Assignment Four – planning and preparation

My planning and preparation for the essay required for this assignment divided itself naturally into three areas:

• Research into image analysis and essay structure
• Research into my chosen image
• Research on the planning and writing of an essay at first year undergraduate level.

Research into image analysis and essay structure

In order to keep this post fairly concise, I have written separately on this topic and my thoughts can be found here.  I also found the following books useful with regards to thinking about image analysis:

• ‘Camera Lucida. Reflections on Photography’ by Roland Barthes (1982)  London: Jonathan Cape
• ‘Context and Narrative’ by Maria Short (2011)   Lausanne: AVA Publishing SA
• ‘Reading Photographs: An Introduction to the Theory and Meaning of Images’ by Richard Salkeld (2014) London: Bloomsbury Publishing plc
• ‘Semiotics: the basics’ (2^nd ed.) by Daniel Chandler (2007) Abingdon: Routledge

Research into my chosen image

I began by carrying out an initial analysis of the image based on parts of a checklist provided by OCA in the Level Two photography course ‘Progressing with Digital Photography’ (Freeman, 2011) as a basic structure in order to look objectively at the photograph. This analysis can be read here.

Looking deeper into the image, my research material mainly came from books and the internet and these have been listed either as direct references or in my bibliography.   I was very conscious from the beginning of the importance of using reputable sources and was pleased to find Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century written by Peter Galassi in the library.  Galassi is the former Chief Curator of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art in New York and organised exhibitions with Cartier-Bresson for MoMA in 1987 and 2010 so I was comfortable with his credentials.  Indeed this book became the central point of my research.

It was serendipitous to be able to view Juvisy first-hand at the A Decisive Collection exhibition of Cartier-Bresson’s work held at Beetles + Huxley gallery in London in March.  Physically seeing the print made me much more aware of its quality, its details and tones and I was able to stand back both physically and metaphorically from it and consider it in conjunction with the earlier research that I had gathered.  I found it also helpful to view it in context alongside Cartier-Bresson’s other work.

I soon discovered that Juvisy had a lot of substance and scope for my critical review and found that my research spiralled off into different areas, from leisure to politics, from paintings to picnics.  Whilst much of this research was not included in my essay due to the word-count limitation, I feel that it has benefited me both with regard to this assignment as well as for my studies beyond so I will record it, albeit in note form, in a separate post on my blog.

Research on the planning and writing of an essay at first year undergraduate level

Whilst I am used to writing reports and papers, albeit in purely factual form, as part of my job, I soon realised that both preparing a critical essay and writing it to the required standard was not going to be as easy as I initially thought it might be.  I very quickly found that I was creating a growing heap of notes detailing my research which if I could see could end up out of control if I was not careful and be difficult to collate.  I therefore decided to stop work on the assignment for a week and get organised.  I borrowed an arts study guide from the library which helped a great deal, both with making/collating notes and managing the writing process as well as with the art of essay writing. Although this did delay my assignment submission, this additional learning has been extremely worthwhile and I consider it to be time well spent both for this assignment and for my future studies.

The course notes suggested that we read Singular Images: Essays on Remarkable Photographs (Howarth, 2005) as a guide to the level of critical analysis that is expected by the assessors and I found this to be useful as to the style of writing to adopt, even if the book is rather difficult to get hold of (I ended up with various chapters downloaded from the internet as well as a couple kindly provided by a fellow student).

Another suggested read from the course notes which proved useful was an article on essay writing published online by the University for the Creative Arts (UCA, n.d.) which covers aspects from developing your research area through to presentation and format.

