Back to my Project....

How "Loch Discourses" came about

When I planned my project with the guidance of Matt, we discussed options which were later discarded, including my idea of "doors" as a subject. I liked the idea because I think that people use their doorways to convey ideas about themselves, whether consciously or subconsciously, deliberately or otherwise. There were many different ways I could see this project evolving, looking at different kinds of doors - internal, external, commercial, houses, museums, churches, cars - the list is endless. I thought I could look at them in terms of their functions as conveying information about their "owners" and about how they operate in spatial terms. However, it was very similar to a previous project and so after much deliberation I decided to opt for "Loch Discourses".

Loch Leven has a new pathway built around it with various information points, rest points and cafe's as well as historical features and areas of natural beauty and interest. There is scope for educational, historical, biological, conservation, environmental and sociological discourse, and probably more that I haven't yet considered.

The methodological considerations I considered included the weather - Scotland being Scotland, and the fact that most of the photographs would be done in early Spring meant that I had to consider how photographs would turn out if the weather was bad. I think photographs are just as feasible whether they contain images of rain or not, but I had to consider that rain could mean poor visibility and light so I ideally needed to take pictures at times when the weather was kinder to the camera!
I also wanted to take photographs which did not have images of people in them, so I chose quieter times to take the photographs, usually nearer the beginning or end of the day (but again I had to bear in mind that I needed adequate light). Then if anyone was in the area I wanted to photograph, I just had to wait until they passed by; this seemed to cover me for any ethical issues and sample considerations.

It could be argued that I chose to take a grounded theory approach because I simply went out and took literally hundreds of photographs of anything that caught my eye in the area and then went on to delete some and select others to categorise into groups.

The equipment I used were 2 digital cameras, each of which belonged to my daughters, but in the end, only one of which I could use as I couldn't get the other to link properly to my laptop. I had a similar problem with the camera on my mobile phone so this piece of equipment was abandoned. Perhaps if I had more technical experience this wouldn't have been a problem. I expected to come up against these kinds of issues because the whole idea of taking photographs to put on a blog is new to me. I hadn't even read a blog before I started this module so it has been a new and enlightening experience for me. I hadn't taken very many good photographs either!

This was the plan I used and developed as I started my project.

Best wishes, Kim