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David Brittain
Photography was invented as a cheap form of print-making, but was destined to inhabit two guises: the hand-made print and the photomechanical copy. Theorists such as Benjamin, saw the radical potential of the latter. The champions of photography as art, however, privileged the manual print because it was said to possess uniqueness and manifest craft.
Today we admire the hybrid practices and products that came from the interaction of these complementary "photographies" - a bewildering variety that encompasses the Life picture essay, the works of Robert Frank and those of Ruscha, Kruger and Feldmann. Photography's "anons" too have become unwitting contributors to the personal projects of magazine editors and designers. Bruce Bernard's "photo discoveries" at the Sunday Times* and Erik Kessel's books** of vernacular photography both straddle the territory of visual editing and curating.
Because this catalogue was partly designed by the contributors, it can be thought of as an extension of their practices - a move from image-making into image editing. The "visual" sequencing chronicles a collective act of problem-solving that grew out of the need to transform this publication from a representation of fragments, separated from their wholes - into a new whole of fragments.
*Bruce Bernard The Sunday Times Book of Photodiscovery, Thames & Hudson, 1980
**In Almost Every Picture published by KesselsKramer, 2001
David Brittain is former editor of Creative Camera, currently AHRB Research Fellow at MIRIAD
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Sue Fox
It is a great joy to teach Photography at M.M.U. I feel that cyclical role reversal as we move between being students of life to that of teacher to one another. The ultimate teacher is truly the one we carry within us, the one who interprets the perceptions of our own hearts.
So many of you have passionately attended the workshops and presentation lectures that we run. Over the months and years new confidence in skills develop, and inimitable ideas arise from your unconscious depths. Presenting your images to an audience always throws up the possible inadequacies of being an artist; of maybe feeling like you are not good enough, of being incredibly nervous or sensing that others do not understand where you are coming from. It is the job of the artist to sew the seeds of a new language, maybe discovering an original technique or founding a new art movement. Why shouldn't you start an artist's revolution?
The studio and equipment is frenetically used as we fast approach the end of year shows. There is always tons of giggling going on as you experiment under the lights naked, cross-dressed, drawn upon, made-up, and sometimes distorted. You all seem to want to learn more than ever and ask for tutorials with great enthusiasm and sometimes in sheer desperation, through the stress of it all. You all have talent for 'looking' and that is why you are here. As seekers of seeing the truth or the lie, you are irrevocably linked with all the artists who came before you and come after you. Think about it. What would you like to leave behind as the sum total of your art? A book? A film? A plethora of photo exhibitions? Imagine the lives of artists who are no longer here. Do you take advantage of their legacies? Do you hunt down their work, study their practises and read about their passions enough to inspire your own? More importantly do you regularly do art? A final thing to say, remember to value your Photography, and never give it up for anybody or anything. Art is your way of knowing things, and gives meaning to your lives. Live long and well, and get that energy going to pursue your creative dreams.
 Sue Fox B.A., P.G.C.E., 2004
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