Month: October 2020

Funding

| Phil Hill

One of the key areas I was to explore during this module is how I can begin to operate past my former commercial practice into areas that compliment and co-exist with my current working practice as a lecturer. I have been planning to continue my look into funding, grants, and bursaries. Previously, I have created unsuccessful applications for the RPS (Fig: 1) and Grain Photo. I am currently awaiting to hear back from Format 21, where I created an application for an exhibit under the theme of ‘Control,’ which has a number of links to my research into the idea of the agency inherent in the qualities of the photographic process.

Strategies in Entering – Blog Post

Figure 1: Phil Hill (June, 2020) Discussing entering awards and applying for RPS Bursary

Considering the lack of success in my application to these previous grants, I really need to unpick the way that I am approaching and constructing my proposals. To support this, I aim to share my ideas much more, and also seek mentors to support the process of application. One area that I am able to do this is and the next step for me is applying for an Arts Council grant. After much discussion, I have been able to gain the support of an artist team, Jenifer Essex and Harry Man, who have a great deal of experience in gaining both research and development grants and also performance and publication funding. I have collaborated with the pair previously to create images for their projects and now able to draw on their experience and knowledge in creating an application to the Arts Council myself. 

Initial Idea

One area that I am keen to explore is to work on a collaborative project with the FE college where I work. As my research project centres around the idea of community, the college performs a vital role in the community – potentially more so than other educational institutions when considering the idea of lifelong learning. There also seems to be a tendency to forget about further education when discussed in a political sense; funding for colleges has remained stagnant for some time and many are struggling as a result and there was also the exams chaos over the summer months that left FE students right at the bottom of the pecking order when receiving their results. Additionally, the Btec qualification that the students are studying has become a slang term for anything considered second rate, even by the students who are working towards them. This demographic is also the least socially mobile, with 13% of working class boys making it to university, for example. (Coughlan, 2020), and likely to feel the aftermath of the current pandemic the most. My project proposal to the Arts council, intends to focus on celebrating the kids that attend FE in a collaborative way, with the potential to collect stories, portraits and images taken by the students themselves. This is a work in progress alongside my current research project to test possibilities.

Figure 2: Matthew Finn (2020) Portrait from School of Art

There are plenty of crossovers and links to my research project, especially in Ferdinand Tönnies concept of Gemeinschaft and Gesselschaft, or community and society (2002). The college exists as part of the community in its societal function however there is a personal connection for me in not only that I work at the college, but I also attended one and also come from the same demographic as the kids that I teach. Historically, there is a precedent for this particular kind of project offering the potential for a re-photographic review of the state of FE. photographer Matthew Finn recently published his work ‘School of Art’ which consists of a portrait series of students from the late 90s during the shift in politics and culture (Fig: 2). Finn’s work was actually created at a previous iteration of West Herts College where I work now and before it was merged into the present college. The work was also created at a similar time to when I was also attending college. I feel that as a result, it could make an interesting review of the state of FE at another turning point for young people.

Initial developments

I have help initial discussions with various elements at the college who are very supportive of the idea. I was initially worried that owing to the current situation we may not be able to create such a project. I am aiming to be as transparent as possible with the project and also need the support of institutions to make it work. There are plenty of logistical challenges that would need to be overcome, for example the seeking of permissions. However, there are systems in place at the college that can support with this. Arts Council are very keen on working with the communities on projects, so I will work to create a series of workshops and talks to support the project. In my initial discussion it was mentioned that there is a current town initiative to re-brand Watford as a creative hub outside of London, which means there is potential to showcase the creative students in particular and as a result may create another opportunity for collaboration and support from other stakeholders. It also has the potential to provide me with images for my project and material to be used by these other institutions.

Bibliography

Coughlan, S. (2020, September 27). University entrance: The ‘taboo’ about who doesn’t go. BBC News. Retrieved October 10, 2020, from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-54278727

Tönnies, F. (2002). Community and Society. Dover.

My Authorship – initial images

| Phil Hill

This is actually a challenging question – worth exploring. How much of my work is influenced to the point of being derivative of others. I have of course taken inspiration from a number of different photographers throughout this MA for example, Alys Tomlinson, Alec Soth and Vanessa Winship. During Landings, my work was complimented by a number of my peers, which is always appreciated, notably, Gem Crichton asked me if I liked the work of Winship, clearly highlighting that the influence of her work is present in mine; potentially there is some work that needs to be done to continue to use these influences in a positive way without my work becoming homage to a practitioner or style.

