This was Burton College's first time at the Free Range Art and Design Show. I was displaying photographs from my 'Vote for Ruth' project as a part of this. Easily the biggest exhibition that any of us had been involved in, I think most of us underestimated how much there was to do. Preparations and putting everything up was as equally manic as the opening night. Still it was all good fun and certainly an invaluable experience.

 

Putting everything up.

 

My 'Vote for Ruth' work.

 

Ruth Smeeth, the focus of my project came along too.

 

Still a few days of Burton College's end of year show. The Foundation Degree photography is situated at Burton Library. If you're in the area, it's worth checking out.

www.PhilipGrocott.com

www.PhilipGrocott.com

 

Jill moved into photography as a second career after working for twelve years as an agricultural economist. In 2004, with two young children at home, joined Cleveland College of Art and Design, to study for a degree course and graduated in 2008.

 

Wanting to find a way of producing work without travel or huge cost, Jill produced Guns in 2007. It was a way of commenting on larger issues in a local way. In this case, about how guns are present in our everyday lives.

 

Leading from that, Jill went on to photograph army recruits, noticing how young they were. This work won her the Fujifilm Student Awards in 2007. This was a great boost and as this was significant, Jill decided to revisit one of the recruits a year later. He had since left the army and Jill made a short documentary of him.

 

Living in North Yorkshire, surrounded by moorland owned by military, the nearby Catterick Garrison is an ever present part of Jill's life. At this time there was much in the news about lack of equipment for soldiers and embedded photographers. Taking a slightly oblique look at war photography, Jill produced a small series called Firing Range. 

 

Within the overall title of Training Land, Jill produced a third chapter of work, Birds. Within the army garrison is a nature reserve where a bird ringing programme takes place. Jill created a series of eighteen images hoping they would encapsulate what she was trying to say about the army and people caught up in war. Much of Jill's work is referenced to conflict and also explores beauty and renewal.

 

Jill also completes commissions for local design agencies and does research work with Majority World, who work with indigenous photographers.

So it's been a week since the date of the General Election has been announced. With this, the photography for my Final Project of this academic year has gotten under way. In the run up to and including the Election, I'll be following Ruth Smeeth, the Labour candidate for Burton Upon Trent, hoping to provide a behind the scenes photo-documentary.

This project started sometime before the General Election was announced though. The Final Project is a self initiated piece of work and I already had a few ideas of what I wanted to do. My self imposed prerequisites for this project were to do something with people and to make sure it was something I could really get my teeth into. I soon settled on doing something related to the General Election. To keep it achievable, I decided to focus it purely on Burton Upon Trent, a town local to me. From there, I wrote a proposal and began a long period of emailing the candidates, at the time those that had announced they would be standing were from the Labour Party, the Conservatives and the BNP. Choosing to ask the BNP was something that I deliberated over for sometime, as I have absolutely no love for them whatsoever. However, this project isn't about my politics and it would provide another aspect to the photos.

Regardless, the BNP didn't bother to reply to me. However, Andrew Grittiths of the Conservatives did take time to reply to me. Sadly though, after discussing with his campaign team, he declined to take part in the project. Thankfully, Ruth Smeeth from the Labour Party met with me to discuss the project further and agreed to take part. I started photographing the week before the Election announcement. Ever since it's been an ever increasing whirlwind of activity, including conferences, meetings, visits and campaigning. Ruth, her campaign manager, Steve and the rest of the Burton Labour Party team have been very accommodating and supportive of my project. It certainly helps to have built up a trust between us.

I decided to shoot this project digitally. Mostly this makes things a lot easier for me. As I'll be spending a lot of time with the Burton Labour Party, it enables me to work from home afterwards to select images and see how it's going. I'm gravitating towards using prime lenses, typically a 50mm and a 24mm. I prefer the look and feel of the resulting images and it means I sometimes have to get in close to what's going on. I don't want the images to be purely a documentary, they've got to be aesthetically interesting too. This is sometimes a struggle and I have to remain alert at all times and work hard at seeing potential shots. The other issue I have is ensuring the photographs have a distinguishable style, something I can call my own. But I'm sure this is something every photographer faces. 

www.PhilipGrocott.com

 

There was plenty more going on too, with plenty of talks to attend, covering all sorts of technique, workflow and equipment use amongst other things. Initially, we wandered around all the stands and looked at various products we'd like to buy but can't afford.

