Assignment 5: applying the techniques of illustration and narrative

The final assignment of the course links together all that you have learned in 5: Natural light, 6: Artificial light and 7: Narrative and illustration. Imagine that you are about to illustrate a story for a magazine.

The last assignment of the course. And very similar to Project 63, which could help. I need to go out with a bang. I’m afraid I’m more likely to be going out with a whimper. Illustration. Narrative. I don’t want it to be obvious. I don’t want it to be ordinary. I don’t want it to be unoriginal (a holiday?) I want it to be abstract. I want it to be unusual. I want it to be different. I want my final assignment to illustrate and narrate something that’s never been done before for a final assignment of the OCA’s TAoP.

It’s difficult. As I’ve mentioned before, I think, I have the ideas and then fail miserably to implement them successfully. And that is the most difficult thing: to make the end result match what you had it mind.

A theme that has a narrative element…

A definition of the word ‘narrative’… It can be a noun or an adjective. From an on-line dictionary: ‘a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious’ or ‘the art, technique, or process of narrating’ (noun); ‘consisting of or characterized by the telling of a story’ (adjective). I like the second noun definition. Probably because it has the words ‘art’, ‘technique’ and ‘process’ in it.

Subject matter? Or, perhaps, does the subject matter? Ha ha. And again as I’ve mentioned before: this work always takes so much longer than indicated in the courseware. At least if you want to do it properly. Or at least if I want to do it properly. I guess everything’s relative: my definition of properly might be totally different to yours; you might be able to do something ‘properly’ more quickly than me. So maybe ‘properly’ comes down to skill or talent: if you can do something ‘properly’ quicker than me you are more skilled, more talented than me. The courseware indicates 45 hours for this assignment: I’ve spent more than 45 hours just thinking about the assignment: I haven’t taken a single shot yet.

And talking about time and effort and doing things properly: I’ve just discovered from speaking to someone at the OCA that if you intend on being assessed for a degree, and I do, the it’s only the last, level  courses that are taken into account on deciding the class of degree that you attain. So I guess I could have spent less time on these early courses, got them out of the way, and then spent more time and effort on the final couple of level 3 courses. But I can’t as that goes against the grain.

So back to a theme… What about… Ironing a shirt? Frying an egg? Eating said egg? Drinking a glass of wine? Eating an apple? Have these ever been done before? Are they suitable? I think they COULD be. COULD anything that involves the element of time be suitable? Is everything a story? Is everything that has a timeline as story? Writing this? Thinking about the assignment? So it’s just about ILLUSTRATING the eating of the apple, the ironing of the shirt.

And then in a flash of… well… I’m not at all sure if it’s inspiration… I got invited to a wedding and ended up with these images.

(I wasn’t the official photographer. I wonder if I could stand the stress: perhaps it’s not as stressful as it used to be – waiting for rolls of film to come back from the lab with/without images – but still… I remember my father as a wedding photographer many years ago. Very stressful. For the whole family! And I don’t, of course, mean the family of the bride, or of the groom).

(I was supposed to use between 7 and 13 images for this (final: yes!) assignment, but I’m afraid I’ve gone over by one image. I couldn’t even think of a single image, and now I’ve got too many. Ah well.)

(Plus, of course, there’s nothing original about this set of images: a wedding! I ask you! Original? Ha! Abstract? Yeah, right! An unusual treatment? No chance! As if no one’s ever taken a photograph at a wedding before! I guess there are a couple of nice shots in there.)

A wedding story. Title: ‘The Right Decision’. At the time, of course, it always is (isn’t it?). You just hope that it always will be.

The cover image.

An image taken out of the narrative, of course, and converted to black and white. This image works well on its own, with the absence of colour (my favourite colour) adding to the drama of the occasion. Is it black and white? Is the decision to get married the right one? Is it always clear-cut?

Assignment 5: illustration/narrative

The picture essay.

1st image.

The groom uncertain: but only about the choice of music, or the ability of the person playing the music.

Assignment 5: illustration/narrative

2nd image.

The clergyman with a hint of ‘celibacy is definitely wrong’ look in his eye!

Assignment 5: illustration/narrative

3rd image.

The official photographer. I’m not so keen on the angle he’s shooting from!

Assignment 5: illustration/narrative

4th image.

No doubt: the right decision!

Assignment 5: illustration/narrative

5th image.

The 1st few steps on married life’s road.

Assignment 5: illustration/narrative

6th image.

The bride and groom: hoping every day will feel like this. But perhaps hoping for very different reasons.

Assignment 5: illustration/narrative

7th image.

The groom’s parents remembering their wedding day and how it made them feel, and how the memory is making them feel now. Do they still feel that way, without that memory?

Assignment 5: illustration/narrative

8th image.

There could be perhaps a hint of uncertainty here. No! Just a little more contemplative, a little more serious. But it’s still the right decision.

