Study Plan

I'm currently thinking of structuring my study like this (at least to start with):

• Complete 1 project a week (accepting that some weeks this won't be possible - either due to the size of the project or as I'll be too busy)
• Do the photographs at the weekend and the right-up in the week
• Complete each Assignment in 1 month

Initial reading list:

• The Genius of Photography
• Photographers Eye
• The Photograph
• + 1 more (initially)

Regular reading:

• British Journal of Photography

WHY

Following me sending my profile to my tutor he emailed me a response in which he made a pretty important statement - "I think the most important thing to come to terms with first of all is WHY you want to make certain pictures."

Unfortunately I've not yet managed to come up with a decent, concise answer to the question of WHY? But I do recognise the need to try. So here are a few partial answers - hopefully in time I'll develop an answer which is a bit more complete:

• To be part of something with meaning
• To demonstrate an ability to seeing things in a different way
• To make sense of a feeling of being on the outside looking in
• To try and box off a certain chunk of reality and turn it into something simple
• Because I want to know WHY.....

Further reflection (30th Jun 12)

I'm aware that the above reasons are all very self centred. i.e. they're reasons why my photography and photographs would be important to me. However, those reasons are probably unlikely to result in photographs which are important to other people.

Further reflection 2 (30th Jun 12)

For some time I've wondered why the photographs I've produced in the past so often don't feel important or "good" to me. I can certainly say that none of them have really tackled all of the above WHYs. Maybe that's what they're lacking.

I think in addition it's because so many of them are fake (I've realised this as I've started to look more closely at the work of professional photographers). Over saturated. Over sharpened.  

Profile

I now have all the course materials and have spent the last couple of evenings going through things. The first required activity for the course is to send a personal profile to your tutor. This is mine:

My name is Steven Briggs, I turn 40 later this year (born 27th September 1972) and live in Nantwich, Cheshire with my wife and 2 children. By day (and sometimes beyond), I work as a Software Development Manager for a major online gambling company.  

Photography  

In a fairly passive way, I’ve been interested in photography for most of my life. I saved all my pocket money for over a year when I was 12 in order to buy an SLR. I bought it mainly to take photographs of military planes. However, my interest soon broadened - particularly as I completed my Art GCSE. Unfortunately I found the hobby difficult to maintain, partly due to cost, partly due to mobility (the ability to get to places to take photographs), and partly due to lack of imagination. In addition, I grew an increasing interest in music - so in the end I sold my camera to get a guitar. I was intrigued by the benefits of digital photography for some time before I was able to convince myself that I’d maintain an interest in photography for a prolonged enough period to warrant buying a DSLR. However, I bought one about 2 and a half years ago and have enjoyed photography as a hobby ever since. I’ve developed my skills during this period, but I currently feel that I’m getting a little stale – potentially due to lack of structure and sense of purpose behind what I’m doing.

Study 

When I completed my A-Levels I knew I wanted to be a professional musician (singer in a band....). However I also enjoyed studying, so I decided to go to University and study Philosophy and Sociology which appealed to my interest in pondering the big problems of life. I then moved to London to seek my fame and fortune as a musician. I had mixed results – a degree of success, but my sense of realism got in the way and I decided that I needed to start a career in order to pay the bills. While I’d previously been a confirmed hater of technology (pretty much believing that the internet would be the end of all human interaction), that which I hated started to become that which interested me most. So pretty much out of the blue I decided to adopt a career in IT. I realised that I would need some formal training so I started a part-time MSc in Software Engineering. I enjoyed the challenge of squeezing studying the degree alongside my job and family commitments. Particularly in the second year I concentrated on self study and attended a minimum of lectures. I passed with a distinction and have since enjoyed a reasonably successful career in IT.

Combining the 2

My intention with embarking on the OCA Photography Degree course is to provide some structure to my ongoing development as a photographer. I’m hoping that my studies and associated projects and assignments will give me the focus and challenge I need to take me out of my comfort zone and really push me forward with my photography. While I’m unsure whether I’ll be able to maintain the motivation over the full duration required to do a degree, I do want to proceed with assessment for each course in the hope that I will stick at it. I intend to take about a year on each course. I’m attracted by the formality, rigour and duration that will go along with a degree level course – including the study of other photographers that is unlikely to be included in a less academic course. I also like the idea of gaining a degree in Photography as it would compliment my Philosophy and IT degrees to give a fairly rounded view of my life interests. Another major reason for wanting to do the course is escapism – I have a very demanding job and pretty demanding family, which makes it all the more important that I use my spare time efficiently and to maximum effect. Photography enables me to concentrate on my creative and artistic side which doesn’t get much expression in my work. And finally, if I’m really honest I like the idea of being able to make a living from Photography. I’m realistic that this may never happen, but I also know that I won’t be able to maintain my IT career much into my 50’s. If I can progress the course to degree level I may be in a position to make some money from photography at the end of it. Who knows.

