I&P Final Assessment
Reflective evaluation
I was a little concerned when I realised that much of the course required me to photograph strangers, but it all went surprisingly well, with the help of a supportive and positive tutor.
The centrepiece is 100 Dogs (Assignment 3), where I photographed the dog-owners encountered on my daily Covid Walks. Before that, I had photographed charity shop workers (Assignment 1) and local clergy (Assignment 2), though the latter became as much about the effects of phases of Covid restrictions as the clergy themselves. For the last two assignments I photographed the modern equivalents of the workers in a 1954 I-Spy book (#4) and the modern counterparts of local buildings featured in Old Eltham type books (#5).
Assignments 1-3 were chosen for submission, largely because 4 and 5, while containing some of the most effective photographs made during I&P, include third party imagery (as in fig. A1).
The course measures seem to change every year, from assessment criteria to learning outcomes to the new three criteria (Knowledge, Understanding and Application) but they are gradually becoming clearer and the recent Zoom meeting on Assessments addressed by Edward Smith was a great help.
As regards my progress on the current LOs, these are submitted as four PDFs in the relevant folder and links to the online versions are given below.
L01 Practical – my technique is usually equal to the subjects I set out to represent, although in Assignment 4, my tutor criticised a lack of shadow detail. This caused me to revise my workflow.
L01 is illustrated by:
Exercise 1.3, Portraiture typology
Exercise 2.1, Individual spaces
Exercise 5.1, Still Life
L02 Conceptual – an equally important part of this outcome is to actually generate ideas relevant to the course tasks and then devise ways to realise them. I believe that I have made progress in this area this year, see
Exercise 1.4, Archival intervention
Exercise 3.2, Your personality
Exercise 4.5, Image and Text
L03 Theoretical – the exploration of the work of others, is one of the major attractions of these courses. While I often have no personal interest in following in their footsteps, it is nevertheless fascinating to learn about and come to understand their work and there are inevitable tangential spinoffs that influence my own output, see
Assignment 1 Essay, Defining the Portrait
Exercise 3.3, Reflecting
Assignment 2 Essay, Ownership and Authorship
L04 Analytical – progress in L03 also feeds this outcome as one learns the verbal language of the medium and practices its use. My approach to evaluating of my own work and others’ is gradually being refined and strengthened and I have set a personal objective in future to write at least one full evaluation during each course unit in addition to any course work, see
Course Preamble, Square Mile
Exercise 1.1, Historic Portrait
Exercise 1.2, August Sander
Overall, my studies this year have been better organised and more systematic and my confidence in self expression has strengthened.
I have gradually come to terms with digital submission and my approach has developed through I&P. I believe that the assignment submission (at least the online version, available to the public) should be a complete entity in itself and thus should comprise the brief (perhaps shortened), an introduction, the images and the reflection. All four are necessary for a coherent piece of work and I therefore consolidate these on the submission web page for the casual viewer. This development can be seen through the five online assignment submission pages (links: Assignment 1 – Assignment 2 – Assignment 3 – Assignment 4 – Assignment 5), some of which were reworked.
Similarly, a student’s responses to the tutor feedback is significant. I find that I sometimes fail to express myself precisely enough in the assignment introduction and reflection and therefore have to clarify my meanings and intentions following feedback. I have gradually refined a process of annotating the feedback (links: #1 – #2 – #3 – #4 – #5).
My C&N tutor set me the task of writing a booklet on my coursework and I found this so rewarding that I resolved to make a new one for each course. This will not be completed in time for this Assessment but an online version will be added to the web site when complete and I will follow my usual practice of leaving a few printed copies in relevant locations for the public to find (typically, the bookshops of the V&A, Tate Modern and Turner Contemporary).
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