Discussion on teaching/longterm project

Hello again, welcome to another blog from the inner workings of NathanPhoto, as this is the third one of the month and following my new formula, this musing is going to explore some ideas I have for teaching session, with an added bit of discussion about my long-term projects via an image discuss.

I have arrived at teaching quite late on, only starting my pedagogical journey about 8 years ago, since then I’ve progressed through but now arrive at this point where I would like more of it, unfortunately, and for a variety of reasons, I’m sans institution.  

My return has not been for want of trying; I would love to get back into academia. So to this ends, I’ve decided to blog about my teaching practices, sharing ideas, methodologies, research and thoughts. Don’t worry I will be strict in my attempt at brevity in all of these, I will explore some concise ideas that establish the practice. I do have a number of approaches that are either inspired by ideas picked up through my time in photography or they are approaches shaped by research/influenced by thinking.

Why do I love teaching? Well I love sharing the love, joy and contrary nature of this beloved medium, sharing my experiences in the hope of guiding, providing a resource so my empirical evidence can be used to answer any questions that may come into modern thoughts and directions. Encouraging students into their own journey of discovering photographies power can give so very much, it can lead into a richness of life that I don’t think other mediums can provide.

Photography is beautiful and I hope to share that with you.

Now there are many pathways into starting this journey and I do believe that it is quite dependant on the level that I’m teaching in which one I start with. I do usually begin with the basics of camera control, methods of image making, exploration of fields of photographies, establishing the photographer in you, to name a few. I do this in both practical and theory-based learning via workshops, tutorials and sessions. I could tell you of both the negative and positive feedback given to me about this approach at this point, but I’ll save that for another writing, I think.

Then the session where I really start with my raison d'etre and where I think introduces my views on photographies/my thinking so very well is the idea of making a ‘bad’ picture. I tend to approach it a number of ways, I either give scant information, simply ask the student to provide me with a bad image or I will discuss the concepts of good/bad via a session then explain what I think and let the student interpret those thoughts through discussion then ask them to provide examples in a live setting via image research and thought.

My ideas behind this are many fold but I will attempt a brief discussion here:

I really enjoy unpicking the concept of what is good/bad and the ways in which that is explained. I believe it touches on a myriad of ideas including definitions of quality to current zeitgeist, to notions of presentation to the exploration of ideas of the punctum contrasting with the studium amongst so many others. This subject also explores the weight of opinion of your peers, the established practitioners, the balance of the opinion of the marker (ideal experience of the working world of the photographic) and lighting up the individual’s inner thoughts of themselves leading on to informative reflections. I hope it also establishes the use of (either yours or the individuals) words in explaining pictures to add value to an image, if you can tell what’s bad, can you tell me what’s good? If I assign you a picture that you love, can you tell me what is bad about it? If I do that vice versa, how does it go?

Quite weighty, yes?

There is some fun in there too, though group discussions and realisations. I do fear that my approach is looked on very negatively by established academia who seem to dismiss me as naïve, of not knowing but therein I think lies the heart of the problem that needs to change. Yes, I agree it may not always work well, yes, it may have been done before, yes, many others have done similar work and yes it may have/not have been established etc etc.

But my point is that I do it, think I do it well, the students seem to get a lot out of it.

Therefore I would like to explore it more.

Can I ask it here?

‘Can you make me a bad picture?’

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Now for an image, this will also be combined with a brief update on the long-term project I’m attempting, the short story is that it’s hit a little lull. The long story is that time constraints are biting, equipment changes are hitting and life is throwing things at me that are taking me away. I suspect in any project after the initial rush there is always a natural slowing down, of thoughts, motivations and the such like, which then hopefully develops into a period of reflection about what it is.

In an attempt to explore this lull, I decided to disrupt my previous attempts by making a visit at night. This journey made at a specific time with specific goals married up as an alternate to previous attempts, in an effort to make a little different. The image criteria I went with, was the idea of creating a few images of:

·      General view of what it looks like at night

·      HDR-esque type image

·      Flash test for future portrait

·      Crime scene type image

This disrupting of previous narratives has worked in many instances and I’m still looking at the work to see if it has worked this time, but I will share 2 of them here:

A super edited image of ‘Taste Alley’ a street in Manchester off Albert Square that is the subject of my longterm project.

I’ve been doing some ’hdr’ style work recently of which I hate but I think certain parameters of it can be explored simply through the use of raw files and editing, I really do hate this look and feel of these but the nft/algorithms/tradcliched/markets seem to love them, well not mine specifically but they love others when they do them. Thought I’d try it here to see a reaction.

A detail of something in a plastic bag made in ‘Taste Alley’ a street in Manchester off Albert Square that is the subject of my longterm project.

Have an idea of interpretations of stories especially via objects (this feeds into the very nature of the photographic) The ideas of created curated stories from details is an interesting one, it borders on my research practice so think it’s only natural that it will crop up here. My decision was to make a picture almost in a crime scene image, could this be interpreted in different ways and if so which one is correct? What about the introduction of a false narrative?

What do we think? Any good?

Interesting points to make and ones that have formulated some next steps, which sadly are so very usual in this things:

·      Time: I need to make more time to sit and exist in the space

·      Message clearer: What am I trying to say? What is being communicated?

Will explore this through reflection and let you know what happens.

On top of this I’d like to do a constructed portrait in the space so I’m looking for a Burly/Boylesque performer to make a portrait alluding to a different (imagined) narrative that stems from the name of the alley and may push this into another direction. Anyone know anyone?

As ever thank you for reading. And if you have any feedback, thoughts, comments or anything’s, then please get me though the usual channels.