PHO3003 Experience Blog
Following an opportunity from John Hunt I have applied to Chameleon events for the freelance photographers position. I will add any information I receive to this post as it happens
I sent links to my instagram, website and facebook pages as an application
Following on from supplying signed crew documents, obtaining Public Liability Insurance I have to date not had any jobs from Chameleon
Having decided to pursue the Masters at Northampton today I began the application. This process was fairly painless as I am a current student and most details were already in the system.
I need to create a Personal Statement, obtain an academic reference and create a pdf portfolio (if taken to interview stage)
I have been torn between Photography, Fine Art and Face to Face, Online. Following the initial meetings/online interaction. with the respective courses so far I have definitely decided there are major advantages to doing the masters face to face, they are the same reasons that I moved from doing the degree online with OCA to UON. Access to resources including studios, equipment, libraries and immediate access and interaction with lecturers, peers and others. I have decided I will, if other factors allow, do the course in person.
I am still uncertain about Fine Art or Photography and whether it will be at UON or another location but I am being drawn more and more to UON ansd Fine Art.
I attended an online taster session for the Falmouth Online Photography Masters on the 25/08/22. The Masters is taught through a virtual online portal and consists of 5 modules and a photo hub. It is a two year course with five modules.
All modules are taught online and all resources are online.
On the 20th August I attended the MA fine art UON open day to get more information about the course and whether it would be suitable for me to attend.
I had a 45 min conversation with Richard Hollinshead, who is one of the course lecturers, and tour of the studio spaces. My main concerns were / are my lack of Art History background and knowledge. Richard suggested a conversation with the course lead Craig Staff to discuss with him his recommendations. At this stage Richard didn’t believe this would be a major problem as students have come various backgrounds including english and music. We both thought that doing the MA at Northampton had the advantages (apart from the financial ones) that I know the University layout, systems and a number of lecturers, demonstrators, students from various departments so it wouldn’t be a completely new start and have the issues that entails. It would be with a new department, group of colleagues and lecturers which would give a fresh perspective to my work and hopefully inspiration.
Following the Open Day I attended an online “living room lecture” with Craig Staff. This ran through the structure of the course, examples of previous work and some the the facilities and field trips.
Thoughts for my PHO3003 Career development module. I will use this blog to show work experience, plans for my future career aspirations and reflection on working towards being accepted on a masters course. Currently my goal is to develop my abilities in art/photography as for as I possibly can academically. I am hoping to progress through and Masters Degree and eventually a Phd to assess my abilities. This will then probably mean working freelance and potentially lecturing.
I also need to develop my knowledge of Art theory and history as this is one of my major concerns with attempting a Masters in either Fine Art or Photography, I do not have an Art background.
Open day booked for 19th October
DO NOT ATTEND DUE TO OTHER COMMITMENTS
I spent an hour with Craig (nobody else came to see him) talking about the Masters course and suitability of me moving on to it. The reservations Craig has about Photography students continuing on to the Fine Art course if they have no background in fine art is they tend to work in process rather than explore possibilities. I think he meant tend to be less experimental. When I explained about my Inhabited Landscapes, Encroachment and Evidence projects I think he began to believe I wouldn’t be stuck in a process mind set.
I briefly explained my idea for this years final project and he asked if potentially we could get together to discuss or at least for him to view the initial work sometime after Christmas.
He tried to advise doing it part time rather than one year full time which I explained due to funding options would not be feasible. We discussed the advantage I have that I know people from various departments and know the equipment and spaces I would likely be using which should give me a head start over moving from/to a different University
Emailed Craig staff on the advice of Jayne Corfield and Richard Hollinshead at the Open day, to get more information about the MA Fine Art, as really unsure about my art background and how Photography will fit into the fine art masters. Replied about the drop in session to attend on the Drop in next week. I will obviously attend.