OCA Thames Valley Group Meeting on 21st March 2015

Eleven of us gathered in Thatcham for the day with, for the first time, Jesse Alexander as our attending tutor.

Most of the group had attended last time and so it was good to see how their ideas had developed or changed in direction slightly. What struck me anew was how our own personal stories usually underlay the work we were wanting to produce even though it might not appear so at first sight.

I put forward my idea for Assignment Two of Context & Narrative based around a theme I’d wanted to do since last November. Last November I took a photograph of a girl amongst the crowd at a night showing during the Brighton Photography Festival. The photograph is full of noise, grain and hazy but there is something about it that draws me. I started to think about times when you’re in love or a relationship has ended and you keep thinking you can see that person. Walking along the opposite side of the street; riding on a bus or in their car. Their face haunts you in your dreams but you just can’t reach or touch them. The phrase that came to me was, “I thought I saw you yesterday”.

This stayed in my mind and I even gathered some other images together but they just didn’t seem right until I woke up the Saturday before this meeting with an idea in my head. I would write a story about a relationship that has ended. It lasted all too briefly for the young man and he can’t accept this. I created a blog he was writing for his therapist and an email address for him. I had checked this out with my tutor who thought that the idea sounded in depth and quite interesting but was concerned that it was quite a deep and emotive piece of work that needs some time to develop fully and maybe merited dealing with at a more advanced level. This concept is urging me to continue with it though and so we agreed that I would explore it now as a little foray into the idea.

I explained the concept to Jesse and the group who all agreed that it sounded very interesting, with advice from Jesse to contain it somehow in its creation due to the many possible ways of exploring it.

Off I go then! Thanks everyone in the group for cheering me on with this.

2^nd April 2015