mass immigrants as during my research into the 15-17th Century I came across a painting of an African woman who was gifted to our Queen. At that time the slavery and Africans were a huge part of the migration to the UK.
Seeing all the European shops made me wonder where Boston will be in another 10 years. Already 1 in 5 of the population is Eastern European. How will this change our culture here? The town itself is flourishing but at what cost? I used Google earth to find an image of the shops in the street from 2009.
I currently photograph with an attraction to historical times but have been absent of meaning. After my feedback, I want to act on that. This module I would like to see myself have more meaning in my work, whether I look for historical images I can emulate, or old stories I can bring back to life, I also already thinking since doing this task, of merging the old with the new technology
