September already...

September already and August is a thing of the past...
I didn't receive the RPS bursary (Hasselblad plans on hold again!) but after hassling twice very politely for some feedback they told me that my submission was among one of the strong candidates with a well presented and coherent body of work. So not all bad then and definately useful feedback going forward for next time.

Term 1 essay arrived back in my inbox. Judging from the amount of comments (all extremely useful) I wasn't expecting to do very well at all but it turns out I did! I am not used to receiving a relatively high mark which focuses on all negative feedback-but I can instantly see how this is way more useful than receiving a good mark and good comments-where would you go from there? All in all I am pleased. I haven't written an academic piece of work for 2.5 years and its the first term- surely things can only go up from here - hope?!

Off to Perpignan tomorrow
Really pleased I am going now. Just read this survival guide which was really interesting: http://www.photojournalism.co.uk/2009/08/perpignan-survival-guide.html
I was wondering what to bring as a portfolio. I have been collating work I shot in Kenya last year into a photoessay and am pleased with what I have. So concentrating on this one piece this will be the piece I bring in a small portfolio along with my book about an asylum seeker- silent voice.
I am also glad that I will be camping with some of the other LCC people. It sounds as though Perp. is somewhere you would do well to escape from every now and then over the week. Looking forward to meeting all the virtual lccmapjd'ers! See ya there...

Insh’Allah, Moroccan Stories - About this work

Insh'Allah, Moroccan Stories
(Insh’Allah means God willing. It is said by all Moroccans repeatedly in conversations. Particularly used when making arrangements to so something in the future. It is a gesture towards the power of Allah overseeing individuals’ daily lives.)

Subject and methodology/approach
I went to Morocco having tentatively set up some shoots with a group of young
Muslim Moroccan men (in their mid 20's). I wasn't exactly sure which locations I was going to shoot in but had plans to photograph in their houses and possibly their work places or where they hung out/spent time. My initial idea for the photo essay was to produce a piece of work which penetrated beneath the surface of Morocco and engaged with the culture, people and country. I suppose I wanted to come back with something that no one had seen before, avoiding the usual visual stereotypes (which are actually difficult to avoid when you are in such a picturesque country with such amazing natural light). In focusing on the 'ordinary person', I would attempt to make captivating images which communicated with the audience and portrayed something remarkable and memorable. I planned to present my 3 subjects with a series of questions designed to help me understand them more and record their answers whilst photographing these interactions between us. The questions would relate to their culture, religion, country, and outlook on life amongst other topics which would occur naturally in the conversation. I was influenced by Broomberg and Chanarin's Ghetto project where they asked a series of set questions to different people from a variety of 'Ghettos'. I knew my images would depend on what I found out during my sessions with each of my subjects.

Aims, objectives, concept
Part I: In the beginning…

What I was trying to do initially with my Morocco work was to start to create an ‘archive’ (I am not sure that is the right word now) as a response to cultural stereotypes and the suppression of difference. My archive would start off with an examination of 3 individuals I would talk to, interview and photograph. I would collect what I saw and heard then re-represent my findings in a format which expressed them. I felt that there was both a conceptual and journalistic potential to my idea. My strategy was to gather as much information as possible and shoot in a variety of situations. One of my interests lies in exploring the ‘language’ of documentary photography and how as a photographer I can adapt/invent/use a visual approach where various ‘types’ of shots (portraits, still life, environments) are used as well as to record interviews and interweave these in the final work. Attempting to break stereotypes of culture and national identity I didn’t want to make ‘point’ pictures but wanted the set to have a cohesive vision.
My subjects would be asked to respond to the following questions:
Are you a Moroccan first or a Muslim?
Where in the world would you like to go to and why?
What are the pressures you feel from your society?
What ideologies do foreigners have about Moroccans? Are these wrong?
What ideologies do you have about foreigners?
Which traditions do you adopt from Moroccan culture and from Islam?
What are your ambitions?
Focusing on 3 'ordinary people' I intended to make captivating, remarkable and memorable images, aiming to portray ordinary life in an extraordinary way. One of my key interests lies in exploring issues surrounding cultural diversity and representation.

Part II: On the road…

I began to respond conceptually to my own brief. During shoots I focused my attention on responding in unobvious ways to the environment and subjects within it. Predominantly I was doing this through extreme cropping and framing. Decisions I made around what to include in the frame were as important as what I would exclude as was the juxtaposition of each of the elements within the frame. The phrase ‘I am at war with the obvious’ comes to mind (Eggleston). I didn’t want to fall back on the idea of having to place the subject/object in the centre of the frame for example- that would only contribute to the stereotypes I was trying to displace since this is an obvious and accepted way to present a subject/object. However, I did shoot some more conventionally framed shots as felt these might work to juxtapose the majority of what I was shooting depending on how I use them in the final piece.

