ever have one of those days where everything you do seems to not quite go right?

...my day seems to have turned into a month, and yet it continues!

eden project

... unfortunately not so true!

Don't read that wrong... So last week I spent the week on residential with the rest of my uni friends down in Cornwall at the Eden project. Which it's self is a beautiful site and the enthusiasm from the people there is infectious. I even believe at some point during the week I declared I was giving up photography and setting up camp in the rainforest.

Sadly, "a state of great happiness" in terms of my photography, it was not.

Lets just say I had some trouble with some product shots! I don't for a second regret the challenge of product shots but I could have made my week a lot easier and less stressful had I not. However even though the taste of defeat is still potent I know I learnt a hell of a lot more than I would have, had I just taken the easy option and opted not to.

So however much I drove myself, and possibly other members of the group insane with my frustration, the Eden project was a great experience and has enthused me to work on other areas. I have learnt a lot about where I am professionally and technically.

looking forward to seeing the final edits of everyone else's work!

Even though I have submitted my final images...I'm still quietly working on something!

Inspired by Claire Lemming and Duckrabbit the class headed out in search of a story within Burton. We had an hour to capture sound and about 20 photographs, to then get back and edit together into a final photo-film.

What a palaver!

There were issues with capturing the sound elements. Needing to use a camcorder to capture the sound meant trekking around the town centre in search of Mini DV tapes. After 20 minutes of something that resembled the octagon centres version of supermarket sweep we admitted defeat and went with the idea of recording on our phones.

From then on it seemed to be problem after problem. I'm sure the others in my group wont disagree, we were unorganised, rushed and shall I say, a little frustrated.

Secretly though it's these kind of days that I love. The days where you learn something new, but not just technically new but about the way I work. After spending the last three and a half days staring at a computer screen melting my brain writing a proposal its nice to have that moment of chaos to wake me up again.

I know that I can be methodical and I understand my crave to be a perfectionist but every time I get close I raise that expectation a little more which can be frustrating but i find its what keeps me pushing myself further. personally I enjoy a photograph more if I can read it, if the image says something, other than it just being a nice picture. I think this is why I am finding the National Forest brief difficult, I very rarely photograph something when I'm on a day out and so far all the national forest photographs I am taking are just turning out to be, "day out" or "nice" photographs.

Which is why I think today passed me by a bit, I like to know what I'm going to photograph, I'm not sure how to describe it, I guess I want to know what I'm looking for rather than make it up as I go along.

The photo films have interested me, like they seem to have interested everyone in the group today.

Ironically there are a pile of old Mini DV tapes on the shelf and I have the urge to dig them out and possibly pull various clips of recording together from different tapes and attempt to take some photographs and see what I can create.

All in all an interesting day and certainly need to have some plans in mind for next week at Eden!