In his feedback my tutor pointed out that I had not explained the following clearly:
- A summary of the reason for selecting and sequencing the images in the diary.
- Why I had decided to keep everything as it was. It is acceptable in reportage to stage an image. He mentioned that Walker Evans moved furniture around in the sharecroppers home to enhance the composition.
- The use of Anchorage and Relay text as discussed by Barthes in Rhetoric of the Image. I was advised to revisit Barthes’ essay, and to view a previous student’s blog in which he explores Barthes’ views on images and the language used to describe them. I found this blog extremely helpful, not just for its content, but for the approach the student took in summarizing his findings from Barthes’ writings.
Contact Sheet Selection:
I decided to leave everything as it was, not staged, because I wanted the images to reflect my feelings. To have staged the images would have distanced my feelings and my diary entries from those images.
AEH49: I wanted to show how the whole table (the hub of the boat) was taken over during Neil’s working hours. I had to be careful not to show any details on his screen, so Photoshop was used for this one.
AEH38: My father in law’s papers. My tutor suggested it was not necessary to add an explicit caption, it could be left to the viewer to make the assumption from the diary entry.
AEH50: The dirty washing. Another important activity not required on our boat, the launderette. It came as a shock to me that I couldn’t do my own washing!
AEH48: That Porta Potti had to be included because it was such an important part of our everyday life.
AEH22: I wanted to show that even eating was difficult during the day when Neil was working, so trying to study here would be impossible.
AEH05: This was a difficult scene to photograph because of the lighting, and I felt this one showed the bed and all its wrinkles the most clearly.
AEH16: Another location in which to work. Cold and bleak. I felt this was the best image showing the laptop on its own.
AEH40: I chose this to show how cold my hands were, despite jumpers and fingerless gloves, but my tutor suggested I could have taken a bleak landscape style photograph to imply that it was cold that day.
AEH54: I included this photograph to show that even when Neil was not there, once his kit was set up for the day, I was excluded from that space.
AEH42: I chose this to show that despite all, life must still go on as usual. It was a big zero birthday that day but it was business as usual for us.
AEH39: The additional work of emptying the Porta Potti cassette. Not required on our boat, but an essential twice weekly task on this borrowed boat.
AEH52: I chose this image because it shows tranquility in a world of stress. I knew that our difficulties were coming to an end when it was delivered back to our mooring even though there were still a few items to finish. I love the way the boat is sitting quietly in the water, the reflection rippling gently. It reminds me of why I love living on a boat.
In his feedback my tutor also recommended reading/viewing the following authors and practitioners, and I have added these to the Research section of my learning log.
- Shrinkle: Philosophy behind the banal
- Eisenstein: Theory of the Third Image and 5 Methods of Montage
- Larry Sultan: Pictures from Home
- Jim Goldberg
- Joel Sternfeld.
- Jorg Colberg
- Gilles Peress: Telex Iran
Context and Narrative 