Misc

My pre-existing Flickr account is www.flickr.com/stevenbriggs7 . In line with my ambition to complete all work electronically and online I’ve setup a blog as a learning log - http://stevenbriggs7.blogspot.co.uk/ . My email address is stevenbriggs7@hotmail.co.uk .

Pensive

Continued to look through some of the online material referenced in the general course blurb and came across this article - http://www.photoworks.org.uk/blog/post/00000000011 which discusses the democratisation of photography and thereby the risk of the practice of taking and publishing of photographs becoming increasingly distant from "art". I guess this isn't a new discussion at all (although according to this article it's potentially taken the commercial photography world a bit by surprise....?), however it feels strangely pertinent to me as I embark on this degree. I feel like someone who has greatly benefited from the democratisation of photography that is inherent to digitisation - I enjoyed using a 35mm SLR when I was in my teens but found it to be far too expensive, time consuming and error prone to take and process film. Digital capture and processing has opened up creative possibilities and the opportunity to experiment and have confidence in achieving results (the ability to review shots while on location for example), which I never felt were available to me when using film. But here's the thing - I guess by starting on this degree course, I'm saying that I want "in". "In" on the commercial, professional, art world of photography. But it's only because of the democratisation that I feel like I can even try to get "in". And so I wonder how possible that will be. What barriers to entry will present themselves? How many of them will be presented by my own inadequacies, how many by my own insecurities, but also how many by the professional world which may be reluctant to really let the commoner in?

Locations & Subjects

Well I'm currently waiting for my course materials to arrive. They come by post (which seems a bit archaic...), so I'm having to be patient.

However, I'm looking through some of the general course blurb which is available on line - including the recommended online reference material. One of the recommended sites is http://strobist.blogspot.co.uk/ . There is an interesting article on there about keeping a list of suitable locations in your area - http://strobist.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/how-and-why-to-keep-location-catalog.html . So I'm thinking that I'll use this page to do just that.

List:

1. Car (though I don't think the fact that it's black will help)
2. Carved wooden horse on side of canal
3. Boatyard on side of canal
4. Dead tree near Angela's house 
5. Open farmland on left of A500 
6. Brook on right of A500 
7. Hedge running diagonally uphill on right of A500

Update 28/7

Well I've used a number of the above subjects and locations already and not thought of many more. However I'm mainly looking for everyday locations which kind of fit with where my interest in photography lies at the minute (i.e. being inspired by Lewis Baltz and other photographers of "normal" street life).

So, I think I would add the following to the list:

1. Street on the way into Nantwich
2. A500 gates and road side

An interesting point here is that 2 is actually the same location as 5, 6, 7 in the top list - but is the less obviously  attractive, more everyday bit.... i.e. 5,6,7 in the top list are off the road and in the fields, my intention was to cut out the road from the shots, but now my intention would be to emphasise the road and act of travelling down it.

Reasoning

There are a number of reasons for me embarking on the degree course. The main one is that while I enjoy photography as a hobby I can be a bit lazy in terms of actually getting out there and taking photographs. I can also be a bit lazy in my choice of subject matter - I'm kind of like a fisherman who finds out where the biggest fish are, finds out what they like to eat, speaks to half a dozen other people who have caught them previously, determines precisely when they're likely to be hungry and only then turns up at the pond.

Which is kind of crazy because a lot of the photographs that I really like are of the every day fragments of life that I walk/drive past a dozen times a week. i.e. the small fish, in the pond that only the most perceptive of fisherman know about.

So I'm hoping that following this course will give me a sense of direction, structure and purpose that will break me out of my comfort zone and force me to be bolder and more courageous in my approach to photography.

I also tend to work quite well with deadlines. And where I have  feedback from someone I respect. But I hate slow paced, repetitive classroom study. An online, self-paced course should suit my preferred learning style quite well.

The degree qualification aspect also appeals - I have a BA Hons in Philosophy and Sociology and an MSc in Software Engineering - if a Photography degree was added to the list it would be a rather intriguingly random kind of mix of subjects which would reflect my life interests reasonably well.

The shear size and duration of the course (likely to be 8 years or more), is also quite exciting and liberating (I have a pretty demanding job in addition to a family to tend to and so it will be good to be involved in something which in relative terms will be very self indulgent and "escaping"). It's also nice to think that at the end of it, it may be possible to start earning some money from photography - though I appreciate that may not be realistic.

Anyway - here goes....!

Registration

Well, I registered for the course earlier today and now I'm just waiting for the course materials to arrive.... I'm aiming to complete the first course in about a year - just hoping I can maintain interest and commitment across the full 7 courses needed to get a degree. It will more than likely take about 8 years!