Summer Tasks
Design Your Own Photography Game
This activity marks the start of the A2 course for Year 12 students, following the completion of our Unit 2 externally set task. The idea is to challenge students to create a game that expresses one or more important ideas about photography. Students must conduct appropriate research, generate ideas, experiment with materials and techniques, refine and develop their work, document the process and manufacture a completed game to be played by their peers. A final evaluation, based on feedback from the players, will assess the relative success of the game, but also what the designer has learned from the process.
What is a game?
"Surrealist games and procedures are intended to free words and images from the constraints of rational and discursive order, substituting chance and indeterminancy for premeditation and deliberation... In one particular and important respect Surrealist play is more like a kind of provocative magic. This is in its irrepresible propensity to the transformation of objects, behaviours and ideas. In this aspect of its proceedings Surrealism makes manifest its underlying political programme, its revolutionary intent."
- Mel Gooding
Who were the Surrealists and why was photography important to them?
The Surrealists were ultimately a group of artists who felt that the conscious mind repressed the imagination and the unconscious mind was the key to allow the imagination to flourish. They were heavily influenced by the literary figures Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx. Surrealist artists include Andre Breton (the official founder of Surrealism in 1924), Man Rey, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso. Photography took a central role in Surrealist work, primarily by Man Ray and Maurice Tabard and their use of procedures as double exposure, combination printing, and montage. Other photographers used techniques such as rotation or distortion. This dramatically evoked the union of dream and reality, and enabled the distorted effect the Surrealists were known for.
Starting Idea
My starting idea is that you (the player) will be a National Geographic photographer. Your aim is to travel to as many countries as you can, gaining as many points as possible, avoiding the hazards of the place eg: broken camera, snake bite, tourist stole your equipment. You will be in competition with the other players to achieve the most points and least amount of hazards.
This idea will be developed for a board game, however if possible, ideally the player would be able to actually fly and visit the locations in real life, coming in to contact with their own real life hazards and problems.
This idea will be developed for a board game, however if possible, ideally the player would be able to actually fly and visit the locations in real life, coming in to contact with their own real life hazards and problems.
Opposite is my rough idea and game plan for the project. Based primarily around the life and occupation of a National Geographic photographer, the aim is to travel to the most high risk areas and get the best photograph. Although the plan does not state this, an idea I could pursue is the actual activity of the players taking photos and competing to see who is able to capture the best photo in relation to the game card.
Developing this idea further, I have decided that once the game player has chosen a country to visit, they will have to roll a dice that corresponds with that country to tell the player which part of the country they will visit. Eg. in Brazil, there will be a dice to roll with places like the Amazon Rainforest, Sao Paolo Rio De Janeiro, Christ the Redeemer ect. each holding different hazards/points. Therefore there is an element of control in that the player can chose which country to go to, but the dice will hold the rest of the power and so chance is also incorporated into the game. The hazards reflect William Albert Allard's viewpoint that the travelling side of photography is not necessarily a good thing. Although each place may be new and exhilarating, it holds downfalls and consequences. |
Photographic Book: William Albert Allard, 'The Photographic Essay'
To help me understand life as a National Geographic photographer, I have read William Albert Allard's "The Photographic Essay" and researched into what a normal assignment might be like for him. I discovered that each assignment was not just a task for work but also a personal investigation, where it would be his viewpoint being published to thousands of readers, conveyed simply through the lens of a camera. Allard explains that photography may seem like a glamorous lifestyle of travelling, but it does have its downfalls which include months away from home/family leading to frequent feelings of loneliness. The photographer also describes how the travelling itself can be a pitfall. Although the incredible places he visits are of such beauty, the time spent travelling is an unfortunate trait of a photographer.
The book highlights that resourcefulness is one of the best and most valued photographer trait- the ability to blend into a situation and find the people and places which will give the visual interest to your photos and ultimately your story. Allard's work is entirely in colour and often uses a low exposure to give his photos a warm light, conveying the atmosphere of the places he travels to. |
"Research is important to a degree, but I try to start a new project with an open mind. Too many impressions gathered from the experiences of others will sometimes get in the way of the freshness I hope for." -William Albert Allard, 'The Photographic Essay' |
"All I need is my brain, my eyes and my personality, for better or worse." -William Albert Allard, 'The Photographic Essay' |
Research: William Albert Allard
William Albert Allard was born in 1937 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He studied at the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts and the University of Minnesota. He is known to mostly photograph people. He began his career as an intern at the National Geographic magazine, now having been involved in over 42 National Geographic articles. Allard does not work for National Geographic anymore but is a freelance photographer and writer.
|
"In my photography, colour and composition are inseparable. I see in colour." -William Albert Allard
These are a few images from Allard's collection "Peru". From the images it is possible to tell that Allard was not afraid to get involved with the culture and took a photo at any opportunity he saw taking a good photo. His work is shown to portray people in reality and without posing or looking unnatural. I personally like the colour and tone within his photos, as I feel they harmonize well and create a central visual point when observing the images.
Production of the game
I began by creating a prototype board for my game, which was just a smaller version of the real thing. The construction is very time consuming as there are many parts to the game, so everything else such as the dice and cards are the first and real objects that will be used in the game. The board is a simple world map, as that is the basis and the journey for this game. The country dice are simply paper, however in an ideal situation with the right resources I would have preferred them to be plastic or a stronger card. The cards themselves are a lot stronger as I used mount board. I feel that again with the right resources these would be best laminated and with pictures of the place on the back; this was not possible due to lack of time and printing efficiency. Also, all words would ideally be typed, however I actually found writing a lot more effective and less time consuming method.
The final components to the game include the board, hazard/points cards, hazard/points dice, country dice, counters and one normal dice. The reason for choosing the countries I did was to give a broad selection of various destinations and enable the game to also educate the players of places they perhaps might not of known about previously.
Visit to a gallery: Tate Modern, Surrealism- (Surrealism & Beyond Room)
The idea of a photography game has elements of a surrealist nature, so I visited the Tate Modern to look at some surrealist work. The work I found did not inspire or drive forward the game development, however it did provide ideas and an understanding of how surrealism can be incorporated into the idea of a game. Some of the work I viewed is below. The idea that anything can be created and although artists may often 'play by the rules' surrealism can break these rules such as Picasso's dysmorphic portraits. In the same way games usually are played by rules (this is the case for my game as well), however there is the possibility of not playing by rules and having a sense of chaos within the game. In a sense, surrealism opens up the world of possibilities and allows rules to be bent or be absent completely.
Responses & Critiques
As a class we played each others games and wrote an evaluation of what went well and what could be improved. These are a few samples of the feedback I received. The majority claimed the game was fun to play, however they did not learn much about photography. If I were to improve my game, I would focus more strongly on the photographic element and use the hazards as a way of teaching the players about real technical hazards.