Whilst this blog has been used for most of my modules towards the BA in photography, currently there’s only those parts active that constitute the Level 6 “Your Own Portfolio” module. Past units have been archived off as PDF files in the Archives section of the site (the files can be quite large).
Your Own Portfolio (or YOP) is very different to the previous modules at levels 4 and 5. They were really quite structured, with tens of exercises (generally somewhere between 30 and 70) and although the various assignments could be interpreted in different ways depending on your own preferences, there was generally a fairly concise brief to work from. YOP though, as I said, is different. There’s only 9 exercises, and you only really need to do 4 of them (exercise 1 is the first assignment, and any 3 of the remaining 8 form the second). The lions share of the work in the module is the generation of a cohesive portfolio of work, the subject and style of which is your own to decide.
In completing the module, I’ll be posting most of my work on this site, although some notes will be put into a paper log book instead. This is generally cut-outs, scraps and stuff I don’t own the copyright to, or have permission to publish. Most is here on this site though. After the couple of pages of introduction, YOP is basically broken down into 2 blogs and 4 galleries:
YOP Notes detail the comments I’ve made that are relevant to the exercises or to my photography in general; my thoughts and reflections on the module and anything else that comes to mind that might be considered pertinent.
YOP Portfolio relates to my thoughts and images specifically for the Portfolio, rather than anything else. The content of the Portfolio has changed over time; it currently consists of 3 “legs” if you like, a look into the rural fetes and festivals, etc. that take place within a rural area of Lancashire called “The Ribble Valley”, a selection of “street” photography images from the more urban areas of the Valley and, thirdly, a selection of landscape images.
Rural Gatherings is a collection of photographs made at farmer’s markets, agricultural shows or any other ‘peculiar’ festival or fete that might take place within the Ribble Valley.
Urban Encounters aims to give a feeling for the day-to-day urban life of the area. This provides its own difficulties as there are few urban centres here, just two small market towns and a number of villages and hamlets. They’re not very busy...
Landscape features colour photographs from the Valley, from Pendle Hill to the Forest of Bowland, and various areas in-between.
There’s also the entries for the 5 assignments, although these are quite brief, having been broken out of the “YOP Notes” section for clarity. Having said that, there will still be comments made on the assignments in the main blogs: assignments 1-2 were the culmination of the exercises, and 3-5 are the results of the portfolio work.
There’s also another section called Other Stuff which contains notes on gallery visits and book reviews and the like. This is a generic section of the site in that it has been in existence since I started blogging my learning, back with PwDP and PaP, etc, although the older stuff has now been archived away. Resource is just a list of references to books, websites and video, etc. that have popped up in the course of my learning.