Moving on from this I want to make the point that the stereotype is a pointless and ultimately useless representation of someone if the aim is to understand him or her better. Instead I would argue that individuals have multiple, even fragmented identities. Visually I have attempted to mirror these notions of fragmentation to produce ambiguous, arresting images whilst simultaneously I will juxtapose the visual with the verbal. Verbally my subjects discussed the complexities of belonging to a culture and religion. Their responses to my questions highlight the ambiguities of trying to surmise ones cultural identity and reveal the disparities between how people feel and how others perceive them to be.

Thoughts on context, medium, form, presentation

Part III: Moving forward…

I amassed a lot of images and sound. One avenue I pursued was to create a conceptual piece presenting images of the fragmented, multifarious individuals with voice-overs as a multi media piece. I explored a range of media in an attempt to produce new and original work.

After producing several versions of a multimedia piece (applying this concept) I decided that this wasn’t the way the project was leading so left this for the moment.

I began to work seriously on book layouts. Allowing these images the white spaces of a page allows me to make connections between various sets of images and also conveys a sense of the fragmented narrative which is exactly what the conceptual idea of this piece is about. Also, I could use different layouts to make a comment on the imagery so that more traditionally framed images would sit centrally within the page whereas unconventional shots would have an unconventional layout. This would create a tension between the expected and the unexpected.

The text adds a parallel narrative allowing the subjects voices to interweave within the physical spaces they inhabit.

Insh'Allah - Extended Photo Essay - Images by Amelia Shepherd

Insh’Allah is a journey into Fes. Beyond its impressive, ancient, and medieval walls I found a group of young Moroccans as intrigued in me as I was in them. I asked them questions, methodically recorded their responses and photographed our interactions: Are you a Moroccan first or a Muslim? Where in the world would you like to go to and why? What ideas do foreigners have about Moroccans? What ideologies do you have about foreigners? The resulting work is a conceptual yet journalistic response to these encounters. In allowing those I photographed to drive the narrative forward Insh’Allah resists being a collection of cultural stereotypes. Insightful extracts of these dialogues are interspersed with photographs revealing the disparities between how people feel and how others perceive them to be. The images and spaces of the pages allow for a freedom to interpret, digest and explore personal responses to cultural representation. The fragmented narrative is stylistically harmonious reflecting the realism of lived experience creating tensions between the expected and the unexpected. Insh’Allah is a photo story about real people. Grounded in the realms of reality it connects the individuals of the story with their audience conveying the ambiguities and misconceptions we all encounter when attempting to understand ‘each-other’.

Gilles Peress, Telex Iran

Essays and photo essays...

I have been absorbed over the past few week with my Morocco Photo Essay as well as my essay on Gilles Peress. I have found the research I have been doing on Gilles Peress really fascinating. I just wish that he had been available for an interview at some point but it's a bad time for him at the moment and he said (via Heidi) that he wouldn't have been able to help me even a month ago as has been away. Maybe next time. It's just that there isn't an awful lot out there on him. I guess that's not a negative thing it just means I can really get stuck into what there is. His interview from the Conversations with History series was especially revealing about who he his, his methodologies, his outlook, concepts and so on. I feel very engaged with some of his theories about photography-that it's an 'open text', that it operates in a language of it's own that is started by the author-photographer and completed by the recipient-viewer. Telex Iran tears me part each time I look at it. I think it is an amazing body of work and charged with such power. The more I look at it the more it speaks to me.

Morocco Photo Essay

Looking at the above image by Peress and looking through many of images as I have been over the past few weeks, I cannot say how, but he seems to have influenced some of my concepts about framing & composition I have adopted in my most recent Morocco Photo Essay. I am not sure how this has happened. But I feel certain that he has now that I have researched more about his work and methodologies. I first looked at his amazing powerful work on the Iran revolution of 1979 Telex Iran about 4-5 years ago and only recently picked it up again about 1 month ago which is after I returned from my Morocco shoots. I can accept that things we see, read and feel have a subliminal effect on us that perhaps surfaces in some other aspect of our lives at some other time. Peress' images seem to manifest multiple decisive moments in one frame. He is not interested in just one single moment but in what else is occuring in and around the camera lense. In some ways his abrupt, close to the edge cropping actually communicates the limitations of capturing 'life in one frame' whilst simultaneously embodying the concept of the simultaneity of life...

