Artist’s Talk

Posted on November 6, 2019November 16, 2019 Posted in Final Major ProjectTagged Exhibitions, Oral Presentation, Projects, PublicationLeave a comment

At the opening night of my exhibition, I wanted to talk to my guests for a few minutes about my work, its motivations and my intentions both for the work completed and that yet to be done. I wrote several pages of text that were organised into 8 topical areas, but it was never my intent to read a speech on the night. I used the written speech to organise my thoughts and the order in which I wanted to convey them, and to be used on the night as a reminder, a basic road map of what I wanted to say. Then on the night, I spoke extemporaneously, only referring occasionally to my notes as I shifted to the next topic.

I received a great deal of positive feedback on the talk and it was interesting how much the discussion of “place” resonated with people. The background on my work and how it was presented was also cited as helping people to better appreciate the exhibition.

I am posting here the link to the edited video as well as the original “script” I drafted. The talk clearly follows the intent of the script, but is by no means verbatim.

Dornoch Exhibition Artist’s Talk

Prepared Remarks

Thank you for coming tonight. I am honoured that so many of you have taken time to come see my work and, am humbled by the support of you and many others this community we have come to feel is our home.
I am very pleased to be able to share with you some of the work I have been doing. And for those of you who are wondering, 13 photos and a movie: Is that all she’s done in 2 years? I can assure you it is not, and you don’t want to see the hundreds and hundreds of photos and videos I have amassed in the last 2 years. Perhaps later when this story has an ending there will be an opportunity to tell it in full, but for now…
Most of you know of me as a golfer, a former Naval Aviator and as a photographer, and as someone who is passionate about Dornoch and the Highlands, but probably not too many of you know that my undergraduate degree was in Biology. It is precisely this confluence of experience and interests that led me to focus my MA work on Coul Links.
When I began the MA programme, the timing of the decision process was such that had the original approval stood there would have been a body of work showing how Coul Links adapts to both natural and man-made or anthropogenic forces. As the decision was significantly delayed it became apparent that my project would not reach an ending concurrent with the completion of my MA and while I intend to continue until there is a proper ending to be written, my MA project was going to have to find a way to tell the story “so far”, and so I have spent a great deal of time getting to know and observing Coul Links from a perspective that not too many others have.
At its most fundamental, I have undertaken a study of a place and have been in a sense surveilling it regularly for the past two years. I have done my best to observe and document from an objective point of view; to look past the controversy and to get to know Coul Links as it is. We live in a world that seems increasingly bent on hyperbole. I believe, however, that things are rarely ever as bad or as good as they first seem, or as opposing sides would argue. When I looked Beyond the Noise what seemed certain is that Coul Links exist today despite the controversy and it will change with or without development. And the truth is none of us can know to what degree the concerns or hopes will be realised until sometime well into the future. Coul Links are ever changing and like most natural environments adapt constantly. Nature has a remarkable capacity to respond to and overcome the most severe impositions and yet we live in a time where the cumulative effects of human impositions are stressing our planet.
Along the way I made some interesting observations and discoveries and came across some research that had relevance to my work, and without getting too academic I want to spend a few minutes to discuss the concept of place.Place is more than physical existence and it has anthropological and sociological significance. In our busy, ever more mobile world, a phenomenon has been observed that we move through many spaces without really registering where we are. Marc Auge introduced the concept of “non-places”, spaces we transit, like railway platforms, airport transit halls, shopping malls etc. while physically being somewhere, they are spaces to which we pay little attention and about which we often are not aware. Jim Brogden takes a slightly different view and ascribes non-place status to abandoned or neglected urban areas, the voids amidst the inhabited and used areas.Coul Links was a largely unknown space, even to local people, and it was only after a development was proposed that it gained significance and went from being a non-place to a place. For most of the 90,000 people who signed a petition, they will never visit or know Coul Links as a place. It is an interesting reversal of the phenomenon, where a non-place has become a place.
The more time I spent at Coul Links and the more I came to know it the more significance it held for me personally. I observed how people approach and use Coul Links and in truth how few people use it. And most of those who do approach it only from the perimeters and limited probing from the south. Very rarely did I observe anyone inside the perimeter zones, and as a consequence, my observations and points of view provide perspectives most will not have seen before. I flew a drone on a regular basis with pre-planned mission profiles that allowed for photographs and video of the same places from the same vantage points month on month providing a basis for comparison. I walked and explored areas that most others will not have gone and discovered places that were fascinating to observe and photograph.You may have noticed that the exhibition reflects these aspects. The outer walls of the columns are photographs from the perimeters, recognisable as being Coul Links, while the square format photos on the interior walls are intimate landscapes that do not necessarily reveal their location as Coul Links though in fact they are. The aerial videos provide a unique perspective that reveals the complexity of Coul Links and shows how dramatically the landscape changes from season to season and year to year.But it is important to acknowledge that for those that know and use Coul Links, each will attribute their own significance and have a unique relationship with Coul Links. This place has been many things over the centuries, and it has held significance of different sorts to different people over that time. It is wild, but not pristine and untouched. Just as it has been a battlefield, grazing land, a shooting ground, had a railway pass through it, been used as a tip, a tree plantation, a place for dog-walking, bird watching and quiet contemplation, and it may have even had golf played upon the links ground hundreds of years ago, I believe it can and will continue to accommodate multiple uses and hold significance for people who truly come to know it.
I would be remiss without acknowledging people who have helped make this night and this journey possible. Richard MacKenzie helped me and turned me loose in his workshop to build these wonderful display fixtures. Jim Campbell turned up early this morning to help work out the electrical distribution for the lighting of the displays. Scotty Atchison and the Royal Dornoch Golf Club for the use of space in the Greenkeeper’s Shed to paint the displays. John McNaught at Highland Print Studio printed and mounted the large format photographs on display tonight. Thanks to the Dornoch Cinema club for the use of their equipment and to Carol Mackay and her team from the Courthouse Café for the refreshments and service this evening. I also need to thank my classmates, one of whom, Mick Yates came up all the way from Bath to be here, for their unending support and encouragement throughout the programme.And most importantly, my husband Jerry Horak who has been my most ardent supporter and assistant regardless of what “cunning plans” I concoct. He has schlepped camera kit, put up with my long days and late nights studying and the impact that had on our golf and every other aspect of our lives together, and done everything possible to support me and make my life easier over not only the past 2 years but the past 16 years.
And I want to thank you all again for coming tonight. I am really pleased to have you here and hope you enjoy the evening.

Artist’s Statement

Posted on November 6, 2019 Posted in Final Major ProjectTagged Current Work, Exhibitions, Projects, PublicationLeave a comment

For my Exhibition Beyond the Noise: Coul Links I believed it was necessary to create a statement of intent that would be among the first things visitor’s to the exhibition would encounter as they entered the space. This statement needed to be concise, and clearly set the stage for why they were about to see what they were going to see. It also needed to be accessible, written in language that did not obfuscate but rather in terms that could be understood by anyone who visited.

BEYOND THE NOISE

My work over the past two years is first and foremost an exploration of place. The intent was to look past all of the on-going controversy to get to know “photographically” this place known as Coul Links. I have used my cameras to record what constitutes Coul Links today and how it changes in response to natural forces. It is just the beginning of a longer-term project to study how Coul Links adapts to whatever changes it sees in the future.

“Place” is a rather more complex concept than just physical existence. Think of the old question, “If a tree falls in a forest on a deserted island, does it make a sound?” If you don’t know it exists, is it a place, or is it only when significance is attached that a space becomes a place? A house becomes a home because someone lives there. Our increased mobility and the never-ending onslaught of information that takes our attention results in us all being faced with more and more “non-places” in our everyday lives; spaces we pass through or spaces of which we are not even aware.

Coul Links was a largely unknown space until a proposal surfaced to use it in yet another way than it had been used over the centuries of its existence. The number of people who actually knew of Coul Links beforehand was quite small, and there are still a significant number of local people who have never been on Coul Links. As for the 90,000 people, most of whom from well out of the area, who signed a petition opposing the development, Coul Links remains for most of them just a space or “non-place” to which they have no real connection or likelihood of ever establishing one. It is just another in the long list of non-places for most of these people.

