Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Bolton, a strange place to be

You won't see Bolton University's Chadwick Campus in their prospectus.

The spread out complex is very 1960s - very similar to my secondary school in Birtley near Newcastle (that bit’s of interest to Geordies only, and even most of my Geordie readers won’t find it very interesting).

Some of the corridors and classrooms are quite rundown. And there are these bizarre covered walkways which link many of the buildings together. They are
in a style of which simply don't get made anymore.

Never-the-less, the photography school seems fairly well equipped. Though our course leader Ian Beesley paints himself as a technology aloof Yorkshireman, he is able to connect his laptop to the internet and the overhead projector without too many problems.

The online learning database - the VLE - is absolutely packed with support material, links and papers to read. It doesn’t look like they've missed anything out - they seem very aware of everything that is going in the industry.

For a few weeks now I have struggled to get my images accepted onto the Alamy photographic agency because of technical deficiencies. Alamy's own instructions are very ambiguous. I'd go as far to say that it is misleading.

However, a link from the VLE to a BJP article revealed how simple the process actually is. If only Alamy had the article on their own website.

NOTE: There is so much to read for the course on a weekly basis I am s****ing myself over getting it all read.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

The words get longer (and longer)

If you can’t read, this course isn’t for you. Some of these essays we have to devour are turning my guts inside out.

Take these two concluding sentences from David Campbell's Salgado and the Sahel, an essay on images of famine.

"Photographs are a modality of power, and the bulk of contemporary famine images conform to colonial economies of representation. In contrast to the depoliticization of disasters through such pictures, Salgado's compartment vis-a-vis his subject’s functions as an ethical and responsibilizing practice in which the aesthetic repoliticizes, making it possible to envisage a humanitarian ethos."

Interesting essay, though I'm not really sure what it is it's concluding. Perhaps someone should right on essay on understanding this essay. I feel this is a subject I shall return to.

So there you go, 54 words. I feel I should declare that I am a sub for the Daily Star in my day job. I can confidently say that at least 15 of these words would be substituted before the passage got anywhere near print. Even then it would be far too complex.

Like I said before, the Plain English Group would have a field day.

The words get longer (and longer)

If you can’t read, this course isn’t for you. Some of these essays we have to devour are turning my guts inside out.

Take these two concluding sentences from David Campbell's Salgado and the Sahel, an essay on images of famine.

"Photographs are a modality of power, and the bulk of contemporary famine images conform to colonial economies of representation. In contrast to the depoliticization of disasters through such pictures, Salgado's compartment vis-a-vis his subject’s functions as an ethical and responsibilizing practice in which the aesthetic repoliticizes, making it possible to envisage a humanitarian ethos."

Interesting essay, though I'm not really sure what it is it's concluding. Perhaps someone should right on essay on understanding this essay. I feel this is a subject I shall return to.

So there you go, 54 words. I feel I should declare that I am a sub for the Daily Star in my day job. I can confidently say that at least 15 of these words would be substituted before the passage got anywhere near print. Even then it would be far too complex.

Like I said before, the Plain English Group would have a field day.

Monday, January 22, 2007

The first lecture - Getty Images

I quite enjoyed our Thursday afternoon discussion on Getty Images.

I was quite taken aback by course leader Ian Beesley's revelation that he earned between £5,000 and £11,000 a year from his stock photography with his photo agency until Getty bought them out. Since then, he confessed, he's gotten virtually nowt.

He readily admits his type of pictures, his style, doesn't fit in with Getty. What I don't understand is that he's not attempted to transfer to another agency more suited to selling his work.

I take the point that he can say to clients 'I am a Getty photographer' and trading on the name can give him influence in getting work

But If there's one thing I've learned as freelancer it's that you can't be snobbish in the work you accept or turn down. It all counts and I'd rather have a chunky cheque drop through my letterbox every year instead of telling people I'm a Getty man.

I think one or two of the other students agreed with me. I'm sure we'll ambush Ian on this in the future.

Week 1 Assignment


Assignment: Produce a single image of a national news event to be posted on Getty Images. We suggest you check the newspapers, TV news and web to see what is happening or find a newsworthy issue to illustrate. Images should be captioned using the Getty IPTC Guidelines.

I found the picture assignment details a little confusing, in that I was not totally sure what kind of picture was wanted.

Did they want a picture that could be used by Getty again and again? Or was it a picture that Getty could sell specifically to a newspaper. I chose the latter.

My picture of Starbucks was inspired by a news story which featured a picture from Starbucks. Easy.

In the discussion the emphasis was on picture re-saleability, though this would seem to put the picture in Getty's creative section rather than its news area.

I’m convinced I got a newsworthy (if slightly arty) picture, but our lecture was more about producing pictures with high repeat sale potential. Is that the lesson we were supposed to learn? Picture agencies are less about the story and more about the money.

The first two days

Twenty-ish people on the course, plus another group simultaneously studying in Dalian, China.

If there's one thing I've learned pretty fast about this course it's that there are some long words ahead.

I read Dave Clarke's essay on global photography markets. It was very long.

There has obviously been a lot of work put into it. He's travelled to Bangladesh, Ethiopia and written a comprehensive document.

The only problem, he's carried on using the same jargon as some of the reports he's used as references. So, what you get is constant references to the 'majority world', then a stream of long words wrapped in longer sentences. Not exactly bed-time reading, I can tell you.

If the Plain English Campaign got hold of Mr Clarke, he’d never get out alive.

Reading this essay and others we have handed, I find myself constantly referring to the internet to discover the meaning of words and phrases. I'm still not sure what 'majority world' actually means. I'm sure I'll work it out as I go along.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Test Assignment - Global Warming



This photo was our first single picture assignment. The assignment was to take a photograph on global warming, though in reality it was more of a test of or technical skills in uploading pictures on the Photography MA's VLE systems (that stands for Virtual Learning something or other).

As you can see, this was a fairly literal interpretation of the assignment. Did the job though.

A bit Martin Parr said Ian Beesley, a bit pleased I was at that (though I didn't let on).