An Evaluation of,
Untitled Thought- Seeking Silence
I have learnt quite a bit about myself while working on this project and I felt like there was something from within that directed me through this body of work. It has felt quite a bit more personal than the projects that I have worked on before as it is a visual response to how I am feeling about my position in the world at the moment. All of which is explained in the text that I have written to support the images in my book.
This project did not start on a strength. It took me a while to find my feet at the beginning of the second year of uni and I definitely felt the cloud of the Covid blues over my head in an overwhelming way that I had not felt before. I think this is why I felt such a strong urge to shoot a body of work that was in the landscape and isolated from the madness of the world that was going on around me. The project really kicked off after reading the book “Silence In The Age of Noise” by Erling Kagge” and I was truly inspired by the idea of seeking silence in the natural world. Something that is so accessible to everyone however maybe overlooked.
After going out and shooting a few photographs I decided that I wanted to shoot this project in black and white. The two tones images looked simpler which I thought would help convey the idea of silence within an image as well as images with negative space. I experimented with a few different ways of shooting. In the beginning, I was mainly shooting on my digital camera and then decided that I was going to shoot medium format for my final few shoots. I managed to take a 5x4 camera out once, but I did not feel like I had the time to develop this well enough to use it in my workflow. I had already decided that I was going to develop my own film as I wanted to shoot my final images of the Christmas break and I was then hoping to use the college facilities to scan my film. After the announcement of the 3rd lockdown, I made the decision to purchase a scanner so I was still able to use my film photographs within this body of work. This is a workflow that I would not have developed if it wasn’t for the lockdown and I am glad it has taught me that developing and scanning film is not that hard to do at home. Moving away from this project and onto the next one, I plan on shooting and developing colour film at home which is something that I may not have considered if it wasn’t for the restrictions we are working under at the moment.
I wanted to showcase this work in two ways. With this being a digital submission I wanted to create a moving images piece that the viewer could feel connected to. This is why I added audio and video of me shooting this body of work. I wanted the viewer to fall into the sublime world that I created, a space of spiritual silence which the viewer could watch without distractions. I also wanted to create a physical piece that you could hold in your hands which is why I created the book. The physician object means that a viewer can look through the work in the own time, as well as being introduced to the text at the beginning which informs them about the thinking that has gone into this body of work.
Overall, I am pleased with the outcome of this project and I have learnt a lot of new skills along the way which I am looking forward to developing in future projects. I think that I have hit the targets of the brief as I have created a visual piece that takes the viewer out of reality and along on an adventure to find silence. The project is titled “Untitled Thought- Seeking Silence” as I want to provoke the viewers thought and take them along on a visual and spiritual journey through my view finder.