Urban environments have existed over millennia, but it is with the ‘modern’ city, and through modernity, that we experience the city. This project will concentrate on an experience of the city, where you find yourself now. In this project you are asked to construct a visual narrative about a city. It is a test of your powers of observation, visual imagination and story-telling ability. You are free to select any aspect of the city’s architecture, culture, infrastructure, or everyday life, but you must find a theme that formally and thematically propels and links images and text into a coherent narrative.

The objective is to produce a photographic Triptych. In this pursuit a series of ‘sketch’ photos will be explored, discussed and documented within a portfolio. A short body of text will accompany your image series taking the form of an exhibition description, providing a platform to reveal the intent of your work.

In establishing a narrative, students are encouraged to consider that which may not be apparent, something below the surface or a place presented from a new perspective. The images are not to be ‘tourist snaps’ of iconic buildings but a study which delves deeper into the fabric of the city. Consideration must be given to colour, light quality, depth of field and composition. How do 3 images relate, what do they communicate, why are they together. A triptych is not a single image split into 3, but related images that together form a narrative.

Compositions may be constructed in a traditionally figurative manner or by abstraction to form a thematic account of urban culture. Arguably, the ability to instil an image or artefact with greater symbolism or meaning is what elevates some items to art and perhaps what drives the distinction between building and architecture.