From the outset of this second module it was apparent in my mind that I needed to utilise my time effectively in order to make sure I would be able to fulfil the two parallel aspects of the brief. The first part of the assignment encouraged the further development of the practical work and theoretical research that had begun in module 101, while the second part of the brief, lead us towards collaboration with another artist, or towards the development of a live project.
 I thought long and hard about how best to tackle this brief, and initially, a number of ideas came to mind. I first thought about organising an editorial style fashion shoot, complete with models, makeup artists, and stylists, where I would make high end portraits in the inimitable style of Paolo Roversi, but soon reconsidered this due to my lack of organisational experience in this field.
 I then considered organising an invitational photography exhibition in the city, for Plymouth Art Weekender. This seemed much more attainable, and I began researching all of the various requirements that I would need to meet if I were to go ahead with this idea. I had organised a small exhibition for the art weekender on the previous year, so I felt quite confident in doing this again.
 I approached a number of venues in the city, all of which, however, had already been booked for the weekend in question. I came to the realisation that I had effectively missed the boat with the exhibition idea, as the other exhibiting artists had had a large head start in organising their shows, and had all the available venues on lockdown. I thought about persisting with the idea, but soon came to see that there would be no point in promising an exhibition to a number of artists, and not being able to deliver it for them.
 I began to think more directly about what it was that I had been doing in the previous module, and how I would like to position myself professionally within the context of the wider photographic community in Plymouth and beyond.  Â
 Through the development of my technical skill set in module 101, I had been able to learn the intricacies of the albumen printing process, as well as gain significant skills in traditional retouching and hand colouring. I knew that I wanted to continue using these skills in the forthcoming module, and that eventually I would also like to be able to offer my printing skills to other photographers as a professional service, so I thought that the live project would be the ideal arena for their application.
 Having decided upon what to aim for in a live project, I began searching for an appropriate outlet for my printing skills. I thought about advertising my skills to established and emerging photographers alike, but in the end, I decided to approach one photographer in particular, Jojo Moreschi, and pitch the idea of collaboration to him directly.
 Jojo was in the middle of shooting a new series of photographs of couples for an upcoming book and exhibition, so I suggested that we meet for coffee to discuss the possibility of me printing his digital photographs as albumen prints; an effective way of adding a certain degree of tangibility to his images that would benefit his subject matter, I argued.
 I described the process to him in detail, showing a couple of examples of prints that I had to hand. He was very excited about the prospect of collaboration, and promised to send me an image from his couple’s portrait series upon his return home. This was great news; I had found a highly appropriate outlet for my printing practice, and one which would successfully satisfy the live project brief.
 I spent the next few weeks making albumen paper and preparing Jojo’s images to turn them into digital negatives. Having had little experience in this process, I went ahead without the level of knowledge required, resulting in a poorly made first batch of negatives.      Â
 I printed them on to acetate using a laser printer, which made for less than satisfactory results (blog 112). The albumen prints that I made from these negatives were of low contrast, with thin tonal range and low detail. It became obvious that the laser printer could not handle the subtlety of tone evident in the digital file, leading to blotchy, low resolution prints. The pigment it used was also insufficient to block the ultra violet light effectively enough to allow for evenly exposed prints with correct contrast.
 I realised that I needed to do extensive research into which materials were best to use if I was going to produce exhibition quality prints using this process, and as the weeks went by, I made many useful discoveries in the methods, materials and suppliers for each aspect of the process (blog 114), leading to my first successful albumen prints from a digital image source.
 Upon presenting these prints to Jojo (blog 118), they were scrutinised by both of us at great length in order to uncover any issues with the process. These initial test prints were never going to be perfect; I had been forced to coat the paper in my kitchen, for instance, so there were many imperfections to be discussed and ironed out. We were though, on the whole, happy with how the project was moving, so we decided to write up a budget for the collaboration (blog 121), making reference to the suppliers I had recommended as sources for the chemistry and materials, and also to draw up an agreement covering the project (blog 128), to make everything a little more official.
