Dont understand this

86JR

86JR

86JR

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Looking at the London College of Communication - they do a Ma in Photography.

The 2008 class entered their images for the "2008 MA Photography Exhibition" class, i guess it shows off the standard of work ?

Anyway one of the entries is this.

http://www.elliedavies.co.uk/map2008/tony.htm

Now, call me stupid but this doesn't look promising does it... especially as the course is a year long and costs £4075

I cannot understand why they would allow that entry, my uni would kill me if I entered something like that!!!
 
Weird, I guess they're teaching it as "art" in the same style as a painting etc. instead of the more typical photographic styles. The filename for that image is amusing as well.
The one by Ottavia Castellina is interesting, most of them don't really seem that special though...
 
I'm pretty sure that's listed under the wrong category. There doesn't appear to be even the slightest hint of photography involved: it looks more like a mixture of painting and typography.

As for the photography on show from the rest of them; some of it is good, some of it is bad and some of it is downright weird. But as it's from a MA Photography course, context will be the key.

But if you want something to make you involutarily ball your fists, check out the winner of the 2009 Sproxton Photography Award who earned themselves £1,000 with which to 'kickstart their photography career'.

She's presumably spent it on photographic paper and plinths.
 
I would tent to agree with Zogger. It looks as if it's being taught in a way that an art school might, a more theoretical approach if you will. Personally from a photography class I'm not a huge fan.

In the same way that some people would look at a Picasso and say he was a shocking painter when in fact he was more than capable of reproducing any traditional masterpiece. It's just that it wasn't the point he was making.

I'm obviously not in the know but I imagine that the person who took that pic is more than competent with a camera in the more traditional sense but is in trying to push the envelope on what is a photograph.

Or it could be in the wrong category or they could be sleeping with the tutor, who knows!
 
ScarySquirrel said:
Sod spending £4k on a photography course.
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It's more about spending £4k for the letters after your name and the association with the institution in question. In the circles in which these photographers operate it's essential to have studied at the 'right' places, much like the fashion world.
 
I dislike the whole "art" community thing, a buch of people randomly deciding what is good and what isn't.

My girlfriend recently went on a free 2 day photography course hoping to learn how to improve her photography skills, the teacher didn't once go into anything related to the camera, and just talked about capturing the feel, espression....etc. My gf asked her a simple question about camera settings and she had no idea, claiming every camera has different settings?! :confused:
 
It's to do with the artist's intent, idea, experience, journey, execution.

How you get to the final shot is as if not more important than the final shot itself....I sound like an arse....I did architecture, I get all this but I don't necessarily like it.

One thing you will notice is that Art like these will be accommodated by a paragraph by the artist displayed next to the art in the exhibition. And in an exhibition you often get an audio guided tour. Personally if the piece of art doesn't speak to me without me reading that piece of text then that piece of art has failed. That piece of text is like the artist standing there next to it selling it to you, influence you. The art should do it's own selling without anything else.

My 2p
 
I know what you mean, a good film about art and the intricanscies involved is "Boogie Woogie" infact its excellent.

But even so I would have thought art would have standards especially within that community, If i take a picture of a white wall will i get an instant entry to that college ? I doubt it, but it makes you wonder what they learn after £4k and a year of learning doesnt it!?
 
twoblacklines said:
But even so I would have thought art would have standards especially within that community, If i take a picture of a white wall will i get an instant entry to that college ? I doubt it, but it makes you wonder what they learn after £4k and a year of learning doesnt it!?
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The image has Zero artistic value in my opinion, because it's so simple it doesn't really say anything, it's almost as if the student submitted it because they were rubbish or they did it for a laugh. (or both)

If the image was of a wall that went from white to grey and then finally to black, then that would be completely different as the image could actually be saying something.

It makes you wonder what text he could use to accompany the white wall?
Maybe some proverb like, "Water which is too pure has no fish" or something. :p
 
Learn photography on here, you'll learn (eventually) how to take a sharp properly exposed photo conforming to the rule of thirds. Go study it somewhere like LCC, you may just learn why you take photos, and how they can convey incredibly complex subject matter or concepts..

