Last summer I decided that I wanted to improve my photography skills, and that doing a course would be the best way to go. After some searching I enlisted in a course called ‘Conceptual Photography’, at Fotogram in Amsterdam. The purpose of the course is to create photos that are more than just a pretty image, that have some kind of meaning. During the first meeting it became clear that this description is vague enough for even experienced students to be confused, as some of the students were joining the course for the third time, but still were not sure when a photo was conceptual, and when not. That sort of made me feel comfortable, as it released a bit of the pressure of having to achieve something that meets a difficult standard. I mean, if students doing the course for the third time still don’t know what it is, I will be fine for at least this year. I chose this course because it focusses more on the creative, artistic side of photography, and that is where I wanted to improve. And the remark of the other students gave me the feeling that it was ok to be a student, not a master, for a long time to come.

One of the extras of this course is that all students are allowed to join an exhibition in the school with work that was made during the course. I write this post now, although the course is not finished yet, because the opening of the exhibition is today! It was an interesting journey, sometimes difficult, to get to the point where the product is finished, meaning ready to hang on a wall. And it is that journey that I want to talk about.

The setup of the course is as follows: there are nine classes of 3 hours between September and June, which is about once a month. Every student has his/her own project, based on an individually chosen concept, that is discussed during the class-mornings. Apart from your own project a few assignments are given to try some other techniques and environments.

The first job for me was to choose a project, and think about the concept behind it. There were two things in my mind:

Although my heart wanted to do the second one, I decided to go for the first. Because I only shoot underwater photos when I am on holiday in a warmer part of the world, it wouldn’t be practical to choose this as a project, I thought. But the underwater photos kept lingering in my head…

But first I had to think about the concept behind the project. The starting point for this was writing an artist statement. I googled a bit about artist statements, and found a few suggestions on how to create one. I decided to take a sort of structured approach, so I started a brainstorm on paper first. I more or less followed the approach outlined here: https://www.format.com/magazine/resources/art/how-to-write-artist-statement. I wrote down words that came in my head, trying to figure out why I make the photos that I make. It was quite an interesting exercise, thinking about why you choose a subject, a focal length, the framing, etc.. From the paper with words I started to select the ones that meant the most to me, and tried to write down what I am actually trying to do with my photography. I came to a conclusion that in a forest there are two types of photographs that I make: the portrait of a tree (or group of trees), and the space between the trees.

I decided that the concept I wanted to work with was the one about the space between the trees. The artist statement, or concept definition, I wrote is:

My Bubble

I am often aware of my surroundings and my relation to other people. In my life I have different roles as daughter, sister, friend, colleague, and for each role I adapt and deform a little. To regain my own shape I seek nature, where I seclude myself from people, and where the lack of expectations creates an environment where my limitations are least discouraging to me.

With my photography I want to capture that sheltered environment, and pass on that feeling. I am not seeking an abundance of emotions, but a smile, a feeling of wonder, a moment without judgement.

Maybe a bit presumptuous and lush, but this is what popped up in my brain, and I didn’t want to restrain myself too much. I just wanted to see where this would lead me.

I was lucky that our first extra assignment was photographing in a forest. It didn’t put me out of my comfort zone, but it did help to approach my usual photography in a slightly different way. The extra task for this assignment was to start with a plan, and photograph only what fits the plan. So where I usually just start walking and shoot whatever catches my eye, I now had to come up with a plan and stick to it. My plan was to look for the spaces that gave me sheltered feeling, more precise I was looking for the following things:

1. Groups of trees with spaces between them,
2. Create some depth in the image,
3. Create intimacy.

This is one of the photos I took that day, I used a wide-angle lens because I thought that would help emphasise the space:

And then, of course, after shooting images comes the feedback. This was, as is to be expected, the most interesting and most scary part of it. The group in my class consisted of about 15 students, and while not all of them will have something to say to every project, enough of them have an opinion to share. I can be a bit sensitive to comments, but I wanted to put that sensitivity aside in order to learn something about my photography. The first feedback I got at the beginning of the course was that my images were nice, but meaningless. Ouch! After writing the artist statement the teacher and some of the people seem to connect more, so that definitely helped! You could argue that artwork should speak for itself, without text, and that was actually the goal of the course. But in the process of developing yourself it helps if you write down what it is that you want to achieve. It helps other people to evaluate your work: it doesn’t matter if it is nice or ugly, but does it convey what you intended. In my case the teacher gave me the assignment to look for a way to pull the viewer into ‘my forest’. After trying to put myself in the image to make it more approachable (didn’t work, I just don’t want any people in my photos) I came up with the idea to include a circle in my photo, to emphasise the space, to create a gateway into the forest, and to heighten the feeling of safety by creating a confinement. Apart from that, the circle is also endless in its shape, tying into the part that I feel less limited in a forest than in my daily life.

