Open College of the Arts

LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY LEVEL 2

Assignment 5 – Self-directed Project

Longitude 0

Anna Sellen OCA 507277

February 2017

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Assignment brief Produce a body of work that explores a particular place, type of space or theme relating to landscape practice. You’re free to choose the subject for this assignment, although you should be able to contextualise the project in relation to contemporary landscape practice. Negotiate the subject, as well as your research, technical and visual strategies, with your tutor before you start work. The depth of your research, the scope of the development of the project and its resolution should reflect a substantial effort of independent study, as expected of students at Level 2 (HE5). Submit your work to your tutor by whatever means and in whatever form you’ve agreed with them (e.g. book, portfolio, installation maquette or slideshow). If your self-directed project isn’t submitted as a conventional set of prints, we suggest you include a portfolio of the photographs in addition (max A4 / 8” x 12”). This will allow assessors to evaluate the quality of your work independently of how you’ve elected to present it. Also include: • An evaluation of your work (as for previous assignments). • An artist’s statement that professionally contextualises your work to its audience.

(This may be what you produced for Exercise 5.7.)

• Your original project proposal and your latest version of it, if applicable. Whilst you await your tutor’s response, continue with your work on Assignment Six and begin reviewing your work for assessment.

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Assignment links:

Longitude 0 learning blog: https://longitude0blog.wordpress.com

OCA learning blog: https://ansellphoto.wordpress.com

Portfolio: https://ansellphoto.wordpress.com/landscape-project-5-self-directed-

project/longitude-0-image-portfolio/

Longitude 0 original and latest proposals:

https://ansellphoto.wordpress.com/landscape-project-5-self-directed-project/longitude-0-

proposal/

Exercises and notes:

https://ansellphoto.wordpress.com/landscape-project-5-self-directed-project/origins-of-the-

white-cube-reflecting-on-the-meaning-of-the-gallery-space/

https://ansellphoto.wordpress.com/landscape-project-5-self-directed-project/sharing-an-art-

project-making-the-presentation-work/

https://ansellphoto.wordpress.com/2017/01/31/on-context-in-photography/

Updated Journeys portfolio (as part of Exercises 5.4 and 5.5):

https://ansellphoto.wordpress.com/2017/02/17/journeys-project-portfolio/

https://ansellphoto.wordpress.com/landscape-project-5-self-directed-project/artists-

statement/

Technical data relevant to this assignment:

Equipment used: EOS 5Dr, Canon 24mm and 50 mm lenses, Manfrotto tripod; GPS reader.

ISO range: 100 F setting: 16.

Post-production: Adobe Lightroom; Aperture Books.

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The Prime Meridian in Longitude 0 is the “walking protocol” and the guiding principle of our

engagement with the landscape (O’Rourke, 2013, p. 49). The meridian holds its authority as

the dividing line between the eastern and western hemisphere and this project explores the

significance of this attributed power in the real landscape. The project concept is simple: to

follow the meridian across the UK, by foot and other transport where necessary1.

The project idea emerged from my Below the Sea project set in Fenland. In my critical

review2, I revisited some photographic projects that used cartographic lines, including

O’Sullivan, Gohlke, and Deal’s. Deal (2009) heightened my awareness of my responsibility

as a photographer and surveyor to be mindful when imposing “a frame around something

that has no clear boundaries of its own.”

I’ve learned that this requires entering a dialogue with a place, where

“as a photographer…I am not only simply the interrogator of a passive subject, I, too, am being questioned”

(Gohlke, 2009, p.189).

Gohlke and Deal’s attention to negative, empty space where “there is very little to see”

(Moore, 2015) is common ground with Longitude 0. Building on the commonalities, Longitude

0 does not seek to idealise the landscape, focusing instead on documenting its changing,

“dynamic set of relationships” (Gohlke, 2009, p.254). This learning informed my technical3

and presentation choices, and helped to make my framing4 more consistent. I think that

presenting the portfolio in colour and in a photobook format fitted the nature of the project5.

Reading Parr (2014) helped with my photobook’s design. Crane (1999) and Long (2016)

informed my understanding of walking as a way to engage with landscape.

