Thursday 15 January 2009

Another Week Commences!


I have been pretty remiss with posting over the festive period and beyond.  Still yesterday was the hand in date for the first assignments for the course (Modules 1&2) and we all dutifully rolled up with the two documents required.  Like several others it now seems, there came a point when, whatever faults and errors remained, one just pressed the print button and to hang with it.

I was relatively happy with the final outcome of our major essay (around 3000 words required) project.  It was good to spend a deal of time studying Misrach and Martins as they are both photographers I really admire.  The essay I feel captures at least a few interesting observations about their work.  The other hand in was a summary of our research 'methods' (around 800 words required).  This I found rather more tedious...in my opinion a lot of serious 'guff' is talked about this topic in the academic community.  After all whilst literature searches, academic referencing conventions, etc. are clearly important to a degree - communicating effectively your passion and ideas is what counts in the 'real' world.  Having already had to make two powerpoint presentations over the preceeding weeks, this laborious writing up of what your processes and procedures were was dreary in the extreme.  Still as a fellow academic I guess the staff have to have something tangible to mark and - as importantly nowadays - be seen to have marked!

We were treated to the information regarding our next two modules, the double module which comprises the first practice assignment - at last - we take some pictures!  and another 'Applied Photographic Theory' - another 3000 words of text!  Deep joy!

Nest week - we get to think about our first practice assignment - the following week we get to take in some recent work.  So as a taster here's an image taken at Attenborough Nature Park over the Christmas break.

1 comment:

Simon Marchini said...

I'm glad to see I was the only one who thought the seminar paper somewhat pointless...still if this is what you have to do to complete the degree then so be it. I'm still not sure if my seminar paper was any good but like you I was sick of the whole process so submitted what I had.