Reflection on Assignment 5 - Hotwalls

Who was the client?

My notional client for this assignment was ‘Hot Walls’, an imaginary funded development project to transform largely disused arches in the Hot Walls area of Old Portsmouth. The Hot Walls as the arches are known, were used as artillery barracks and soldiers quarters in the 1850s. The site has a real sense of place and communal heritage and good potential for redefining the area as a public space and cultural destination.

The client’s proposal to convert the arches into active use i.e. studios and a ‘brasserie’ type offer has not been met with favour by some local residents who argued for the need to respect the history of the structure. Consequently, the client is planning a promotional campaign to reassure residents and generate positive interest in the proposed Hot Walls development. This print and online campaign requires photographic images.

The client briefing that I drew up set out what was the client looking for:

•   A portfolio of 12 colour images capturing the distinctiveness of the Hot Walls area and demonstrating the range of creative industries, businesses and activities that could be sensitively accommodated within the arches. Within the portfolio the range of images should show:

•  different creative industries, businesses and activities

•   use of space within the footprint of an arch

•   interaction with members of the public

•   a cafe culture - people eating / drinking within arch environment

•   the proposed transformation site

•   a sense of place and history 

•   a clean background to accommodate text/ logo  

•   visual variety

It also set out the client’s intended use of the images i.e. to help achieve:

•  A better understanding amongst the local community of what the projected transformation could achieve for the area, its residents and visitors

•   An insight of what the space can offer those working in the creative industries looking locally for usable and affordable space to rent

•   An interest and desire to know more about the development

•   Reassurance that the history of the Hot Walls will be respected by the proposed transformation

Planning the photoshoot

Thinking around the creative brief for the Hot Walls Development project, I decided the photoshoot would necessarily need to be done in different locations to ensure the range of images that the client was looking for. I used desktop research to locate possible venues and plan the photoshoot and post shoot processing schedule.

My desktop research identified arches being used as artist studios, cafes and galleries and artists working in small studios within reasonable travelling distance:

·         Southampton ( the Arches Studios )

·         Havant (Making Space)

·         Brighton ( Kings Road arches )

·         Portsmouth (Feed Cafe, Bastion studios, Artspace )

Following up these leads, I was able to arrange dates for a photoshoot with Jeremy Glaize based at the Arches Studio and Agata Wojcueskiewicz (Making Space). I also made visits to the arches in Brighton and the Feed Café looking for interior shots.

How well did I succeed with the assignment?

Well, the final selection of images did offer visual variety through the use of different subjects and shooting angles. While some of the images showed studio use within an arch, others met the brief's requirements regarding café culture, gallery opportunities and text and logo space. The range of creative activities included  were limited though to just painting, drawing and neon lightwork.  I would have liked to have widened this further but came up against difficulties in gaining access to artists within the timescale I had set for the assignment.

Access to artists

I had not anticipated the real challenge of making direct contact with the artists working within the locations that I had identified and the time it would take to establish interest or lack of interest.

Understandably, all the administrators were protective of their artists so while they very helpfully emailed the detail I supplied about my project to their artists, it went with a request to contact me direct if anyone was interested in helping out with the project. This meant my search for possible subjects was limited to email rather than being able to have face to face contact. Only a few artists emailed their interest. And out of the four Southampton based artists who were offering to help, despite numerous chase up emails, I was only able to agree a date with one, Jeremy Glaize.  Luckily for me he proved very supportive in what I wanted to do. And having established a good rapport with a potter who ran a Pop Up Pottery in a Brighton pub and was happy for me to go along with my camera, it turned out that she was moving studios and not running any pub venues for the rest of the year.

All of this made me realise how difficult it can be to work to a defined timetable when much is, in a sense, completely out of your control. My two featured artists gave their time and space freely, happy to sign the model release form I had drawn up for the photoshoot. In return, I gave them some images portraying themselves. Had I been able to offer a model fee, maybe some of what I experienced here might have been resolved, possibly not though, as understandably artists will always have their own timetable and take on things. Certainly I had to extend the project deadline to accommodate the difficulties in getting access to artists. And in the real world this would not likely be possible.

The challenge of selecting images

I had in my mind’s eye the kind of images I was looking for to meet the client’s creative brief, but also conscious of time, I knew that I would not be able to look for the perfect image indefinitely. So compromise would likely occur at some point...

In fact, the greatest challenge came in selecting the final images. 

I found that there was significant creative tension between the image that I, as a photographer preferred, maybe due to its composition, colour, imagery but which did not on its own tell the story as required by the brief, and a more obvious and, maybe less interesting image. Time and time again I had to try very hard to think myself into the mind of the client and the audience that would be looking at the images within a website or printed leaflet or  brochure. 

However, I do understand the reason for the imposed limit on the number of images as it does really test how you select images to a defined brief. I think that I have come up with a reasoned selection of final images given the restriction to 8-12 images. My selection and reasoning is set out separately in earlier blog.

Opportunities

I had some real opportunities to talk to and watch artists at work and be able to take time to observe, often close up, and to move around and gauge what might work as an image. This was unexpected and opened up my thinking about how I was approaching and developing this assignment. 

Initially, I was just looking for straightforward images showing maybe a potter, artist, jewellery maker etc. But having time to move around within the small studio spaces made me think more about the space and how the artist is influenced by and influences the space around them. This seemed to have a bearing on showing how the converted Hot Walls space might work for artists. The germ of this idea started when I made a location visit to the Arches in Southampton and met Louiza Hamidi, an artist who used the floor of her studio as her working space.

Mulling this over, I popped into a monthly lunch organised for the resident artists based at Making Space in Havant. I just happened to make contact with the administrator the day before and she invited me to come along to the lunch and tell people about my project. This was a real break. I had a very interesting and enjoyable exchange with these very friendly artists. about the concept and purpose of my project. Their gentle probing drew out from me ideas that very much influenced how I approached my subsequent artist photoshoots.

This concept of artist/space relationship came to mind again when I looked at the work of Sirkka- Liisa Konttinen, particularly Byker Revisited (2009) (2).  In her second focus on the residents of Byker, she invited local residents to imagine their lives in just one picture. I wondered whether you could imagine the life/work of an artist in just one picture taken in their studio and whether this would offer a viable image for the Hot Walls project. Konttinen’s images are posed as are those captured by John Londei in ‘Shutting up shop’, (1) a photographer recommended by my tutor. In his introduction to his fifteen year tribute to the small traditional shops that were fast disappearing during the 1970s, he talks of the feeling that the shopkeepers ‘turned the premises into living entities.’ They stand within their shops, posed again like the Byker residents and I wondered if this might work for this project - artists standing within their studios

I tried this approach out with Jeremie and Agata..

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P1036

 

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I liked the resulting images but after reflection and reference back to the client’s brief, I decided that I had come up against the photographer versus client selection conflict again. So these particular images did not make the final cut. 

However, the opportunity to try this out has given me the beginnings of a much bigger photographic project which I am calling ‘ArtSpace’. Certainly the opportunity to expand my thinking here beyond the client brief was not something that I might have anticipated at the outset of the assignment.

(1) Londei,J. (2007) Shutting up Shop. Stockport: Dewi Lewis Publishing

(2) McCann,M.(2013) Bringing Colour to Newcastle. New York Times. 8 Feb. Available from 
 http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/08/bringing-color-to-newcastle/  
(Accessed 12 January 2016)