What is Narrative Photography?

Narrative Photography is storytelling through pictures – where the question is often more important than the answer. There can be so many different ideas linked to this. Narrative can be photojournalism, it can be telling a whole story, or telling small parts of them. What I like to see when I look at narrative photography is parts of the story. I like this because it then enables you to think, and pose questions. Narrative is respected in the photography world. The reason being is because it can be so difficult to capture the right image. Many people attempt narrative, only a handful can pull it off brilliantly.

The pure intelligence these photographers must have inspires me. They are imaginative and have such wonderful ideas. Because there are so many ways in which narrative could be taken, it must be hard to find the right idea to go with and be what people would want to see. You have to get this bit right, because if you don't then people won't think highly of your work. You need to listen to what people want to see in photography if you want to be considered as anything more than an amateur.

When will I research Narrative

During my photography lessons, during my free periods at school and after school is when I have decided to research and explore narrative photography.

I feel that I need to 'catch up' on lost time which I had spent printing.

By doing this I should hopefully gain e abetter understanding of Narrative photography quicker.

When I went to show my skills

When I went to this primary school I was able to display my artwork in a gallery for them so that they were able to see what different things they would be able to create with printing. I got good responses from them.

They seemed to like the look of what I had made. This gave me a lot of confidence when I was there and I was able to demonstrate the new skills in which I had picked up over the few weeks to them.

They were able to produce some good prints too.

However, I did feel like this was not much of a challenge, and I felt like creating prints was too easy for me. Yes, I had developed new skills, but it was not very challenging.

I didn't feel like this is what is wanted to do, I felt like I should be more involved with something else.

So to link in with my school work, I felt like learning a different type of photography would be a good idea.

One type of photography I had never looked at before was Narrative Photography.

I felt like this would be more of a challenge. As I started looking into this, I realised there was a lot of skill involved in creating the 'right' narrative photographic piece. This confirmed my thought, and I felt like this would be right to research more about and look into this further.

My new skills

After a few visits at lunchtime and after school visits, I made some artwork which I was proud of and that I felt like it should be shown to a group of people. I suggested it could be a good idea if I was to visit a primary school and help with some activities there, one of them being Printing. He agreed, and I was able to find a primary school to do this at. The date is set for a few weeks time, so hopefully I should have some good examples of printing to show them, and I should be able to be useful when I do go there.

When was I going to learn these new skills

The Head of Art teacher in my school agreed for me to go into the art department during my Wednesday and Friday lunchtimes and after school too, to do some printmaking. This should give me enough time to develop my own arts practice and hopefully create some pieces of work that are of good quality. Having an art teacher around is going benefit me because I would be able to receive and help that I need. Plus, as I have never done this before, I need to be shown what to do at first and my teacher is able to do this.

What is Printmaking?

Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking is looked upon to be unique and original, except in the case of monotyping. The monotyping process is capable of producing multiples of the same piece, which is called a 'print'. Each piece produced is not a copy but considered an original since it is not a reproduction of another work of art. Printmaking (other than monotyping) is not chosen only for its ability to produce multiple impressions, but rather for the unique qualities that each of the printmaking processes lends itself to.

I was involved in two types of printing, planographic and monotyping.

Planographic is basic printmaking were you draw an image onto a flat surface (on paper) on top of a layer of ink. When you over the paper you will see the ink on your paper, but only over where you imprinted the lines. You can only create your image once using the one piece of paper. This type of printing does not allow you to make multiples.

Monotyping is printing onto a raised surface. This allows you to have different shades of colour on your artwork along with the opportunity to re-print the same image. If you go over your image again with more ink, and then print on more paper, you will see practically the exact same thing as before. However there will be differences between them, this is why it is not an exact copy, it is just a print.

Francisco Goya. Artists, Spanish, Painter. Was an inspiration to many people like Francis Bacon and Picasso.

Unit 1 - Part A

Part A - extend your own arts practice.

For this section of the course you needed to develop new skills.

This is not un-common to me as this is what happens when you decide to explore a new path in life.

Printing is what I chose to learn more about. My former art teacher, and current photography teacher introduced me to this. I thought that this would be good idea because I haven't done it before. I felt like it would be quite fun and challenging at the same time.

Introduction

I am an A-Level Photography student. I have studied art all through my secondary school life, including at GCSE. I have always felt the need to experiment, so taking Art would enable me to do this. I chose Photography at A-Level because it was something that I hadn't done before. I never realised how many different elements there are in photography before I studied it. As my research continued throughout the course I found various artists that are quite inspirational to me. This lead me into developing my own style of work.

When I heard about my school doing the Arts Award I felt like this is something in which I had to be apart of. I wanted to develop my skills and practices further.