I was the ears and Hollie the eyes. However, we weren’t together. We took separate journeys. Hers in Lichfield, mine in Kennilworth. Because we live in separate areas we approached this task differently. I personally dislike ‘city life’ and the noise of hearing cars and sirens; I’m from the country and just hearing the wind rustling the trees, for me, is extremely therapeutic. This is what brought me to Kennilworth, I took a friend who prevented me from walking into the river and I just walked, taking in the less urban noise. I told Hollie where I went and which parts of the sound were more poignant to me. She took the visuals to a graveyard, which visually creates a quite haunting addition.
We both wanted to make our own videos to see how we interpret the sounds and visuals differently. Although you can put them together, I feel that just images with sound doesn’t seem like enough. I would like to add another layer of video. The camera would be on a tripod so that the viewer could only just distinguish that it was a moving image and not a still one. I think that this would heighten suspense perhaps and help marry the soundscape with the photography.
You can see mine here:
Update: December 2013
Listening to sounds, beyond what we allow them to hear in day to day life is difficult. November 22nd, I went to St Andrew’s primary school in Lincolnshire and did a Phonar workshop with them. My plan can be viewed HERE (as a Google Doc) with my comments beside evaluating the day. In short, I asked them to tell the stories they could hear with their eyes. This was hard for them: being brought up as complete digital natives makes it more difficult for them to use solely their ears. They’re brought up touching screens and few other textures: asking them about textures of the leaves underfoot was difficult for them to understand. However, we got there and produced some great work. I also asked them to tell a story of a journey through a different perspective, my favorite being the ‘fox’ by two girls in the class.
KateGreenPhotography 