To develop my narrative, I felt that it was important to write down my process of discovery. I have found this to be really valuable in considering how the images are going to be sequenced. This account also serves to place me into the story as it creates a chronicle of my journey and discovery, albeit not necessarily in chronological order. Key feedback has been to develop the initial way that I had been captioning the images, which was considered to be too narrow in terms of how the images are being read. My use of quotes subsequently went very much the other way and created an open reading of the work that left too many questions. This story aims to redress the balance. My intention is to place this towards the end of the book, so that the images and quotes can be looked at first and then the story can be read. This way the viewer can then return to the images and have elements revealed to them that they may have missed on an initial viewing of the work:
Critical Reflective Diary PHO705
Portfolio Review Reflections
For the recent round of portfolio reviews I was able to talk with Clare Bottomley, Ant Prothero and Michal Iwanowski. Feedback from pretty much all of the reviewers was focused quite a bit on the way that my images are interacting with the words. In particular, with the way that the intro text is leading the audience into the whole project and how that might actually be giving away too much information about the project too soon. I have also not been giving the audience credit to work out aspects of the work for themselves as well as putting faith in existing knowledge to make connections within the work. I am effectively over explaining and making redundant statements. This is actually a timely reminder to not try and shoehorn too many ideas into it and over indulging the exposition. According to Iwanowski, audiences like to solve these puzzles for themselves, which is a core part of my project. I may end up frustrating them by giving too much away. Prothero concurred with this, suggesting that because the story started before me I could consider placing my own version of events in the middle somewhere. Iwanoski also suggested the opening text should really be the question that started the work and I work to build the answer throughout the sequence.
Another point that Prothero made was the way that at the moment the work feels as though I am telling someone else’s story, asking where do I fit into this work. This starts to take nto account feedback that I have received from my peers and also a conversation that I had with Cemre with the way that my initial image captions were being read as too fixed and impersonal. The way that I create image descriptors akin to how a museum might log an item The challenge with this however, is they interfere with the narrative of the story. During the recent Geoff Dyer talk, he noted the way that images and text work together and potential for redundancy with words illustrating images and images illustrating words (2021). The fixed nature of my descriptive captions also started to create judgement on the images and the way that they were being read, for example I noted that my brother just finished a shift collecting rubbish in his portrait when it is clear to see in the image he was wearing work clothing. When I showed the work to Ross from my cohort, he noted that the caption felt derogatory, which was also supported by Cemre’s reading of the work. To work on this, I have been aiming to use the ambiguity of the quotes that I have been collecting t see how they work with the images and support the narrative arc of the work. This actually works much better within the concept of the Unreliable Narrator.
That said, later editors of the work presented to the reviewers, it was unclear who was ‘narrating,’ which could create intrigue in the work through it’s ambiguity but also continue t frustrate the audience. This might end up becoming too loose, the opposite of the completely fixed version with the descriptive captions. There is a fine line to make here. My aim is to show somehow the answer to the question that I pose at the start and not obfuscate the narrative for the reader of the work in showing the revelations that I have found. Up to quite recently, I had no answer to this question so no real reason to consider this part – some clearing of the ambiguity would be useful. I could also identify all of the characters in this narrative a bit more so that the reader knows who they are. Clare Bottomley was really insightful in providing some further areas of research to explore, including reminding me that Dinu Li has experience with the family archive and produced a book on the topic, so I will aim to attend one of his crits for further developments.
Narrative editing – Audio to the written word
My plan following all of the feedback that I received is to produce a text, which is based on my own experiences of the journey that I have undergone but also to place everything within this narrative in a chronological order of discovery. Even If I go back and edit the text and change the order, I think that it is vital that I get a sense of the overall story as it is now before playing with its sequence. A key takeaway from my feedback was the strength of the way that I tell the story so I will aim to use this as a central core in which to sequence the photographs.
This actually is something that I considered early on, albeit using a different medium, linking back to ideas I had initially around the edited audio elements. It is an idea that still interests me but the learning curve in creating and putting together an edited serial podcast style of audio that I suggested in my proposal. Although I have collected some audio as part of my process, I overestimated the amount of work putting this kind of production would have alongside the other aspects of the project I proposed. However, part of the process of creating a kind of serial audio documentary would require me to write the narrative for either my own narration, or to work out the sequence and edit of the production. This would be similar to how podcast ‘Serial’ is structured, which is described as ‘narrative non-fiction story’ (Koenig, 2014). This format of building and slowly revealing elements of the story for the audience to discover is actually a useful framework for me to write my own narrative for Unreliable Narrator. The way that I write the story provides the opportunity to address much of the feedback that I have received on the project with regards to elements such as the introduction of the characters and the significance of some of the places. It also works to place me into the work as part of the family presented.
The text that I produce would be short, potentially around 1500 to 2000 words, which would be considered a ‘Flash Fiction’ if it were a novel, or novella. A key difference is my story is based in fact and connects to Vanessa Winship’s notion that photography is somewhere between chronicle and fiction.
Bibliography
Dyer, G., 2021. Coversation with Geoff Dyer – Falmouth Flexible [Interview] (8 July 2021).
Koenig, S., 2014. Serial. [Sound Recording] (This American Life).
