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January 30, 2010

Catching up, Results and What's Next

It’s been a while since I did a proper blog post. There’s been quite a few things going on. The college is now fully committed to being a part of this year’s FreeRange exhibition, work is starting on my final self-initiated project, UCAS applications for third year study have been sent off and we’ve had a talk from Laura Pannack. All of which I’ll go into more detail with individual posts over the next couple of days.

Recently, I received the results for the photography degree work I produced last term. I also met with my tutor to discuss the results and the work I'd be doing next. 

The mark I had gotten was an indicative scoring and proved to be much more than I had expected. The course is run in association with Staffordshire University and has a fairly complicated marking system. But in simple terms, work is marked out of a total of 15. I got an indicative grade of 12. That essentially means I’m at Merit level, on the cusp of a Distinction. Anyway, I’m pleased with what I’ve got!

This term will also mean that I have to produce a final self-initiated project. I discussed my ideas with my tutor. I’m looking to do something which I can get really involved with. I seem to be more focused on street and documentary photography lately. So maybe I can somehow combine the two. Certainly the street aspect would be useful for Format 2011. I certainly have a strong desire to photograph people more, typically my work is absent of people. I have been considering doing something relating to a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre, but am now pursuing doing something around the General Election that should take place this summer.

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January 8, 2010

New Year, New Projects

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.

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December 23, 2009

Last Day at Uni: Crit Session & Steve Schofield talk

The last day of university this term saw the day split in two, with a crit session in the morning and a talk by photographer, Steve Schofield in the afternoon.

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.

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December 11, 2009

Millennium Images

Below are a small selection of images I took for a university assignment for Millennium Images.

In a way this assignment began for me in the summer of 2009. I had already started taking pictures of the urban landscape in and around the town of Burton On Trent. Partly this was due to a conversation with another student, who felt that there wasn’t anything worth photographing in the town.

When the assignment was set I decided to put this work towards it. After speaking with my tutor, I went on to look at the work of the New Topographics, such as Stephen Shore and Lewis Baltz. I also looked at work by photographers such as Joel Meyerowitz’s "Legacy", Andreas Gursky, Sophy Rickett, Brian Griffin, Ansel Adams, Todd Hido, Nicholas Hughes, Simon Roberts, Bernd and Hilla Becher, amongst others.

Following further guidance, I settled on making my photos only at night, this would help give some continuity to my theme, the unused urban landscape and hopefully provide some interesting images. Primarily I stayed in one location, in and around Stapenhill Gardens and the nearby Washlands area.

I'm happy with most of the images, although I do feel a certain amount of uncertainty as to whether they would meet with Millennium Images arguably subjective requirements. However, I do feel that I've benefited greatly from this assignment and at the very least, even with the late nights and long exposures, I have enjoyed the whole process.

           

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November 30, 2009

Website

My website went up earlier last week. This also was an assignment set as part of my university course. Although it would have been something I'd done anyway. A website seems to be an important part of being a photographer now, as a central place to show your work and provide additional information.

I did quite a bit of research into current photographer's websites and what professionals such as picture editors look for in a website. Simplicity seemed to be key in this area. The website should be easy to navigate, speedily show photos, have some information about the photographer and have clear contact details.

I already had in mind a very simple website. I wanted as few pages as possible in an organised manner. A great deal of photographer's websites appear to have white backgrounds, so I decided to go with black for mine, just to be different. Initially, I drew up and designed a four page website. However, I soon realised I could fit my content all on one page without it being too cluttered. Working on a budget, I registered my domain and used Apple's iWeb software to make the site myself and made a gallery using Lightroom 2 and put it all on the internet. 

As a first website I think it achieves what I wanted. I do intend to expand on it, with more galleries and to change the design a bit.

Go have a look and let me know what you think.

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November 29, 2009

Assignment ~ Commercial Shoot (blog post)

     

An assignment titled "Commercial Photographic Shoot Model" was set a for us a while ago by the college. The brief was to do a dual location shoot, incorporating male and female clothing in one internal and one external location.

Initially, we had to present a proposal of what we intended to do. I'd planned shoots of models wearing various headwear in different locations. Having in mind something that might look like a fashionable catalogue shoot, I also wanted a story element to the images.

