Blog of the week: Catherine Banks
Lafarge Cement Works, Castleton © Catherine Banks
It has been a while since we have had a blog of the week. So long that we probably need to think of a new term, along the lines of ‘great learning logs we have noticed in the last n weeks’. Anyway, enough waffle. Catherine Banks’ blog has caught our attention. The reasons why are pretty straightforward. Firstly, Catherine is immersing herself in the subject and reading widely and her blog reflects this. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, you can see how Catherine works away at her doubts – read the two posts about the Out of Focus study visit and you will see what we mean.
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Congrats Catherine!! Told you you were over the hump!
Well deserved.
Catherine’s blog works. You only have to read two or three entries to know that this is a student who is thinking about photography very carefully, researching widely into it, art and literature, and most importantly relating the knowledge gained and concepts suggested by it to the progression of their own work.
There’s no universal template for this, it’s a matter of individual style, and another chance to be creative, but Catherine’s blog illustrates the bases to cover.
I just want to second this.
You can’t say that everyone should do it like this but what all learning logs should address are the questions that Robert Motherwell asks at the beginning of his magnificent film Storming the Citadel, “What was the journey? What was the search?”
As she nods in agreement, U2’s “But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”, goes round in her head.
“”Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.”
R L Stevenson (El Dorado in Virginibus Puerisque)
Well deserved Catherine…. go you!
‘A good read’ is an understatement 🙂
The part of Catherine’s blog I readily empathised with was her complaint about her own tendency “to take an immediate like/dislike to photographs and react like an ‘ordinary woman in the street’ rather than ‘a photographer’ .”
That’s the point we all start from, isn’t it? The challenge is to stay with it if we do/don’t like it & dig out the (possibly emotional) reasons why/not, which can make for some good blogging material AND get us deeper into the intention behind the photograph. I find ‘dislike’ can be more fruitful in terms of informing criticism than ‘like’ because I try harder at the justification of a dismissal than an ‘OK”.
On the other hand there has to be a degree of impact, doesn’t there? Otherwise there is a danger of the general public – not photographers – walking on by. That is presuming we want our work to be appreciated by a wider audience than our peers/tutors. I think we need to keep our Wow! or Rubbish! responses turned on as a first reaction, but see them as a way into formulating the questions we need to ask of ourselves & the photographer.
Interesting comment Linda. Especially the bit about ‘dislike’ being more fruitful because we need to justify our dismissal more.
I agree. Dissenting is always harder. Having to qualify our opinion on a dismissal is, as you say, more fruitful because it fosters critical thinking. Critical essays at levels 2 & 3 are good opportunities to do that.
Thanks for the comments everyone. As Clive and Peter say, there’s no one way of constructing a learning b/log and mine has certainly been evolving since I started with AOP.
They’re really good points you make Linda. My next challenge is to look more closely at the ones I ‘disliked’ and work out what that’s all about. I’ve got the book “Criticizing Photographs’ by Terry Barrett, which I was also going to use to analyse my reactions but decided to stay with William Ewing and Charlotte Cotton to begin with.
Congrats Catherine and well deserved indeed! Interesting blog and I’m learning a lot from it so far..
Congratulations Catherine (well-deserved). I hadn’t realised you had this second blog but look forward to following it from now on.
Excellent blog Catherine. Insightful, reflective and well written. You pose some very interesting questions at the end of the entry of 5 Aug. Such as:
Leading on from the above [who decides whether a work is art or not?] why is it that those who are more observers of photographers/photography than practitioners are the arbiters of quality?
I also like the clear and coherent structure. Relevant section are easy to find and the category menu takes you there with a minimum of clicks.
Well done Catherine. Having only just started on the course and suffering a crisis of confidence, your blog inspired me. I loved the structure and the very well written comments.
Thank you Catherine, for allowing your blog to be shared with us in this way, like one or two others have said I have learned a lot from it.
I particularly liked the comment about taking an instant like or dislike to photographs, which I also tend do but had not given it much thought before. I also liked your earlier reflection on why you were ‘stuck’ as that is oh so familiar to me too.
I look forward to reading more.
Thanks again everyone. It’s particularly good to know that I’m striking chords with people who have been tackling similar issues. Also, other people’s interest has encouraged me to read and reflect even more widely about photography – to the extent that I haven’t done that much photography recently. The balance will have to be re-calibrated a little I think!
Congrats Catherine. Just saw the update regarding your blog being voted blog of the week and I couldn’t agree more. It’s very well deserved!