Well it was an interesting day, I spent the last three days furiously writing up my exercises for my learning log and getting the web site ship shape. I designed a new pagelayout for the front of the the learning log to make everything easier to use and follow. I also spent a lot of time writing everything I have Done up.
So this morning I woke up and carried on sorting the photos for the lasa exercise in part one of the art of photography, knowing that two very important andepic things were going to happent today, the first was scheduled for ten am, actually they both were but we moved one, the first was taking my youngest daughter to get her GCSE results a very difficult thing, thankfully she did exceptionally well and got her place for A levels confirmed.
My second big event for the day was a scheduled conversation with Sharon Boothroyd, this was my first telephone conversation with her, although we have been exchanging emails this was my first chance to get some real feed back and get a good idea of the personality of my mentor for this degree course.
Having set a specific time planned ahead and set up several alarms and reminders in my plethora of electronic devices we experienced the truth of the quote first reported to have been said by Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltkeread the elder a German Field Marshall at the beginning of the first world war, that “no plan survives contact with the enemy” When my youngest daughter informed me that I had to take her to pick up her GCSE results at ten o’clock the same time as the phone call anyway we re arranged and I finally managed to get on the phone to Sharon while she was out in the middle of town.
To my mind the call went well and fulfilled it’s purpose excellently, as I guess everyone does I had been worried that I might have gone at the course work with completely the wrong end of the stick and it was a relief to hear her say that things were looking good on the blog and I seemed to be doing the right things, I shared the ideas I am working on for my first assignment and it was a relief that they seemed to resonate with the purpose of the assignment. The key lessons I got from this meeting were to put more commentary into the blog about the things I am discovering, the ways I am challenging “The Rules” and the books I’m reading, I will also be putting commentary in about trips and photography excursions. I learned that it is good to challenge ask why and be critical about my own work. One thing that hit a chord was that I have often remarked that I might go back and re shoot an exercise, Sharon’s opinion is that this was not necessary as it is our mistakes that give us the biggest lessons and it was more powerful to publish the stuff that did not work and demonstrate that I know it’s flaws understand why it’s flawed and learn from that so that my future work is improved. I did think that if I went through this entire degree without making a mistake or doing something badly I would probably not learn much and the whole experience would be less interesting.
I also picked up again the need to reflect on the art side of photography as the OCA have a strong leaning toward developing photography as an art form rather than a technical process, and it was important to look at the work of others and push myself to find other photographers to admire (or not) and to get to more exhibitions of others work.
To this end I am going to try to search out the work of others and put together a group of people who’s work I admire, most of the people I liked when I studied photography are dead and it would be nice to add a few living to the list.
All in all I really enjoyed my first tutor session and am really looking forward to working with Sharon over the next few years to get my degree. Sharon has made me think about lots of things and I am fired up and off to conquer the world or at least my camera