Week 7 – Vision 2020 – Falmouth Symposium

by LEN Coursework IC

What a stimulating week with so many talented and interesting people and a great programme. I left energised and full of ideas to work on.

Pop Up Exhibition

Cemre/Stevi/Hannah/Helik/Bekka/Isabelle/Tim/Lucie/Annie

The subject was around the journey to Falmouth and ‘Our Better Selves’. What started as a sorting of everyone’s images moved on to lots of energy for ideas. We ran out of time. Printing services were expecting seven students with one print each during 2-3.30. When we asked for more time and 10 A0 prints and 60 A3 prints there was clearly a disconnect…..or as Cemre said..’oh dear!’

The things that went wrong are what made this such a great learning experience. We got the prints done we could which was 99 A3 prints and then we got creative. The result was amazing and then we had viewers in the evening. Lots of collaboration. The team worked well together on mixing and matching work and supporting each others ideas on how to fit the work together. Rumours I killed Helik’s children are an exaggeration and even if I had there was no way they were not going to be resurrected and appear on the wall.

Portfolio Reviews

The portfolio review sessions are so powerful. I find being part of the review process of other students work to be almost as enlightening as my own work being reviewed. Doing these reviews in person has an added dimension over the webinars as we can move the prints around, add some, take some away and try out other combinations. Reviewed with Jesse and Cemre with Ilya and Veronica. Then Paul and Sarah with Tim, Nic and Andy.

Oxfam – Doing it for real

I presented the experience of producing the pitch for the Oxfam brief ‘In Our Street.’ Experiences summarised here.

The Rest

Had a really good session working with medium format cameras. Spent quite a bit of time with the Fuji GFX 50. I was amazed how light it was (lighter than the Canon 5DMkIV) and the specification you got for the price. 50 mp for around £3000. We tried various lighting conditions and set ups using the studio and other participants as actors.

Side conversations were revealing. Ash told me about her session in the colour printing workshop. I had no interest in this before but as she explained all the learning she got about colour casts it caught my attention. Next year if allowed to attend this is something I will do.

A really well put together week and just amazing to be with people face to face.

Categories: Coursework IC, Informing Contexts

LEN

I am a Photographer. As well as taking many photographs I am currently studying for an MA in Photography at Falmouth University. I will direct my attention through the lens of my camera for the next couple of years and see what shows up. I see a photograph as a little bit of magic capturing a moment in time. If successful it surprises and engages your emotions. It tells a story about the wonders of being alive or tells us what we need to change to make it a better world to live in. That is enough for me to get going and then like walking a 1000 miles, which I did across the UK in 2010, or walking 200 miles across Cyprus, which I did in November last year, it is one step at a time.

I was a writer. The title of my unpublished book was ‘You Would Have Done The Same.' It is about a successful guy in love with his wife who lets her die when he discovers her in the process of committing suicide. The title gives a clue as to what I think you would have done. The book is 200 pages long. I found it cathartic to write it but after two years of work and reviewing with agents decided it probably needed another 2000 hours to get the whole book up to the standard of some of the pages. Writing is great but it is a lot of sitting down so I decided to get out and walk, play tennis, play bridge, go birding, watch football at Nottingham Forest, Arsenal and Valencia and anywhere else if I can, meditate, cook and eat. I was a writer who has so far failed to become an author.
I was a young man who loved Mathematics and thoroughly enjoyed getting a BSc at Liverpool University. While there I went often to Anfield and the Philharmonic Hall. I was all set on doing a PhD until I went for interview practice at BP and got seduced by the excitement of an International business career. BP was a great adventure building trading teams and businesses in London, Antwerp, Cleveland Ohio and Singapore. Fabulous people and some great challenges and also very hard work, constant jet lag and lots of fun along the way. I married Karen, my stunning wife, and had the most amazing time with her and our three boys Alex, Tom and Dan. She has multiple sclerosis and we have taken on many challenges together but somehow keep creating a new normal against the horrors thrown our way. She is the love of my life.

After BP I decided to coach senior executives and quickly realized I had a lot to learn
about what makes people tick. I had a fantastic 18 months on the International Programme of the Cleveland Gestalt Institute. A great faculty and a
wonderful group of people on the programme. We studied and worked in Dingle, Singapore, Holland, Cape Town and
Lisbon. This also got me interested in the way we think and make decisions so I studied for an MSc in Psychology atUniversity College London in 2010. The
Masters was in Cognitive and Decision Sciences and I found it fascinating what
we do know but also how much we don’t know about how we think and make
decisions.

I loved coaching and making a difference. I got a number of people to hear themselves, remove some of their own chains and free up the way they thought about the world. I remain fascinated by how people react to and engage with the world. My Masters thesis was why do two people given the same information make different decisions? Put simply, it is because each of us are unique in the way we are constructed.

Since returning from Singapore I found English winters tough so moved to Spain where I now live. The people are lovely, the scenery amazing, food delicious and the sun shines all the time. Almost.

All of these experiences will feed in to my time now as a Photographer. Three motivations I am lucky to have are enthusiasm, curiosity and a continuous interest in learning. All the time I look forward to meeting old friends and making new friends and experiencing this wonderful life together.