Caution

In the episode of ‘The Messy Truth’ featuring Alex Coggin on ‘Authorship’ (2019)  this idea was discussed with a key takeaway was the suggestion from Coggin that photographer must be careful what they are consuming in the form of other images, with interviewer Gem Fletcher also noting that too much influence can lead to ‘Career suicide’ (2019). The comment is fairly alarming when I find myself working to develop my workflow and style. However, it is also worth noting that within the same episode both Coggin and Fletcher talk openly about how Coggin’ s own work is visually similar to practitioners, such as Martin Parr, to the extent that his agents have trouble navigating this at times. That said, they do have a point as I am not aiming to emulate another photographer’s style, only take inspiration from and it can be quite easy to get caught up in the kinds of trends that are happening on platform’s such as Instagram, which leads too homogenisation in terms of what we consume and ultimately produce. Clearly, I have work to do in order to resolve this, especially before the start of the FMP.

Commercial attributes

Taking a minute to consider my strengths from a commercial point of view. Attributes, such as the ability to network effectively is not something I have been hugely prolific with and when the opportunity has presented itself, I have not found that I could capitalise on it. Not to say that I am completely unable, as I have been a freelance – more that I work more effectively electronically. Email and I also keep a fairly large mailing list. When I was working as a travel & lifestyle photographer, I was also living in Perth, Western Australia, which has a significantly smaller creative network and easier to stand out and also cut through and market the fact I was based in a region useful to an editor of a European travel publication.

If I was to aim and compete in the UK market, then I feel I would need to develop my confidence in this area a lot more. I don’t rely on full time commercial compensation to survive however, in order to develop my practice, it is in a world that is still competitive and requires work in this area.

Initial images

As I am considering strategies for working with landscapes and bringing these into my broader narrative, my initial explorations vary slightly. I am primarily continuing to look at the idea of where the countryside stops and the urban begins. A useful visual way of showing this initially is where the M25 is, as it provides a useful barrier between what is considered greater London versus everything outside of it. An area worth exploring is the images shot during fog, albeit weather dependent.

During the last webinar with Colin, it was suggested that I could also consider the idea of edgelands and the book by Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley, which I think would link quite well to my initial research into this area. It was also suggested that I consider the way that create a story and then take control of it. Chris Killip was also suggested as he has stated before about his work in the foreword to In flagrante that: “This book is a fiction about a metaphor” (Roberts, 2009), which is definitely an area of investigation.

I am continuing to produce portraits as part of my work in progress and hope that the current pandemic rules allow for that to continue. My focus is shifting with these onto people that I know, over encounters that I am having in my community – although, I could extend this to people that I have already photographed to see how that relationship is changing.

Sequencing experimentation

I am also wanting to experiment with the placement and sequencing of images together to see how they are working as diptychs. For example, the placement of Ryan next to the disused church is in part because of the window in the Ryan portrait and also the symbolism of his tattoo in relation to the cross on the side of the church

Bibliography

Coggin, A., 2019. The Messy Truth: Alex Coggin on Authorship [Interview] (May 2019).

Roberts, S., 2009. CHRIS KILLIP, IN FLAGRANTE. [Online]
Available at: http://we-english.co.uk/blog/2009/03/03/chris-killip-in-flagrante/
[Accessed 9 October 2020].

Oxfam A – Development

| Phil Hill
Carbon Selfie

During the second meeting, we decided that one of the strongest ideas for this brief could be the idea of ‘Greenwashing’ and how a company, or entity might signal that they are green but in fact have an underlying carbon footprint. For example, using online streaming services, such as Spotify are actually worse for the environment than producing physical media in plastic, owing to the amount of energy it takes to send content over the internet (Blistein, 2019), and the use of cotton ‘tote’ bags over their plastic equivalent also have a pretty significant cost and need to be reused over 120 times for the offset to take effect (Edgington, 2019).

Aiming to stick with an online impact, we discussed the impact of the internet on the environment and there are figures that suggest that it contributes around 3.7% of the world’s greenhouse emissions (Griffiths, 2020). Where this relates to the ‘Your Street & Climate Change’ brief could be in raising awareness of this impact as it impacts all of us; we are all users of the internet, social media and mobile devices so all are contributing to this significant effect on climate change.

How do you raise awareness?

My idea is to create a viral social media campaign that could include short mobile device advertisements, hashtags, and even Instagram and/or Snapchat filters. It is worth noting however, that this would also have an impact on the environment by its very nature so it would be important to weight the cost/benefit of such a campaign. Ultimately, I believe that in order to cut-through in today’s online world, it is important to use the platform that everyone is currently engaged with – or risk such a campaign being ignored.

The goal of such a campaign might be to set a date where people could take part in a ‘world social media detox’ in a similar way to how the ‘Earth Hour’ works. This would focus on internet use.

Testing my idea
Figure 1: Phil Hill (October, 2020) Initial test for a viral video campaign.

To play with the idea of a viral social media campaign, I decided to utilise the statistics and see how that might look in the format of a quick video that would appear in the timeline of a social media app (Fig: 1). I feel that there is potential for a kind of interruption of the usual scrolling that takes place and may even have some kind of interaction with after they have uploaded a selfie.

