Connections

All other ideas for the connections brief was being put back or not possible to complete in time and so I needed to come up with another idea.

I was thinking about photographing my family in someway, but the thought of it was putting me off. Family is the most obvious thing to photograph when the word you are given is connections.

With time passing I needed to produce something as Jo Cornish is coming to visit the university to see our work on the 8th December.

I was looking through old family photographs and didn't know what to think. I knew for a fact that I didn't want to document my family now which led me to the option of doing something with the old photographs I have.

After some thinking my idea was to project these old photographs onto the location where they were originally taken. The night before I was planning to do the shoot I wanted to test out the projector and that is when I found a better idea. Putting myself within the photographs.

These are four of my final photographs.

Olympic advert test shoot

This assignment is due on the 7th December. So far I have done a test shoot and been working on graphic contents. Most of the time has been spent trying to figure out how to create these graphic and make them look how I imagined them too.

The first attempts were very flat and uninspiring.

I have gone through many stages now at tweaking the photograph and I am currently at this stage.

I feel much more confident about being able to manipulate graphics into my final photographs and now need to get those photograph taken. The idea that I have with the final photographs is to use the colours and lines that are present at the sporting venue and intertwine the graphic element in someway but I will not know this until I have taken the photographs.

A geometric Olympics

London 2012 Brand Launch from Universal Everything.

This video really sums up the design and feel of the 2012 Olympics.

I have been researching the 2012 design so that I can reflect this into my advert. The design is clearly very graphical, I would like to try working with graphics. However I have never worked with graphics before and I worry that they might look poor.

A rethink about Connections and the Olympic Advert

After the talk with my tutors I have a better feeling about my connections and Olympic work.

I know that I should have already produced some photos or some sort for the connections assignment by now but like I said in the previous post I have been making things harder for myself, instead of doing what I normally do.

As a result I now have to work on both connections and the Olympic shoot at the same time.

However I do now have ideas and feel more confident about getting them done.

For connections, we talked about the book I produced last month about Shane, How that would be the perfect example for connections. I could expand on that idea, possibly create another book. The Shane book was photographed in one day and produced the next. It's the finding of people and the organising that takes the longest time.

I may not be able to find anyone else that was on that course with me, but it will more likely be possible to find the team leader who helped us through the course. If she is still there, she would be happy to sit for a photograph. I'm currently writing a letter to her, I plan to drive over to the centre tomorrow, and if I miss her, I will leave the letter.

Until tomorrow, I want to think about how I want to take her portrait and what I want it to say. I would like to be able to justify why I have taken the photograph in a particular way.

For Olympics brief I now have two ideas. One being inspired by Daniel Stier's scientific experimental work. I would like to look at the scientific side of sport. Of course I don't want to take work that is identical to Daniels but after speaking to my tutors there could be a chance to photograph at Loughborough university, a hub of British sport education and science.

I wont know what I'm photographing until I'm there. I would have to think on my feet and photograph what I see is interesting.

I am going to think less about the the branding and slogan for now. I want to capture photographs that have a strong interest and then tie them with a brand which will transform them into a complete package.

Of course I would not be able to do this if I had been set a specific brand but as this assignment is a little more open I feel it is acceptable.

The other idea for the Olympic brief is to photograph empty spaces, spaces that could, by kids be transformed into athletic areas, such as goal posts, hurdles etc. I'd like to do something with these photographs to make them a little different, possibly add a different concept to it, add items.

Tutorial

I have just got back from my first tutorial and its surprising how buried into work you get without noticing. I feel like I have not stopped for a second to breathe in the last few weeks, however I feel a little more alive now.

This last few weeks I have been feeling like I've been working every minute of the day and not getting any closer to getting anything completed. My to do list just seemed to be getting longer and longer and no work was being fully completed.

This resulted in me not being able to come up with any ideas for the assignments that were being given to me leading me to feeling even more behind.

After speaking to the tutors today about ideas and what they think, I feel like that pressure has been switched off a little. I try too hard sometimes to be something else when all I need to do, is do what I do.

I know that I think a lot about my work and it takes time to develop my ideas fully but I feel that with longer time to think about my ideas it gives me time to connect with them and understand them more.

It's cleared my mind and I can see things that I can do this week that can really progress my work flow.

It helps to get a boost of confidence from your tutors and although I was possibly looking disinterested at the time I'm hugely grateful to be able to stop, think and talk things through with them.

Things seem so difficult in your head, and then so simple when you talk them through.

