So I’ll just get cracking, shall I?

So I’m Christi, and I’m starting the remotely taught Photography MA at Falmouth University Just now. I’m very excited by the prospect, I’ve actually wanted to do this for a very long time. I remember talking to Jesse, the course lead, way back in 2017, but I just couldn’t make the numbers work at the time.

I hail, originally, from the far north east of Scotland and forever consider myself a Highlander. Now I live just next to Dunfermline in Fife (still Scotland) and also now consider myself an honorary Fifer. 

The TL;DR:

Dad, photographer working with contemporary archaeological themes (up til now, I hope for a change perhaps), homedad for 17 years, gamer, coffee addict.

The very overly verbose version:

I graduated with a BA(hons) in Photographic Studies in Derby waaaaay back in 1997. Which makes me feel ancient. It was a truly formative period of my life, and it transformed my outlook on the medium and it changed entirely the path of my life, I believe.

Over the years since I’ve been a photography assistant in Edinburgh, a graphic/multimedia/UX designer (for about 12 years), ran my own portrait business – which did fine until a chronic illness which prevents me from carrying heavy gear on a regular basis reared its very ugly head; thankfully my wife has had a good career and could support the ups and downs that befall almost any person with a creative career at some point.

This forced me to do what I’d been wanting to do for a while, which is work as a photographic artist, and work at my own pace. The problem is, my pace is glacial. I go through very long fallow periods, where I might be thinking about work but it takes a hell of an effort to actually go make it. 

My last exhibition was in 2019 and although the pandemic is a massive part of why I haven’t really produced much in the way of good public-facing work since then (it entirely halted my progress towards establishing a practice), I’m very hopeful that this MA is going to kickstart my process again, and I cannot wait to get cracking. 

For all of its wonderful outcomes, I think most of us who went to to Derby around when I did, would agree that we came out with a good understanding of photographic history, analysis, and how to create a project; but not a single clue as to how to establish a practice, to sustain that process. Or perhaps more precisely, how to get that practice to sustain us. That’s why this MA appeals to me. It seems like it’s built to address that precise problem.

Project-wise I seem to have gravitated towards what I now call a “contemporary archaeological” way of working; incorporating an absence of people, telling their stories through the environment and the objects left behind. I still have some unfinished business with some projects I’ve started work on, but there’s a small but loud part of me shouting “time to change!”. I started out working with still-life – I really like the idea of returning to that. Not least because it might fit better with my chronic health issues. 

Throughout most of this time, especially after I got unwell, I was a stay-at-home dad to our daughter (working part time as a designer, or on my business, or my own work), who has just left home this year to go to university herself. To say this was traumatic is not even close! We eventually got used to it though. She’s been home for the winter weeks but returned to uni to start her second term the same day I started the MA, which is nicely symmetrical somehow.

Outside of that I’m a MASSIVE nerd. I love games (currently Baldur’s Gate 3 and Warframe, I particularly like souls-like games and sim-racing – but honestly I love most of it), and technology. I also love motorsport as I was brought up being involved in it from pretty much birth. Coffee, also, is something that I get quite nerdy about. I’m fine with all of it. I own my nerdiness.

So what’s this blog about then?

First and foremost it fulfils the function of a Critical Research Journal (CRJ) for my MA. I’ll be updating regularly with whatever word-jumble falls out of my mind after being exposed to new and challenging subject matter on the course. That part of this blog might end up being fairly structured, formal and academic.

However, that isn’t entirely representative of me and my work, so the plan is (best laid etc.) to post about other things that occur to me. In particular I am just one artist of many for whom chronic illness and a drive to create are in constant turmoil. So I’ll be posting about that – hopefully – and about the methods and tools that I use to to mitigate the chronic part.

That is why this blog is called Photochronical (not chronicle) by the way, spelling police. I’ve deliberately put that tidbit at the bottom to see how many people come along and correct me without reading all the way through!

And sometimes I’ll just post about random stuff. A new coffee gadget maybe, or my new fave game. Things that bring me joy and perhaps things that don’t. So hopefully you’ll join me on my journey. Come for the photo talk, stay for the coffee!