(Or working title - how and why did this title develop?)
My title so far is ‘Polo’. I think this works as this is what my book will theoretically be called. It is short and concise, and tells the audience what my project is based upon straight away.
(What methods have you used during this phase of the project and how have they helped you develop your ideas and inform your major project proposal?)
I actually spent a lot of this project unsure of what I wanted to base my project on. I went from wanting to look into other people’s personal lives – to explore meaningful objects that meant something to them to looking into my personal life. What actually made me want to explore horses and my workplace was my friend, when I was researching for the previous idea, told me about the death of her horse. He was her world, and her meaningful objects were his horseshoes, his hair and his headcollar. This just reminded me of my love for horses and it gave me inspiration that my personal life was meaningful too.
I have used the library to source books that are related to my theme of working – both conceptually and stylistically. I have been looking at how other photographers portray horses and also other animals. I know that I want to base my project on polo as I have always wanted to do a project based on horses as they are such a big part of my life – and I can access them every day.
(What have you achieved through the development of your pilot project/s? What have you learned from the process? Identify the main concepts that might direct or drive your major project.)
Through my pilot project I have been able to see what my project may look like in physical form. It is interesting to be able to look through my images as though it is a professionally printed book, but also helps in terms of the placement of images. For instance, I can now see in hindsight that some photos really work well together on a double page spread, but I can also identify weaknesses in my photos when it is a physical object.
I also know that I am happy with my theme of ‘Polo’, but can see that I need to keep on shooting images in order to gain images I am truly happy with and feel completely represents my workplace.
(Has a consideration of Context and Audience made you think about your project in a particular way? Have you been aware of the histories, conventions and audience expectations of particular contexts? Have you considered different contexts and how have you responded to them?)
The consideration about audience has made me shape my project in this particular way. I am assuming that people who are interested in horses and the sport are more likely to be intrigued by my project, and they can enjoy the images that are abstract in a completely different way to those who might not have come across the sport or much of the animal. I also thought that photographing the game may have been done lots of times before, yet rarely will people get an insight to what goes on behind the sport.
Contextually, it has made me shape my project in a certain way. There is a lot of stigma behind polo and how their polo ponies are worked and treated, but these images of horses which are behind the scenes, I feel, is helping people to understand that it is not all bad. I think this is why I am photographing the horses and my workplace so up close and personally.
Production and Presentation
(Discuss the production methods you have been exploring through your pilot project. What effects do these different approaches/ visual strategies have on the work? What choices have you made in the refinement of your visual approach and why? Is the approach you have chosen effective in communicating your ideas to the identified audience?)
I have explored making a book and then printing out images to stick in the book, just so I could explore book binding. I also couldn’t decide which images to place where so I decided that to print them off separately and put them together when my book is a physical object would help a lot more. I explored writing my text in my own handwriting, first pencilling it in as it took me a couple of tries before I was happy with the positioning of the text, however from this I can tell that I will not use my own handwriting but an already set font, as I feel that the look of my book will be minimalistic and simple and my writing is somewhat chaotic.
I did print off images that were different sizes, however I did not like this and again, felt like it made my project too chaotic. I then printed the images off the same size as each other and decided after which order I thought worked well. I can see from this approach that I want to explore with images that are black and white as this will work well with the theme of my book. I have made a book with a black cover and have white font, however I think that in my refinement – I will reverse this.
Visual References / Bibliography
(List the key visual and critical references you have explored during the research process. Discuss how useful these references were for the project and what you learned from them).
Anders Peterson was a key visual reference as I took his style of capturing the situation in a spur of the moment look. A lot of his images are slightly blurred, and they are very contrasted. I really like this as it gives the image motion and an abstract feel to them. His book ‘French Kiss’ has made me want to explore my next shoot in black and white.
The book ‘Horses and dogs’ by William Eggleston helped me to appreciate that simple images of horses are just as effective as an abstract shot of them. His images also showed me that colour is important within the images.
Jo Longhurst’s series ‘I know what you’re thinking’ from 2003 made me want to explore the documentation of each horses face and to catalogue what they look like. It also gave me the idea to title some of the images with a simple name.