Evaluating my Morocco Photo Essay

This project was all about exploring issues surrounding cultural diversity and represenation. Through a network of smaller photo stories I am attempting to reveal something about a culture as a whole. I am attempting to communicate these ideas to my audience through the format I have chosen so that the viewer is encouraged to see correlations and links between themselves and those whom are I am attempting to represent at some level. I would explore this idea by employing a range of developed methodologies.

I aimed to extend this into the production phase of my work by exploring and employing a broad range of media to try and produce new and original work

An underlying focus in my work is to attempt to give those without a voice a chance to speak and be heard. I am committed to collaborating at some level with my subjects whilst simultaneously building and maintaining a respectuful relationship with them.

Book layout

Questions and decisions...

On Monday this week I attended a portfolio review day at Rivington Place and saw 2 reviewers for about 30 minutes each. First session was with Senayt Samuel and the second session was with Indra Khanna (Curators/archivists of Autograph ABP. We discussed exposure, getting work seen and published etc.

Session 1 - Senayt Samuel

Senayt thought my previous work 'silent voice' that I should aim to send a tight edit with PDF and synopsis to magazines such as Portflio and Source. She then discussed my more recent work on asylum seekers (I took in B&W A4 prints of the 2 mini photo essays I worked on earlier this term of Husnu and Muawia). She commented that the details of the rooms and interior images worked best for her and encouraged me to carry on with this work-possibly for my major project for my MA piece? In the meantime she felt I should send this work to the features editors of publications such as the Sunday Observer/Times/Guardian. Advice was to shoot to send in colour images and that this work should now be shot in colour and not B&W. The edit should be 15-20 images with text summaries of the story. Also, enclose an overview of who I am, how long I have been working on this work for and give some background

Session 2 - Indra Khanna

Indra was impressed with 'silent voice' too and we discussed my forthcoming exhibition at The Otter gallery, Southampton (which she hadn't heard of). She discouraged me exhibiting in places where I would have to pay to do so and suggested I started sending this work to specific galleries who might be interested, where the gallery would pay for the exhibiting costs. Her suggestion was the Bedford Gallery: ( http://www.bedfordcreativearts.org.uk/exhib-pre.htm - check out previous exhibition 'Midnight'
She mentioned Dinu Li as a reference to look at: http://www.dinuli.com/secret_shadows/index.html
Other exhibiting potentials-The House of Commons run a scheme that I can get involved in through the local MP supporting m statement to exhibit there...On a similar thread she mentioned to subscribe to local council newsletter to find out about local arts initiaatives.
Lastly she also mentioned that Souce and Foam might be interested in the 'silent voice' project

As a follow up to the above I asked Indra what she thought about me submitting the asylum work to features mags which Senayt had suggested, her comment was " yes - definately send it off, you have nothing to loose! and let me know when you have your feature in the Sunday Observer!"

Summary

It was well worth attending and getting some feedback, albeit it brief. It left me feeling as if I have decisions to make about which route I should now continue with. They both were thoroghly convinced that the asylum seeker work should continue.

Where to now?

I am thinking of this work now as a long term piece-perhaps for the MA final project. I need more images, more access, more stories, more editing, etc and I also need to try and find some interest in this piece. It involves lots of phsical and emotional energy so if I do continue shooting then I would also like to gain some interest in this story to get it published. Perhaps that should be my goal now?

MAPJD extended photo story

My morocco work doesn't fit with the above! Does that mean I shouldn't continue with it? gut feeling is to keep working on the Morocco story as my extended photo esssay for July then go back to the asylum seeker work. I have lots to do on the Morocco work and I want to make it work on its own as well as feeling like the work I do on it is somehow contributing to my future work...

Morocco-Extended Photo Essay, work in progress

Find more videos like this on MAPJD Online

Extended Photo Essay

Insha'Allah

I went to Morocco having set up some shoots with a group of young Muslim Moroccan men (in their mid 20's). I wasn't exactly sure which locations I was going to shoot in but had plans to photograph in their houses and possibly their work places or where they hung out/spent time. My initial idea for the photo essay(s)was to produce a piece of work which penetrated beneath the surface of Morocco and engaged with the culture, people and country. I suppose I wanted to come back with something that no one had seen before, avoiding the usual visual stereotypes (which are actually difficult to avoid when you are in such a picturesque country with such amazing natural light). As usual, my preoccupation would be with the 'ordinary person', to make captivating images which attempted to communicate with the audience and portray something remarkable and memorable. I planned to present my 3 subjects with a series of questions designed to help me understand them more and record the answers. The questions would relate to their culture, religion, country, outlook on life amongst other topics which would occur naturally in the conversation. I was influenced by Broomberg and Chanarin's Ghetto project where they asked a series of set questions to different people from a variety of 'Ghettos'. I knew my images would depend on what I found out during my sessions with each of my subjects.






