6th Meeting 14/07
| Date of Supervision Meeting | 14/07/21 |
| Start time of Meeting | 10:00 |
| Length of Meeting in minutes | 30 mins |
| Meeting Notes & Action Points | It was good to catch up with Wendy and go through the progress that I have made with my project. With the latest revelations of the work, it will be important to let this sit and be fully absorbed to see where the work develops. However, I set out to find an answer to a question and have ended up getting an answer so it is now important to see how this works with the work and not let it get too fixed down. Wendy enjoys the openness of the work and this is something that should remain within the edit that I put together. How image and text work together will play a crucial role in this.It was suggested that I take a look at the work of Lisa Barnard and also re-visit Jack Latham’s talk. It was also suggested that I go back and write a new project descriptor to define what my project is now. Themes of redemption and how potential that circle of trauma had been broken leading to how we live today, which I am going to research much more. It is important that I ‘Pull myself back to intentionality.’ I will continue to talk with book designer with the next meeting planned tomorrow and start to document this part of the process. Wendy reminded me that the submission is merely an iteration in which the project can continue to develop |
| Date of Next Proposed Meeting | 4/8/21 |
Project shift – reflections
My project has shifted it focus. Recently, I found out that my grandmother had passed away whilst I have been making this project, in May. She had Lung cancer and I was informed by my cousin who I had reached out early on for my grandmother’s address. My grandmother had given instructions that no one can know what was happening until after she had died, including my mother. Off the back of this revelation, I had resolved the fact that I would never fully know her reasons for the rift with my mother.
This weekend however, I was contacted by my cousin to let me know that they had some photographs for me to give to my family, so I travelled down to the West Country to meet with her and also my aunt, my mum’s sister. She was quite candid about the relationship between my mum and grandmother. What happens stems from their Step-Father, and my aunt catalogued a history of domestic violence perpetrated on all of the family and in particular my gran and my mum. I followed this up with a long conversation with my mum who I have not really spoken to about all of this until now. She essentially confirmed what my aunt was saying but also adding that my grandmother was equally as abusive towards my mum. It has taken a few days to start processing what I was being told. I wondered why it has taken until now to know these things, yet as my mum said to me “how do you tell your children,” which I can understand. Given that they did not speak for over 20 years and that we were children at the time of this break down, I can see how both time and distance meant that the opportunity for this kind of conversation never arose.
The uncovering of these things also gives me some context in which I can understand my mum’s attitudes to certain things, such as the pandemic, and her deep mis-trust of any authority, which is because she was unable to rely and trust those in power, those people who were supposed to safeguard her when she was a child. This is at the root of the project that I am creating here. It is the spectre of this culture of domestic violence that has rippled down through the generations and continues to impact all of us in some way.
Although I will never get to hear her side, and from what my mother has told me, cannot excuse, I can to a certain extent understand my grandmother too. My mother’s biological father left when my aunt was still a baby, according to her, with another woman. This was the early sixties where my gran would have had little means of supporting three very young children. I don’t know the backstory on how she got together with the step-dad but can only imagine that there were few choices afforded to her at that time. The abuse suffered by my mother may in part be channelled from an existence of living in fear herself both physically, emotionally, and economically, but this is speculation as I will never fully know.
For my project now
The impact of my parents’ upbringing would have an effect on my own. It is worth pointing out that although I grew up quite poor, my childhood was quite blissful yet there has always been this sense of connection and identity, which I have been keen to explore here. Ideas of epigenetics is something that I am now going to look at again as it related to the things that we inherit in addition to our DNA. There is also elements of Derrida’s Hauntology (2006) that I will need to review and see how it applies to this new direction. This has all come quite late into the process of the work but is fundamental to the project and important that I give it a faithful representation within the work. Another opportunity to revisit the ethics of what I am doing.
There are a few images within the archive that show the step-dad, who is also now deceased. The idea of the unreliable narrator still applied to the project but with a shift in focus towards ideas around abusive relationships – gaslighting a prime example. I have memories of this man as a child, he was an intimidating figure who had tattoos up each arm and that we used to have to call him granddad, but I somehow knew that was not true. It was always uncomfortable to be around, which I guess reflects the relations between everyone at that time. This is the spectre that I referred to in my initial opening statement for the project. Within my sequence, I could use the images but in an abstracted way to highlight this concept. I also do not wish to create agency for this person. There is also the question of memory and how hazy this can be.
At the start of the FMP, I made some experiments by re-photographing archive images of my gran and then printing them onto Basildon Bond letter paper (Fig: 1), which created a physicality to them by showing the grain of the image and the paper that the image was printed on. I felt that these worked quite well but as the project progressed, I wasn’t sure how they fit in. Now I have an opportunity to use the technique in order to abstract these images.
The images from the archive were copied onto a new role of black and white film, which I then printed out onto standard laser jet paper (Fig 2&3). I then photographed the printout using a macro set-up with studio lights to show the grain of the paper. These negatives were then printed in a darkroom onto out-of-date printing paper. Part of the aesthetic of these images was to keep them in line with the faded archive images that I am working with. Some of these produce an outcome that is barely registered on the paper, which adds to the idea of hauntology – the spectre of a person that continues to impact via their actions in the past. The outcome also provides the photographic trace of something that was there connecting to ideas of memory.
Bibliography
Derrida, J., 2006. Spectres of Marx. New York: Routledge Classics.