For those who know Coul Links and who have established their connection to this place, that connection takes different forms. Coul Links has been many things over the years and remains many things to those for whom it holds some significance. For me it has been a slow courtship that over the past two years has led me to an intimate understanding of and connection to Coul Links. I have discovered things and places that I suspect few people know and I have watched and documented with great interest how this magnificent landscape changes and adapts to the forces which act upon it. It remains and will continue to remain in its ever-changing forms Beyond the Noise.

Ashley Rose

FMP Exhibition – The Checklist

Posted on November 6, 2019November 6, 2019 Posted in Final Major ProjectTagged ExhibitionsLeave a comment

I believed it was important to hold my exhibition locally because the subject of my work is of significant interest to the people in the local area. However, the choices of venues are extremely limited and because all the suitably large spaces are multi-use facilities that have a variety of regular activities and events booked in them throughout the year, availabilities of even a couple of contiguous days were extremely limited. That created a multitude of planning and logistical challenges that had to be managed in order to have a successful exhibition. In order to organise and execute a major exhibition in a venue that is not optimised as a gallery and with no help from on-site staff or curators a significant amount of planning and investment was necessary.

The lack of suitable wall space and lighting demanded an exhibition design that created a proper backdrop to highlight the work and lighting to complement it. It had to accommodate A0 or A1 prints which meant the fixtures needed large faces of at least a metre across. Since lighting had to be incorporated into the display fixture it had to be of sufficient height to ensure the light was both far enough away from the photo to spread and cast the correct amount of light, and high enough to not interfere with even the tallest visitors. Another consideration was because I intended to use the fixed cinema projector, screen and surround sound system in the venue hall I had to manage the footprint of the display system such that it would not interrupt the projector beam. That set the maximum distance at which the furthest display unit could be set from the entrance and their needed to be enough space to accommodate the other three units and allow adequate space for people to move unobstructed between them and to have sufficient space to stand back and see the large format prints. I also wanted the fixtures to be re-usable and re-configurable for different venues in the future as building them would be a sizable investment in time and money.

The Checklist of items that needed to be completed for a successful exhibition follows. They are organised by category and tasks. The categories not in a necessarily fixed sequential order but the tasks are generally dependent on the predecessor.

Venue Requirements

Survey local venues for suitability and availability
1. Size
2. Configuration
3. Catering accommodation
4. Accessibility
5. Access to power
6. Ability to accommodate still and moving image displays
Select venue
Book venue

Dornoch-22 — Dornoch Social Club – photo courtesy of Mick Yates

IMG-20191102-WA0001 — Dornoch Social Club interior

Display Requirements

Determine exact measurements and restrictions in the venue space
Determine which photos are to be shown in what size
1. Choose a print house to print and mount
2. Produce test strips to calibrate printer
3. Print and mount all large format photos
4. Print miniatures in house and mount
5. Establish Hang plan
Establish the size and number of display fixtures required to accommodate photo selection
Build scale models and test concepts
Establish lighting requirements
1. Purchase lights
2. Purchase and prepare mounting hardware
Prepare detailed design drawing as requirements
1. Determine materials and quantities required
Find and contract a joiner to assist in the building of the fixtures
1. Build first unit and validate design
2. Build remaining units
Move to paint facility
1. Paint all panels matte black
Move to exhibition venue
1. Touch up paint as required
Assemble fixtures
Install lights
Connect to mains
1. Qualified electrician to construct custom cabling from light fixtures to mains
Mount photographs in accordance with hang plan in 2e above

Video Requirements

Edit and create videos
Burn to BluRay
Test with venue projector and sound system
1. Calibrate projector colour as required
Establish requirements for entry wall video monitor to play trailer slide show
1. Pick monitor
2. Purchase mounting system
3. Install after Display Requirements item 9 above
4. Provide access for cable from laptop to the video monitor and mains power for both

Advertising Requirements

Design and print posters for distribution in Dornoch, Embo, Golspie and Brora
1. Hang poster 3 weeks prior to event
Publish Facebook and Instagram announcements of event 3 weeks prior with weekly updates
Newspaper article published in the local paper
Get announcement published in the weekly Royal Dornoch Golf Club newsletter
Use Falmouth Flexible Photo Instagram account to announce event
Promote word of mouth communications about the event

