Proposal for Self Led Brief

I had a tutorial yesterday regarding my self led brief project and the concept has slightly changed from last time:

The thing that stood out to me the most about my set brief project was the scientific aspect of it. I mentioned in my workbook various times that I really enjoyed Environmental Science at school and thus combining photography with a scientific subject matter was a great way to get me passionate about the work. In order to be equally passionate about this project I want to have a similar scientific approach. However, instead of landscapes, I want to put a greater focus on the specific species of plants that are in Horsell Common. The photos will become an annotated scientific documentation of the plant species. I’m hoping to particularly look at rare species, or unique plants, rather than documenting the obvious. I want the book to be interesting and include unique photographs of the plants.

In my time lapse I will be idealising the area, but again I want to maintain the scientific aspect to my project. It will almost be like a documentary of Horsell Common, although there will be no narration. For my previous time lapse I used quite straightforward landscape shots similar to my final images, however for this project I want to focus both on the landscape as well as more detailed shots of the plant life. The majority of time lapses I have viewed make use of a camera slider, and therefore, instead of having still scenes, I will use a camera slider to make the video more interesting.

Photography used to be seen as a technology, not as art. There was an assumption that all images were accurate and dispassionate. It was a way of keeping a record for anyone who needs “absolute material accuracy for professional reasons” (Baudelaire 1859). Photography was only used to document something in a factual manner, “she [photography] is the sworn witness of everything presented to her view” (Eastlake 1857). Because photography was seen to be so accurate, it was used for classifications. I am returning to the factual documentation of photography and therefore will have to do a lot of research into the origins of photography and the technological side of it, rather than the artistic side. Liz Wells’s Photography: A Critical Introduction is a great start. Wells writes about how people started to differentiate between the technological and artistic side by purposely taking shots that were “out of focus, slightly blurred and fuzzy” (Wells, 2004).