Everyone has a story to tell, if only one's own …
Matt:
I like the addition of the surreal, in the self portrait with sardines and butterflies.
Take a look at the work of William Anastasi, Walead Beshty, Mel Bochner, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Anne Collier, David Raymond Conroy, Jan Dibbets, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Ceal Floyer, Mario Garcia Torres, John Hilliard, Sherrie Levine, Sara MacKillop, Dan Rees, Ed Ruscha, Joachim Schmid, John Stezaker, Wolfgang Tillmans, and James Welling as examples of this kind of thinking.
Matt:
My main question is to ask, what is it that you want specifically from the MA?
Street photography is very popular, but ultimately changes little unless it is in the long form of social documentary. That is to say giving voice to those whose existence is somewhat marginalised or outside of the every day normative experience; work that challenges conventional orthodoxy, and offers insight and perhaps critique, whilst empowering others.
A good person to look at, who has been working since 2010 on a series “Small Town Inertia” is Jim Mortram. Also at the opposite end, but equally offering a sterling critique of British every day life is Niall McDiarmid.
One predominantly black and white, the other a master of colour.
Matt:
I don’t have a problem with a theoretical research led MA project, but the key to photography for me is that everything is rooted in historical context, a knowledge and awareness of what has gone before. I also want students to really immerse themselves in reading around photography – David Campany, Moyra Davey, Susan Bright, Francis Hodgson, Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes et al. I want people to understand the medium and its intellectual discourse and frame their own arguments supported by that expert citation.
Many photographers write about photography, an essay I particularly enjoyed is one by Paul Graham called “photography is easy….”
It encapsulates my own inarticulate thoughts on being an image maker.
Paul Graham – “Photography is Easy, Photography is Difficult” (2009)
Interesting video essays about the psychology behind various ancient myths.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFrQVVNA7iA&t=99s
www.youtube.com/channel/UC60L2h7JUr9uQt–_CMzAIw
A proponent of Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology.