Typical?
One of the things that you learn very rapidly when you join the OCA staff is that there is no such thing as a ‘typical OCA student’ – students come a huge variety of backgrounds and with widely different levels of prior experience and different expectations of what studying with the OCA can bring to them. Despite this, it never ceases to surprise me and when tutor Sam Henderson emailed me to say that one of her students, Richard Thorn, had had some photographs published in the Irish Times I was interested. When I read that Richard was arguing the case for a West of Ireland ‘blueway’ I was intrigued. And even more so when I read that Richard had previously been head of an HE College in Ireland, the Sligo Institute of Technology. I decided to ask him what attracted him to studying for a photography degree:
For one reason or another I have been taking photographs for as long as I can remember; as a small boy when I travelled (my father worked all over the world as an engineer) for teaching purposes (I started professional life as a geologist), for family as my children were growing up and, more recently, to complement my passion for scuba diving. However in recent years I became vaguely dissatisfied that I was not growing and developing in the art of photography. I found that I wanted to move from taking snapshots to making images and I sought to try and find ways to change this state of affairs. I took a number of short courses and doing this convinced me that I needed to find a more structured way of developing as a photographer.
And why the OCA:
In Ireland, whilst there are a number of reputable photography degrees, they are all traditionally offered (full time institution-based) and because of work commitments and where I live (the west of Ireland) these courses were not suitable. I have been extensively involved in the design, development and delivery of distance education courses and also studied a masters in management by distance in mid-career so I was well disposed to studying a course by distance learning. Following an extensive search I found OCA’s course and the only question in my mind was the appropriateness of the course and the reputation of the college. I was able to use my contacts in higher education in the UK to satisfy myself about the College’s reputation and, having looked at samples of the course materials, I was very happy to sign up.
And how it’s going:
At this stage I am well stuck into the Art of Photography module, learning new things every day I pick up the camera, open a book, look at an image afresh or write a learning (b)log or reflection and, all the time, getting great support and encouragement from my Tutor Sam.
I know very little about Organ Pipe Worms (above) or Light Bulb Sea Squirts (below) but I can spot a motivated student when I see one and wish Richard every success with his studies. We are always interested in how students find out about us and their decision-making processes before they commit themselves, so please tell us your stories in the comments below.
12 thoughts on “Typical?”
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As a tutor I find it rewarding and fascinating how over time a student reveals about their life through their work and “conversations” via email. It can often be valuable to draw upon the connections with a student and the knowedge of their fuller life to motivate and encourage new directions and provoke new ideas.When so much of our creative practice taps into our individual experience an understanding of biography can help identify strong therads to work with.
Two things spring to mind…
1 I’ve just got to find out what the light bulb thingies do to get that name…
2 He says ‘after an extensive search I found OCA’s course’, ooer, surely we should be easier to find than that shouldn’t we?
I find this fascinating. I have had a life long love of natural history and macro photography. I was put off studying photography because this kind of work seems to have no place in academic courses, including OCA. Indeed, recently, there was a Coffee Shop blog discussion which concluded, in effect, that nature photography had no place in The Art of Photography. This sticks a pin on the end of a stick and jabs it into that balloon. How pleasing!
Perhaps I am on the wrong course then:-)? I take solace from Robert Adams’ perspective when he says that art is too important to confuse with interior decoration and that is real use is to ‘…to keep intact an affection for life’ – I also take that to mean, for me, a sense of wonderment. However, I am rapidly learning that it is not sufficient to know how to make a technically good image of something, even underwater, that, IMHO, has intrinsic beauty and that enables me to retain ‘an affection for life’. If I wish to grow and develop as a photographer I need first to understand why I wish to make of it an image – and that is difficult as I am finding out.
A brochure for OCA fell out of a magazine I subscribe to (Selvedge). At the time I was planning far ahead for a trip from Australia to Holland and Belgium to see ‘in the flesh’ C17th paintings. I thought how much more I could gain from my trip if I knew a little more about the period and the artists. When I visited the OCA website I was impressed, and particularly pleased by the survey content of Understand Western Art 1 so I enrolled. I completed the first year in April and had a wonderful trip to Europe in September, which was greatly enriched by my coursework. Before retiring recently I was a freelance technical copyeditor with no art education. I was grateful for the encouragement and meticulous advice of my tutor, Allison.
How refreshing that some tutors encourage use of underwater photography in the OCA – I’m pretty glad to be coming to the end if the art of photography as I’ve found it creatively stifling at times – and my tutor is encouraging me not to submit anymore underwater work even though that is where my passion lies.
I saw an early reflection by Suzy in which the issue of the number of underwater images had been raised. I have been careful 🙂 not to include too many of mine. In any event underwater photography came late to me so I have as strong an interest in non-underwater images.
For me it was an extensive search too. Not because you were hard to find, but because I naturally thought of looking geographically close to me first. Not least because I live in London where the choice is mindboggling.
I was looking for a textile course that was different. It was not about learning particular techniques(or only on the way to something else) and it was not going to tell me what to make. One that would allow my inner creativity to be in play.OCA was the only one I could find like this. So it’s lucky that it also fits into my life!
I have found, to my delight, that it is very much what I had hoped, as well as being well thought out and organised.
I too am finding it interesting to meet other students and see where they come from, Richard Thorn’s story is very interesting .
I don’t know if I fit the typical student or even have an interesting story in that I have been a professional photographer for 35 years. I have shot for The Times, The Sun, The Express, Rank Cinemas, Barclays, Harrods, about 2000 brides and about 10 000 families.
But that’s all commercial photography and after 35 years I decided I wanted to do something else. Photography is a massive world, I don’t think a lot of people realise. The film sliding doors starring Gwyneth Paltrow is a film about where a London woman’s love life and career both hinge, unknown to her, on whether or not she catches a train. The film shows her life both ways, in parallel. I think in photography i’ts the same.
