Mood lifting news and and further thoughts on Assignment 2

After a slight feeling of 'setback' with the feedback from Assignment 1 in relation to the Gastalt project, my mood has been lifted following an email from OCA to say one of my shots will be used on an advert for the college which is set to be included in the January edition of Advanced Photographer and Black and White Photography. A couple of months ago I was also charmed to be told that another of my images would be used on one of the 'Assignment Completion' postcards; so receiving those will be fun little progress markers as I go throught the course.

After mulling through the comments about my Gestalt shots being 'too technically focussed', and aso watching the WeAreOCA video of Jefffrey Martin's eloquent and inspiring work, I think the penny has fully dropped at where I went wrong. Jeffrey's images set out on a visual path which follows his interest, with the images incorporating the requirements of the brief within the images and in so doing creating some great images along the way; rather than setting out to demonstrate the theories and finding a means of visually doing so, as mine did.

I think part of the reason for my stumble here may be with not having worked though the different levels of the photography course and not being used this kind of project. Having been APL'd onto Level 3 and starting with the Advanced course where the student more or less has total control over what they will produce, The Gestalt project was the first one where I had to meet requirments laid down by the couse; hence to some extent, I went about it in the wrong way; kind of back to front. So, henceforth, I shalt be making that mistake again.

Looking through what I have produced for Assignment 2, because the shots are starting to 'build up' to the major project using locations and exploring ideas, I don't feel the images quite fall into the same trap, though with some of them it could be constued in that way so a bit of selective editing of which ones to use, plus a few re-shoots with better variations on the theme will be taking place over the festive holidays.