Research Overview Presentations and feedback Workshop

Last week Ross had set us a task, the task was...

Using the research skills you have developed this week, investigate and find; 

• 5 sources of research material
• At least 3 must be non-visual
• You must bring the Harvard reference as in your bibliography

I've been keeping up-to-date with my bibliography in my visual logbook when looking up artists work, interviews and any extra information I find. I put a couple of those into the 5 sources of research material. One was a moving image piece I came across after being inspired by James C, A Remembrance film. Briony Campbell, The Dad Project captures the last 6 months of her dads life before he dies. 

Todd Hido was one of the first pieces of artist research I done for my visual logbook. I found an interesting interview with him in a journal which explained his reasoning behind his images and his opinions on closeness. 

A photo book by Martin Parr, Life's a Beach. Up close and personal with strangers as they relax during the summer vacation. 

I then noted down a few texts and photo books which I'd like to get out for both my project and the essay. I feel they will have some link with my work and be of use... I hope!

Photo book by Jeannette Montgomery Barron, My Mother's Clothes: An Album of Memories. An album of memories is a style of presentation I have considered to display my work in. With much relation to myself having lost my mother I thought it would be an interesting read and show of images.

The Aesthetics of Decay: nothingness, nostalgia and the absence of reason by Dylan Trigg. I thought it was important to look into this idea of nostalgia and how I can portray it within my images. I'm not sure whether this book has a lot to do with nostalgia being used in photography but I will have a read and see what it has to offer.

Family Photography Now by Sophie Howarth and Stephen McLaren. I plan on capturing my family and friends within my diary themed shoots therefore I think this will be interesting to view. Even though I'm planning to shoot my project mostly on film I still want the modern day present in my images so this may be helpful.

Context and Narrative by Maria Short. I want to build a narrative up within my diary themed shoots therefore I want to know more about presenting this and the context of work. 

I think at this stage I'm looking at doing the reflective report. For the work that I'm producing I feel it fits best in reflective. Industry is also a possible one as some of my previous and current work fits into wedding, family portraiture and lifestyle photography.

I'd forgotten about other media that I can look into for help with my project and report, music videos was one I hadn't thought about. I'm sure there will be a few with influence to my current project. Also magazines, films and TV programmes would be good to keep an eye on. I also forgot about the guest lectures and how I can fit them into the research report too.

During the session we were given these sheets and note which order we thought the essay should go in. It seemed pretty straight forward but Ross said there is no right or wrong answer. It should go in the order of how it fits with each topic you speak of during the chapters. With that we then had to write our research done in the order we thought fit best. I struggled with this as I only have visual research at this stage... don't worry the books are appearing this week! I was unsure about what would sit with the primary/ secondary research. I'm feeling a little more confident now about writing the research report now that I'm starting to build some good research up. Over the past two years of my study I have shamefully never taken a book out of the library. I've also resorted to the internet and general research about photographers. I know I definitely won't be able to complete this report without any solid research therefore I plan on getting many books out this year.