last session with Y6

We set up bit of the production line at school yesterday to get the remaining 22 children to edit their digital images, select and make a print. Again, some of them needed some gentle guidance to select an image that was actually 'technically correct'  ie. IB who insisted she wanted to print a rather badly composed and over exposed picture of her pencil case!! 

We couldn't access the network on the computer that was connected to the printer so had to transfer images on memory sticks and trot back and forth between the Y6 classroom and the ICT suite. As usual the computers were chugging away so slowly... it was 4.30 before the final print was complete. 

Finally we laid all the prints out as 3 x 4 grids (12 images in each) on tables and we began to get an idea of how the final image wall will look. How exciting!! The children have made such a wonderfully diverse and interesting range of work. Whilst some images are immediately obvious, others tease the viewer to guess what they could be, some play with form, reflections, texture, patterns and others add vibrant colour to the piece. The separate parts come together to form a fascinating view of the school. Some images are sadly missing - such as glimpses of the burgundy and yellow of the school uniform. There were some lovely photos that didn't make it to print. I will keep these as backup for the time being as they may have a part to play in the final presentation or the digital presentation. Let's wait and see.

I had a chat with Mr C. about the presentation and it was his very good suggestion that the image wall should be formed of a number of smaller grids to make it more transportable and malleable in terms of hanging in different locations. He also pointed out an outside wall where he would like some artwork so I am going to look into ways of 'weatherproofing' the work. We also talked about the option of updating the grid and carrying out biannual photo projects on other themes. 

first prints

We slid and slushed our way to school today as it finally opened after being closed for two days. The UCA campus is still closed because the carpark is too dangerous to use. I wasn't sure whether school would want us in Y6 today as the ICT refurb was probably behind schedule, the kids were probably behind with their work and Luke was stuck in Dover and/or ill - couldn't quite work that out, but he sounded awful when I spoke to him. First thing this morning Mrs M and Mrs A were really helpful and showed the best (only!) colour printer that currently works in the school and even did a test print for me. I had to rush off to my pilates class before it came out but at least it proved that a print was possible. I decided to go ahead and help a few children edit and print there work.

This afternoon I took the first group of four to the slow ICT suite and found all the computers were on and somewhat faster than previous weeks. The children found their photo folders and I explained the importance of organising their images by deleting the really bad photos, for example those that are out of focus -  a fault not always recognisable when editing on the LCD screen of the camera. Then I asked them to rename the good images so they could recognise them as something more meaningful than their DSC..... number tag that the camera generates. Each child then made a slideshow to assess the very best/most important image that they wanted to print. I am not sure I agreed with all the choices, but we discussed this and I made sure that there was a rationale decision making process taking place and encouraged them to re-evaluate their work where really necessary. However I think it is very important that the final decision was their own.

In all we made eight prints. I used my Epsom Heavyweight Matt paper and would like to experiment with other finishes for the final presentation. I was able to find a setting in the print dialogue box that gave me a fairly good result at medium speed. Photo quality prints do take a long time to print and saving time was somewhat important today. The detail in some of the close up prints is very satisfactory.  In the main, the children were very excited by the results - and so am I. Mrs A and Mrs M, who seem to be most interested/in charge of projects that involve photography within the school, were also very surprised that the printer was capable of such results. They couldn't believe that the photos had been shot on the 'rather basic' school cameras. They are 7.2 megapixel cameras so not too bad at all. I realised over the last two shooting weeks that the school cameras were often set to the 2M setting and explained the importance of using a higher setting for photos that are to be printed. I think they are going to attend my Powerpoint presentation to Y5 and try to get to grips with my megapixel maths.

Already I can see how the project is widening out to generate more possibilities than first envisaged in terms of Widening Participation. How about UCA hosting some Inset days for teachers in local schools to get up to speed with their digital imaging skills? This must be such a very important underpinning skill to enhance many parts of delivery of the school curriculum. For example, they want to put photographs of the children and/or their work onto the school website and don't know how. They also don't seem to know how to make best use of the photographic equipment on the premises. There must be scope for a day of development around this and other issues that I will discover during the course of this project. 

freeeeezing weather

University closed. School closed. Road into Rowledge impassable, blocked with skidded cars that can't get up the hill. That's our last two days. But what fun we've had in the deepest snow I've seen for ages. They say it was like this in 1991 but I reckon Mark and I were in India or somewhere because I don't remember it. We have built snowmen, been sledging, spent far too long in the pub, walked in the forest, had log fires and generally chilled out. It's so strange to have a couple of unexpected days with the family and no plans to do chores, visits or whatever. It is almost better than a holiday!

