I feel creatively lost again – doing the Pecha Kucha presentation I thought would make things become clear, but in some ways I think I just ended up getting more and more confused and less and less convincing!
My View – Kirsty Logan, 2018
I found this quotation from Ansel Adams – I think this sums up what I want to achieve with the final major project.
“YOU DON’T MAKE A PHOTOGRAPH JUST WITH A CAMERA. YOU BRING TO THE ACT OF PHOTOGRAPHY ALL THE PICTURES YOU HAVE SEEN, THE BOOKS YOU HAVE READ, THE MUSIC YOU HAVE HEARD, THE PEOPLE YOU HAVE LOVED.” – ANSEL ADAMS
Due to my confusion over my project I reached out to my social media community to see if they could provide me with some clarity in someways it made it a little worse.
The consensus was to combine the two projects together. To combine favourite foods and watch them degrade with the fingerprint.
I took this input and did some brainstorming but I couldn’t seem to get them to connect. Perhaps it links through to memory in that, when we used to have family trips to the beach we used to take seaside sandwiches. Which by the time we ate our picnic would inevitably have some sand in them – so maybe this isn’t really about identity perhaps its actually about memory more. So I could gather together a memory – bring in the items that trigger the memory and overlay those images together.
Taking an copy of a old family image, sprinkle sand fragments from the beach over and include a degrading piece of sandwich.
This then creates almost a memory box for each photograph.
I feel quite torn in my work today. Having just got my results and my old project to a certain degree was successful. However I just don’t feel any love or joy and quite simply I don’t know who my audience is and this is reflected in some of the feedback I have received also.
The new work I have been completing I have a real passion for. I would also have the perfect location for an exhibition. My feeling that the Newcastle City Library would be great for this if I can get it booked.
My Angel – Kirsty Logan, September 2018
The ideas that I have swirling in my brain are unnerving as fear of failure is high. I desperately want to achieve a good grade for this course and I just need to find the perfect project. I also want to be able to connect on a personal level with this project.
I am still really drawn to the idea of Identity – I feel I need to discuss this when we are back, perhaps in my Pecha Kucha presentation tutorial.
Fingerprint – Kirsty Logan, 2018
The Fingerprint truly identifies an individual therefore to overlay a fingerprint over a location does this, exemplifying the feeling of identity and individual feelings of a specific place.
I made a mock-up of what an image might look like, it is a very rough attempt, but I like how it looks so far.
Sage and Tyne Fingerprint – Kirsty Logan, 2018
I’ve posted this image to social media and the feedback seems quite positive. I think personally this project means much more to me which may well mean I am more able to engage more with my subject.
To get me to really think about this subject I carried out some creative thinking to see what ideas it may throw up.
“the fact of being who or what a person or thing is”
“a close similarity or affinity”
“Your identity is who you are”
“Condition or character as to who a person or what a thing is; the qualities, beliefs, etc, that distinguish or identify a person or thing”
Fingerprint
“An impression or mark made on a surface by a person’s fingertip, able to be used for identifying individuals from the unique pattern of whorls and lines on the fingertips”
The feature of my focus in my previous module (Surfaces and Strategies) was Life/Death/Rebirth, and whilst I really enjoyed this I am questioning whether it is something that I really want to continue.
Looking back over some past work I found my Sellotape image from the Informing Context module. This image features a fingerprint. This made me think about Identity.
I came across the book Northerners – Portrait of a no nonsense people by Sefton Samuels
What I noticed about this book was while there were a couple of images from the North East there is much more focus on the North West. Quite often we seem like a forgotten people not featuring a great deal in the government plans for improvement, the refusal to dual the A1 instead finding projects further south.
This made me think about a project I’ve been dwelling over for a while ” Northern Identity”
I don’t want to use portraits I want to use fingerprints over the top of North East images.
This is my image Sellotape which I link closely to identity.
I want to overlay this type of fingerprint over the North East. Over the break between modules I want the fingerprint to be subtle but a statement. I need to think about the titles of the images – should it be the name of the place or the name of the fingerprint.
ACTION:
Research Martin Parr and Chris Killip
References:
Samuels, S., 2011. Northerners – Portrait of a no nonsense people. 1st ed. United Kingdom: Ebury Press.
This was my first meeting with Wendy to go over what I have done in the course previously and also where I see my work going or the course of the Final Major Project module.
