Commence Photographic Practice

It’s been a tough couple of weeks. Not for any real reasons of hardship, but just because it’s been intense. I’m in the final stretch of a 2 year photography MA. It’s “part-time”; emphasis on the quotation marks partly because I will always spend the maximum amount of time possible making my work as good as I possibly can, and partly because it’s a hell of a lot of work for a part time course.

I worked out the other week that by the time I get to the end of this, I’ll have spent longer doing some form of MA than it took me to get my BA.

This is because I was on a part-time MA prior to this one ( see my previous post ) which started amazingly well, literally changed my practice, I got distinctions etc. and I would argue, it changed my life. But eventually it turned out to not be for me.

That MA was truly part-time, and to be honest I still found myself filling up all my available time working on it because that’s me. Anxious and creative, and hyper-focused when it comes to something that interests me. That was all on me though. This one? It’s a lot. The workload is high and the expectations are higher, but it’s been incredibly worthwhile. Like the previous MA, it’s also changed my life and my practice, and I don’t intend to change back.

It’s been worth the shell-shock at the end of each module. It’s been worth dealing with academic writing and the dominance of philosophy in photographic academia. Sure it’s present in art in general, but I think there’s something about photography being a young medium that has led to the wider community feeling it has to prove itself. And this has led to a level of ivory tower thinking that I haven’t seen in other disciplines to the same degree; outside of maybe archaeology, and I think it might be for the same reasons. I might write more about this at a later date.

Let's just say it was tough enough wading through Barthes, and Sontag 30 years ago, but now Flusser is in there too, to name only three of many famed photographic academics. It's a lot. I've actually even come to enjoy that aspect of it, although when this is over the balance of academic thinking to practical work will - let’s say - “re-adjust”. (edit: a few weeks later, and nope. It won't. I've decided to do a PhD if I get through this. Sigh).

The way the modules have worked in the past is that there’s a front-loading of information. Research, both academic and visual, is all done early on but the real workload, the finalising of a project and the completion of academic writing assignments, like the Critical Review of Practice happens towards the end.

And again. I always find myself spending the maximum possible amount of time on these things, rather than the sane amount of time. I read and re-read and re-read again, and again. Making changes up to the last minute. I exhaust myself, recover during the thankfully lengthy break and go again.

This time things were different. This module is our last one; the Final Major Project. It’s incredibly exciting. We get to spend about twice the amount of time we usually get to produce a finished, polished project. I’m keen to get cracking on it, but it started the way all our other modules ended. We had two weeks to produce a polished and professional proposal. That proposal is 20% of our final mark and if we get under 50% then we need to go again in 4 months, we don’t get to move forward to the actual work.

It’s surprisingly high pressure and super intense. I’ve never started a module this way before. To be clear I don’t think they could or should do it any other way, but man it’s wild. There's no ramping up to the effort this time. It's straight into a sustained effort and a tight deadline. Now, though, assuming I pass, I'll have 6 months to get the final 80%. That seems positively relaxed, but I know it's not really.

Our proposals are in now, and we’re just waiting for marks and feedback, which is torturous.

One of the things we had to include is a detailed timeline of the next six months. The last thing I wrote in that timeline was “Commence solo photographic practice”. It seemed an important thing to commit to “paper”. That’s the prize at the end of all this for me. I’ve spent years struggling to establish a true practice. A way of working that reliably produces polished and interesting work. A way of working that allows me to build and repeat. There was a time when I wasn’t sure I really understood what a practice was.

Now I know.

Edit: a few weeks later, and I'm through! Did decently well too. Now I've just got replicate that for the main project. 🤞

If you're curious about how this project progresses then please do follow along here, and if you want to know what I'm enthused about (or not) in other parts of life as well as photography, you can find me on bluesky at: @photochronical.bsky.social