Y Filltir Sgwar (The Square Mile)

Assignment 1

After reading the brief my first impression was this is an interesting concept as I tend to overlook the areas I live or have lived when doing my photography, I usually travel to get the perfect scenery, backdrop and/or subject, so bringing it closer to home was going to be a challenge for me! My first consideration is if I’m going to concentrate on the area where I have lived for 22 months (a beautiful village surrounded by forest and farmland) or go back to my home town of last 31 years (A concrete jungle full of people transport and buildings)!From reading the brief I scribbled down some ideas in a brain dump as I had too many ideas that I needed to departmentalize, I was also unsure if I was on the correct path as it has been many years since I studied (I’m a little rusty!) and on occasions I found it rather overwhelming! And from this I decided I needed to first choose if I was going to concentrate on my new life in the countryside or the old concrete covered life! After careful considerations I chose to concentrate on my new surroundings as I have a passion for this new life and would like to show others what my new life means to me. I had a moment of reflection thinking how I share my Country Living ‘Square Mile’ and best show the area I live which makes me happy every day! I could concentrate on Farmland, Agricultural, Military airbases, Sense of space, Surrounding forest or Animals! Even though I had many ideas I needed to think what are my reactions to the new life? How’s it impacting on me? I had many thoughts relating to the original ideas, but these would not tell a story and link the photos to my ‘Square Mile’ although my ideas are great for producing beautiful photographs I didn’t feel it was something I experienced every day! It raised the questions what I deal with everyday around my ‘Square Mile’ and it was right there in front of me whilst out on a walk…. Mud! Muddy dogs, shoes, cars, buildings in the village, lanes and on the floors and doors of my house! It’s something I deal with on a daily basis it’s what makes my surroundings so beautiful.

I investigated other Photographers that have used this concept I came across two that I found particularly interesting! Gawain Barnard and Venetia Dearden.

I enjoyed looking at Gawain’s work especially ‘Boredom to burn’, whilst looking at this topic I began and understand the relationship to ‘Maybe we’ll be soldiers’ the link to his childhood, family and surroundings, his topic ‘Polaroid’ was a style of photography the appeals to my photography style as it appears to be capturing moments rather than directing the scene and also appeared to follow a style of surrealism/ alternative, the rawness of the photographs also really made them stand out! I used this to direct some of my work at objects relating to mud concentrating on detail and part of the object rather than a whole scene at the same time being part of my Muddy ‘Square Mile.

Straight away on Venetia’s homepage my interest was captured, each picture drew me in and made me think about the message that she was portraying, her work really speaks and made me want to dive further into her website to learn more about who she is and how she became the photographer she is today! I love the use of people and scenery along with the emotional relationship between the two whether it be the relationship between two people and the emotion or the relationship between the person and their surroundings.

Venetia’s work has encouraged me to include my family in my ‘Square Mile’ assignment.

My final photographs needed tell the story so when looking at my approach I decided to take simple photos that accurately represented what I see using depth of field, reflections and tone whilst using minimal editing, I decided to present them in black and white as I felt that it

brought them together helping them to tell my “square mile” story I used this assignment to refresh my knowledge and understanding of my camera and its functions and obtaining the best photographs in what at times was tricky light levels.

Bull on the farm.

Farming

Tracks

Muddy Hand

Filthy fun

Aftermath

Stuck on

Broom

Dirt in the grain

During this project I learnt lots about my strengths and weaknesses! My major weakness I highlighted early on in this project is that I need to slow down and take my time over the photographs thus taking better quality photos rather than snapping away and having a large quantity of mediocre ones! I also learnt that in drizzly conditions make sure that you don’t have any tiny water droplets on the lens! Such a careless mistake that will not happen again! Although it is not all bad, one of my strengths is learning from my past mistakes! I have a good eye for composition and see potential in items that the untrained eye may not see, examples of this are the photograph files Dirt in the grain, Broom and Stuck on, getting close to these objects created interest in what could be perceived as a boring subject.