Reception Requirements

Determine guest list and send invitations
Monitor RSVPs to establish catering requirements
Survey and select caterer
Choose menu items
Buy wine and soft drinks
Purchase guest comment book
Signage for directions within venue
Prepare and practice artist’s talk
Arrange to video and record artist’s talk
Photos courtesy of Mick Yates

Documentation Requirements

Installation photos
Installation video
Artist talk video

In the end, because I had my venue for only 2 days and had to set up on the day of opening and tear down after the second day, meticulous planning and attention to detail was required. I had no ability to dry run the installation nor did I have the luxury of several days of set up to work out any kinks. It had to be right the first time and there was almost no margin for error or for having forgotten something in the planning phase.

I am pleased to report the planning and preparation led to a near flawless execution and a successful event.

All photos by Ashley Rose unless otherwise annotated. Thanks to Mick Yates for attending the reception and taking photos of the event.

24-30 September – Rework and Refinement

Posted on October 5, 2019 Posted in Final Major ProjectTagged Exhibitions, Video ProductionLeave a comment

Fresh off the critique of last week it seemed I had my work cut out for me. I had to rework both the videos I had completed and rethink completely my approach to including some wildlife photos in the exhibit. I tried a few approaches to the intro video eliminating the photos completely, but it seemed too much to lack context. I then tried leaving some photos and reducing the number of words. I used animation effects to bring the key words in and out with a select group of photos and it had the effect of reducing the overall time to less than 2 minutes and serving as a perfect trailer to introduce the key themes of my work without telling the whole story. I plan to set this up at the exhibition entrance so it is the first thing people see when they enter the space and it will be positioned next to the artist’ statement.

Capture

The second video to be reworked was the Changing Faces piece that had already been through several iterations. I took the suggestion to consider using synchronous view in PowerPoint and the result was quite effective. Rather than requiring a viewer to stand and wait for the next sequence and either ‘forget’ the prior comparators or get bored and walk away before seeing what I would like them to see, the synchronous view allows four separate seasons to be viewed simultaneously. The message of change is unmissable and it has the advantage of keeping the eyes moving from frame to frame looking for comparisons. It also has the advantage of three of the four frames being essentially identical in their perspective and timing. There are slight variations due to wind and other flight affecting factors but they are close enough so as not to be a distraction. The fourth frame was a video created before I had pre-planned mission profiles that provided the repeatability of the other three videos and while it starts off differently than the other three it synchs up rather closely toward the middle section where the differences in the four scenes are the most dramatic. The changing perspective of the first frame also contributes to the need for the viewer to keep their eyes moving between frames and creates attention holding interest that causes the 8 minutes to go by rather quicker than realised.

Capture2

I also did a revision to my Artist’s Statement to put it into first person rather than third person narrative. I did create some new aerial work, still images and sound recording to augment the final video expect to capture next week with the new mission profile I created that overflies all of Coul Links perimeter of the proposed development area capturing video rather than the still images of the typical profile.

For the wildlife photos, I created on A3 paper a 4 x 5 grid of images and printed three sheets (60 images) that are 5 x 6.5 cm and are sufficiently large to be able to see what they are if one gets close enough. I considered different ways of displaying these images ranging from mounting them all on one large board with windows in the top mounting board to mounting on one board with a slight stand off to create some additional dimensionality. In the end I decided to mount them individually on foam core board and distribute them randomly around the exhibit including suspending some so they ‘floated’ in space. This approach does two things. First, the scale of the landscape to wildlife in actuality is more closely approximated by the scales of the landscape to wildlife photos. The birds occupy a very small segment of the landscape and are constantly moving with in it. Which leads to the second point and that is the random distribution of the small wildlife photos is again a metaphor for how they exist in nature. One never knows exactly what one might encounter and when.

Another week with significant tangible progress. Next week the large format printing and mounting will be done along with one more new capture video showing the overview of Coul Links. I hope to have the exhibition layout completed next week and all of the technical issues sorted with respect to projecting the video imagery in conjunction with the still images in the exhibition space.

