Introduction and Background
I am Senior Lecturer on the MA Commercial Photography 2024/25 course.
I joined in university initially to help cover a member of staff who had been unwell, I subsequently joined on a permanent contract. I have for the first time had the opportunity to deliver a full unit on the curriculum across a variety of briefs. Each brief challenges the students to adapt to multiple creative outcomes and experiment within their own practice. (MACP Course Handbook Attached)
Evaluation
My teaching practice is formed on the belief of not siloing commercial photography in its traditional sense for example Advertising and Fashion but to bring into the fore the importance of Fine Art and Editorial practice which is underpinned by personal work. Victor Mathieu Guy Moullin,(2017)
I believe that this impact on areas of engagement and understanding the tangible impact of personal authored practice that is necessary for the students in the future for preparing them for industry that bridges a divide between geographical regions brings excellence to their practice. I want to encourage diversity in the work they make that encompasses their personal backgrounds offering the students a creative, collaborative and cohesive learning experience that both challenges their perceptions of their work and builds confidence in them.
Moving Forward
Setting FMP Brief ( MACP Course Handbook attached )
Lectures in Person – In April 2025 in preparation for the Final Major Project (FMP) I will deliver the briefs using a “six degrees of separation “format using
Social media and Video platforms that have interviews with leading practitioners both in short and long form, tear sheets from magazines and advertising outputs from my own archived research.
For example, identify a photographer whose primary practice is fine art.
Showing their personal practice using their published books and exhibition installations. This will then lead into how the artist markets their work using “the shop window of editorial magazines “that provide a much wider audience especially the editorial outlets that the creative industry uses as benchmark spaces. From here I want to show how a fine art project is then translated into the commercial world. This would include all geographical regions.
Symposium
To support LO1, LO2 and LO3 I will develop a symposium about the multifaceted approaches used by practitioners, gallerists, curators, commissioners and agents which are applied across the various photography eco systems providing a research and practical skills emphasis for the students to have as a toolbox.
As part of the symposium an OBL activity will be introduced to the students.
A practitioner would bring in a series of objects from their books, work prints and portfolios
The students will be able to view, touch and interrogate display methods and how these communicate. https://imakebooks.cargo.site/Cait-Oppermann-Portfolio
Wales Bonner Publication see attached.
In Mida and Kim’s (2015) guide to object-based research, The Dress Detective, object centred research is about “learning to look” and promotes “slow looking” through a pathway described as observation, reflection and interpretation.
1 to 1 Optional tutorial Online
A structure is already in place using Teams software as an extension of soft teaching, I will use my experience as practitioner in industry and
offer students support in professional development and research skills I employ across my practice that encompasses the cross cultural and commercial environment.
References
The Impact of Commercial and Artistic Photography on the Portrayal of Reality
Moullin, Victor Mathieu Guy, 2017
Mida I., Kim A. (2015). The dress detective: A practical guide to object-based research in fashion. Bloomsbury.
