After what seems an awful long time I have now completed all the work I planned for Assignment Two and have sent this off to Sharon for feedback. The package I submitted included the following:
Critical Review Text
My critical review entitled CONTEXT AND MEANING IN DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY – A COMPARATIVE STUDY. In this I reviewed two documentary works The Americans by Robert Frank and Afghanistan by Simon Norfolk. For both of these, I considered how the context within which the work was made and the context within which it was presented influenced photographic meaning. A PDF version of the document I submitted is available by clicking the link below:
Critical Review Text final version
Project Three Experiments in Key
This comprised of the work I undertook for Project Three which was about experimenting with high and low key black and white conversions of images. I modified the scope of this work to be more useful for my major project and experimented with some early images from my East End work. What I was particularly interested in was to see how a black and white rendering of the images might work and to consider if this is a path I should follow for my East End work. Undertaking the project in this way helped me to move forward my thinking on the major project, which I felt would be of much greater value than a practical exercise in Photoshop black and white conversion as the course notes suggested.
In fact I did the body of this work some time ago and have posted some images in the form of a video previously, see here. Over the last week I have drawn together and documented the work. This analysis was a major driver behind my decision to shoot my East End urban landscapes in twilight or at night. The covering notes for my Project Three submission is available as a PDF (click the link below).
Project three Experiments in Key
Umbra Sumus Status and Latest Image/Text panels
I submitted a status report on my East End (Umbra Sumus) Project, which draws together thoughts from several recent posts. A PDF of this is available below:
I also included high resolution copies of the latest image/text panels as in the contact sheet below:
Umbra Sumus
©Keith Greenough 2014
I am now aiming to make a few more early morning trips to the East End. I have identified several more locations that I need to visit. I also want to make some test images in poster format as per my previous post here. Another priority is to start to formally review the work of other photographers and critical texts that are relevant to my East End project. I have a large backlog of work in this regard. I am also trying to secure dates from several landscape photographers who have agreed to be subjects for my portraiture project. So lots to do!!
photo-graph 
jsumb
April 2, 2014
Interesting essay Keith, I recognise a lot of what you say from other discussions. However I wonder about one aspect: you say that both Roberts and Frank took more risks with these works – however I wonder if they were more deeply personal – in the first instance? And this personal approach, which would later provide Frank, in particular, to take risks with both editorial control and presentation was more of that commitment to the personal i.e. the work came first – not the risk – and it was only after the personal became extant that risk entered the equation? Not sure if that makes a great deal of sense! Just thoughts, otherwise I was glad to have the opportunity to read it.
Keith Greenough
April 2, 2014
Thanks John. I think you are right to say that they followed a path which was driven by their personal beliefs and indeed it was their strength of conviction which drove them to take a risk and do something outside of the prevailing conventions.
Catherine
April 2, 2014
Very clear and well-thought through conclusion on the essay Keith, Interesting as well in the way you have juxtaposed two photographers who are very different and then drawn out some similarities. Have you and any further thoughts on how you might take more risks on, say, “Sumbra Sumus” (or even the Landscape project)?
Keith Greenough
April 2, 2014
Thanks Catherine. If i follow through my ideas about showing the Umbra Sumus work in a Pop Up Gallery in poster form I would certainly be stepping out of the normal book/gallery print format….not sure if it is a big risk though? As for the Landscape Photographer portraits i sometimes wonder if taking on this project as a man is quite a risk in itself?? But seriously the point is that I need to challenge myself to make work which is different….the question is how??
Catherine
April 3, 2014
Apologies for the wrong spelling – my finger must have slipped.
Re risk – I guess it would be more of a risk if you stated outright what the Landscape Project is about and then do some critical analysis of gender differences in approaches. Actually that would be a great risk – maybe too much!
What do you mean by ‘different’? For example is there any photographer’s work that you really admire yet think, “I could/would never do that”.
Keith Greenough
April 3, 2014
Think you are right that to undertake a critical analysis of gender differences would be risky….too risky without a much more comprehensive sampling of both men and women photographers, which is beyond the scope of what I have in mind at the moment.
By different I mean that the work does not simply following a path which has been trod by others…. this is tricky ground as if one believes Barthes then “A text [photograph] is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author-God), but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.”