I felt that there was both a conceptual and journalistic potential with my idea. My strategy was to gather as much information as possible and shoot in a variety of situations. One of my interests lies in exploring the language of documentary photography. I felt that the voices I would record would form part of the final work. I have some voice recordings but am unsure whether they are good enough to use. At this stage the options I am thinking of are re-record the voices, use transcripts as text quotes or use a 'sound track' to accompany a slide show.

Mini Photo Essays

"I am teaching myself English, everyday I get better. Here in the bookshop I can read in peace. One day it will be my turn"

Husnu is Kurdish & lives in the UK. For the past seven years Husnu has repeatedly put his asylum case forward to the Home Office through his solicitor and the local MP without success. The process is long-winded, complex and frustrating. When a local MP contacts the Home Office on behalf of an asylum seeker they are obliged to reply within three weeks. As Husnu has no 'new evidence', the response each time is always the same...

"It was decided to maintain our original decision that Mr Koluman's case is not of a sufficiently compelling compassionate nature as to warrant expedition..."

And so he waits. Waits for a decision for which he has already waited for for seven years. To fight his feelings of powerlessness and being in a state of terminal limbo Husnu has been concentrating on teaching himself English for the past 6-12 months. He tries to study for 6,7 or 8 hours each day. He hopes to become a Turkish/Kurdish translator for other Kurdish nationals or a journalist.

Mini Photo Essay 1:

Photo Essay 2-B&W Final Edit - Images by Amelia Shepherd

Mini Photo Essay 2:

Photo Essay 1-Final Edit - Images by Amelia Shepherd

Mini Photo Essay 3:

Photo Essay 3 Edit - Images by Amelia Shepherd

Portraits and other thoughts

I haven't been on here for a few weeks and it feels like a lot has happened. Not only have I been shooting assignments for the MA but I have also been away, shooting a bit of other stuff and then last weekend I was at a conference about War Imagery at the Imperial War Museum-very interesting, met some interesting people and lots of ideas were banging around the room.

MA Portraits assignment (It feels like ages ago that I shot this now)

Looking at these with John last night made me reflect more positively on them that I had initially. I tried to challenge myself by using a lighting kit as well as shooting each set in numerous locations with numerous angles-close-up, mid and environmental shots.

Portraits 1-Sean Ryan

Positives-It was a "pretty good set". Contemporary lighting and good use of shadow in some of the outside shots. Simple background can work v. well so don't be afraid of that and over complicate.

Going forward-find a way of lighting a room (to get context of what was clearly an interesting flat). Think about natural light sources in the room and try to replicate this with the lights. Balance the light more so that when there is light in the background it is not drowned out by too much subject light. Try using just tungsten for interior portraits (forgot what I would normally have tried if I wasn't using a lighting kit!)

Portraits 2-Emma Major

Positives-Great variety. Good use of space (as Homer would say!) in some images. Interesting crops, intensity. Pastel portraits v. contemporary and quite fashiony with muted colours. Extracts her femininity well. A certain style emerges with a sensitivity to subject. Good set

Going forward-photograph lighting set up to remember it. Crop out of the frame unnecessary objects (bathroom mirror). Try straight on portraits-art directors love it. Outside shots-could have used soft light to light her face.

So here are some images from the second portrait I shot of Emma, a long distance runner:

I thought I would take a look at what some of my bathroom series looked like cropped. Here's the results:

Summary

I am pleased with these sets of images although recognise the mistakes as well as the strengths. As with anything of this nature it is practice which will improve my portraiture. I think these images all show a good control and relationship of/with the subject and there are signs of my own style and creativity emerging. The overall weakness for me is lack of ultimate technical control of the situation in some instances. I was so thankful to be shooting on digital so that I could get an idea of the lighting as I went along. As I said to John in my tutorial I don't feel 100% confident using a lighting kit but I could work my waay through a situation and have plenty of creative and visual ideas which ultimately will be a great strength once the technical issues are sorted. There is so much to deal with when shooting portraits you can become absorbed in one aspect and forget others so it's important to try and stand back during the picture making process...

Human Relationships Shoot 3

For the 3rd and final Human Relationships shoot I really wanted to choose 'older' people. I think that I felt it would help me position myself as more of an outsider, more removed, quite simply because I was further away in age from my subjects. I find old people fascinating and I suppose I wanted to try and put myself in a position where I was learning something about them by being with them and hoped to convey some of this in the shoot. Perhaps a little ambitious in a quick 70 frame shoot but I believe these were my underlying intentions in choosing this subject matter.