The task: To pitch a creative proposal for Oxfam’s 2021 Secondhand September campaign. The result: Catwalk at Your Doorstep, which was a hybridised group effort which took elements from a number of different early ideas from our group members. At its most basic, the idea was to create a campaign that was especially accessible for […]
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Nail, hammer, ping. Boys and their use of string to create physical routes back to roots. Or, as Carol Mavor expands in Reading Boyishly: “I have seen my own boys do it: looping string inside and around a bureau drawer, up and over a bunk bed, down and through the axle of a toy truck, […]
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The image above has knocked me for six, as has the whole of Elina Brotherus’s work Anonciation. The image, number 32 in the series, is the penultimate photograph of Anonciation. It is the frozen end point in her burning yearning to become a mother. It reduced me to tears. “I’m showing this series of photographs […]
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I bought some rather expensive baryta paper a week or so ago with the hope it would add a little wow factor to some prints I was making for a customer. It is beautiful paper to be sure, with a gorgeous texture and just the right amount of reflectivity to reveal stunning pigment contrasts and […]
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I’m starting to feel quite excited about our brief for Oxfam’s Secondhand September campaign. Partly, because I feel we have a good pitch. But mainly because it is a potential commercial sphere I’ve never considered before – that of working with large organisational clients on a story/conceptual approach. I think I’d dismissed the idea of […]
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I was a little surprised at the excitement and enjoyment my children took in deciding my project’s destiny. I, on the other hand, had pangs of fatherly concern. And the ringing dictum that parents must keep their word… Since there is a strong element of play in my current project – examining the differences in […]
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I’m taking a different direction in my work for this module. In many ways it is an extension of previous modules, though more of a side alley than a new road. I want to explore the differences between my son and me in our sense of identity. My son is very comfortable in his own […]
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Why, oh, why have I never asked myself the most obvious of questions: Could I make a decent living from doing what I love and, if so, how would I do it? I know part of the reason for this. I love my current job. I get to write, photograph and produce television. So technically […]
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Some really interesting insights from fellow students this week on how they see/use research in project development. Analysing their responses, they boil down to three main areas: Professional context: What has been done before in relation to my project? How has it been done? What can I learn from the shortcomings or learnings from the […]
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Deciding what to do with text in my current project is one of my biggest headaches. The fundamental idea behind Brave Faces was that it would be a visual response to my father’s unpublished novel of the same title. I have tried various iterations, from including slides with swathes of text. But that, repeated over […]
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