Week 4 Reflection

To say the week had been difficult is an understatement. Having tested positive for COVID at the beginning of the week I was unable to take any photographs to further my project. Having to self isolate, pull the children out of school and organise remote teaching for my A level students.

The early stages of my self isolation I was lucky to be contacted by Colin McPherson who kindly sent me a recording of a previous webinar he took part in by Document Scotland. Aside from the king gesture, the webinar was very useful in furthering the philosophical approach to my project. Uncomfortable with the label of being a ‘groundhopper’ McPherson (2020) speaks of his approach to photographing football, stating his intention is to ‘recreate his own memories’ of playing the game. A comment which aligns well as a summary for my project as opposed to groundhopping.

In engaging with this approach I feel a certain type of coming of age regarding the ownership of my work. Shooting as a result of my own thoughts and experiences and decisions. Making work that isn’t the result of something I feel I should photograph. Working with the trust of personal impulse and making work that I feel connected to.

In addition to cracking on with the reading I contacted several football clubs who didn’t respond with regarding photographing at their club. This was frustrating however I persevered and eventually arranged to shoot at Cheadle Town FC FOR the weekend. The lack of interest in my work is perhaps not so surprising due to one club having their maximum attendance reduced as a result of photographs being published on social media, the contents illustrating breaches in social distancing.

In order to make the best of the self isolation period, I decided to take photographs of my step son and photoshop him into scenes from google maps of the football stadiums that Stockport County would have been playing at. This has been met with positive feedback on social media and if anything is raising my profile on a local level.

The images were met with humour at the weekly webinar which was the intention. However, now I have started I will continue to produce these on a weekly basis and when I have completed the season I will make a decision what I will do with them. The advice my tutor gave was to continue without being too concerned with making them look realistic as the strength is in the idea. My experience of making them is that, in trying to encompass my step son within the environment makes the images look banal. Making him do things such as eating a hot-dog brings more fun to the mini project.