My aims after returning from the Christmas break are to get myself organised so that I don't find myself working every hour of the day. I will never get away from staring into space, thinking about my work but to be able to get away from the desk for a few hours would be nice.

I struggle with the written work but I know I can do it, its about setting personal deadlines to have specific work done so that I'm not overloading my brain trying to do bits of different assignments all at the same time.

In future I wont leave it so long to talk to someone!

Printspace

It was very useful to go down to Printspace in London today. I have ordered prints from them before which I have been happy with. What I like about them is the quality of the prints are amazing, the choice of paper and prints types you have to choose from is amazing and the fact that you can place an order and it be with you the next morning is a huge convenience.

There prints are well priced, not the cheapest option but it's clear after being to visit there lab that they take great pride in the work they do.

You can be sure that prints will come back at the highest standard and when I have received prints from them in the past I have sometimes received 2 copies, due to one being a misprint in someway (not that I can ever see a mistake!)

Dave from Printspace was kind enough to go through the variety of papers and optioned for mounting and printing. A little overwhelming the amount of choice they have on offer. However I think it depends strongly on the photograph.

While in London I also learnt about colour correction which has really made me consider how I go about the post production process of my work. I never realized how much a photographs appearance can change from screen to print.

In the afternoon Frede Spencer from Twentytwenty agency came to join us and delivered a brief. The brief is to photograph an advert for a company that is one of the main sponsors of the 2012 Olympics.

It is a great opportunity to get to receive feedback and the insight from Frede, he works in the creative business everyday and the knowledge he has in invaluable.

Laundrette - Come Clean

Another one day assignment, similar to last weeks, Sale and Return.

I thought about the photographs I captured last week. I was really pleased with how they came out and enjoyed taking them. I tried to think of an interesting business to go to this week where I could get such interesting photos from.

I was lacking inspiration. We had to use a lighting kit as part of the brief and I know it can be quite difficult to work quickly with lighting on your own, it always helps to have an assistant and so we were advised to work in a pair.

Instantly I find this harder if there are no boundaries set down as to who is doing what. I feel that when I work with another photographer on the same shoot I don't photograph like I normally do. I seem to rush and not experiment as much. When I work on my own I find I build a stronger connection with the people I'm photographing and therefor slow down and see different things, I seem to gain there trust easier. Even though I made the first contact and explained everything to the staff I didn't feel like I was totally in control.

However I set up the lighting and we began to photograph. We were photographing in a laundrette, which always seem to be an interesting location.

It was a small laundrette and once the lighting kit and tripod were up, there was very little room to move around.

I took a couple of shots but my mind was soon onto how to make a portrait work. It was obvious that the woman we were talking too was a little shy about me taking her photo. I was thinking about the washer draws and wanted to try a shot through the open doors. I huddled up in the corner of the room, squashed between a dusty fire extinguisher and set up a shot so that the time she had to sit in front of the camera would be to a minimal.

I positioned the lighting, just to fill in the photograph as the natural light was good.

I envisioned a member of staff sat behind the washer draws looking straight through the door at the camera.

Like I said, Rosaline was a little nervous about having her photo taken and was even more unsure when I asked her to face the camera. From now on I'm going to show models how I want them to position themselves. If someone agrees to have there photo taken it is likely they will be happy to position themselves in the way I show them.

This was my favourite photograph of the day. Unfortunately I don't think that the portrait works as well as I was imagining it. The photo above is what I was picturing in my head.

The remaining part of the brief was to take photographs with the intention of being published in a design magazine.

I feel that these 2 photographs above would be suitable for a design magazine but I was looking for a photograph that would take away from the obvious laundrette photos that I was getting. This is when I started to not look at the washers or the objects in the room but more about the other components that made up the room. The floor pattern is what caught my eye.

Sale and Return

Today's one day assignment was entitled "Sale and Return".

For this assignment I was expected to visit a local business and photograph the staff working there but also collect produce they were selling to photograph as still life's in the studio.

I was listening to what other people in the class were saying, where they were thinking of going. Some said chip shops, others said haberdasheries and charity shops so I wanted to think of somewhere where no one else would be going and somewhere where I could spend some time photographing.

I wanted a business that would not be too busy but still interesting. I was taking into consideration that I needed to bring back items from this business to photograph in the studio, how much could I afford if I could not borrow the items? How big would they be? What would I do with them in the studio? There was not a great about of time. I felt like I was thinking a step ahead.