 With the materials and chemistry sourced, the images on their way, and my techniques improving daily (blog 135), I felt confident in the project and how it was progressing. It was taking up a disproportionate amount of my time in comparison to my personal practical work and theoretical research however, so I decided to take a little time to focus on some of the other aspects of my practice, while Jojo finished making the last of his digital photographs. We agreed that he would send them over to me once they were all shot, after which I could begin my part of the process.
 After a couple of weeks, Jojo suggested that we meet to discuss the project. In the meeting, it soon transpired that Jojo had made the decision the pull out of the collaboration (blog 144), citing worries that he had over the quality of the test prints that I had made, and that he was concerned that the finished photographs would be of a similarly poor standard. He was also worried about the time frame that he had set for the project, and that the photographs would not be ready in sufficient time.
 I attempted to assure him that his worries were unfounded, and that the project was developing nicely, but he did not seem able to see past the imperfections evident on my experimental prints, and drew my attention to the crystalline perfection of the digital images he had provided, asking why they were not the same. I answered him as best I could, by letting him know that this was largely untested theory to me and yet my prints were getting better and better all the time, but Jojo had made up his mind, and cancelled the collaboration.
 I felt defeated. I had spent so much of my time and money on this project, and had invested a great deal of belief into what we were doing. Alternative printing processes are difficult to master, but offer huge rewards in terms of visual richness. I felt it was a shame that Jojo had not had the patience and belief in what we were doing to wait until the first batch of final prints were finished. If he had held them in his hands, I’m sure he would have felt differently.
 It was important now to find a new direction for my live project. I decided to fall back on my back up idea, one which I could focus on entirely, and not worry about the input of a second party (blog 145).
 My plan was to produce a high quality website and a set of promotional materials, setting myself up as a future proof brand. Since the outset of this module I had already been networking as best I could, by entering my work into open calls and competitions (blog 107, 113, 115, 119, 127, 137, 143, 160), and by showing my work to certain influential individuals (blog 157, 171) to gain valuable feedback. I have even been successful in gaining a little recognition of my work, having been selected to exhibit a selection of my photographs as part of the Retina festival of photography in Edinburgh, this summer (blog 155).
 I did not have a comprehensive online presence, however, with the only outward facing aspect of my practice being Instagram. This meant that potential clients, collectors, or galleries had no point real of contact with me, or anywhere to view a high quality digital version of my portfolio.
 Making a website seemed to be of utmost importance as a starting point for this new direction, with a secondary task of creating quality promotional materials which could be given to interested parties, sent to galleries by way of an introduction, or as a point of first contact.
 It was my desire to keep all of my promotional materials to the same design specification, so as to promote a feeling of brand continuity between each of the online and real world elements. I decided to therefore concentrate on designing my website first (blog 149), and when I was happy with that, move on to designing my other promotional materials to match.
 The process of designing the website began quite simply, and after choosing an appropriate template to base my build on, I had little to no trouble in creating a basic site populated with my own photographs (blog 156). I spent a great deal of time perfecting the look of the site, taking other fine art photographers websites as inspiration (blog 150), until I came up with something that I was truly proud of (blog 168). I made sure there was strong visual continuity running throughout the site, with families of fonts chosen for their aesthetic qualities, and background colours chosen to maximise the visual impact of my images.
 With the website live, I began working on my other promotional materials. I decided to create a pack of small A6 sized postcards, each pack containing twenty five different designs, prominently featuring my own photographs on one side, with contact information on the reverse (blog 158). These cards would be packaged in small, flat, black boxes, and sent out to destinations across the globe.
 During the process of designing these cards, I began to consider where exactly it was that I was going to be sending them, and to whom. I did a lot of research into who I wanted to target and why, focusing on galleries that had demonstrated an interest in exhibiting fine art photography with a similar aesthetic quality to my own, in the last year (blog 161). From this, I came up with a list of potential institutions to target. I will be doing this in the next module by sending out postcard packs and referring them to the new website.
 All in all, my experiences of this live project have been mixed, at best. Jojo’s cancellation of our collaboration really threw me, and caused a lot of undue stress and pressure. After spending so long working towards the project, I felt very disappointed that I would not be able to see it through to completion. This did lead to me making a very professional looking website and set of promotional materials, however, so perhaps it’s not all that bad.
