Oral Presentation Copy

Written Copy for the PHO701 Oral Presentation (presentation can be seen here https://www.maphotographicjourney.co.uk/pho701_positions_and_practice_module/pho701_oral_presentation/pho701-oral-presentation/

Welcome to my oral presentation for the positions and practises module of the MA photography course, My name is Roydon Woodford and I will introduce my current practices and my plans for a research project. That’s me aged about 7 on the roof of my Grandads boat.

This is me more recently hanging off the side of a lifeboat, this allows me to capture shots like this.

There are strict rules within the RNLI about the use of cameras during shouts as some of the situations can be macabre and warlike or when at the time for action is required there is no spare seat for a photographer. However, there are many aspects of the lifeboat crew that can be captured. My access to these situations creates more decisive images with the crew member having fun training or the harrowed look after the experience of a shout. The type of image often seen in the war reporters work such as Don McCullin. A future project is to capture the life of crew members at work, at home with families, training The what’s behind the RNLI however, even with individuals agreement this work requires the agreement of the RNLI.

A larger area of my practice is landscape and seascape photography, with the Jurassic coast as inspiration. Frequently it is about sunrise or sunset in dramatic Dorset locations. However, my work is not just at the behest of the sun.
Roland Barthes deconstruction of images leads to an aspect he calls studium. The pretty, the usual, the known and I feel that my landscape work to date however pretty or colourfull falls directly into this group, it has become nothing more than collecting pictures of what was, with a simple press of a button. Always avoiding people to distract from the beauty of nature. Each day a replication of the same image with a different sky or wave splash.

Photographers descending to Dorset to collect the same set of images with no visual interpretation of their own. Collecting next sunrise just to gain a brief exposure to the social media junkies with another pretty picture

My longer exposure work is used in a myriad of ways to extend the visual experience to produce stronger images. The simplistic isolation of the groyne. Leading the viewer into the image of nothing. I believe that this work has more behind it with the intention of raising questions like where is it going? What’s out there? So maybe engaging with the viewer more. Michael Kenna extends this canvas with the reflection that becomes part of the isolated branch.

Adding depth and further dimensions to the stretched wide-angle shot of the pier. Is the dimension time?

The longer exposure is capturing time as it passes the lens. Is this what we see when we look at the streaking clouds, the static image having life breathed into it?
I feel that this aspect of my practices captures the life, with streaking clouds, being part of time.

The waterfall, seeminly paused in an instant, collecting time with the assimilation of water drops creating an image that was never there creating what some would concider an abstract image. Which I feel is supported by Barthes statement,
“the important thing is that the photograph possesses an evidential force, and that its testimony bears not on the object but on time.”

Hiroshi Sugimoto work with the candle, where he photographs the life of a burning candle. Is this photograph valid? Is my work vaild if it can not be seen? As Hiroshi Sugimoto states “However fake the subject, Once photographed, it’s as good as real.” and I have to agree, with the application of time, the validity is confirmed showing that long exposure can create an image never possible in an instant.
Storm chasing is dramatic when successful still requires long exposure. The human eye cannot see a bolt of lightning it merely thinks it has been seen however when captured in a photograph the whole bolt is revealed. Clearly you can see the the image so for my work the bolt of lightning is real as is my image.

With only a few weeks exposure to the MA course my perception of my own practice has been dramaticlly altered away from the repeative landscape to produce very different images. Taking images, looking for the reason the image exists beyond the pretty that I have done so well in the past. Finding a direction.

For the research project I have a working title of “a pipe no longer a pipe” rejecting Barthes view that the referent of an image will always remain within the image and that a pipe is a pipe.

During history there are distinct periods of painting such as the detailed work of Caravaggio in the 17th century through to impressionists such as Claude Monet. Monet’s Houses of parliament I feel moved him away from pure impressionism to approach a more abstract image. Paul Cezanne another painter from the same period whose work I feel started the building blocks for the transition from the more accepted painting of the 19th-century and the bright new world of the 20th-century. I find the bathers 9, more abstract than many of his other works possibly allowing the abstract work that followed during the 20th- century with artists such as Gerhard Richter who’s reclining nude shows the now more common abstract art which artists such as Jackson Pollock and Paul Klee, embraced taking abstract to completion. The fate of the animals in 1939 by Franz Marc, showing the use of bold and strong colours creates a painting that allows the person viewing to take away their own meaning from the image. This transition from fine art landscape to abstract is the progression of my practice and where I see my work heading producing images in the more abstract nature.

Further inspired by the song “windmills of the mind” with “Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel” with the line “Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!”. This song invokes strong imagery for each person that participates in the song, in their own way how does one see the windmill in the mind? Is it clear or is it distorted like in a dream state? how does one see the wheel within the wheel moving forwards? The song reflects time or the passage of time which is where I feel there is a strong link to the long exposure photography that I undertake.

Utilising long exposure to engage the viewer to be participatory in the meaning the image. The images are not clear photographs and nor fine art they are images that create a mental picture for the viewer, but until the viewer has participated in the picture, the picture has no meaning for them.

From the work of Sugimoto and my work, it is clear that photography and visual perception can be manipulated by the application of time I see a very viable project. The extra punctum as described by Barthes.

The project is not confined to 35mm, it allows for other mediums such as camera-less use of photographic papers and pinhole photography. The images produced can be abstract by nature or with manipulation become abstract.

I see further research into how people percieve images and the effect of colours or images with moods and feelings .

I intend to undertake this in my local area of Dorset to minimise my impact on the environment
Thank you for listening to my presentation