References:

Barthes, R. (1982) Camera Lucida. Reflections on Photography.  London: Jonathan Cape

Chambers, E and Northedge, A. (2008 )  The Arts Good Study Guide (2^nd ed.)  Milton Keynes: The Open University

Chandler, D. (2007) Semiotics: the basics (2nd ed.)  Abingdon: Routledge

Freeman, M. (2011) Photography 2: Progressing with Digital Photography

Galassi, P. (2010) Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century.  London: Thames & Hudson Ltd

Howarth, S. (ed.) (2005) Singular Images: Essays on Remarkable Photographs.  London: Tate Publishing

Salkeld, R. (2014) Reading Photographs: An Introduction to the Theory and Meaning of Images London: Bloomsbury Publishing plc

Short, M. (2011) Context and Narrative.  Lausanne: AVA Publishing SA

University for the Creative Arts (n.d.)  Essay Writing [online].   Available from http://community.ucreative.ac.uk/index.cfm?articleid=12239  [accessed 13 April 2015]

Assignment Four – image analysis and essay structure

In preparation for writing the critical review required for Assignment Four, I have read a number of essays which analyse individual images.  Whilst these essays differ in style and content depending upon the author, there appears to be an overall underlying structure which, even if at times seeming rather loose, evaluates the work through using recognised traditions and practices.

Wells (2004, p.37) discusses a number of approaches which might be applied to the analysis of a single image, writing that:

‘For instance, any single photograph might be:

• viewed primarily as social or historical evidence
• investigated in relation to the intentions of the photographer and the particular context of its making
• related to politics and ideology
• assessed through reference to process and technique
• considered in terms of aesthetics and traditions of representation in art
• discussed in relation to class, race and gender
• analysed through reference to psychoanalysis
• decoded as a semiotic text’

The reading list for this part of the course suggests that we read Singular Images: Essays on Remarkable Photographs (Howarth, 2005).  The critical essays that it contains seem mainly to fall into two camps with some undertaking a structuralist approach whilst others contain a wider focus, discussing the background of the photographer, the image history, the general subject matter and how the image fits into the photographer’s work as a whole.  As a reader I find these broader essays much more interesting with their discussion of the wider context of the image and the photographer concerned.   As a writer this would also be my preferred style if I had a large or an unrestricted word-count as I enjoy the research element and the building of a literary picture that extends beyond the physical one.

Moving on to the process of writing the essay itself, there are a number of resources available that provide guidance for the novice writer.  I won’t discuss them all here, but will highlight a couple that I found particularly useful.

Barrett (2000), writing in ‘Criticising Photographs: An Introduction to Understanding Images’, dedicates a whole chapter of the book to the art of writing and talking about photographs.  He begins by urging the writer to consider their audience before putting pen to paper:

‘Before you begin to write, it is important to determine who you are writing to, how much background information your reader will have, and what information you will have to supply’

(Barrett, 2000, p.175)

Barrett continues with a number of salient points to consider, including a checklist of questions for the writer to think about when reviewing the first draft of their essay and looking for ways to improve it.

Wells (2004, p.35) provides a helpful warning against the misuse of criticism when writing:

‘At its worst, criticism masks personal opinion, dressed up as objective or authoritative with the aim of impressing … At its best, criticism helps to locate particular work in relation to specific debates about practice through elucidating appreciation of the effort, meaning, context and import of the imagery under question’

Reading the assignment brief I am of the opinion that my essay needs to combine the elements of deconstruction that we have learned on this part of the course as well as address the course content in general i.e. the areas of context and narrative.   In addition to carrying out a structural analysis I would like to discuss the broader issues arising from the research into my chosen image so, with the 1,000 word-count in mind, I think it likely at this stage that I will end up writing two essays – one for the purpose of the assignment and a second (maybe more in note form) for my learning log containing the outcome of my other research which will be excluded from the essay by necessity of the restricted word-count.

References:

Barrett, T. (2000) Criticising Photographs: An Introduction to Understanding Images.  3^rd ed.  New York: McGraw-Hill

Howarth, S. (ed.) (2005) Singular Images: Essays on Remarkable Photographs.  London: Tate Publishing

Wells, L. (ed.) (2004) Photography: A Critical Introduction. 3^rd ed.  London: Routledge