The business I chose to photograph was "The Butcher, The Baker and The Ice Cream Maker" at Barton marina. I chose here because, it's outside the city the centre, it's not a chain store and it has a bit more life to it. I already knew that they produced their own produce, and I felt it would be good to get some behind the scene shots.

Driving over there in the car I was going through in my head what I wanted to get out of the visit. I wasn't nervous about going in and getting some photos but I was making back up plans in my head in case it didn't work out. My second plan was to try and get some photographs of the boat repairers and failing that I probably would have gone to a business where I knew someone who was working.

Luckily, the people at the BBIM were great! Within 5 minutes of being in the shop I fashioned a stylish white butchers coat and pretty much left to it.

I feel that this photograph works the best for what I was after in terms of a portrait. The photograph is split into thirds, the man on the left holding a pack of liver, Kevin in the foreground producing the sausages and the view into the shop from the window. I like that you can see the blood splatters on the overalls and the hacksaw hung up on the door.

I had an idea for the still life photographs which was inspired by Daniel Stiers "2 for £5" project. . I found some bright coloured and patterned wallpaper and a couple of other colourful props that on there own looked bold and gaudy yet put them all together and they create an interesting kitsch style photograph.

Portfolio

The last few weeks I have been writing down ideas to update my portfolio.

Over the last few months I have been creating new work and thought it would be beneficial to keep my portfolio up to date, especially with the number of opportunities that are coming up.

I looked at the portfolio I have currently which is an A3 prat book but I feel I need something a little different.

So I thought about a few options, creating a smaller portfolio, creating a book or using digital format to present my work, like a CD or USB stick.

The reason I am unsure about my current portfolio is because when I have showed people my portfolio in the past they have been turning pages backwards and forwards and then going back to talk about something else and then having to turn pages to get back to where they were which can be awkward to keep up. I also feel that most people on the Foundation Degree course seem to have the same style of portfolio. It looks like we have been told to present our work in this way and I feel that you have to deliver your work in a way that it will be shown to its best ability.

I really like the idea of creating some loose prints in a box. This way they can be handled separately and spread out, a good point for this is that if there is something in particular that I want to talk about I can get straight to the point instead of having to interrupt the viewer as they are turning the page.

As for Cd's and USB sticks, these would be good to produce as something that could be left behind to remind people of the work. I am currently in the early stages of experimenting with making a DVD of my work.

People have different preferences when it comes to viewing work, but I think anyone within the creative industry would always enjoy being able to hold and view a print.

Connections

Connections is the word I have been given as a brief from photographer Joe Cornish.

Connection can be inturpreted into so many ways!

I looked into what I thought connection meant to me and how I can create intreguing photos. I looked up the defenition of connection and read about links, relationship and reconnecting with the past.

I want to reconnect with a technique I have used before, cutting out, but this time expanding on the idea. I also want to link the photographic content with the format 2011 theme, street. With the intention, if I am confident about the work I will find some influencial people to show it to.

I took some street photography before and did not enjoy it, struggled to find a focus in the chaos and ended up with rubbish photos. Thinking back I was maybe trying to hard to capture something that wasn't there, whereas this time I will be photographing with a more personal technique.

With this cut out work I have done before I see now that it can be greatly improved. There is no detail in the background, there is little texture. Other photography I create can be full of detail caused by reflections and atmosphere due to light and shadows.

My intention is to take photos of street scene and print them off A3, cut out numerous object and stand them up. Use light to create shadows in order to add to the 3D effect.

What can I do with the background? Leave it blank? Experiment using a backward projector, so shoot onto paper and put cut outs in front of that? Create a collage or paint upon it? Hang in objects in order to create depth?

I'm going to have to experiment with depth of field and scale.

I quickly found a few photos I had and printed them off to see how multipule cut outs looked together. The photo above is the first attempt.

I clearly need to choose the angle carefully that I photograph from. As you can see in the photo above the lion clearly does not have the same 3D effect.The darker contrast works better, but I think this could be improved still if the cut outs were not so harsh.

Fright Night

I have been to the National Forest maize maze in Tatenhill a few times. Last year they organised a one night fright night on Halloween. This year they are building on that and going for 4 nights and making it bigger, better and much more scarier.

I'm excited to get the chance to photograph the event this year.

Last halloween I photographed a halloween party and the photographs turned out great because they were so natural. There is something about halloween that creates the perfect atmosphere to photograph.