I'm a bit worried about the students losing a couple of days lectures but I am sure we will make up time somewhere down the line and I have been posting announcements into Blackboard that I hope they will read and act on - including a project to make a photograph a snowman!

last day shooting with Year 6

Today it was raining and grey. Not great for photographing with the kids. We tried to encourage them to use the puddles to good effect working with reflections and so on. Its interesting to see how differently children behave with the camera. Some are quite timid and need encouragement to experiment. Several of them have only taken around a dozen images. Others are much more confident, assertive over the technology and determined to get a good image. We saw quite a few children rephotograph carefully to get a sharp, well composed image today. I think I was clearer about the potential pitfalls this week. For example I warned them about getting too close to the subject and I think we possibly have less focus problems than last week as a result. 

Now we know about the slow computers we built extra time into the schedule to allow for copying the images across. In fact we had Y6 volunteers set up the named folders for us over their lunch break. We had a couple of technical problems with cameras. We were using an odd one out - a Hewlett Packard - to make up numbers and it decided to freeze halfway through a session. Another camera was behaving strangely when we tried to transfer images and wouldn't let us delete the images from the memory card. Luke and I managed to figure it out between us eventually and most of the children have a fine set of images to begin working with next week.

Whilst the kids are doing well and I'm sure we are going to have some great prints, I am beginning to get a wee bit concerned about whether this project is sustainable across four years. Already we have seen a lot of repetition in the images they have chosen in Y6 and I am not sure that Y5, Y4 and Y3 will be able to diversify the range. But maybe that's the point. Perhaps the repetition of the same things shot in different ways will be an important creative dimension to the final presentation and say something important about the school environment. I may have to guide this editing role to some extent - or maybe not. We'll just have to see what happens...

teaching fellowship award

Just before beginning the 'my school' project I was checking my UCA mailbox when I realised that what I was doing seemed to fit the bill for a teaching fellowship. I'm not very experienced at writing project proposals and the very same day was the deadline for receipt of applications. However I managed to put something very sketchy together and got some feedback from Philippa Ashton, Kathleen Rogers and a friend of mine, Lesley, who works as a charity fundraiser. By the following week, and two days late, I finally had something decent together with recommendations from Steve Littman and Bob Russell. A summary follows:

The project will provide:
· an opportunity for students to undertake teaching work with KS2 children (thereby providing a hands-on introduction to teaching for those who might wish to enter the profession),
· raise the ‘bar’ by providing high level specialist visual subject input into schools, by improving student’s visual literacy, creative skills, understanding and enjoyment of modern and contemporary art while fostering increased awareness of contemporary artists within society,
· enable these children to engage with new technology and reflective visual practice currently unavailable to them within their existing curricula model,
· enable her course (DFSA) to engage with a local WP agenda,
· provide a pedagogic model for other courses, staff and students to engage with other schools on similar projects in different subject areas,
· enable a key member of staff to forge further links between the subject(s) of her on going (and exhibited) research practice and her T&L activities,
· and enable the college to publicise its wider work within the local community.

My own research and practice mostly concerns ‘the artist as a mother’ and my own children often feature in the work in make. I have been interested for some time in actually involving them in the work rather than them being the subject – establishing a more collaborative basis, particularly with my older son who is 11 and at the threshold of his teenage years. I am trying to increase my awareness of activities for young people in the local area and would like to contribute in some way in the future, whilst working this into my research objectives. Since attending a SEEDA conference for Women’s Enterprise at the Farnham Maltings last year, I have been inspired by the idea of launching a Social Enterprise targeting local teenagers and involving them in a range of creative activities. I hope to develop this idea in such a way that the University would have a pivotal role. This project is an opportunity for me to work with a younger age group, confront new challenges and see what opportunities present themselves that will add value to my development in this area. I will continue my research into other local businesses that have Social Enterprise status in order to establish a model for my own initiative, identify good practice and make links beyond the University.
http://www.seeda.co.uk/news_&_events/press_releases/2008/20081119.asp
http://www.seeda.co.uk/search/?quickSearch=1&s=social+enterprise&GoButton=Go

