Returning to Film

It has been a while since  I have worked with film. A process that I remember being slow, relaxing, almost therapeutic. Well not this time!

I wanted to try out some 120 film shots on a project I am working on at St. George's Park. It was a test of an idea I had, but being on a construction site, a badly exposed image can mean a photographic opportunity missed completely. The day was terrible, grey and dull but I tried to make the most of it. However not knowing if I was walking away with any shots after a days work was a little frustrating to say the least.

I've had to wait a few days until I could develop the film. I was relieved to see a full roll of images on all the films today but I'll have to wait until the end of the week to get some printed up and see what they really look like. 

Serpentine and V&A.

At the Serpentine Gallery yesterday was a show by Anri Sala. The exhibition lead you round in a circle in which you viewed a drum beating by the vibrations from the film in another room. This trend of linking the work together throughout the gallery continues with a film that is being played called Le Clash 2010 in which the song "should I stay or should i go now" by The Clash is played in various ways, over layed upon one another. This links with a music box which plays the same tune and invites people to play the music to add to the disjointed layers from the film.

It was an interesting exhibition but I did not feel motivated or inspired by the work.

Later in the day at the V&A I viewed the Power of Making exhibition which reminded me of a television programme i find interesting called "How it's made" my geeky pleasure. I have always been interested in the process of making and creating so I was looking forward to this exhibition.

It ranged from the amazing pieces of machine embroidered snowflake by Ellis Developments which is actually a surgical implant that aids the replacement of lost tissue by providing multipule attachment points.

To Elisa Strozyk's wooden carpet textiles.

To the bizarre, baby cake. Which conjours up so many questions in my head! Is there a trend of people that ask for cakes to be made to look like their babies? and if so, can they really take a knife to it and eat it? 

Wildlife Photographer of the year 2011

                                         

The wildlife photographer of the year 2011 exhibition was held at the National history museum.   

These are a selection of a few of the photographs I found interesting from the exhibition. As usual I am drawn to the clean, graphic style images.

I was astounded by the level of quality in the work from the under 10 category, so much so that I questioned why I was attempting to get my work into the world of photography when there are people younger than 10 producing such incredible work.

 

                                                             

What I have noticed looking up these photographs after viewing the exhibition, is that the way they were displayed. This significantly added to the aesthetics of the images. Each image was printed A0 and back lit. This made the colours really punchy, gave a boost to the contrasts and helped to show the sharpness in the photographs.

Queens Hospital cafe photos

I was given a couple of hours to produce some food orientated photography suitable for display within the Queen Hospital cafe.I wanted the photos to be fresh and bright yet still visually interesting.

After quickly thinking up a couple of ideas and gathering items together I started shooting straight away.

I began here, arranging and rearranging the grapes and crackers. I was liking the photographs that I was creating but I couldn't help but think they would look a little out of place in a hospital cafe. These images would be more suited for a food magazine rather than a cafe wall, the hospital would benefit from bright colourful phtoography.

Which is when I moved onto the fruit. Keeping these simple was key, I liked the split colour background that was appearing in the first shoot and decided to stick with this trying to match up the other colour to one similar to that of the fruit.

One of the reasons why this is such a quick turn around is because the photographs need to be ready the following day to be given to fine art student who will then overlay sketches, typography etc.

An interesting quick assignment that I would have liked to have had more time on.

Fleeting Moment

The fleeting moment brief had been in the back of my mind for a while, I was conscious that the deadline for the internal competition is drawing closer. Ideas were sparse so I was grateful when I found out that we were working on producing ideas for this today through a day assignment.

Starting this with words, being asked to write down my experience travelling into college seemed like a strange thing to do. To then turn this into a Haiku and set out to take a photograph that described what I had written seemed all the more bizarre...until I read the brief again.

My morning pretty much revolved around running late and therefor being challenged by every red light and slow driver on the way into college, adding to my frustration of not having any money for the car park resulting in a power walk to class.

I set out thinking too literal to the story of my morning, thinking about photographing someone through a car window screen or something that was mentioned within my writing. 

These photos did not conjure up thoughts of a fleeting moment. Had I just gone out to photograph without the text I would not be thinking about road users and traffic.

Are fleeting moments not just natural occurrences that pass by as quickly as they arrive? A moment in everyday life that is a second of exceptional beauty often gone un-noticed.

Completing this assignment has given a better understanding and helping to generate ideas. I would not say the photographs I took describe my morning, possibly the chaos and the rushing, but I think the images are interesting and could be built on.

Self Promo Draft Booklet

As I briefly mentioned before I have been working on a self promotion booklet. I have currently just finished the first draft and I'm working on correcting the changes.

This assignment was not as easy as it may appear, the reason for the booklet is to give a background to my portfolio and an insight into myself. It needed to be appealing to the type of clients I hope to work with while carrying a consistent style throughout.

I decided to include the pages set out from the brief (dress code, colour, skills etc) but also incorporated a mini portfolio into it and couldn't resist working on a few illustrations.

Creating a draft copy, printed in book format has meant that I can see what the booklet will look and feel like to the viewer. This has made noticing mistakes and areas that need improving on much easier.

I need to tidy up the layout of the pages and rewrite the text.