Either people are dressed up and act to the camera instead of shying away or people are there to have fun.

Halloween 2009

This year I will be documenting the 4 nights of fright night. I will be taking photographs for advertising and documenting the events. I will then make money from any photographs I sell to visitors of the maze, with the aim of next year setting up something more professional.

It's sort of a bit of fun this year.

Today I was roped into making zombie scarecrows. My workspace was a barn full of cows, working with chicken wire and straw. I came out covered in cuts, fake blood and straw. I'm not sure who looked scarier, me or the zombie.

I'm happy to get involved from the start. I like that I'm not just photographing the event, by making things and being a part of the creative process it automatically makes you think about how you can make your photographs work better to suit the event.

I was thinking of how I could document this. Black and white or colour? Portraits or documentary?

My aim is to do a bit of both. I want the natural shots of people at the event but it would also be interesting to get some portraits, particularly of the actors who will be working and any visitors that choose to dress up.

Laura Pannack did a collection of photographs based on halloween. They were portraits of children in there fancy dress costumes. The natural background she has set them against is interesting and adds to the effect of the photograph. I could do something similar. It's going to be dark and very low light, I will need some artificial light.

That Book!

I'm aiming for Wednesday to send my book off, in the hope that it will be produced and delivered back in time for the following Wednesday.

I've been struggling with not feeling confident about my idea, but conscious that there is not much time to this assignment.

I carried on taking photos for a book about different chairs and the environment that they are found in. It's slowly growing on me and beginning to get ideas on how I can improve it.

However, yesterday I received a text from someone I've not heard from for years. I had thought about trying to find him, to photograph him for a while now.

So I arranged to photograph him today.

I knew straight away I wanted to photograph him using disposable cameras. He is not the most confident of people and suffers from paranoia. I know that he would act differently if I turned up with a big digital camera.

If I used disposable cameras he would hopefully forget they were there. Disposable film would be better for the look I'm after too. I want them to have a soft focus and be grainy and imperfect.

I finished photographing about 4pm and rushed back to get them processed. An hour later I picked them up and scanned them in.

Brian Griffin Face To Face

I was in Birmingham this morning and decided to head over to Brian Griffin's outdoor exhibition, Face to Face. The exhibition is a collection of portraits he has taken throughout his photographic career.

There were a few portraits of his that I had seen before like the St.Pancras photos but a lot of them were new to me. I liked his black and white portraits, in particular the ones that are a little unusual. There were a few long exposure portraits that have created a sort of double exposure look to them. I also liked this portrait of Brian May.

It's much different looking at an exhibition outside. Especially on a sunny day, when your looking at a portrait that is attached to a shiny, reflective white background. You get blinded!

Jon Burgerman

So, on Wednesday we had our first visiting lecture of the year, Jon Burgerman!

I realize that Wednesday was 4 days ago now but this is the first chance I've had to write up about it. I've been working on a couple of paid jobs and been finishing off the work for the typography assignment due this coming Monday.

All that happily sorted but I've been struggling with the book assignment, which is frustrating me because I'm always thinking of projects that I want to make books around but being given a deadline in only a few weeks has made my brain go to mush because I automatically want to work on these preexisting ideas I have but I feel that they need time in order for the photography to give justice to the subject.

Jon coming in was some much needed inspiration!

His extremely placid attitude and behaviour towards life is infectious. He is confident about his work and his abilities. I noticed he didn't speak about what his work meant, just where his work has taken him and where his work is/has been.

Is that because his work speaks for itself?

but what does his work mean?

I later thought about where I would like my work to go, what direction, where do I want to see my photography being used and in what way?

Documentary, commercial, fine art?

With his work Jon Burgerman seems to have not even thought about these lines and merged them all together...how many artists can have there work displayed in galleries all over the world and then have the same print reproduced onto Pepsi cans?

Clever man! www.jonburgerman.com

Statutes Fair

On Tuesday I went out to photograph the Statutes in Burton. I headed out before the stalls and rides had opened. As soon as I went out I saw an elderly lady struggling to get past one of the large rides. I could see her coming down the street looking fragile and small compared to these large bright attractions, she was clearly a local continuing a weekly routine trying to navigate her way around these obstacles. I saw her reach for the handrail and took the shot.

I was very much walking around the fair and observing what was going on, looking for interesting things that could possible happen or were taking place. It was quiet in the town but I saw a group of school kids heading towards me. I was stood next to a trailer full of sweets. I thought something may happen. They stopped to admire the sweets and this one child just stood and stared at me. I suppose it would make more sense if the kid was the other way around, facing the sweets.