Alongside ‘my school’, I will continue my own creative practice - stills, video and sound work that is ongoing since the late 90s around my son’s games, words, songs and more recently my daughter is also becoming part of this work. In January 2007 I completed ‘living room’, a claustrophobic and chaotic family portrait made over the holiday period that reflects the dominance that the children have in our shared space. This is a 3 screen Hi-Definition Video artwork that was made and screened for New Territories – The National Review of Live Art in Glasgow which took place in February 2007. A series of daily screenings took place at the Tramway called Definitive Stories and ten artists were invited to conceive and execute new work in Hi Definition Video. ‘The project seeks to encourage artists and experimental filmmakers to use the Hi Definition system and asks them to consider innovative forms of deployment within this rapidly emerging format.’ This work was screened in Strange Screen Thessalonica In January 2008. My most recent research presentation, ‘the artist as ‘a mother watching’ - began to contextualise my art practice in relation to the work of other photographers and artists who make work about their children or their experience of motherhood.

I would very much like to widen the scope of my research by writing a journal or conference paper relating to the proposed project and this award would provide the motivation. I have taken a break from writing since starting a family in the mid-90s but previous to this I had a healthy run of published articles.

my school

My Y2 student, Luke, and I started the project with Year 6 on Wednesday 14th Jan. I had spent some time preparing a Powerpoint Presentation that started with plenty of images - mostly my own - that would hopefully inspire the kids and encourage them to think about a range of creative possibilities for using the camera to explore their environment at school. We outlined the project, explained what we hoped they would achieve and showed them examples of the 'image wall' idea that we may use as a structure for the final presentation. The children responded really enthusiastically contributing lots of great image ideas and asking good questions. 

Then we took them through some digital photography basics related to image size, purpose and resolution. We even had them doing pixel maths to work out the megapixel rating of the cameras they would be using given the largest image setting available!! 

We finished off by showing them the cameras they would be using for the project and explaining the controls.

The following week their teacher had divided them into groups of 4 so Luke and I took a group each for an hour to take their pictures. We shot some outside the school - in the playground, on the field and so on. It was quite a bright day and the cameras were a bit difficult to use because of the glare on the LCD screens. I wanted to get the children to take several shots of each subject so they could really get a good idea of how different angles can change the shot. It was almost impossible to get them to do this as they couldn't really see the images clearly to review them. They were also buzzing with ideas and eager to try lots of different subjects. It was also difficult to get them to control focus. They tended to go very close the the subject and it was difficult to get them to understand that the lenses wouldn't produce sharp images used this way. We showed them the macro mode to help remedy this.

It was freezing cold so after 20 mins or so we went back into the school and were able to photograph in the library, corridors and Y6 classroom where their classmates were working. They were told to move around as unobtrusively as possible and did a good job. 

The plan was to take two more groups for the second half of the afternoon so we needed to clear the memory sticks into named folders on the school server. This was a very frustrating task. It took ages to log onto the system and the computers are just so slow. Apparently ICT is about to be upgraded in the next couple of weeks so I look forward to improvements. It was great to see  the children's work on the screens as we copied it across, but we  were severely behind schedule for the second groups, who approached their task just as enthusiastically as the first once we got started.

At the end of the day Luke and I spent another hour copying and backing up the images - time that we had not factored into the project. Next week I think we need to restrict the children to 45 mins per group to keep to schedule.

So far this project is going really well. I am so impressed by the children's creativity  and ideas.

the last 2 months....

I can't believe I haven't written anything since 8th November. A friend and I were walking near Frensham Pond last week and she mentioned she had found my blog! Didn't think anyone read it so that was bit of a shock... and a wake up call to get a bit more active in here. 

We had flu round the family twice before Christmas so that knocked us out a bit. Now we have finally finished our family festivities - starting with Sam's birthday party at the beginning of December and Amelia and Mark both in last 10 days, with Christmas and New Year sandwiched in the middle. The season of cake, cake and more cake and a rapidly expanding waistline! 

Exposures meeting with Goldsmiths just before Christmas was cancelled because all the staff had flu so Grace and I are finally taking the archive to the library this Tuesday. I started the 'my school' project on Wednesday with a Y2 DFSA student, Luke, assisting. I have also applied for a teaching fellowship at UCA as the project seems to fit the bill for such an award.  It should help the University to further its Widening Participation Scheme and will further my own research objectives of wanting to make work with the local community, particularly in terms of trying to establish creative projects with young people. I should know whether I have been successful by the end of next week.