16-23 Sep – New Work and Unseen Amsterdam

Posted on October 4, 2019 Posted in Final Major ProjectTagged Exhibitions, Experimentation, Face to Face, Projects, Self Discovery, Video ProductionLeave a comment

I finally caught a break with some good weather at the right time of day and was able to make some new work with which I am very pleased and some additional sound recording. In fact I am so pleased with the new work that two have been added to the edit of large format photos that I will be printing the first week of October.

The first part of the week was also spent doing proof prints after recalibrating the computer, both monitors and the printers. Lots of prints with different print profiles were made to determine the most faithful rendition of what I see on my screens. After about 10 prints of the same photo that had a particularly rich set of colours, I arrived at best my printer could produce and began the proof prints in A4. I would be taking them to Amsterdam for the portfolio review. The multimedia files were also refined some more and in the case of “The Changing Faces of Coul Links” reworked completely after some peer feedback. I leave for Amsterdam feeling pretty good about the work so far, and am anxious for some tutor feedback on how I can make it better.

The opening exercise Gary McCleod conceived was very engaging and interesting and served as a great way to get to know some of the other MA students who were attending as well as facilitate some critical thinking about one’s own work and that of others through an interrogatory process.

An afternoon visit to Huis Marseilles, brought me my first exposure to the brilliance of Berenice Abbott. As was not uncommon in that time here work spanned several genres, but that she was a woman pushing boundaries was. Her portrait work had a way of feeling as though she captured the personality of her subjects, but her architectural and science work were fascinating.

I did a review of my FMP work with Gary McCleod and Paul Clements the first evening since I was commuting from outside Rotterdam and was hoping to not have to come in Sunday just for a portfolio review. And a solo review turned out to be exactly what I needed since a group review would not have allowed the time to get to the depth we did.

There was no question about the quality of the work, but there were many questions about how I was presenting it and whether I had a clear narrative. Gary specifically noted that I needed to be bold and radical and elevate the sophistication of the exhibition. While some of the ideas they suggested seemed quite radical redirects, they insisted they were only refinements. Some specifics were:

The Beyond the Noise video that I was thinking about as the centrepiece that set the tone for the exhibition Gary thought I should remove all of the images and just use the words. He suggested that it might be better placed as an introduction and that I should revisit the video considering the images and the pacing. It would require some extra thinking and experimentation next week.
When I explained I would be doing the principal photos in large format A1 or A0 and some of the wildlife photos small in A4, I was informed that A4 is not small and rather these were ‘too loud’ in the overall context and that they were confusing the story. They suggested ‘small’ so people would stop and look so that too would require some rethinking, but I quickly warmed to the concept and have several ideas on how to execute.
On the Changing Faces video which I had reworked several times, Gary suggested I try synchronous view in PowerPoint; a feature of which I had not been aware. It is something I wanted to do but wasn’t able to make it happen with Adobe Premiere so far. Again back to the computer to see what I can make because this approach solves a couple of the nagging reservations I had about this particular video which I believe is important to my narrative, but needs to be captivating as it is shown.
The last major point Gary had for me was to think about the experience from the viewer’s perspective. Take them on a journey and don’t be tempted to spoon feed them along the way. This was the essence behind his suggestion of removing the photos from the Beyond the Noise video. He also enjoined me to be sure what was the ‘main meal’ I was serving and to not let the story get muddled with the fact that I am using various media to communicate it.

On Saturday, I visited the Unseen Exhibition and found it much more enjoyable than last year’s show. While there were quite a number of cyanotypes, they were different enough so as not feel like a trope and the rest of the work was sufficiently diverse to really keep my interest. I thought there was a much better mix of genres this year than last and was happy to see landscapes represented.

I also took in the exhibit that was on at FOAM. We had some intense and interesting discussions about the non-photographic work, but I found the Brassai work again quite interesting and was particularly amazed that there was a sharpness of focus that was not always common among his contemporaries using the large format cameras. His night time Paris work is an especially good example.

My last event of the day was a super visit with Liz Halls and Addie Elliot at the Elliot Halls Gallery. Liz was very generous with her time and we had a lovely discussion about the work they had on exhibit and even a bit about how my worked related to it and Matthew Murray’s work. I was very excited to find they had copies of Saddleworth as I had been looking for nearly a year for one.