1 Considering the length of the entire journey, I completed a shorter section of the route for this assignment. This allowed me to test my methodology and make adjustments before concluding the whole itinerary. 2 The full text of my critical review essay Longitude and Photography: Picturing the Invisible (2017) is available via this link: https://ansellphoto.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/oca-landscape-assignment5-a-sellen.pdf 3 I used one prime 50mm lens as my main lens and one 24mm lens as a backup. 4 Longitude 0 project has a blogsite that features more details on my choice of lenses and other technical information, as well as the challenges incurred on the way: https://longitude0blog.wordpress.com 5 I considered using black and white format, and pairing positive and negative images but rejected these ideas as I thought they might be leading the audience too strongly.

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Working with longitude made me mindful of other, natural and man-made lines in the

landscape; Gohlke (2002) and Moore (2015) taught me how to embrace them within the

frame. Freeman’s Manzanar inspired me to use diptychs and to include the coordinates in

the captions. I think that the diptych concept fitted well with the idea of “looking east, looking

west.”

My main learning from Longitude 0 is that there is an infinite choice of possibilities out there.

This realisation was liberating. It echoed Gohlke’s reflection:

“Through restricting yourself to this little strip – it could even be reduced to fifty feet - you'd still have a sense of leaving out more than you included.”

(Golhke, in Albers, 2010).

Looking forward, I am considering these ideas for the main Longitude 0 project:

• The diptych concept has a place and is worth continuing with. However, there is a space for another portfolio of images that perhaps relate more loosely to one another (not via an umbilical cord of the horizon, as part of a continuous scene).

• It might be more effective to supply each image with a caption that includes ‘Eastern (or) Western hemisphere.’

• Accompany the images with my artist’s statement.

• Longitude 0 blogsite worked well as a link to my emerging audiences and a sounding

board; I am keen to continue developing it.

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My artist’s statement to accompany this project (draft)

As a person and a photographer, I am fascinated with people and places. We are born into a

place, we grow with it, we share and shape it, and we become part of it. I look to explore this

process through my practice and I am interested in how we experience and relate to our

environment and nature, how we interact with them and what kind of meanings and

memories we assign to them.

My latest photographic project, Longitude 0, is about our relationship with the land, our desire

to reshape it leaving behind a lasting mark. From fields to roundabouts, each view is a

chapter in our continuous struggle for permanence. The Prime Meridian is another, invisible

dimension of our unceasing struggle, the spine of the book and the thread that holds the

project’s narrative together. Layer after layer, as we deconstruct the landscape it reveals its

complex, hidden meanings. Does the presence of the invisible longitude line hint to the

existence of other unseen, hidden entities out there?

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References

Albers K. (2010) Cartographic postings: GPS, photography and landscape. Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism. [Online] March / April 2010. Available from: http://vsw.org/afterimage/ Accessed on November 10, 2016.

Crane, N. (1999) Two Degrees West: A Walk Along England’s Meridian. London: Penguin

Books.

Deal, J. (2009) West and west: Reimagining the Great Plains. Chicago Center for American Places at Columbia College

Freeman, A. (2001-2006) [Manzanar] Architecture double. [Online] Available from: http://andrewfreeman.net/work/manzanar-architecture-double/. Accessed: Feb 19, 2017.

Gohlke, F. (2002) 42’30’ North. [Online] Available from: http://frankgohlke.com/Selected- Projects/42-

30-North. Accessed on: November 10, 2016.

Gohlke, F. (2009). Thoughts on Landscape: Collected Writings and Interviews. Hol Art Books.

Ingold, T. (2015) The Life of Lines. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

Long, R. (2016) Documentary. Available from: http://www.richardlong.org/documentary.html

(Accessed on 26 December 2016)

Moore, A., et al. (2015) Dirt meridian. Bologna: Damiani.

O’Rourke, K. (2013) Walking and Mapping: Artists as Cartographers. Cambridge, MA: The

MIT Press.

Parr, M & Badger, G. (2014) The Photobook: A History. Vol. 1. Ed 5. London: Phaidon.