We discussed the last module which was focused on Rebirth – and how I watched pieces of fruit and then using macro photography to show the changes from one form to another. Transformation.
What I need to do with my work:
I really need to figure out what it is that interests me, what is the direction that I want to take.
Do I really want to set along the same path of macro, and inanimate objects or pieces of fruit.
What do I really want my final piece of work to be about?
Research to follow up on:
Sally Mann – Rotting Bodies – How bodies decompose, body farms, humanist burials.
Sam Taylor-Wood – Revisit her work regarding breast cancer
Susan Sontag – on Illness
Stephen Gill – Revisit his work with Energy Drinks, he is someone to really look into – How rotting things transform other things, past present and future all come together, rubbish dumps.
Quinten Crisp – what is the point of cleaning? On top of Archival photographs
Memorial Photography – Victorian Times
Ben Burbridge – Medical Imagery – Book and Exhibition – Look at the video and also think about work with a Microscope.
Keep watch for the website coming live to find the presentations (25th Sept)
This week has been a big focus on my oral presentation.
It has been a bit difficult as I have been working away which made things quite difficult.
Whilst working on my presentation I did come up with the titles that I want to use for my images. As I want the images to represent reinventions of the same life using the Titles 1:1, 1:2, 1:3 etc this was the best way I felt I could illustrate this.
I complete the last edit of my Work in Progress Portfolio in terms of reformatting one of the images that had a square format. This shape no longer fits the aesthetic of the project. This is quite a strange feeling as at one point of the module that had been the only mainstay of the project.
My 1:2:1 tutorial confirmed my feelings that my Work in Progress Portfolio is complete and ready to be submitted, this is a huge relief.
What I have found interesting this week is looking back through my CRJ and seeing how much my project has changed.
In week 2 when I was observing the work of Heikki Leis, a view of mine what it would have been beneficial to see what the item was before hand. Now I’ve thrown this idea right out of the window! Whilst my work is far more abstract and not still life like Leis – our work is being produced along a similar theme of the decomposition of items. I don’t believe his work to be based on life and death like mine but it shares a genre of photography.
The work will continue with my research, but the focus is to complete all of the assignment work before moving on further.
This week I had a break through with my Work in Progress Portfolio.
I took the time this week to build a whole new setup/studio this meant that I was able to achieve some of the images that I hadn’t been previously able to.
I was really pleased with the images and feel they will complete my portfolio.
Sadly my presentation wouldn’t compress in time to share at the webinar, but I got to go back over my selected images which was really helpful. Especially as I hadn’t met Roger before so it was a fresh reaction/response to my imagery.
The webinar brought up how I might title my images. it has been my belief for a little while that I didn’t want to keep the titles of red grape, strawberry and raspberry as I didn’t want it to be completely obvious what people are looking at so this is something that I plan to work on this week.
I believe each image does need their own title as they should be independent in their own right as they are each a life of their own which should also be able to be recognised as such. I don’t think that my project is actually about recognising the fruit anymore. This is a big change in direction from when I first started this module.
As part of my work this week I gave myself a refresher of what my project really is really about. This has been really helpful for preparing my oral presentation. Brainstorming words that I could relate to my project and also definitions, this assists in the communication of my project to the audience.
A reference to research, mentioned at this weeks webinar was Andres Serrano – Piss Christ.
Andres Serrano – Piss Christ – 1987
There is a tonal similarity between the image and some of my work, but Serrano’s work is far more controversial than my own. Piss Christ was a crucifix submerged in Serrano’s urine. It caused uproar when it was published I don’t feel that this is a reaction that I would personally want for my work. The only objection to my own work would be if individuals do not believe in life after death, reincarnation of the life of objects.
My work and Serrano’s would sit in the same genre of abstraction dealing with topics that could be seen as religion/spiritualism. Perhaps instead of linking to religion perhaps it is more a case or morality – is it moral that he has done this to something so symbolic? For my work the process of renewing life is the symbolic part, I haven’t used anything that could be identified as religious symbolism.
The work of Serrano however shows me what I would not want to achieve, more than what I would. Whilst I can see that Serrano achieve a furore with his work, which I can only imagine was his intention, he did gain audiences that he would not normally have been able to achieve. Whether this is moral or not, I’m not convinced. If the intent was to incite emotions he was certainly successful.
![IMG_3054[9052]](https://kirstyloganphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/img_30549052.jpg?w=660)
Kirsty Logan Photography 