I always seem to be drawn to taking photographs that are packed full of detail and reflection give so much detail and create interesting photographs.

This final photograph I took was a portrait, which is completely different to all the other photos I took. I looked at my photographs and that of the other students and I didn't feel that mine had any strength to them. The only thing that grouped them together was that they were all taken at the fair.

If you looked at some of these photographs on there own, you wouldn't think they were about the fair at all. When I went out to take these photos I was not thinking anything about trying to group the photos together, I wasn't thinking of a meaning to them. I'm sure if I had gone out and taken loads of photos I could have picked 5 out that had the same underlining meaning or feeling but that shouldn't be the way it works. In professional practice that may not be possible.

I think that during the college course I took photographs and then thought about them afterwards, what they meant and why I took them and then went out to re-shoot.

I have clearly done that again with these photos. I'd like to try and work the other way, to go out with an intention of knowing exactly what I want to photograph and getting it, for when we are given such short deadlines.

This could be why I have found myself struggling with ideas for the book. I'm aware it's a short deadline and I've been thinking too hard about, worried that all the photos I take are not so good or not knowing what to do with them. Instead I should be photographing and then process them in order to get the idea.

Devour

I have completed my typeface for the typography assignment. My final idea involved me creating a template of my font and submerging the end of it into a pool of red ink.

In order to create a timelapse documentary of me making this font I set up a tripod to photograph every time I saw a significant change in the typeface.

Devour Typeface Timelaspe

Now that I have researched into typography and experimented making my own typeface I have began to think about it a lot more and will take into consideration what I have learnt into projects that I do in the future. In particular the book assignment that I am currently also working on.

This assignment, being the first one on the degree course that needs to be handed in has really helped me to get into the intense way of working that I feel is needed for this level.

Project 36

Project 36 was a small task in which we were given 2 hours to take 36 photographs of anything and produce a contact sheet.

Initially my mind was blank, I had no idea what to photography. I thought about keeping it simple but then it was almost too open to think of anything. I didn't want it to be boring for me to photograph. I wanted to have some sort of reason behind why I was taking these photos. I wanted them to link in some way.

After 15 minutes I was concious I was thinking too much about what I wanted to photograph when I should have just started.

A sign caught my eye as I was walking around and I noticed that I could not focus on the lettering. It was slightly blurred. For a while I have wondered if my perscription has changed and maybe needed my eye sight checked as some recent photographs I had taken on manual focus, were out of focus, when at the time I thought they were in focus.

This prompted me to take photographs out of focus, or more to the point as close as I could get to what I naturally see.

Once arrived at the location I took out one of my contact lenses. Instantly my view on everything changed. I have extrememly bad eyesight and can only really see something if it is no more than 30cm away from my eyes. To have one eye very blurred and the other one clear was a little weird. I thought about how to describe it. I remember when I was younger at school friends would always ask to wear your glasses or say "What's it like when you don't have your glasses on" and I suppose thats what I was trying to show.

Using my clear eye I looked through the camera and tried as close as I could to match it with what my vision was from my natural eye sight. This clearly was just resulting is blur after blur of pictures. The effect for me seemed to change if I got closer or further away from what I was focusing on.

While I was taking these photographs I had quite mixed feelings about them. I was thinking about what the other students might think to seeing these, would they understand or was it more of a personal thing. Would others just see out of focus photos and not think much of them? I believe they make more sense when my reasoning is put behind them, thats for sure.

After the car had broken down on the way back I was sat on the side of the road thinking that I was quite glad that there was little chance I would be showing my contact sheet. Sat there I felt that it was rediculous, but at the same time I felt, it really does not matter, its not important. There just seemed to be some feeling of not wanting to show work that I did not feel confident about.

When I got to a computer and started looking at the photos I was still thinking they are boring photographs. While I was making the contact sheet, I disliked them even more, they were all different sizes so in order to make me feel a little better about them I had to group them together the portrait styles together

and then the landscapes just so the contact sheet looked cleaner. Still didn't do a great deal to liking them.

Today, 24 hours later my feelings have begun to change a little towards the photographs. I looked at the contact sheet in the morning and felt a little better about them. I then looked at the photographs individually on full screen for the first time. Some of the photographs I still did not like at all but a few started to interest me. There are about 6 out of the 36 that I'm happy with.