Ok, I had an idea, so far so good, but now execute it… I tried a lot of different versions of circles, a few of which you can see below. If you can instantly tell which one works best, you are a better viewer than I am. They drove me nuts. The feedback was also very mixed: too harsh, too course, too contrasty etc. I tried to take everything in, but also stay on my own course: very tricky business!

By the time I was playing with circles, our annual holiday to the Caribbean arrived. And the nagging feeling about including underwater photography in my project hadn’t gone completely, so I tried to use some of the proces I used for the forest photos with my snorkelling photos as well. Again, I tried to capture the feeling of an intimate and safe place. To increase chances of being able to combine them I used the same film stock. I think it is mostly with my underwater photos that I started to create the darker circles, which to me have a slight 3D-effect (below, image on the right).

But the most important conclusion for me, after playing with the photos and the circles, is that I did see a similarity between my forest and my underwater photos. For me they both portray the sheltered environment that I am looking for.

What I found very difficult and time-consuming, is the editing of the photos. I found that the underwater and forest photos go together well, but then pairing them in such a way that they enhance each other is difficult enough. Making a final decision on the circle was extremely hard. I wanted to avoid over-using a trick, but when I used the circle on only a few of the series it became unclear and unstructured. Deciding whether the circles were a good idea at all, or whether they cluttered the photo too much. In fact, I still don’t know for sure. But in the end I decided that the circle was going to stay. But I sticked with the simple version to keep it light and clean.

Some underwater photos that didn’t make the cut:

Some forest photo’s that didn’t make the cut:

And here is the final selection. Due to limited exhibition space we (all students that show work) had to choose between two or three larger photos (about 50cm x 70cm was allowed), or smaller photos if you want to show more. Again after a lot of consideration, hesitation and indecisiveness I went for 8 very small (12cm x 18cm) images. I must admit I used a little guidance from a good friend here. At some point you just can’t create the necessary distance to evaluate your own work anymore. But that is the good thing of a deadline from an exhibition: at some point you just have to make a decision.

All photos were shot on Kodak Portra 800, developed at home in Tetenal C-41 chemicals, and scanned on my Reflecta RPS 10M scanner. They were post-processed in Lightroom, and the circles were added in Photoshop. For the exhibition I had them printed at Whitewall on Fuji Crystal DP II, and sandwich between 3mm dibond and 6mm acryl for an ultraglossy look.

I have a few more words (and there are so many already!) on some of the lessons I have learned:

• It was useful and interesting to think about a concept, and it helped creating a rather uniform look for a series. But the more detailed you make the concept, the more alike the resulting photos will be. So there must be some room left for interpretation to create different images. I learned this from a comment a fellow student made. He said about my forest photos: you only have to show one, because they are all just trees, with some in the foreground and some in the background. It took me a few seconds not to get offended, but then I thought that he was right, and that I had worked rather hard to achieve just that: trees and nothing more then trees (no road, no people, no skies). And I deliberately always put a few trees in the foreground to create depth and intimacy. It was useful to realise this. It doesn’t mean that it is wrong, but the effect is real.
• It is necessary but difficult to find a balance between being open to feedback, and follow your own creative route. I wanted to be open to suggestions, not be stubborn, be a perfect student and learn from everyone and everything, but at some point I got so confused about all the suggestions that I felt I was running in circles and didn’t know how to put everything together. You can’t please everyone, and sometimes people just don’t connect to your image. That is ok. But it will always be tricky to find the right time to put my foot down and stick to my grounds.
• Printing your work is important. For the first session of this course I brought my photos on my iPad, but I experienced that prints work better. When discussing your work with other people it helps to have prints, specifically if you are trying to create a series. Rearranging photos is much easier and faster. You can step back and look at the whole picture, or pickup one photo and put your nose in it. It is just more tangible…
• Last lesson: Yes! Do a course. It is fun and it is very educational to discuss your own, and other people’s work.

Thanks for reading!