9-15 Sep Preparation for Exhibition continued

Posted on October 4, 2019 Posted in Final Major ProjectTagged Current Work, ExhibitionsLeave a comment

I have been continuing work on the multimedia bits of my upcoming exhibition and completed two videos that I plan to review in Amsterdam in the portfolio review.

I have also been working on an invitation list and the advertising posters, and have been writing the artist’s statement that will accompany the exhibition.

I feel a bit behind in writing as I have been so busy doing and yet the weather has been highly uncooperative for getting the remaining drone footage I would like to have.

Printing of the large format photos will the week after returning from Amsterdam. I have settled on the edit and am comfortable with my choices. The chosen work includes a cross section of the work I have accomplished while on the MA with a heavy weighting toward more recent work, but I felt the context provided by some of the earlier work was important to the overall narrative.

1-8 September

Posted on September 11, 2019October 5, 2019 Posted in Final Major ProjectLeave a comment

Yet another busy but productive week.

I visited the Highland Print Studio in Inverness and met with the Studio Manager and digital media printer John McNaught and found that he had just completed printing all of the photos for the 2019 FLOW Photo Fest which began 31 August and runs for a month. I viewed some of the work at the Inverness Museum and Art Gallery and was impressed with the quality of the work. The Studio have state of the art large format printers and are happy to have my direct involvement in doing test strips and making sure that what is coming off the printer is indeed what I want and expect. It is 45 minutes away and therefore very accessible and we can complete the work in a day. I was also pleased to find the cost about half the going rate of that of the London or Edinburgh print shops for Giclee prints. John had a variety of papers available, but I quite like the paper that was used for all of the FLOW Photo Fest work, which even though it is technically a matte paper had virtually no detectable texture and provided great colour saturation and deep true blacks. It will also work well in my exhibition space where I may not be able to have perfect lighting and the matte finish eliminates some reflection and glare without compromising fine detail that my photos require.

I am so pleased with what I found in Inverness that I have cancelled my scheduled visits to Edinburgh and London and have committed to do my printing at the Highland Print Studio. Now I just need to finalise my edit.

I continued work on editing the second video, “The Changing Faces of Coul Links”, and doing the usual fight with Adobe Premiere. Despite the obstreperousness of the program I am making progress and have sequenced segments from different months of the year from the programmed route I have the drone fly around the site. I have to add some graphics yet and do some final tweaking of the transition points to fit it into the soundtrack I have chosen to use.

I have started thinking about some of the supporting materials that will be required for the exhibition such as advertising posters and the graphical material that will be part of the exhibition itself. One of those is of course the “Artist’s Statement” and I have been compiling notes and thoughts and expect to start creating drafts next week.

25 – 31 August

Posted on September 11, 2019October 5, 2019 Posted in Final Major ProjectLeave a comment

This week was largely consumed with editing video and sound to finalise the first of two video pieces that will be included in my exhibition and the one that addresses the primary theme “Beyond the Noise”. I have now what I consider a virtually final cut and although there could yet be some minor changes, it is in a very publishable state.

I also began compiling from the archive the aerial video sequences that show some of the more dramatic seasonal changes that occur at Coul Links and hope to complete that over the next two weeks.

I also spent part of the week researching potential sources for my large format prints. I looked at options in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness. I progressed as far as I could with on-line research and need now to make some site visits to discuss my needs with the shops directly. I have scheduled visits in Inverness next week and two weeks subsequent in Edinburgh. I would ideally like to find a place comparatively close so that I can easily get there to work with the printer on test strips and evaluating the output in comparison to my screen and proof prints. While I considered the possibility of constructing lightboxes and printing on Duratrans, I have eliminated that due to the cost and the short duration of the exhibition. Additionally, while it might be attractive for an installation it is less likely to be something most people would consider purchasing whereas a print would work better for most people.

I also finalised the booking on my exhibition hall and now have the Dornoch Social Club booked for 1-2 November. There will be a private invitation only premiere on the evening of the 1^st and then a open public exhibition on the 2^nd. I will be testing various equipment and setups to determine which provides the best result with the least amount of complexity over the coming weeks. I also will be testing various methods of hanging the large format prints and working out the layouts for the installation.

