Crunch Time

This morning is a real pinch point in my MA.  Today a draft of the essay to contextualize the practice project has to be submitted.  There is a collection of random thoughts and observations sitting on the very computer I'm typing this into but turning that into a coherent and meaningful commentary is really tough going.  I've advised quite a few of my PhD candidates to do this stuff but actually putting it into practice oneself!  The biggest bugbear is that the creative process doesn't lend itself to a conventional narrative nor to extensive textual analysis insofar as visual work is concerned.  This is I believe doubly the case in photography rather than painting, for example, because the actual moments of production, the point at which the shutter is clicked or the printer button pushed, i.e. the moment of decision taken is instantaneous.  Of course digitisation has drawn these practices closer together again...the use of photoshop alone, much less the technical advantages of RAW file manipulation, suggest something more akin to 'traditional' studio painting practice, but the decisions taken in the complex interaction between photographer, sitter and situation - constituting a deal of the 'content' are so critical to outcomes.

Of course this ought to be finding its way into the text I'm writing (it probably will as I'm using these posts as an aide memoire) but only if I get on with the job rather than using this as a diversion tactic!  Oh to be back in Athens on a fine spring evening with a cold glass of Retzina...