A1: Two Sides of the Story

Assignment:

This assignment is designed to give your tutor a feel for your work and won’t count towards your final grade if you decide to have your work assessed. However, the assessors may wish to see it so that they can gauge your progress across the course.

Create at least two sets of photographs telling different versions of the same story. The aim of the assignment is to help you explore the convincing nature of documentary, even though what the viewer thinks they see may not, in fact, be true. Try to make both sets equally convincing so that it’s impossible to tell which version of the images is ‘true’.

It might be interesting to consider the project as evidence for a court case. What conflicting stories can you make your images convincingly tell? Would it stand up in court? However, you choose to interpret the brief, ensure the images are candid and ‘taken from real-life’. Be experimental and take some risks. Perhaps you could make a list of ideas and choose the most challenging or absurd option to stretch yourself.

Send your sets of images to your tutor by the method you’ve agreed to. Include an introduction of 300 words outlining what you set out to do and how you went about it. Also, send to your tutor the relevant pages of your learning log or your blog URL.

Approach:

I struggled with the use of the word “truth” It suggests that there is only one truth and the alternative is lies. The world contains many “truths” all of which may be an accurate summary of events but from a different perspective or a different time. Ariella Azoulay (B. 1962) establishes in her work “Civil Imagination – A Political Ontology of Photography” that whether an individual, seen as a terrorist or as a freedom fighter, is merely a judgment based upon the perspective of the observer, or upon the time within which events take place.

I have avoided differentiating between truth and falsehood. Both of the sequences shown are, from my perspective, true, but I have to leave it to the viewer to take from the images whatever they perceive as the truth. I will have subconsciously created connotations or suggestions within the compositions which expose my thoughts and feelings about the subject matter.

The objective of this work is to contrast the opening of a brand new gallery space in the center of Cowes on the Isle of Wight and its pomp and ceremony with the “behind the scenes” reality of the hard work necessary to make it happen. Both sets of prints are the truth, but the perspectives are very different.

The gallery space was created within three dilapidated buildings on Cowes High Street and required significant physical effort, financial risk, and determination on Neil’s part in order to make it happen. The buildings have been combined and transformed over a period of six weeks into a functioning gallery, printing and framing space.

The intent was to capture the physical effort and stress involved in creating the gallery but also to include a subtext about the daily workload of a local fine art photographer. The work includes images that show the making of frames and stretching of canvases as these are a major part of Neil’s workload. Images of Neil with his family provide background context and an image of the entire team responsible for the work is included for further context.

The Opening Event images capture a party atmosphere but also attempt to show the necessary gloss applied to the underlying hard work. It was equally important to capture the celebration and pride in the achievement of Neil, his family, and a small team.

Revised Image Selection:

Contact Sheets:

Bibliography:

Azoulay A. (2015), Civil Imagination: A Political Ontology of Photography, Verso, London.

Barrett T. (1986), Art Education, Vol. 39, No. 4. pp. 33-36, National Art Education Association, Available from http://terrybarrettosu.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Barrett-1986-Photographs-Contexts.pdf Last Accessed 19/08/2019.