As I have continued to make work and further my project, opening up new avenues and intentions. The idea of producing a photobook at this time feels almost impossible. Technically I have the skills to produce a photobook, and I could produce a product in the style of a catalogue of images however I don’t really believe that this would represent the evolution of my work accurately. At present, my project has evolved from a form of activism to a socially engaged project to a narrative based idea which faces outward to a highly personal narrative exploring the grief of losing my father using our experiences to produce a series of metaphorical images. The main problem in adapting to this level of change for me has been creative thinking and research in addition to the process of confronting some raw emotions that I haven’t dealt with in the last 5 years. 

Dealing with powerful emotions, although difficult, I feel necessary to challenge, not just for the purpose of the MA but for my personal wellbeing. Engaging with this process is slowly beginning to deconstruct the feeling of numbness that I think I have experienced for the last 5 years. Sometimes taking joy from the memories, occasionally becoming overwhelmed with sadness at the realisation that my Dad is gone forever. The whole experience is very strange and I can’t help but think that I should have experienced these emotions years ago. It makes me feel a bit thick or stupid that mentally I was unable to process my thoughts and feelings earlier. 

The negative feelings that I am experiencing translate into the current module as I feel like I am getting behind with the set tasks and to suggest that opening up to my own emotions as being a reason for getting behind with my work isn’t really a appropriate. On several occasions I have sat down with the intention of producing a product but was unable because I simply hadn’t finished gathering my thoughts. Let alone produce a powerful narrative which this project deserves. In the previous module I begun to explore the idea of photography as poetry in addition to looking at the work of Alec Soth, specifically his book Niagara. As a result, the impact of the power of a photographic narrative has hugely affected me and I would describe myself as currently in a hyper sensitive state. And the process of transferring such emotions and attempting to translate that into a narrative is proving to be a time consuming business. I feel like I could produce 15 images of empty space in order to represent the difficulty in computing so many emotions that they render a state of uselessness.  

Going forward, I am going to continue work as hard as I possibly can in order to get to the end goal of producing a photobook. But at this time I need to reevaluate my intentions and focus on taking baby steps with my progression. In the coming days I will assess the work I already have and attempt to forge into a narrative. That will help in the identification of what is missing from my work which will enable the creation of yet another roadmap to expressing my thoughts and feelings towards the tasks in hand.