 I do feel that the second part of this live project was the time better spent, and I do resent the fact that I didn’t just focus on self promotion from the beginning. It was much more worthwhile for me and my personal practice to develop the website and promotional cards, which have become extremely useful assets which will always be available to me from now on.
 Over the course of this module, it was my intention to continue with my experimental process lead practice, whilst strengthening my theoretical research into the abstract self. I also wanted to develop my standpoint on photographic theory, specifically within the realms of aesthetics and photographic history, and the positioning of the modern photograph as an object, within contemporary photographic discourse.
 I decided that the best way to fulfil all of these various development parameters would be to focus on the theoretical research into photographic history and aesthetics, and use this as a jumping off point from which to create experimental photographic works in reference to the research undertaken.
 I began by looking into photography’s use in the world of Western esotericism, namely within the practices of séance (blog 107), mesmerism (blog 129), and phrenology (blog 132), and its use as a persuasive tool in convincing observers that what they were seeing was real, or that the practice being observed was acceptable as physical truth.
 Photography was a powerful tool in the late nineteenth century, when the majority of esoteric practices were at their height, with even the Royal Photographic Society having declared the practice as the most accurate, practically infallible science. This lent credence to its use as an investigative tool, being expertly employed by the Society for Psychical Research as an instrument for the proving or disproving of esoteric phenomena (blog 133).
 Concerning the creation of photography’s identity during this time and the development of its own rules of aesthetics, I believe the most important roles were played by studio photographers, in two distinctly separate ways. Firstly, the fashionable carte de visite (blog 110) was the must have item for people across the globe. It was a cherished reminder of friends at home and abroad, and can truly be seen as a watermark in the democratisation of the photographic image. Secondly, the influence of spirit photography shines through as having exerted itself upon the aesthetic development of the medium, as it showed for the first time the creative possibilities of the practice, which had, up until this point, been regarded as purely based in the arena of the physical sciences (blog 116).
 Fine art photography did not yet exist at this time, and the notion of a photographic image being seen as art was unthinkable in most circles. The Royal Photographic Society distanced itself strongly from any notion of such, stating that photographic pictorialism was the lowest form of the science of chemical image making. This negative assertion caused a group to splinter from the society, forming the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring, in 1892.
 This research got me thinking about the politics of image making and how the aesthetics of the photographic method have been continually held under scrutiny since its invention (blog 152). The enormous amount of development that the medium went through in its first seventy five years caused it to have a crisis of representation, holding one foot in the scientific world, and the other in the art world.
 This implication fascinated me, and forced me to consider the core values at the centre of my own image making; and to question what it was that I was trying to say with my photography. I came to the realisation that I wanted to make work that blurred the line between science and art, forcing the viewer to address questions regarding the integrity of the contemporary photographic image.
 With this new found clarity, I began to move away from my research into photographic history and aesthetics, and begin to consider looking back at the concept of self, through these fresh eyes. Having spent a long time in the realms of esotericism, I thought that it would be appropriate to continue my research into the self from this standpoint.
 I began by looking into eastern meditative philosophy (blog 130), and instantly found parallels between Buddhist and Hindu theological reasoning regarding the self, and my previous research into quantum loop consciousness. This inspired me to create an image with this in mind, in an attempt to visually articulate the links described between the macrocosmic and microcosmic aspects of quantum physics, and Buddhist and Hindu belief structures regarding a notion of self (blog 154). I felt that the image that I produced was particularly effective, and I was pleased by the ambiguous nature of what emerged, fulfilling my new found desire to ask questions of the integrity of process and theory.
 Over the course of the next few weeks, I researched theory upon theory, responding in a number of different ways (blog 126, 139, 148, 166) to visually express the crux of my research at each point. The images that I have made articulate their corresponding theories very effectively, and I have begun to feel confident in the processes that I am using to distil photographs from ideas. Whether it is a question regarding the self as a construct of capitalism (blog 124), or how the self relates to the concept of the other (blog 138), the research I have undertaken during this module has been extremely useful in helping me to better understand my points of reference, elucidating an often abstract concept and allowing me to begin to grasp it with both hands.
