Last month I received official confirmation. I now have a Master’s Degree in Photography from the University of Gloucestershire.
I started studying back in September of 2021, and I’ve really pushed myself to experiment with both my practice and my thought process. I hoped that doing an MA would help me understand the work I make for myself, and what it is that drives me. That I would find a theory that would explain ‘everything’.
Doing the course proved to be hard, time-consuming, rewarding, insightful, expensive, and good value all at the same time. The work I’ve made has been about something rather than of something, which has been a refreshing if challenging change of direction.
Completing the MA hasn’t cured me of the imposter syndrome that has dogged me throughout my career, but I’m coming to terms with that, it’s just who I am, and it probably makes for better work. Even so I can hear the influence, the confidence that stems from the work I’ve done, when I talk to clients.
My final project was an exploration of life and time, on spaces, our impact upon them, and on legacy and change. Witness Marks, took the form of a series of photographs made in and around a particular house. These were then presented at my first solo show at The Artery back in December.
I must like working hard because I also made a book (in two editions), and published a website for the project as well.
Hanging Witness Marks, and the Opening Night – Video by F8 Creates
Portfolio & Paperback Edition
Sex Worker’s Chair – Umbria 2016
At some point during my second year I gave up on finding a ‘unified theory’ of photography on the basis that seemed a little ridiculous. The irony is that abandoning the search helped me find the thing I wasn’t looking for.
Witness Marks embodies an area of enquiry that I’ve been orbiting, albeit in a piecemeal way, for the last ten years. In a very broad sense it unifies my brief time as an Urbexer with my travel photography, my reportage and storytelling projects with the pictures I take of the interns. A more focused application of the same theory unites the disparate work that I consider my ‘arts’ practice.
Yard – Perth 2024
Much like a long flight, while I was on it, the MA felt all encompassing, interminable and at times insurmountable. Now, as I claim my baggage from the carousel with a sleepy and slightly dazed expression on my face, it feels like it went by in a flash.
I started looking at MA Photography Courses over a decade ago. I’ve toured multiple institutions and met with lecturers. I waited for a part-time place to open up on one course for two years. I rode the pendulum back and forth as to whether it made sense to do one for about seven years and now I’ve done it. It feels very strange, good, but strange.
You can see the project website for Witness Marks at www.witnessmarks.photo, the very interested among you can see my process documentary blog at www.jamesgreenoff.photography.