 

After getting something to eat and more wandering around, I went to a talk by photographer Edmond Terakopian. Titled "Aperture 3 for Photojournalists" this was obviously about Apple's latest release of professional photography software. Personally, I'm new to Aperture, but already a big fan, so found this interesting just from the point of view that it's useful software. But it was also interesting to see and hear how Edmond Terakopian works.

 

Our time at the exhibition soon flew by. I could easily have stayed for a few more hours to see what else was on show. I didn't leave empty handed either, as I bought myself a new camera backpack too, a Streetwalker from ThinkTank Photo. It was a good and busy day. I'll certainly be going next year.

 

• Be punctual
• Be equipped
• Be polite
• Do research
• Invoice properly
• Know when to be quiet
• Be alert
• Prepare financially
• Contact photographers for assisting early (at least two to three months beforehand)
• Stay open minded
• Be respectful
• Be positive
• Stay in touch, support and network
• Always keep shooting
• Look back at your previous work (you can see how far you’ve come)

The Christmas decorations have come down, the country has become "Frozen Britain" and we're a week into 2010.

A little belatedly, I'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I hope that it's a peaceful and prosperous one for all.

For me, there is much to look forward too. University has restarted and this will be my last year on the Foundation degree (although I am applying to do a third year to gain a BA Hons). This term will entail a final self initiated project, along with other assignments and the college will be at FreeRange this year as well. I also have my own small exhibition in the Summer.

Coming up soon, I intend to enter the AOP Student Awards and the Fujifilm Student Awards, amongst others. I'll be redesigning my website and giving further consideration to how my photography and studies will pan out into a hopefully successful career. In fact, I have so many ideas and things to do, I'm not sure when I'll fit it all in. But I'm looking forward to it.

Additionally, I've also started taking one photo each day for a year, inspired by the Project 365 group on Flickr. I'll only be using my iPhone to take these pictures and using iPhone apps to edit them. This is purely a personal project, which I had only being posting to my Flickr. However, I've decided to include them in my blog as well, having backdated previous Project 365 entries. To solely see them on my blog, just click on the Project 365 tag, or you can go to the Flickr set. I'll be using the tags on my blog a bit more so you can filter out what you want to see. I'll also post some more of those photos that I've taken that don't really have a home and I will be writing more about photography too.

All in all, it will be a busy year, but I intend for it to be a successful one too.

The crit session was interesting and went well. Both the first and second year photography students attended. Each had been asked to print at least one A3 image from their finished work this term. Some didn't do this and printed in other sizes and on a variety of papers. Although some of the presentation may have been lacking, the work was interesting and it proved useful to talk about it.

I had printed three of my images from the Millennium Images assignment at A3 along with other prints, including outtakes at A4 This was primarily so people could see the series and see what I was trying to achieve. I was felt much more confident than on previous occasions talking about my work and was pleased with the feedback.

Last year crit sessions simply didn't happen. Which was a shame. Including this one, we've had two this year. Logistically they're probably difficult to arrange. Especially with the first and second years present, that's probably about forty students. Difficult to view and talk about people's work in depth without it dragging on a bit. I hope the college continues with the larger crit sessions, but also introduces smaller more regular ones too. It's good to bounce ideas off one another and see what others are doing and to keep informed.

Later the same day we had a lecture by Steve Schofield, who began as a photographer taking photos for the likes of Metal Hammer and Kerrang! Steve had started photography quite young, but later went on to study photography at Derby University. He spoke about and showed the work of photographers that had influenced him or that he admired. He noted that one thing he really missed about studying was the university library. A great resource that he no longer had access too.

Steve Schofield then went on to show some of his own work, including Land of the Free, Hotel and Dancers. Along with this he gave anecdotes about how the photographs had come about and some technical details too. Steve continues to photograph within the music industry too, taking portraits and making images for album covers.

