Matt Smith
Professional
Practice For Photographic Communication
In this module I really struggled to engage with my rephotography project. From
the start I was unsure of how to get creative with it and it didn’t really
interest me. After a visit to the archive I began to take an interest into the
history of Salford. It was fascinating to see how much things had changed and
in some cases how things hadn’t changed at all. We were asked to create 6-10
images, which would get displayed in the Salford Art Gallery as part of a
course wide exhibition with the first year students.
We were given areas on
a map and in a group we visited the archive. It was a slight drawback being
given a certain area as our area wasn’t particularly interesting at first
glance but having said that it gave us a focus straight away so logistically it
made sense to be split off into areas from the start. After visiting the
archives I decided to focus on change. I realised that my area was mostly
residential and not very interesting however we had 2 major roads, Bury New
Road and Eccles Old Road. I found a number of images on Bury New Road and
instantly recognised the places having travelled down the road only a few
times. This sparked my interest to try and show how little some things have
changed.
I decided that I would
combine my own images with archive photography in an attempt to display how
little had changed and also demonstrate the advances in photographic technology
by combining digital and film photography within a single image. I feel my
final image is somewhat interesting and puts my ideas across but if I’m true to
myself it’s not my best work purely because the project didn’t motivate me to
push myself. I struggled to find 6 images in the archive that were of good
enough quality to use and also communicated my ideas but I got there in the
end.
It was a good
experience that we got to prepare our work for display in a gallery however
things were a little un organised with printing as we had a size that seemed
slightly random and it was an uphill struggle finding a printer to print that
size, mount and deliver within the short time frame.
I enjoyed the work
experience aspect of this project. It was a very positive experience that I
enjoyed and it has informed my decision about further freelance work in the
future. I have seen what it takes to become a successful photographer in a
competitive market and also work alongside clients to deliver high quality work
that they are happy with. Writing the report gave me chance to reflect on my
experience and pick out the positives and also touch on the things I learnt
during my time with Tate Studio.
