Tutorial (January)...

The last time I had feedback on my practical work from my tutor group I was working on the filming of trains in the view from my window. Since then my work has moved on quite a bit and change direction, so I wanted to show this to my group to see what they though of it and to explain how I've got to this point.

I printed off examples of my work so far to show the development from photos that have been edited, to traced outlines, one of which I chose to be enlarged and split onto frames for the group exhibition. I also included the edits of my sketches that started of the Michael Craig-Martin inspired style.

Considering the majority of the group didn't get to see my films (due to the tutorial being half my tutor group and half of another's) and that they didn't know what the idea behind this work was I was pleased with the initial response some of the group suggested. One said that the scenes with the glasses made them think that it had been placed by someone, that there could have been somewhere there and this is what was left behind. As a scene this is the feeling I wanted to create, the idea of there being a presence, someone having previously being there. Unlike the series of photographs that I took in the past where you could see the difference between each shot, the group felt that the glasses looked like destination points, or a marked out route of where someone had been, which was a pretty close guess. 

A point that my tutor made was that the glasses didn't excite or intrigue her, that maybe the scene would be more exciting if it showed the remains of a party or a strange night. However when asking the rest of the group it was split that this would be a scene they would recognise or feel is realistic compared to their own lives. This made us come to the conclusion that my work is very subjective, so if I did change the scene it would still only apply to the half the audience. I find the idea that this scene could be mundane quite successful as one of my intentions was to take an everyday scene and make it special by highlighting it, so if you look at the image and are led to question what it is about that image that made me chose it kind of fulfils it's purpose as you are thinking more about a scene that you would normally pass by.

My tutor felt that my most successful images were the two in the centre shown above, the one to the right being the image I chose to enlarge at the exhibition. The composition of the setting, the more detail in the scene, the angle compared to the others and the flatness of the colour, liking the hand drawn quality of the photocopied sketch tot he left. To bring the Image back to my first Idea of the view from my window I was thinking of putting it onto the same window that the trains were filmed from, making my own stain glass window.