Honestly, photography courses like that aren't there to teach you how to take photos. They're there to teach you to *think* (People can do this without University education, but it's nowhere near as easy for most!). They're not interested in training up 40 technicaly perfect robots. They want to create 40 free thinking original creatives (They won't succeed of course, but that's not for lack of trying). How many times you'll hear "I'm not going to Uni to be taught how to use a camera, I can use a camera fine". I would challenge anyone here to produce 3 years of work completely self initiated, then produce 3 years of work with dedicated structure, 39 peers to review, discuss and critique your work, see which is better.

There is a lot of 'wishy washy arty ****', especially somewhere like LCC (Where, like all London arts uni's they believe they're gods gift to the arts world), but the purpose extends far beyond one set of pictures for their final project. Remember you're looking at the final photos from the MA Photography course, it's fine art by nature. I've seen all the masters work that's came out of LCF on their fashion photography course in the past 4 or so years and most of it can happily go straight into almost any industry application of your choosing. But much more, the photographers themselves are mentally in a position to produce work like that damn near on demand. Is that not worth £4075? Or would you rather spend it on a 5DMKII and some lenses, and produce nothing but unoriginal ill-thought out ****?

I don't know why I'm explaining this on here as it will only get shot down with the usual replies, but there really is a LOT more to it than it being sharp and properly exposed.
 
I wouldn't personally go on the course unless I was loaded and bored (no chance of either with my job though!). But I do appreciate your points Adrian.

I guess it's just a case of 'horses for courses'. Some would rather spend the money on a 5DII and some lenses. Others would appreciate more the abilities gained through the course. Neither approach is 'wrong', but each has advantages for different people.
 
Adrianr said:
Learn photography on here, you'll learn (eventually) how to take a sharp properly exposed photo conforming to the rule of thirds. Go study it somewhere like LCC, you may just learn why you take photos, and how they can convey incredibly complex subject matter or concepts..
Click to expand...

Exactly the point really, the obsession with in focus, correctly exposed shots gets a bit nauseating after a while - go look round a photography exhibition for gods sake...
 
Adrianr said:
Learn photography on here, you'll learn (eventually) how to take a sharp properly exposed photo conforming to the rule of thirds. Go study it somewhere like LCC, you may just learn why you take photos, and how they can convey incredibly complex subject matter or concepts..

Honestly, photography courses like that aren't there to teach you how to take photos. They're there to teach you to *think* (People can do this without University education, but it's nowhere near as easy for most!). They're not interested in training up 40 technicaly perfect robots. They want to create 40 free thinking original creatives (They won't succeed of course, but that's not for lack of trying). How many times you'll hear "I'm not going to Uni to be taught how to use a camera, I can use a camera fine". I would challenge anyone here to produce 3 years of work completely self initiated, then produce 3 years of work with dedicated structure, 39 peers to review, discuss and critique your work, see which is better.

There is a lot of 'wishy washy arty ****', especially somewhere like LCC (Where, like all London arts uni's they believe they're gods gift to the arts world), but the purpose extends far beyond one set of pictures for their final project. Remember you're looking at the final photos from the MA Photography course, it's fine art by nature. I've seen all the masters work that's came out of LCF on their fashion photography course in the past 4 or so years and most of it can happily go straight into almost any industry application of your choosing. But much more, the photographers themselves are mentally in a position to produce work like that damn near on demand. Is that not worth £4075? Or would you rather spend it on a 5DMKII and some lenses, and produce nothing but unoriginal ill-thought out ****?

I don't know why I'm explaining this on here as it will only get shot down with the usual replies, but there really is a LOT more to it than it being sharp and properly exposed.
Click to expand...

I am glad you have explained it. Currently in my module (we only have one module of photography out of 6 per year) we take pictures and bring them back for critique, but only a few people critique them, the rest just sit there bored, and cant engage. But what i have noticed from all my lecturers is you only really get good feedback if your picture is either something they would take a photo of, or is within their interests. 3/4 of our lecturers are female and all 3 are feminists, for example.
 
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