After some initial doubt and lack of motivation to adjust this assignment. I decided to go with an image I took myself during my time in Helmand. My first attempt fell at the first hurdle. In all honesty, I had completely no idea what I was writing, how it was to be structured. Most of the books I’ve read now have confused me even more. What this has done is made me understand how I need to look at what is a weakness of mine.
The image used for this is essay is not what you would say as perfect, it’s shooting into the sun, but the point is shown the interaction between the reporter and soldier. This highlights how soldiers can showcase a different side of War than the media can. I hope you can see how I’ve tried to put this across and from the interviews by Channel 4 news team. I never got to see this until I returned home. My family had seen it and was extremely proud of what we had done and in a particularly hard time from friends killed, others with life-changing injuries. Watching it back at times I feel that the media haven’t shown our best side. They can be very clever to manipulate the questions being asked in a way you only have one option to give. You may see how at times I’m trying to be as non-political as possible without saying something I may regret. They started to get on my nerves at times as you could see they had a different agenda than what ours was. Although you will see some good come from the online article there were areas they did not show. Combat is an confusing place to be in, words at times can not describe the emotions and at times the fear you experience first hand when exposed with an enemy force you do not know who they are or where they are coming from. We do owe the media at times a welcomed hand shake and at other times a stern look of discussed when they have shown it in a different way.
Demonstration of technical and visual skills:
Quality of outcome: After a number of rewrites and changes of pictures, I feel I have come on a fair bit. I still have a lot to learn with academic writing.
Demonstration of creativity: Not sure if by using a personal image I’ve been creative as such, though it had given me a chance to use a picture I have a full understanding of.
Context: The essay and the images and film clip bring out the context where I’m trying to show how the media can choose to show what they want if they have the freedom too.
Part Two Context and Narrative BA HONS in Photography OCA 