Week ? – 18-24 Aug

Posted on September 11, 2019 Posted in Final Major ProjectLeave a comment

Truth be told, I have completely lost track of what week of term it is and have been so busy doing that I have gotten slightly behind on writing. That said I have accomplished a good bit.

I continue to record additional sound tracks to get a suitable array of nature sounds to accompany the Beyond the Noise video. I am pleased with the progress in recording quality and with my editing ability in Adobe Audition. I continued to refine the video sequence and was able to show another version in the evening guest critique with Krishna. The feedback on the concept was very positive and the consensus was the imagery chosen was good. There was some glitchiness in the video playback that may have resulted from bandwidth issues and it will require further investigation. There is interesting divergence on the part of those who have seen the video on the size of the font used on the section headers. Wendy thought my initial version had font that was too large, so I eliminated words, simplified the flow and reduced the font size. Krishna and Mick thought perhaps the font was too small and those slides went by rather too quickly. So, I will look at that again.

I made a preliminary booking for the hall where I plan to exhibit and took some basic measurements. It is a space with which I am well familiar which is helpful, but I still need to do detailed space layouts.

I also began finalising the edit of photos that I intend to print and am now making curatorial decisions on which of those will be printed in what size. I am also weighing the options of type of printing I will use for the large format prints and whether they will be C type, Giclee or Duratrans for installation in a lightbox.

I also this week attended two exhibitions in Edinburgh. The first was a small exhibition in the Ocean Terminal in Lieth by the Society of Scottish Landscape Photographers titled “Intimate Landscapes”. This was of particular interest to me since much of my recent work is very much in this category. It was also useful from the standpoint of learning how others value their work for sale. I did feel my work is every bit on par with that which was on exhibit.

The second was the World Press Photography exhibition in the Scottish Parliament building. The exhibit consisted of photos which had been awarded prizes in a number of different categories of journalism photography. Most as one might expect were of horrors that humans have managed to inflict upon each other and themselves. There were not many happy endings on view. I found quite remarkable how vividly portrayed were many of the stories in both series and single images with relatively little need for words to accompany them. Moving, poignant, sometimes appalling and heart-breaking, these were photographs that deservedly made their way through the down selection from tens of thousands of submissions to the hundred or so that won recognition.

Week 9 and 10 – Sound recording and additional images

Posted on August 20, 2019August 29, 2019 Posted in Final Major ProjectLeave a comment

I was back out to Coul Links this week flying the drone to capture the normal series of 40 rephotography images and additional video plus some aerial views of the felled tree plantation I had not done before.

untitled-0450

Wind and weather have made it difficult to fly in the past two months and I was happy to have the opportunity. Additionally, I acquired a decent quality, very sensitive, sound recording device and I began experimenting with it this week. Unfortunately, the first day I chose to do work, the RAF jets from Lossiemouth, which had been fairly idle in recent weeks, were flying at the Tain Bombing Range just across the Dornoch Firth and the noise of the jets was saturating the recordings of natural sounds.

I went back out a couple of days later early in the morning to experiment more with capturing sound and then working with the files in Adobe Audition to create tracks that could be laid into Adobe Premiere. I also did several minutes of recording of people at a public gathering prior to event when they were all chatting among themselves and it created a nice murmur of what are clearly people, but without anything specific being discernible, so it became essentially the noise that I wanted to capture.

Now a week later I have assembled the sound tracks and photo presentation in Adobe Premiere and did a preview with Wendy. The sound track needs to improve significantly, but Wendy did like the concept. She also suggested I rethink the fonts and the typed narrative.

I have been out capturing more raw sound files and working with Adobe Audition to tweak the files before importing them to Premiere. Sound quality is improving, but needs to be better.

I have rethought both as well as the backgrounds and moved from black to white backgrounds, made the font smaller and reduced the repetitive words in the narrative to let the story unfold more simply. I have added photos and altered the way they sequence in and produced a better sound track, though it still has lots of room for improvement.

Ashley Rose Photography Journal

Author: chasingthewildlife