Assignment 3: down to writing

The dreaded essay, 2,500 words of torture.  Well, not really - I have spent much time prevaricating over writing the essay, but in truth it is the easiest of the assignments, a research project combined with a learning transfer.  My problem has been that the essay ties me to a keyboard, something I have spent far too much time doing recently, my photography is an escape from the office and computer.

However, I have 4 free days now, before returning to work; nothing else is planned and whilst I can think of things I might enjoy more than writing this essay, it is not a bad way to spend my time and is something that will grant a much needed sense of achievement once completed.  As ever getting down to it is the hardest part and as with all large projects the trick is to divide the work into manageable lumps that I can digest individually and then assemble as a whole.

The first step is research, learning enough about my subject to be able to say something definitive.  My subject is Robert Frank and the spin will be around how he changed the nature of documentary photography with his seminal work, The Americans.  Not terribly original, perhaps, but his work has been a constant influence on me for the entire course so far and I feel a deeper investigation will benefit my work.  There are a few threads that I want to investigate:

1. How Frank developed as a photographer, his learning processes and the route that led to The Americans. This is in a sense more interesting than the finished work of The Americans as I can learn more about my own journey from how he built an education in photography.
2. How Frank's work influenced those who followed and how he contrasts to those who came before - was Frank the pivot around which 20th century photography turned?
3. Frank's working method, I think this had as much influence on other photographers as his actual published material, he rejected the careful framing and calculations of Adams and Stieglitz, for what we now see as the seemingly modern funnel approach to photography, shooting thousands of frames and then progressing through a step-wise reduction to a final published set.
4. Finally, what do I take from this, what do I learn?  Why did I choose to study this man and his work?

My basic model for the writing the essay is the following:

1. Gather printed material.  I started with the book, "Looking in Robert Frank's The Americans" a doorstep of a book, hugely useful, but almost too much material.  I also have 7 of Frank's photo books, bother pre and post The Americans to use as a visual reference.
2. Search the Internet.  I have used the Wikipedia entry as a starting point.  In itself it is pretty sparse, but the references provide links to much more detailed information.
3. The hard part - reading all this stuff and extracting the elements of information around which I will hang the thesis of the essay.  Much use of highlighters and post-its (I cannot bring myself to actually write on a book - heresy).
4. Create an outline with the larger subject headers - basically a series of questions that I need to answer
5. For each subject header generate a paragraph list that ties the facts and quotes from my research into the framework of the essay.
6. Write a first draft
7. Review and think a while...
8. Write a second draft and get Heidi to proof read for me
9. Add in references and clean up for final submission

My biggest challenge at the moment is to avoid over-working this process, the essay should be a learning experience that helps me to place my work within a historical context, it is not an end in itself and as a 2nd year undergraduate I am unlikely to add any new thinking to a very crowded commentary.

Next step - read the pile of printed web articles and speed read the following:

I bought this 3 years ago from Amazon, was then an expensive book at 38 pounds, but is now advertised as 149 new (phew!)