After an extended length of time working through Part 1 eventually submitted my ‘Both Sides Of The Story’ assignment to my tutor. The feedback [1] I received was encouraging and supportive even though my intention for the assignment was deemed not to be hugely successful. Significantly I enjoyed the process and was keen to take on board what was said and move on to Part 2 of the course.
The first aspect that I needed to attend to was the organisation of this website. My tutor said I had too many duplicate posts and the design of the menu structure made it difficult to make sense of the content. I remedied the issues immediately after the session and the changes are now in place. Posts are now found in a single menu location and also within single categories.
I was pleased that my tutor appreciated the research, development and context work I had put in to part one and the assignment.
Although he felt my assignment idea was fine but he felt it did not convey my intention. If they were to be journalistic then each image needed to convey the story I was telling. His observation on my first ‘Labour’ image was that it didn’t actually provide a pleasant scene, in fact he felt the opposite. The ‘Blue’ set were regarded as the more successful set of the two which I agreed with.
One key intention I had was to include people in the images. I was commended for trying this and was informed how difficult it was to capture expressions by getting in and close to people. Ultimately he felt these were the least successful images. Observations included feeling that people walking out of the frame conveyed a negative feeling. Additionally it was his opinion that the lady I thought was smiling happily actually conveyed a tense/stressed feeling. It was interesting to note how two people can view an image and draw different conclusions. The important learning aspect for me was that I had had the experience of meeting her and brought more context to it than someone viewing the stand alone image on a learning log.
Overall I had a positive feeling about the work I was doing and my progress on the new module. I understood what my tutor was saying and could see his point of view. I was relieved to get this first session done as I was apprehensive about starting a new working relationship with a new tutor.
References:
Martyn Rainbird 