I used a series of selfie images as a stand in for anything produced for the campaign that cycle quickly through to denote the amount of images uploaded to the internet every second. The text ‘Did you know that your #selfie costs 3.7% of the world’s greenhouse emissions’ is animated and plays through the duration of the short video. In order to give this additional clarity, I added a green layer in between with an 80% opacity, which also creates a link to Oxfam branding.

This is an initial test, so completely rough. The text could benefit from being slightly faster and there is also opportunity to add additional copy, such as the source of the statistics and additional Oxfam Branding.

Bibliography

Blistein, J., 2019. Is Streaming Music Dangerous to the Environment? One Researcher Is Sounding the Alarm. [Online] Available at: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/environmental-impact-streaming-music-835220/ [Accessed 7 October 2020].

Edgington, T., 2019. Plastic or paper: Which bag is greener?. [Online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47027792 [Accessed 7 October 2020].

Griffiths, S., 2020. Why your internet habits are not as clean as you think. [Online] Available at: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think [Accessed 7 October 2020].

Writing Feedback

| Phil Hill

I have felt that I would like to develop my writing about photography as I have become quite interested in some of the ideas behind the reasons why I am photographing. I have taken the opportunity to submit a number of text to open calls and other competitions to see how I might develop this as part of my visual practice. Prior to the MA and when I was a freelance photographer, I would often contribute written articles to accompany my images and found that this was a useful way to present myself commercially. I found that editors and commissioners of work were more likely to hire me if I had a complete package of word and images – for the travel sector at least. This very much sits in the topics of the ‘Art and Commerce’ week as I acknowledge that the style of writing that I am pitching for are very different entities and should be approached in different ways.

After submitting to a number of these calls without much success, I replied to my rejected entry to the Source Magazine’s writing prize to see if I could get some feedback from the Editor, Richard West. For some context, my entry to the prize was about an idea that I had during the last module about how photographers aim to separate themselves from the sea of images; by drawing attention to the process of the photography in the images that they produce (Fig: 1).

Drawing Attention to the Image: Essay

Figure 1: Phil Hill (July, 2020) Link to ‘Drawing Attention to the Image’

West did see that I was aiming to write about what he referred to as the ‘presence of the photographer in the image’ (2020) however he didn’t think that the ideas I was putting across were put across in a convincing way. The idea of ‘Presence’ is clearly an area that I need to continue to investigate and read further into the topic in order to create a fully rounded argument. The examples that I used to support my points were also considered disparate, which may be a reflection of how I was trying to cram in as much information within the 700-word limit. Not a great deal of space to flesh out a convincing argument, which is completely a reflection on me as I have a tendency of dancing around a topic when I really need to be more concise (a challenge that I have found for each of the oral presentations). I was reading quite a bit into the topic and possibly needed some more time to really drill down to the fundamentals of the idea; I can see the links, yet unable to convey this to the reader, an important consideration for my writing and also my images. To better communicate the idea of drawing attention to the process, it was suggested that I might be better looking at concentrating on photographers working at a similar time, or focus on a similar subject as a better basis for comparison.

For example, West mentions that my use of Robert Frank in this regard as Source have in the past highlighted similarities to his aesthetic with that of the vernacular, and it is in fact Frank’s lens on the culture and politics of the time that is important (2020). This is a valid point, and I think that I have missed an opportunity to better explain my reasoning behind using Frank as an example in my essay. Crucially, I believe that there is an awareness that Frank has over the vernacular, which creates the separation of his work and comment on American society that it is synonymous for. Interestingly, in this week’s reading was ‘The Messy Truth’ episode on Authorship with Alex Coggin (2019) discussed the idea of how an image can be ‘unmistakeably authored,’ which is something that definitely feeds into this idea that I am trying to get across. Ultimately, the authorship that Coggin is referring to is a way that photographers apply the process and intentionally draws attention to the photograph, the photography, and the photographer creating a significance for the image. My essay, I feel was misinterpreted to be more about the photographer might use equipment, so I must work harder to ensure that my meaning is being interpreted. As West suggests, it is important to get many people to read through my work.  

Finally, West notes that my concluding paragraph could have been more concise, which is a fair point. I have started to understand that I have a tendency to not properly structure my essays and instead keen to get the ideas down onto the page in order to evolve the writing as I am typing. Potentially, in future this is something that I should treat as a draft version to be structured (Table: 1).

Introduction
Definition of TermsIf you are going to utilise terminology in a particular context
Argument oneReason + Counter point
Argument twoReason + Counter point
Argument threeReason + Counter point
Conclusion
Table 1: Phil Hill (October, 2020) Suggested future essay structure
Bibliography

Coggin, A., 2019. The Messy Truth: Alex Coggin on Authorship [Interview] (May 2019).

West, R., 2020. RE: Submission: Source Writing Prize [Email] (1 October 2020).