A creative day...

Weds 15.10.08
An enjoyable and creative day, I needed it! I had to break away from writing the presentation and tweaks to it and decided that photography would yield potential creative outcomes. Today I was able to do something I had planned months ago,
my aim was to photograph specific road markings in a nearby city. The images might be used in connection with the audio for Ken. I had originally planned to do this for two reasons.

Firstly, Ken is an observer, rather than someone who fully participates in life. He doesn’t drive or walk much, just watches. He is often seen outside his house noticing the local gossip and is constantly watching people and traffic in the local village.
The second reason for choosing road markings and lines is to represent Ken’s tone of voice, which is quite flat and ‘grey’. In places Ken’s voice breaks due to old age (wear and tear) the breaks in the lines and the variance in the quality and thickness of paint reflect some of these traits.

Several other links occurred whilst taking the images. Ken’s viewpoint about life is negative and down. A metaphor for this negativity was introducing photographs of drains obviously they lead to sewers my take on it was that they could lead to hell. Ken’s view of others was very bleak, so I found these shots appropriate. I also observed that the lines would be useful to represent changes in pitch, with colours and zig zags reflecting narrator intervention and laughter for the zig zags. Some of the lines faded into nothing, some were bold and present, other lines were worn by the heavy tires running over them.

I reflected on my experience photographing on the beach, when a person walked into view by accident and remembered that this helped the perspective and authenticity of the work. With this in mind, I set out to walk along a street and photograph sections of the road and not be concerned if a car was in shot or not. I also deliberately photographed my feet walking along the road lines and made sure I had tests with and without my feet in view.

During one of the tutorials debate about including the narrator was mentioned. To represent this for Ken’s animation, one single white line could change to a single yellow line. Two yellow lines could represent an overlapping conversation.
Other interesting elements included arrow markings fading or separating and unidentified painted markings (presumably produced by the council) a secret language for the piping, my interpretation of these marking was along the lines of thankless tasks, functions, neighbourhood watchmen, unsung heroes?

Having spent time reflecting on previous work whilst preparing the PDG presentation I was consciously editing and reviewing the photography as I was going along and knew I needed to write about the processes as soon as I could. Reflective practices are becoming more natural and less mechanical or forced.