- the historical background
- contemporary practitioners, visual language, influences and contexts
- the relevance to your own practice
- your future plans and direction and possible projects relating to this area of study
For my oral presentation I decided to take a look at Constructed Photography and how its use has been assimilated into different photographic genres. Instead of using Powerpoint as suggested I'm going to create the presentation using iMovie. This is because I feel it would make for a slicker, more professional presentation - plus I am much more familiar with the package than Powerpoint.
Here are the original and updated versions (after student & tutor feedback) :
AMENDED VERSION
Constructed Photography: a tension between the real and the imagined. from ammoniteM on Vimeo.
ORIGINAL VERSION
Constructed Photography: a tension between the real and the imagined. from ammoniteM on Vimeo.
August 1st:
I've made a start by making a plan, listing the different elements that I would need to include in my presentation. From that I could work out the number of minutes per section in the allotted time. This was just a rough guess on timings. I could tweak the sections as I went along.
I also gathered together images from the Internet that I thought would be useful to use as visual aids. I want to plot a history of Constructed photography and had a number of artists in mind, like Jeff Wall, Cindy Sherman & Joan Fontcuberta. My introduction would also require some photographs from the beginnings of Photography's history.
I probably downloaded more than I need but it's better to have too many than not enough.
August 5th:
I started to expand on my notes today by fleshing out the sections with an idea of how I want the presentation to go. I've found lately that my ideas flow much better when I write on paper - even though my handwriting is really scrappy. I just find sitting at the computer sometimes gives me a mental block. Another bad habit with the computer is I switch over to editing mode rather than thinking mode. I sit and re-edit the same paragraph over and over - rather than getting a draft down and worrying about the editing later. I've found that my thinking and editing sides of my brain don't mesh together very well. I can't switch between the two very quickly. I'm much more productive by staying in just one mode at a time.
August 8th:
I've begun to put some of the images into iMovie to create a timeline. This is useful because it will give me an idea of how correct my timings are. I also did a quick test with a voiceover. I hate it! My voice sounds wobbly and horrible.
August 10th:
It is interesting how long the images need to be on screen for them to be effective. I have played around with the timings, making some longer and others shorter. I'm trying to get the relevant images to appear or change as I make various points in my voiceover. I am really enjoying this assignment!
August 12th:
I made some text slides today to make sub headings. They will appear as transitions between some of the images.
August 18th:
iMovie is a really easy to use package. It's basically drag and drop for the images. Text slides are easy to make and the voiceover can be recorded in segments, so I am not having to start all over whenever I stumble on a word, etc. Adjustments are easy to make too. It's just a case of clicking the segment and dragging along the timeline. This makes it really easy to tweak the timings and match my commentary precisely to the images.
August 20th:
I've been recording my voiceovers and tweaking the image timings so they match up. I've edited as I've gone along and managed to stay within the 15 minute time limit. I think the presentation is coming together quite well.
August 22nd:
After a few adjustments I think I'm pretty happy with this finished presentation. I exported the file to Quicktime and checked that it ran okay on the player. Once that was done I uploaded the converted file to Vimeo, a video sharing website. This is so that I can embed the code for my presentation into my blog.
August 23rd:
My blog post with my notes is all tidied up and with the presentation video embedded I think I'm ready to share it. Part of the assignment is to receive feedback from fellow OCA students. I will post links to my blog on the OCA student site, OCA Flickr & OCA Facebook - here goes!
August 31st:
Sharing my work with the OCA student community has been very rewarding. On the whole the presentation was received very positively. I've also had a number of pointers and ideas on how to improve my presentation. Some of the advice was contradictory which is always to be expected. I seem to have an equal number of viewers that think my voiceover needs some work - or that it is perfectly fine; this is in regards to pace, etc. I need to sit down and review the presentation before taking any action. There is a slight room echo too, that bothers me. This is from using my iMac's internal microphone. Clive, one of the OCA tutors gave some specific advice in regards to this, so I have a way to move forward with the sound issue.
The biggest consensus was in regards to the text slides and the amount of time left for pauses in some of the sections. This does need more work. A fellow student, Helen, came up with a brilliant suggestion on how to improve one section and I will definitely be putting it into action.
Here are the links to the fora that I posted to:
OCA Student Photography Forum (private group)
OCA Photography Facebook Group (private group)
OCA Photography Flickr Forum
This has been an interesting and informative experience, and I'd like to thank everyone that took part for sparing the time.
December 23rd:
It has taken me quite a while to update here with my tutor feedback. I've been busy researching and writing my critical essay for assignment 6 and that took all of my focus. My feedback pretty much echoed what a number of the students said about the work. I will not repeat that here. A comment was also made on the balance between historical analysis and my current practice - that I should spend more time talking about my own work. I take his point; although the presentations aim was to try and state my opinion on the significance of constructed photography in all photographic genres. I have made changes though and removed the section on Robert Capa. This gives me more time to explore my own work. I've also redone the slides, as the general consensus between students and my tutor is that the fading and re-appearance of my text was distracting. I agree with this. I wanted the text to appear in the way suggested, but just couldn't find the technical work-around required. I did spend some time researching, but in the end this is a photography degree module and not a film making one. My time is better spent elsewhere. I've also found a way to zoom in on the Rubber Flapper letter as suggested by fellow student, Helen. I feel this works really well as the static letter I had before didn't work and too much time was spent lingering on the image before the presentation moved on.
Here is a list of the changes made to my presentation in the light of student and tutor feedback:
- Shift balance from historical to current practice - my own work in particular
- Colour of text slides are stark - change from black to grey background
- Disappearing text is distracting - made text static. This has also reduced the number of slides giving me more time to look at my own work
- Delete section on Robert Capa - more time made available
- Zoom in on Rubber Flapper letter - this has worked well. The section no lingers feels static and long-winded
- Expand on future direction of my own work - I have used a reference on David Favrod to highlight my changing interests
