The result of my final Assessment.

512659 Shaun Mullins PH4CAN Results Letter

512659 Shaun Mullins PH4CAN Marksheet

I have received my marks and confirmation that I have passed!  Which is great!

I am however, a little disappointed at the marks I got as I did my very best and read as many books as I could lay my hands on to fully understand the theory and concepts behind this course and put them in to practical practice.

I found my photographic assignments very challenging, and I spent a great deal of time reading for research and brainstorming for ideas which my blogs illustrate with my handwritten notes, sketched ideas.  I was disappointed that as a result of all that my images are criticized as being ‘stock-photography’.  It is also very ironic because at one point when I really couldn’t come up with any ideas I tried looking for stock-photos for inspiration but found nothing of any use.  So clearly their is a great stock-photography web-site I don’t know about, or maybe I’m just not good at asking the right questions to find them.  Anyway, these images came out of my head not anyone else’s but as I keep reading in every book OCA lists, “There is no such thing as a new idea” (unless you are an Assessor of cause)  Maybe, my ideas were cliche; I don’t know, I haven’t seen enough photos like mine to know, but I guess the assessors have.  I bow to their experience.  My images were considered too obvious,  hopefully in time my experience will teach my imagination to be more sophisticated and in turn more subtle.  My new course is also helping with ideas of motifs and the rule-of-three which I can use in photo essays to be able to put over an idea in subtler ways as they do in Hollywood.  Art like science works best with cross-fertilization of ideas, theories and practices.  For example, Geologist and Paleontologists have a better understanding of their work by being aware of the others sciences.

With regards to my essay, I was congratulated on producing a good essay.  I was criticized for reading too diverse range of books and authors; but at this stage of my course I am still trying to learn as much as I can whilst looking for something that can inspire me enough to confidently specialize in.  I prefer portraiture work and the Film-Noir images I did with Nikon really gave me a buzz; so I think that style of work is my forte.  I love using all kinds of lighting to create interesting / stunning images and just using natural-light I find boring.  This is where I think I will start drilling.

Anyway, I passed and I now need 40 points to reach my 120 which I hope I can achieve for my next course which was a new challenge, film-making.

If anyone other than myself bothers to read this, please wish me luck!

The Genius of Photography by Gerry Badger

‘The Genius of Photography, How Photography Has Changed Our Lives’ by Gerry Badger, published by Quadrille Publishing Ltd.

This book was on my recommended reading list for ‘The Art of Photography’ course but I feel that much of the reading list for that course did not echo the syllabus and I did not choose to read it at the time, preferring more relevant books that could assist me in the exercises, subject matter and assignments.  However, for this current course and for future courses this book has been more relevant and made more sense to me.

This book looks at the history of photography from a critical point-of-view as to it’s impact and development as an artistic practice.  How it has been influenced and influenced the art movements of the 19th, 20th and now the 21st century up to 2007.  Focusing on Photographers and examples of their work that have influenced the photographic art movement in their day from Daguerre to the unknown photographers using mobile-phone cameras for images that both informs and shocks the 21st century public.

Although much of the topics in this book have been covered in other books that I have already read, re-reading them will only re-enforce them to my memory and helps to plant ideas for future image making in to my sub-conscious.

Basic Critical Theory for Photographers

This is a must have book for any degree student for photography!  Basic Critical Theory for Photographers by Ashley la Grange, published by Focal Press.

This book debunks the sometimes baffling academic language from the likes of Barthes and Sontage and summarises the message that authors like these are trying to put across to the poor half comatose reader with assignments to help the student explore these theories more thoroughly.

The books covered: John Berger’s Way of Seeing; John Szarkowski’s The Photographers Eye; Stephen Shore’s, The Nature of Photographs; Susan Sontage’s On Photography; Roland Barthes’, Camera Lucida; Martin Rosler’s essay, ‘In, Around and Afterthoughts’; Abigail Solomon-Godeau’s essay, ‘Inside/Out’; Clive Scott’s The Spoken Image: Photography and Language; Andy Grundberg, The Crisis of the Real; Raghubir Singh’s River of Colour; Bertand Russell’s Appearance and Reality; Iatalo Calvino’s The Adventures of a Photographer; Poems by Felix Morrisseau-Leroy and George Szirtes.