Professional Documents
Culture Documents
School Highgate Road Email: pearce@williamellis.camden.sch.uk LONDON http://williamellisart.weebly.com/ NW5 1RN http://williamellisart.weebly.com/digital-photography.html __________________________________________________ A2 Unit Coursework and Personal Study Part 2: DEVELOPING Visual Investigations _________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Through the ideas, techniques and research in your practical work identify an aspect of photographic practice that intrigues you. Having a question as the title is the most important starting point. WHAT do you want to investigate? HOW will you investigate it?
Research into 10 photographers linked to your theme/essay question. Find photographs from each of the photographers that relate to your essay question. Document and analyse the photographs. Link and compare them with other photographers. Choose 2 or 3 photographers from the 10 that you with to study in depth.
Go to at least 2 exhibitions related to your theme (it can be Art/Photography exhibition). Make rough sketches and take notes directly in the gallery. Illustrate your recording with gallery leaflets and postcards. Include any reviews of the exhibitions that you may find in newspapers/Time Out/online/Metro/magazines/newspapers/websites. Then write reviews on your favourite exhibitions.
Develop your findings and critically analyse the work. Develop an argument what are you trying to say? What is the photographer trying to communicate in their work? How? How does this link with other photographers/artists? You should be illustrating your creative journey and discovery in a formal essay.
You should use images to illustrate the work you are discussing in your essay. You should insert photographs of your own work alongside the work of your chosen photographers and compare/contrast your work (show links and connections).
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POINT: Make your point, what is it that you are trying to communicate and why is it an important point that relates to your essay? QUOTE: Find a quote that relates directly to your thoughts and ideas. The quote should come from a book or a newspaper or a journal or a magazine article or the Internet or a film/song. ANALYSIS: Expand on your ideas and the ideas from the quote to show evidence or further insight into the essay question. Remember new idea, new paragraph! 5. RESEARCH MATERIAL: You should read around your subject matter and find things and bits of research that relate to your essay question. You should be referencing between 5-10 different sources. Do not just use the Internet as a source! Use books, magazines, journals, newspapers, gallery guides as well as Internet sources. CONCLUSION: Conclusions are tricky but they should give a sense of completeness to the essay and leave a final impression on the reader. What do you conclude from the essay question? It is a good idea to echo the introduction and bring the essay full circle. It can also be a good idea to leave the essay on a question to emphasise that there is still more research to be done or that a new perspective could be drawn from the debate. PICTURES: Put in pictures when you need visual reference to what you are describing. I would imagine you would put between 10 and 20 images into your visual essay. Reference your own work and how your own photographs link to the work of the photographers you are studying. PRESENTATION: We would like you to present your work as both a printed out essay (normal A4 essay) as well as a BLURB book. Obviously, you will need to spend time putting your Blurb book together and getting it checked by your teacher before you spend the money printing it. HARVARD REFERENCING SYSTEM: You need to use the Harvard referencing system this is really good practice for University writing! (See next page.)
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10. SPELLING, PUNCTUATION, GRAMMAR: Make sure that you leave time to read through your essay and spell check it and ensure that the grammar and punctuation is all correct. 11. QUOTES: You will also need to make sure you spend time correctly referencing all of your quotes. This takes time! If you take
words from another source the Internet or a book and do not reference it then this is PLAGARISM! And you can fail your essay if you do not recognise that these are not your own words. There is no problem in using words and sentences from other sources this is encouraged! but make sure you put them in quotation marks. We will know if you have not done this correctly. Direct quotations is when you copy another authors material word -for-word. You should show the reader that it is a direct quote by placing the material in inverted commas. 12. ENJOY: Enjoy! This should be an enjoyable task that sets you up for university essay writing. Try to always choose a subject matter that you enjoy and that you will enjoy researching and writing about. If you have time and if you want to further your essay, think about how it can be presented in context even using different surfaces of paper such as tracing paper (if appropriate!) may add to the experience.
F. RECOMMENDED READING:
The Photograph by Graham Clarke, Oxford University Press. Graham Clarke illuminates the photograph's historical development. th 20 Century Photography. Taschen Bill Brandt: Portraits. Photographic Monographs. Photography: A Critical Introduction. Liz Wells The Invention of Photography. Thames and Hudson On Photography. Susan Sontag. Staging the Self Self-Portrait Photography. NPG Basic Critical Theory for Photographers. Ashley la Grange
1 Baron, David P. 2008. Business and the Organisation. 6th ed. Chester (CT): Pearson.