The Week that Was and Don McCullin (Week 2)

It has been a week of ups and downs for me. The topic of Strategies of Mediation including appropriation and remixing of others work has been a challenge in terms of the ethics of doing this, although my eyes have been opened to the opportunities the digital age offers. The challenge of making a video has been documented in my coursework blog but I am pleased that I attempted and completed this work.

I am feeling very positive about my Research Project The Road to Elgol and the webinars have helped to provide me with inspiration from other photographers, feedback from my tutor and peers and new directions to try out on my trip to Skye in a couple of weeks.  For example, I am going to try more of a Road Trip approach and take more images representative of the summer season in Skye.

I am already well into the Week 3 coursework that I will blog about later in the week.

And finally, in the RPS Journal there is an article about one of my greatest inspirations for my landscape work Don McCullin.  In it he shares one of his landscape images and says of it the following:

“Photographing landscapes has been therapeutic.  I’m showing you the solitude of my mind.  Maybe I’m trying to exonerate myself from having this wrong image of being ‘the warrior’.  I don’t want to be seen as a hero or a warrior.  All I want is respect for my photography.”

And of one of his favourite images Looking towards Creech Hill, Somerset, mid-1990s:

“When I see this landscape, I hear music, I hear freedom.”

I know those feelings well and hope to hear more music and freedom on The Road to Elgol.

References

Ross, P (2018), “I Won’t Surrender to Pain.  It doesn’t frighten me at All”, The Royal Photographic Society Journal,  Volume 158, No 6