My tutor’s feedback on my third assignment arrived last week and was better than I’d hoped.

I had struggled in the months preceding its submission to find time for the course and the exercises. I was still reading, researching and visiting as many exhibitions as possible, but I’d struggled to see links between the work I was studying and the colour theory in the coursework.

Colour theory makes perfect sense and evidence of it is everywhere once you begin to look. Advertising particularly plays on our inbuilt response to complimentary colours for example, and our natural, primal associations with warm and cool colours. What I struggled with was that the photographers whose work I was seeing hadn’t paid any attention to these theories, instead presenting reality or, when scenes were staged, paying little (apparent) attention to the colours used.

Anyway, the feedback complimented my understanding of the theories and the quality of the work I had produced for the assignment. I was happy to receive positive feedback on this learning (b)log and my independent learning, both of which I felt had been progressing well.

The range of subject matter and genre was appreciated, but there was criticism that I had ‘played safe’ with some familiar themes. This is fair and I realise that my aversion to staged, still-life subjects needs to be challenged rather than shied away from (I’m still recovering from the positioning multiple points exercise!). It is something that I will work on through the fourth section on lighting.

Reflecting on the feedback, I also need to work more logically through the exercises and avoid the temptation to pass over things that I think I am familiar with – these should instead be treated as opportunities to demonstrate my knowledge and abilities. Finally, I must pay closer attention to the assessment criteria when submitting work.

I am looking forward to the next section and despite the large number of exercises, hope to make good progress towards the submission of my next assignment, due on August 10th.