I went to a portfolio review at the Impressions Gallery in Bradford to gain some new opinions and insights into other people’s views of my work. As this was the first one I had done, I was quite nervous as I wasn’t fully sure what to expect! I prepared a collection of approximately 20 prints from my current project, ‘Always’ (working title), and I took a dummy book I had previously created for this project. For the prints, I made sure to take a wide variety of images showing different points throughout the journey of this project.

I spoke to the photographers Shaun Connell and Haneen Hadiy, and I also spoke to a previous Huddersfield alumni, Daniella, who now works at the gallery.

I first spoke to Shaun Connell, who enjoyed looking through my work and gave me advice about creating a photobook, the meaning of the work and plans for after University. In relation to creating a photobook, he told me not to necessarily use my strongest photographs but to use photographs that are going to best depict the story,  excluding images that will not add to this purpose. In addition, he told me to use a select number of images that will allow me to tell the story whilst still leaving questions for the viewer. Although he felt that it was important to leave some questions for the viewer, he felt that the work needs some text, as this will give the viewer some additional information that cannot be told through the images. In regards to the meaning behind the work, he said for me to begin by focusing on telling Nana’s story and then, when I feel I have done this, to move on to think of the wider picture and how I can portray a shareable message within my work. He encouraged me to think of exactly what part of Nana’s story I would like to share, as there are so many details of her life that I could delve into. We then discussed plans for after University, I said that I wanted to try to continue what I was doing but potentially also move into doing family photography. He said to think of possible ways to combine these and make connections with families.

I then went on to speak to Haneen Hadiy. When looking through my work, she pulled out a location image at Castle Hill and said that she felt this shoot was a lot stronger, as it shows a physical effort to take the chair up and position it, and therefore, shows more thought. This image, alongside the collage images, she said were both very strong as other things are introduced and intersections are created. She felt that the intersections were really interesting and that I should explore this in other ways. She suggested a shoot combining Nana’s objects and her textiles and also creating a similar collage-type image but using images of me and Nana. Despite this, she also said not to force images together if it doesn’t feel right; some images need to be alone. She liked the layering using the tracing paper within my dummy book and the effect that this created, saying that it is really important to consider the other senses when creating a book. 

Lastly, I spoke to Daniella, who is a Huddersfield alumni and now works at the Impressions Gallery. We discussed my project and also looked at her work as she did a very similar project for her final year project. She liked the tracing paper within the dummy book and the ability to remove the photographs from the book. We discussed volunteering within the gallery, as she said this way you can experience the work that goes into exhibiting the images. It was really good to speak with someone who has been in the same position and now has a job working at a gallery. 

This was overall a great experience; it was great to network, and I really valued getting external opinions from people who have no relationship to the work. I feel that sometimes it’s easy to get stuck in a rut with work, and this helped to encourage me that my work is strong and gave me some pointers on ways that I can develop this project further. I think my overall takeaway from this event relating to my project is to continue to create intersections between objects, places and photographs and to focus on how I want her story to be told. I also feel that tracing paper is something that I should definitely include within my book as a further way of showing intersections and overlapping. I am very glad I attended this event and pushed myself out of my comfort zone!