It's all about the work: Why I won't be pursuing a Masters in photography.

Some of you may know that I've recently been considering going back to university to pursue a Masters in Photography. I've been agonising over it endlessly, but I've finally made my mind up, I will not be pursuing it further. I've got to offer some big thanks to everyone for their kind advice and help, particularly Paul Gaffney and Tom Wilkinson who have given me full, honest and unbiased accounts of their experiences.

It's been one of the hardest decisions I've had to make in recent years, but when I weighed everything up, it comes down to my photography. It's always about the work for me, it's the centre of my life, a point around which all else resolves. And I've passed the point in my artistic life where I'd derive significant benefits from an MA.

It boils down to this; how much am I already the ’reflective practitioner’ that is the end game of a Photography MA? Call me arrogant, call me naive, but I think I've already achieved that, at least to a degree. (If you'll forgive the pun!). A few years ago I would have benefited, I can see that now, but at that time I could neither afford the time nor the expense. In some ways I regret the missed opportunity because I'm sure it would have been enjoyable and intellectually stimulating. But there's also the quiet inner satisfaction that I've already achieved that goal. I've already developed a substantial critique of photography, and in particular landscape photography, of myself, who emerged from that genre. In many ways there's not much an MA would offer me, except perhaps the ability to express these things better, more clearly. Yet as much as I enjoy reading and writing about photography it is peripheral, it's not, for me, the end game. It's about the work.

Photography isn't a hobby, not something I do to escape the world, and it's not a career, it is a precious part of me, a way I define myself. Most of my non-photographic friends can't quite grasp this, but you'll just have to trust me. It's about the work.

None of this means I will stop learning or stop developing. It was many years ago that I passed the point where I realised the more you know the more you recognise there is to know. Rather than closing a door, these ruminations have revealed a bright, hopeful future of more self-directed research, thought and questioning. And in each new series I've realised, in part, I remake myself anew. I also appreciate the answers aren't to be found elsewhere; they have become questions only I can answer, and perhaps only I will ask. I'm too far down the road, too mature as an artist. It really is all about the work and I'm doing that anyway.

A whole unlovely order that night would transubstantiate, lend some grace to.
Mametz Wood. 

Meaning in photography is a slippery subject to pin down

Meaning in photography is a slippery subject to pin down; it's like trying to define ’thinking’. Yet I'm still convinced it's a necessary element, no matter how vaguely or with what art or artifice it is presented to the viewer. It's about fleshing out our pictures so they are beyond the trivial record, beyond the postcard of ’I was here’.

Meaning does not depend on narrative. There must be a narrative, but it could be internal, within the photographer’s mind rather than expressed explicitly as a story within the picture(s). Meaning is as much about the meeting of minds, the shared experience as it is about storytelling itself. The crook of the matter is in the quality of that shared experience, whether it gives pause for thought or is a one dimensional, often purely emotional, response.

Meaning doesn't preclude emotion, it's important to assert the legitimacy of a connection, but it can be diluted by emotion, until it is unrecognisable. This isn't an argument for restraint, but to give due consideration to all the elements and facets within an image and not to rely on one element alone.

Photography without some degree of meaning is probably virtually impossible. Even without the intent to say something a photograph can, and sometimes will, be interpreted for it's meaning by someone, somewhere. It's all too easy to fall into the trap of assuming the multitudes of photographs that are shared are meaningless, or trivial because of their sheer volume.

Yet, if we are to define a photographer as beyond a 'camera operator’, as someone who exerts some control of not merely the technical aspects, but also the intent of the image, then some degree of construction of images becomes inevitable.

Constructing an image sounds artificial, it sounds like it detracts from the immediate response. Yet all images are constructed to some extent whether it be the simple response to document a moment or by repeating a visual response to a scene that one has seen before. Simply by choosing what we photograph we construct an image. The secret lies in the qualities of the construction.

If we stop to consider how and why photographs are constructed then we are well on the way to becoming a photographer in the fullest sense. But it is only when we stop to consider the 'how and why and what' in our own work that we achieve the full realisation of that title.

How then do we exert some degree of control over the meaning of an image or a series of images? It is partly about editing what we photograph and partly about how and why we photograph. In simple terms the elements within a frame can be arranged to infer meaning, but this is difficult to achieve unless we are aware of what it is we want the image to say. Thinking about what we want to achieve before we even pick up a camera creates a framework through which we can exercise discretion over what and how we photograph. If we have an idea about what we want to say we can start to decide what to photograph and how to photograph it to convey that message.

The quality of that thinking process is extremely important. It is remarkably easy to construct a simple, one-dimensional concept, but to construct one which will have lasting depth is the work of a lifetime. The work of a poet or a composer and a photographer are not dissimilar, we all look for the tiny resonances that can lead to a bigger picture.

Your fair natures will be so disguised that the aspect of his eyes will pry like deep-sea horrors divers see.