Results

Well I did better than I thought with a scrape through at 44%.  Most of the areas were awarded less than 50% but I still some how managed a pass.

Overall Comments and Feed Forward

To progress you must engage with the academic aspects of the degree - this will also help develop your own photography. Far more critique is needed of contemporary and historical photographers and writings. When discussing Jeff Wall, for example, it is not enough to say 'he is not to my style', you need to research why he has 'exhibited all around the world', why are audiences, curators and the public minded to view his work - what do they see in it? 

Once you understand why he (as an example) is an important figure it will unlock many other practitioners, themes and ideas around contemporary photography that will feed into how you see the world and how you make photographs. The key word is critical. You have touched on female photographers, glass ceilings, stereotypical views of women who work in charity shops etc but you need to develop arguments through the framework of feminism, return again to Martha Rosler's work, she would be a key driver for you. She is critical of the world that she was born into and continues to live in, her work critiques many aspects of what others take for granted. 

Once you look at the world through her eyes it will be hard to make pictures in the same way. Challenge yourself to, perhaps, find a new photographic hero, exchange Jane Bown for Elina Brotherus, or Fay Godwin, or Jo Spence, or Rosy Martin etc. Start with what photography writers and critics have said about them and use that to then take a fresh look at your own work. Your abilities, and interest, in photographing people will stand you in good stead but the soft skills of working with people need to be harnessed to a rigour that can only come from contextualising your future work with contemporary photography. 

I find contextualising to be the hardest part of this work.  I accept that I am a practical, get up and go photographer and need to work much harder on this aspect if I want to get a decent mark for Level 3.

Hey, onwards and upwards, I'm 3 years away from my degree.  Given that you should complete the whole course within 12 years, 2020 gets ever closer as I started in 2008 when I was working full time.

The home page web address of my Level 3 work is:

https://jenhollandsbahonsphotographylevel3.blogspot.co.uk/

Blown it

Well, it looks like I've blown this module for any sort of decent mark.  The trouble is that I get so many complicated emails over time that I lose the thread and don't follow them up.

I remember being told quite a while a go that there was a 'g' drive being set up to enable students to submit work electronically as well as by hard copy and memory stick.  What I didn't get at the time was that eventually you would only be able to submit stuff on this 'g' drive and memory sticks wouldn't be acceptable due to transmitting viruses.

Thinking back to when I applied for this module Gesture& Meaning to be moderated it would have helped if there had been a 'to do' and 'not to do' list.  It's only now the deadline of May 31st has passed that the assessment team let me know that I haven't complied with the electronic requirements for moderation. 

A short list of things to do and not to do would be so helpful.  It might be that I missed it but everything comes wrapped in so much verbosity that it's difficult to pick out the essential items such as:

• no memory sticks admissable
• hard copies and/or work uploaded to 'g' drive only acceptable before 31st May, nothing afterwards
• where to find the 'g' drive, it took me over 20 minutes to track it down and I've always considered myself computer literate as I used to teach MS Office and basic website design to further education students.

I'm trying to think of ways to get my work in front of the judges as they won't look at my memory stick where all the excess images and work is stored.

This is seriously putting me off going for level 3 as, from what I've heard, there's masses of reading and research to go through.

Tidy up

Well, I've managed to complete all my assignments including assignment 6 (my most dreaded) the critique.  Everything is now packaged up and sent off recorded delivery to Yorkshire for moderation.

My real dilemma now is whether to go on to level 3.  A degree is something I've wanted to achieve for many years but I wasn't in a position to do anything about it until 2008.  Then in 2009 I retired and we moved to Lyme Regis when I found I had the time to get started.

I think when I analysise my feelings when I discussed it with the OCA Photography Level 3 Facebook students, that I have leanings to carry on.

Neglected to update here

I've been working through all the assignments in the Gesture & Meaning module and realised that I had failed to keep my home page updated.  As I've got several learning blogs on the go it can get a bit overwhelming to keep everything up to date.

I am pleased to say that I have managed to complete this module in the extended time and have applied for moderation in the July assessment.  Now I have the task of making sure that the reprints/rethinks are available for me to send off to arrive by May 31st.

I tried my best to update the suggestions made by Katrina, my tutor, but got a bit behind with Assignment 4 as there wan't much in my calendar that she liked.  This meant I would have to rethink the whole thing and go back to take more pictures. 

I had also printed my original calendar at A4 size but done the 7 prints at A3 and it was only after a final check that I realised what I had done wasn't acceptable.  So, almost back to the drawing board for this assignment.

Katrina also felt that my presentation for Assignment 5 was too wide spread and it needed more focus.  I've been thinking about this and have decided to focus on royal photographers from Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to the present day and include selfies.  It's all churning round in my head and just needs to be put down on paper as they say.

To my surprise, the assignment I find the most difficult, the critique, was probably my least

censured one.  This type of assignment gives me weeks of head aches as I struggle to write in photo language.  So to get faint praise from my tutor was a real plus.

Anyway, back to the drawing board and to putting together the new work in the hopes of getting a good mark.