Steve Schofield's talk was entertaining, mostly due to his good humoured approach. But it was also informative. I couldn't think of a better way to learn about photography.

Recently, I went along to the Quad in Derby to see Brian Griffin and Anne Braybon give a talk. Brian Griffin is taking part in the Road to 2012. These are portraits of people involved with the London 2012 Olympics in conjunction with the National Portrait Gallery. Anne Braybon is the Commisions Curator at the National Portrait Gallery.

Anne Braybon began the talk, by explaining about the funding, how the portraits were to be organised and pretty much all the logistical concerns of the project. Brian Griffin then went on to show some of the portraits he'd already taken. It was really interesting as he showed different variations of shots and we got to see the work in progress. I found looking at the images fascinating, but specifically a portrait of Seb Coe stood out. As I understand it this portrait isn't going to be used, so it was a rare treat.

It was a very interesting talk and opportunity to see Brian Griffin's work and hear about the organisation this type of project requires. And it was amusing to hear how people on the David Icke forum felt the portraits were part of a wider conspiracy. After the talk, there was a networking opportunity, to chat with Brian Griffin, Anne Braybon and others attending. Sadly though I had to leave at this point. I'm told that the Quad will have more talks from photographers in the New Year, something to look forward to.

Last week, I went with a small coach load of other students in my year to the National Media Museum in Bradford.

It really is a great museum, dedicated to photography and other forms of media. Best of all is the museum's Collection and Research Centre, called Insight. Anybody can book time to research through the archives and there are guided tours, which is what we had.

Firstly we were shown a room full of filing cabinets and metal boxes, each organised by subject matter, from which we were given a brief photographic history of the Daily Herald (pdf) newspaper, which has now become the present day Sun newspaper. From there we were shown large archives of different cameras, everything from William Fox Talbot's "Mousetrap" to the original Olympus Pen to disposable Spice Girl cameras. There were also large rooms full of gizmos, gadgets and other equipment dedicated to photography, cinematography and new media.

From there we were shown to another, cooler room. In here was another photograph archive. There were daguerreotype photographs, with their fantastic mirror polished surfaces and an early negative with prints made by William Fox Talbot using his calotype process. We were given a brief run through of this part of photographic history. It really was fascinating seeing these early photographs. We then went into a small gallery type room where large prints were on display including some by Simon Norfolk and Joel Meyerowitz. And there were also maquettes of photography books, one of which was Martin Parr's Cost of Living. All utterly fascinating.

After a lunch break and a cup of tea, we had a lecture from photographer, Simon Roberts. I was aware of Simon Roberts monographs, Motherland and more recently We English, which he spoke about in detail. Simon outlined his photographic career and discussed other aspects of photography, beginning by asking us to think about why we wanted to be photographers? What do we want to say with photography? He said that the most important thing he had learnt was ownership, keeping the copyright to his images.He also asked, whether we should be deleting our photos in this digital age? Simon didn't think so, we should keep everything. You never know when those photos may become of some use.

Simon outlined his previous work, including some engaging editorial photography. Simon said it was always important in these cases to know the subject, take quotes, have a background and produce text to go with the photos.

The Simon Roberts talk was a stream of consciousness that made absolute sense. He is obviously an intelligent and driven man. Which is why he has been able to produce the work he has achieved and talk about it so compellingly.

After this we walked a short distance to the Impressions Gallery to see Subterrania by Fiona Crisp. These were images of underground worlds, large scale and hung at a certain height, it almost felt like you could walk into the picture, but not quite. The exhibition can be seen at the Impressions Gallery until 24th January 2010.

To round off the day I also picked up a copy of Photoworks magazine and Source Photographic Review. The latter having a write up about Fiona Crisp's Subterrania exhibition. It really was a fantastic day, from viewing the beginnings of modern photography, seeing the daguerreotypes and calotypes, all the way up to Simon Roberts We English. I certainly recommend anybody with an interest in photography go to the National Media Museum. There certainly was a lot to absorb and process on the coach home.