Research - and start of blog

This is a blog to accompany the Your Own Portfolio module of the BA(Hons) in Photography with the Open College of Arts.

I had been running just a physical logbook, preferring the tactile, material process of putting the log together. I have decided to run this blog alongside my log book because, as was recently pointed out to me, my problematic handwriting may create a disadvantage when it comes to assessment time, with the assessors having to put in a lot of effort into deciphering my scrawl.

Recent activity with the research for my major project, which is based around the idea of the periphery of developed areas, is to read the book ‘Edgelands’ byPaul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts (published by Vantage). For me it’s a fascinating literary journey through just the kind of area I will be venturing into to make my images . Beautifully written, amusing and thought-provoking, I look forward to a chapter or two each evening, expanding my mind to the possibilities for my project. It would be easy to start trying to capture the essence of the book in my images, but I want to avoid that; my purpose is to make the project my own ;but the book is certainly inspirational and helping me to form some concrete ideas.

In addition, I’ve also just re-read two books by Michael Freeman – The Photographer’s Eye and Perfect Exposure. I feel re-reading books serves well to refresh the memory and also often leads to a greater insight 

into what the author is getting at the second time around.

Last weekend I went for an exploratory walk around part of the perimeter of Manchester Airport. I have walked a different area around the airport before, and as on that occasion I took some snaps to get ideas of locations for my project. There were some interesting juxtapositions of pleasant buildings with a backdrop of the airport perimeter fence in view.

It’s a shame the photo’s can’t capture sound as this was really intrusive when the jets were taking off. Still, it was a good exercise in building the foundations of the project and helping to form the ideas. No doubt I will be returning to the area many times over the coming months.