The personal statement, for a photography course none the less. From what I understand, I need to talk about my skills, qualities, experience, reasons for the chosen subject, interests and do all of this in a creative and informative way. Here are some guidelines from UCAS. You might think after spending the last two years writing essays that this should be easy! Lets see, I can break this down into three paragraphs I think:
1. Introduction – What do I want to study, specifically, in photography.
2. Why – Why do I want to study that area? Study at all?
3. What qualities, skills, experience can I offer and do they fit (and where) with the chosen subject area?
I have written one of these before so I have a good starting point with the above, I did also include this website address and think I should do this again since it shows these things and the responses the last time were positive.
Setting out the plan: 4,000 characters and on the form that’s about 47 lines of text, including blank lines. I estimate this to be about 650 words or an A4 typed page.
Paragraph one:
Area’s of interest: artistic, abstract, social documentary. I think I need to break that down further.
Artistic: reference to photographers, Irvin Penn for portraits that communicate something unknown about the subject and the artist.
Abstract: Mention Meatyard and Michels and how they try to represent the bizarre, they are almost ‘Dali like’ but interested in how photography can be abstract expressionism. Why does that appeal? Barnet Newman and Frank Stella from a previous interest in art.
Social Documentary: Nick Danziger, perhaps the first photographer to hit the spot with me about what photography can do, note that this is not on the curriculum but from my own interest in current affairs. I first noted the work on Danziger from his reporting from Iraq. I also enjoy the works of Eugene Atget and see the historical importance of his work, how he was a commercial photographer making documentaries of his area and how that came to be seen as abstract art later in the century through the revisiting of his work by Berenice Abbott (who was an artist in her own right) and others critical analysis. This led me to see the importance of the critic.
I think I see where I’m heading.
Paragraph two:
Why the area, and reasons for study. I think this is the difficult part.
Although some of this will have been answered in the first paragraph I think it is still worthwhile adding a little more here, though thinking about how this will flow it may well be better to write one two paragraphs and include more depth in the first about reasons. This will probably be more natural. None the less I’ll write here about reasons and maybe change it when I attempt the first draft.
Photography is a medium that can represent many different things in many different ways and have multiple meanings and it is this that I’m interested in, meaning. As with any language, pictures portray meaning individually and collectively. Walker Adams is a fine example here taking pictures that seem natural but might not be of people in desperate economic situations showing them as people whose hard lives show in the things they do, the clothes they wear, the smiles that do and don’t have. At the other end my my own personal spectrum of photographers are the abstract expressionists portraying something about how they see the world and how it could be, not necessarily how it really is even though they are taking pictures of real and actual things/events.
Paragraph three:
Personal skills qualities and experiences.
I don’t really need to write about these things here but needless to say I will write about theatre work with lighting, meeting deadlines, a little about the commercial shoots and pictures sold. I think the focus really should be about showing I will be committed to the university, the subject and be able to cope with the work. So add things along the lines ability to prioritise, collaboration, individual working, initiative (Making the film whilst at Trinity Arts Centre will be good for this.)
Link interests to the subject, as outlined, about interest in current affairs and Nick Danziger. Art and its movements. Interest in computer design/digital art, perhaps finish off with url to website to show works off?
Follow
 |
 |
 |  |  |
| 
|