Tutorial reflection

After a brief discussion with my tutor about my work I then had another tutorial with my second tutor - I took some very negatives things from the response at first. My second tutor (Janet) outlined some areas which I needed to improve - one point being that I had not researched enough around the subject of photography and the different techniques used and artists' work. Basically she said that the photographic pieces I had done were very simple to do and did not require much consideration - this was not entirely true as I had to plan out a lot of pieces:
 - Working with altering colours/tones
 - Changing the sizes
-  Reducing the noise/brightness/contrast/sharpness (which was difficult)
- Deciding what layering effect to work with
-  Deciding on the different material to print onto and experiment with

 I was a little crushed but I had to admit that she was partially right - in the sense that I had not looked in depth at photography artists and theire techniques/exhibitions/inspirations etc. Although I do have some information on photography pieces by artists that influenced my choices in my photography editing, also pieces that inspired me and captured aspects of organic materials and nostalgic atmospheres.
She also spoke about how I had lost myself in the subject matter - I am a nature person so I believe I got a little distracted by the facts/literal sense of nature rather than focusing on the art. However, as an artist I like to have a broad spectrum of a subjectm - it helps me focus on specific aspects further down the line. I wanted to delve into nature to see which areas I wanted to portray.

Anyway, I have decided to take her advice and research more - I am in the library looking at photography books that touch on organic subjects yet I am also looking at photography in general. The techniques and effects; the visual aspects of some of the pieces are very interesting and give me ideas for my practice. Trying to get excited about an artist's work - so far it is exhilerating to just flick through  massive books full of photography and reading about the artists' work.

I have also decided to look more at the method of collage - using layering still but also working manually with different mediums on top of my photographic images. I want to explore materials a lot of more and what effects I can portray - hence the discoveries in the library. Janet suggested that I try not get too hung up on the subject of my project (life cycles, transitions, natural elements) and see that my work in itself is exemplifying transition - a change from one thing to another.