Assignment 5: illustration/narrative

9th image.

The obvious symbolism of the doves. Peace. Which there always will be, of course, as we’ve made the right decision!

Assignment 5: illustration/narrative

10th image.

Very subtle. A hint of perhaps something else in this image which is absent from the others (except for the obviousness of the fireworks going off in the final image!)

Assignment 5: illustration/narrative

11th image.

All the guests are letting balloons go here, but only the 2 most important people at the wedding are in shot.

Assignment 5: illustration/narrative

12th image.

A little time alone for the bride and groom even though there are hundreds of guests around them at the reception.

Assignment 5: illustration/narrative

13th image.

That 1st all-important dance.

Assignment 5: illustration/narrative

14th image.

Off to the honeymoon. Off to the fireworks!

Assignment 5: illustration/narrative

The images above are in a timeline, of course (excepting the first, cover, image). I’ve no idea whether or not I will have any control over where the images will be placed within the magazine, although they should be in the above order: it would make little sense to print them out of sequence. Having said that, however, I can’t know if 2 images are going to be printed side-by-side, on pages 2 and 3 for example, or if they are going to be printed vertically as a pair on a page, so the phrase in the courseware ‘sometimes the juxtaposition of 2 appropriate images can be telling’ is meaningless in this context: I’m not going to know whether or not 2 of my appropriate images will be juxtaposed. I would like to have the 7th and 8th images juxtaposed, for example, or the 13th and 14th ones, but have I got that amount of control over the layout of the magazine?

Click this link for bigger images.

Image(s) of the week (no. 103)

You’re probably getting REALLY fed up with this now, but I’ve just come across this fabulous WORK OF ART! And yet again, it’s not a photograph. (Oooo, I was tempted to say, it’s a proper work of art… But I think I’m getting to the point where I think photography is, or at least can be, art. Or at least I’m getting closer to believing that it can be).

Millet's 'The Gleaners'

A bit of Realism. A bit of fabulous Realism. Look at the texture, the lighting, the colour, the composition. Everythin about this image is wonderful. If I could reproduce this photographically, I would be very pleased, to say the least. And perhaps even consider the photograph to be a work of art. Phew! So at last, perhaps: PHOTOGRAPHY IS ART!

Image(s) of the week (no. 102)

I haven’t done one of these for months…

Picasso’s ‘ The Kiss’

Picasso - The Kiss

Watteau’s ‘The Faux Pas’

Watteau - The Faux Pas

Strang’s ‘Bank Holiday’

Strang - The Bank Holiday

Turner’s ‘Rain, steam and speed’

Turner - Rain, steam, speed

These images are undoubtedly Art. Would the same scenes photographed be considered Art? I suspect not. Two people kissing? Picasso’s use of typically unconventional techinque such as the multiple perspectives here is what makes it. An unconventional photograph wouldn’t be as striking, unless I could somehow make it orginally unconventional. What about a similar photograph from multiple perspectives? Would that be a bit like Hockney’s ‘joiners’?  A photograph of a faux pas as Art? It’s the staging, the technique, the sense of voyeurism. If I could get that feeling across in a photograph, then maybe… A waiter and 2 customers ordering lunch or whatever on a bank holiday? How could I convince anyone that a photograph of this event be described as Art? A photographic equivalent of the Turner? Perhaps my favourite of the 4 images. A brilliant landscape. I’ve seen some good low-light landscape photography stuff, some good landscape HDR photography, but nothing as impressive, as striking, as exhilirating as this. Photography is not this kind of Art. And still the question remains: is photography any kind of Art?

Project 67: rain

Again, imagine a magazine cover on one subject: rain. You have the entire cover space to work in, and you should produce a single, strong, attractive photograph that leaves no one in doubt about the subject.

Haven’t we already done a rain project? Yes, it was Project 50. So, 17 projects later, here’s my single image that, I hope, ‘leaves no doubt about the subject’.

Project 67: rain

Project 66: juxtaposition

For this project, choose either the still-life approach described above, or a larger scale shot, which involves choosing viewpoint and lens focal length.

The first thing I had to go, of course perhaps, was to find out what the word ‘juxtaposition’ actually means. The simple definition is ‘put side by side’ (this from ‘The Oxford Dictionary of Current English’ which I bought for £2.50 more than 20 years ago). I don’t know why I used the word simple: perhaps because I thought there was something more to ‘juxtapose’ than that. So off I went to the internet, to dictionary.com, or thefreedictionary.com, or whatever. And here I found the addition of the phrase ‘often for comparison’. Which seemed to make it a much bigger word somehow.

And this is what I came up with…

Project 66: juxtaposition

Hmmmm, I hear you saying. It took ages! Ages? you ask. That took ages?! Well the objects are juxtaposed; they’re side-by-side for comparison (a natural product and a man-made one). And the piece of resistance – check out the number on the calculator…