My first Assignment submission has just gone off to Clive.  It sets out my proposal for the Body of Work and submits some images that indicate the direction it’s going.  This quote from the accompanying notes summarises my intentions.

My proposal, now, is to pursue two main directions:

1. ‘Studio-based’ image-making that uses collage, montage, still-life and digital manipulation to explore the layers of meaning and disruption that are imposed in the creation of digital photographic images. I anticipate that this exploration will include images that respond to events and news, as well as more generic still-life constructs.

2. A series of self-portraits that create alternative identities (alter-egos) that I might have been, ideally shot in a variety of styles which relate to the context of those identities. Prompted, to an extent, by the pages of an old Newsbook created when I was a child, the series should examine the ways in which photographic images create persona and construct narratives that may or may not bear relation to truth.

The images submitted have all appeared elsewhere in this blog, with two exceptions that I include here for completeness.  The first is another in the trial self-portrait series – Farmer Stan, photographed in the style of a magazine article illustration that uses fill-flash to illuminate the subject.

The second is a new ‘still life’ construct, based around a Cezanne painting (appropriated and printed), to which I have added, through photography, collage and digital manipulation, a mandolin, a pewter vase, and a roll of electrical tape.  On the one level it is , hopefully, an attractive and mildly amusing image, but on another, it raises questions about the layers of influence and disruption to truth that have ben applied in its construction; and hopefully, questions about the nature of digital photographic images as a whole.

I won’t repeat the other images that have gone off; but all of them are, in a sense, sketches at this stage, intended to indicate my proposed direction.  I need feedback before going further – not least to take a ‘reality check’ on whether my proposed projects are too little, too much, or about right.