Task: Consider the intent of your own practice. How do you articulate this? What strategies do you use to communicate your intended meaning? How do you want your viewer to respond? Think about the fictional / constructed nature of your own photographic practice: identify the ways in which you do / might ‘construct’ the world. Identify any approaches / practices / practitioners that specifically resonated with you. Do any of these ‘constructed’ approaches give you ideas to develop your own practice? Outline / summarise your independent research Evaluate the development of your own photographic practice to date. Reflect on the peer / tutor feedback you have received on your current / future practice Moving forwards: What are your action points? Where are you going next?
The intent of my practice has been considerably influenced by the course at Falmouth. At the time of joining, I had an aesthetically driven practice fuelled by my experience in design and established creative expertise in post-production techniques. This allowed me to create fine art monochrome images, that were seen as aspirational to photographers wishing to improve their aesthetic skills. I began running workshops for the Royal Photographic Society three years ago up until the start of my MA. However, It is now apparent, that my imagined advanced knowledge of photography, was in fact limited to aesthetics, pre-visualisation and technical craft skills. My images may have been replete in mood and composition but lacked a distinctive or meaningful narrative.
My intent is to incorporate my new-found knowledge into work that is derived from substantive research, is linked to a body of work rather than single images and is accompanied by descriptive research text that contextualises the work. Furthermore, I am determined to exhibit or publish my work in the future rather than simply filing it away. The content of the work itself does not necessarily have to generate revenue as I am in the privileged position of not requiring income. However, it should address issues and subject matter that generate interest, excitement, curiosity, or surprise for the viewer. Ultimately, I am driven to constantly create work. However, from now on I will look to find ways to exhibit, share and promote the final output.
How others derive meaning from my work has always been a source of intellectual conflict for me. On the one hand, I tend to seek control over my narratives and look to find ways either through titles or accompanying text to ensure that my communication intentions are fulfilled. In practice, I now understand why this is a flawed strategy. Hall’s reception theory provides insight as to why our work is not always read in the way we imagine. The coding and decoding processes are not mirror images of each other. We can never ensure what Hall describes as a dominant reading. It is just as likely that our work will received a negotiated or oppositional reading. It is perhaps more desirable to leave several aspects of the meaning for the viewer to contemplate and allow them to construct their own narrative from the image. Research has shown that viewers become more engaged with images where they are encouraged to resolve hidden or ambivalent meanings.
I have always looked to the cinema for inspiration in my photography. I often imagine images as frozen scenes on a film set. I believe cinema has long understood the need for mood and emotion to carry the viewer through two hours of narrative however engaging when written. Somehow photography has been slow to catch on, becoming absorbed in its own technical challenges and beliefs regarding the sanctity of the still image. In the age of the internet, photographic work has to work extremely hard to engage the viewer above the noise of social media output and democratised video creation and distribution. To achieve cut-through creative work must deliver new ways in which to view social issues, understand human nature, perceive threats and so on. My own belief is that drama and original thinking are two of the best ways to achieve engagement with an audience. I try to achieve this in my work by using intertextuality drawn from popular culture (mainly cinema) to amplify and shortcut my communication of narrative.
My recent inspirations have been from the likes of Todd Hiddo and Rocbert Darch, although others such as Gregory Crewdson and Ross-Duncan from Perth Australia have recently come into view. These particular practitioners now resonate with my newly found direction, as they appear experts at being able to generate intrigue and drama in the banal. They use implied narratives drawn from popular culture to ask us the viewer to create the drama based on our own experiences. With a childhood spent in a banal suburb of London and a dysfunctional family home hidden behind what is known as Gerry-built housing in the north London suburbs, I want to use photography to explore this hidden aspect of my background. Todd Hiddo states that we are drawn to create work that takes us back to our childhood experiences allowing us to re-draw the narrative in our own way.
Having now had the opportunity to explore several aspects of my new-found research project by traveling to Dorset to shoot both homes and landscapes in the hope of defining a creative direction, my next steps are two-fold. Firstly, to develop scan and process the images taken. Secondly to begin the first steps in structuring my contextual and empirical research for the assignment.
The Photography of David Rosen 