Evaluation

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.