Category: SQA Higher

Brave New World

So I went out to the recently reopened Riverside museum and it was abit of an exerience compaired to the last time I was there in late November 2019 (all of 8 months ago). Last time it was teeming with people as you can see in the photos I took for my Higher Project. Of course, I was also there for fun when I wrote this post all about it in March 2019.

If you had told me back in March, or even November, that it would have about a third of the usual number inside, no cafe, no museum shop, and that you would need to book in advance…. well I would probably have laughed.

It really is a whole different world to the one that shut up shop in March this year.

Meanwhile, out on the streets….. I had a meet up with some of the guys from my Higher class and we had a bit of a walk about. It’s always good to get out and see other humans these days

SQA Higher Photography

In a decision that I made what seems like many moons ago, really it was only last year, I started studying at night school for my Higher. The work builds up into a year-long project and an exam. Of course covid-19 stepped in and the exam was cancelled, so I have no idea how that would have worked out. The project, however, is half finished and the photos mostly unshared. I kept the photos quiet while I was working but it’s time to share what I did work on.

So it was called People Make Glasgow…. Oh that sounds familiar, you say? Yes, I’ll admit it was a shameless theft of the toursim catchphrase. It did give rise to an interesting set of images as I went out to find “people”. I didn’t manage to get the final set of images so I’ll share some for my favourites from the shoots I did manage to complete. The whole project was about 2 shoots short of a full set.

2 of the shoots were attempts at street photography. The city centre at night – Halloween night to be exact, and Pollok Park and SEC craft fair. I got quite into these shoots.

The next shoot was a marathon of a single day. Riverside Museum in the morning and the Style Mile Christmas Carnival in the afternoon. This yielded a lot of images and a fair few that would probably have made it into the final line up. It was brilliant trying to catch images as the parade went past in manual mode, that was a challenge.

Over the month of December I centred on the Christmas markets in George Square. It was a challenge to get images handheld in the darkness.

My mojo kinda left me after Christmas for a bit and the next thing the world had changed from under us. I took my camera with me to work at an office in the city centre for the final week before the lockdown started. Then it was empty streets and lines outside supermarkets and pharmacies. For a project that had people at heart it got very complicated.

Eventually word came through that we wouldn’t be submitting anything of the project for external assessment. So it has been gatering dust since.

The results arrived last week under a storm of issues. The SQA were taking the teachers/tutors grades and downgrading some of them based on the outcomes of the place where you studied. I got very lucky, my grade remained what my tutor submitted. I got an A.

Lockdown

So unless you are very lucky, live in a limited number of places on Earth or are an alien you’ll have heard of COVID-19. Also known as the coronavirus it’s been causing utter havoc for everyone. It’s really no surprise as a photographer who loves museums and people filled locations that the amount of shots I have taken has dramatically reduced. The SQA higher I was studying for has also fallen on stony ground.

On the 20th March I effectively stopped going out and entered lockdown like most of the country. I’m not a key worker as I work as an office temp and it’s not really a job you can do from home so I’ve been twiddling my thumbs, or a better way of putting it, furloughed. The college I was going to closed. The Brownies and Guides I work with were told we couldn’t meet in person anymore. The course I was studying for had it’s exam cancelled and the project folio I was building was not to be submitted and is unfinished.

Roads went quiet, schools were closed, businesses shut and the world went into an eerie pause. In the early part of the lockdown I only really ventured out into Glasgow once, as I had to go to the bank. I did some shots in the main street near my home as people adjusted to this ‘new normal’ where we couldn’t go closer than 2m to people we hugged 2 weeks ago and had to line up outside the supermarket and pharmacy.

But then I put the camera down.

Now lockdown is unravelling. 10/11 weeks seems to be the breaking point for many and the less said about what those in charge did or didn’t do the better. Whether it is too soon remains to be seen. I imagine it might be.

Just 2 weeks before lockdown started I went to my interview for HNC Photography. The images I took to make up my portfolio have their own page. I was offered and accepted a place on the course. So I need to get back to work. It’s time to pick up the camera again.