But unlike Palthow’s character we can’t really do that, have both lives. Recently I spent a day with Daniel Meadows, Daniel if you do not know of him trained with Martin Parr, when I was with Daniel, Martin emailed him so they are still in touch 40 years later.
On leaving college Daniel bought a bus and drove around England for a year photographing strangers. I wrote an article on my visit which I will link to in this message rather than repeat it here.
My parallel is that I also bought a bus. I employed 16 people at the time including 4 photographers and we shot 150 portrait shoots a week, in people’s homes. The idea was that we would park the bus on an estate and they would come to us. But having converted it and got it to an estate and having booked 29 shoots for its first day it rained torrentially and no one came over, the project failed.
A few years back after I had closed the business and our three children had all gone off to university so we decided to have another child, we are now in our fifties and she is now 8. We also sold the house and set off on a tour of England in a motorhome. But it was purely holiday and I shot very few images.
Looking back I would have really enjoyed a year in a bus photographing strangers. I did not go to university, I got a job on a local newspaper as a press photographer when I was 17. It was the Easter holidays and I intended going back to school but enjoyed the job so much I asked for the monday off so I could pop into school and tell them I was not returning. I am not sure who was more surprised, the chief photographer or the school or me!
So I am kind of doing things the wrong way around, work followed by university, even though it’s OCA, aka long distance. I am finding a different world of photography to what I have known. I like Martin Parr’s work but I mentioned it to a friend the other day, someone I have known for 40 years since we were school and someone who also went into newspapers and he said he hated it. I am starting to wonder what photography I would have shot over the years if I had stayed at school rather than walk into the newspaper. Possibly non and maybe I would have got a job as an architect as I planned and earnt some proper money lol
Wow, sorry that was so long
http://www.stewwall.com/meadows/1.pdf
http://www.stewwall.com/meadows/2.pdf
http://www.stewwall.com/meadows/3.pdf
I also find it fascinating how certain events, often chance ones, can lead us in particular directions. We could have had so many alternative lives, some of which would have earned us more money, but some which may well have led to something worse than we have now. It would be an interesting study for an artist to make, exploring the hypothetical alternatives.I lived in Spain for a while many years ago. I left because I had run out of scholarship money and was having difficulty finding suitable work. The day before i left, i got offered a job teaching in an art institution. i had to turn it down. I often imagine that I took it and am still living in Madrid. I picture my flat, I conjure up a social life and allow my life to unfold soap opera like. If i had taken it would I then have imagined a life back home?
Gareth,
I did a course with OCA about 25 years ago (I think. Maybe it was someone else?), after leaving Uni and starting work as a research and development manager. At school I had to give up art to study science because the curriculum didn’t allow for both, and so I’ve spent the last 25 years dabbling and doing summer school classes, with the odd exhibition along the way. I found the summer schools were great at developing technical skill, but that I didn’t feel like an artist because I was ‘outside’ the academic art world.
A few years ago I finally decided to quit my job and study art with the goal of making my living as an artist. I came across OCA again in Artist & Illustrator magazine – and the idea of continuing to work and earn while getting a BA appealed.
I was working in China at the time – so I managed to complete all three level 1 courses from the other side of the world using a blog to submit work to my tutors. While doing level 2 I lived in Singapore, Spain, and now UK – which just goes to show how ‘portable’ the courses are! I finally plucked up the courage to quit my job and will complete level 3 as a ‘full time’ student so that I can really immerse myself.
All in all I think its going to be about 4 1/2 years to complete the degree. For about half of that time I’ve continued to work which has made the financial risk very manageable. I’m pretty certain there is no other institution that could have given me such flexibility and allowed me to manage the costs of study so well.
The big challenge, of course, is scheduling the time when you are working. I found that level 1 flew by and I completed all three courses in 15 months, maybe because I’d previously done so many summer schools, and I was able to devote most weekends to study. But Level 2 was much more challenging ( I moved country three times!), and I have taken 2 1/5 years to complete that level. The beauty of OCA is that every course is flexible, so I could manage my complicated life and still study on a time frame that suited me.
Like some of the previous students, I find that the benefit of studying for a degree is that I get to question my own desire to create art. I’m going into level 3 with much more clarity on that question – and am excited about spending time experimenting and exploring in order to bring my personal vision to life.
I feel like the ‘other’ side of myself is now getting a clear voice, and that I will graduate with an understanding of how my practice fits into the continuum of art history. I don’t think I would be so confident in myself as an artist if I had tried to get to the same place without studying at degree level.
A long time ago, in a previous millennium and in a place far far away (Barnsley), I enrolled in ‘The Art of Photography’ with a newly formed organization called the Open College of the Arts. At that time I had no notion to study for a degree, I had been a photographer for many years previous, but wanted to stretch my knowledge, comprehension and skills in a craft form that had engaged my creative spirit. Work and life got in the way and I dropped out. The millennia ticked over by one and I tried and failed again to gain traction, there might be lots of reasons but I think I wasn’t ready to engage as an Art student, though the courses in those days were more craft based than they are now. As an ‘amateur’ I have been published in various magazines, books and exhibited many times, my work is hanging in a number of places. But I always felt there should be more to it than providing images for others to enjoy, I wanted to find a way to express myself meaningfully about topics that concern me and to which I might find some personal resolution
Finally, a couple of years ago I managed to find the focus and time (I am now retired) to enroll again with the OCA to become a student of the art of photography. Now studying at Level Two, it is everything, and more, of what I would have hoped for. A challenging and structured course that will hopefully provide me with the tools to engage with myself and in a medium that I have been on the periphery of for many years.