However, I soon became uninterested in my plan. It was a fine plan, and ticked all the boxes for the brief. But I felt I was doing it purely for ticking those boxes, rather than try to make something interesting. Admittedly, I focused my attention on other assignments, such as creating my website and the Millennium Images assignment. Another student suggested I change my initial proposal to creating landscape images with clothing in them. At first I dismissed this, as we weren't really meant to change the plan. But quickly I felt strongly, that I should do what I wanted to do, rather than battle through.

I went back to thinking about clothing in landscapes and from there onto lost and found clothing. I also thought about stereotypical images of clothes being left on stairs or bedroom floors and began to have idea about clothing representing a male and female couple. I wrote a new plan, which included having the clothing in water, and progressed with the shoot.

Parts of the shoot were difficult, getting clothes to look right underwater was tricky and reflections proved to be problem. But I liked some of the images, a selection can be seen above. I don't think the images are very "commercial" they do however suit me more, even if they do need a little more work and the plan needs reassessing.

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November 29, 2009

Mark Neville lecture ~ London Trip

The third and final part of our trip to London involved us going to a talk by Mark Neville at the Whitechapel Gallery. I wasn't really aware of Mark Neville beforehand, but after a soaking walk in the London rain, I was really glad that I went. Not really because it was an opportunity to get dry, but because it proved to be an enthusiastic talk about some very interesting work.

Mark Neville spoke about three of his works, starting with The Jump Films (1996-2006). Then comprehensively speaking about The Port Glasgow Book Project (2004-2006). And finally, showing us images from his Fancy Pictures work. I recommend listening to an audio interview with Mark Neville about The Port Glasgow Book Project on the Hotshoe blog. There is also an interview, focusing on Fancy Pictures, with Mark Neville in the Autumn 2009 issue of Source Photographic Review.

Some of the Port Glasgow Book Project can be seen, along with the work of other photographers, at ParrWorld at the Baltic until 17th January 2010.

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November 28, 2009

theprintspace ~ London Trip (blog post)


The second part of our trip to London saw us visit theprintspace. They provide professional quality printing at an affordable price, with a service that uniquely allows the photographer to control how the image is prepared and printed.

Images can be uploaded via the website or you can take images into the lab and drop them into a folder on an iMac to be printed while you wait. theprintspace offer a plethora of print types, including C-Type and Giclee prints and a myriad of mounting options.  We were given a detailed explanation of all the possible choices and shown some of the retouching work that can be done at the lab. Retouching and scanning booths can also be used and are charged by the hour. It was then explained on how to best set up our digital darkrooms and prepare our images for printing. Their website has some really good videos on how to do this.

theprintspace also kindly offered to print an A3 image for each student free of charge. To be honest I couldn't decide which of my images to have printed and plumped for the last one that I had taken and liked. You can see the image at the top of this post. I'm really pleased with the print. The tour of the lab and the explanations of what theprintspace offers along with the technicalities of printing were demonstrated very well.

theprintspace is situated on Kingsland Road, London and is open from 9am to 7pm, Monday to Friday.

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November 28, 2009

Freerange ~ London Trip (blog post)

A trip to London saw us visit the FreeRange exhibition spaces, a tour of the PrintSpace and a lecture by Mark Neville.

First port of call was FreeRange. The college and the photography course has been contemplating exhibiting at FreeRange next year. FreeRange is the largest art and design graduate shows in Europe, set in the middle of the creative community at the Old Truman Brewery, London. It attracts a lot of attention from potential employers and the public. The show runs for eight weeks, with rotating exhibitions focusing on art, design, photography, interiors and architecture.

We were shown around to get a sense of the vast spaces and informed of the availability. At present it's something the students and college are considering being involved with. It certainly could prove to be an important springboard.

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November 17, 2009

My Buildings and Me ~ Peter Durant (Blog Post)

Peter Durant is a widely published architectural photographer. He came to speak at Burton College as part of an ongoing series of lectures from professionals in the photography field.

This is Peter Durant's twentieth year as an architectural photographer. He studied Photography at Derby University for three years, graduating in 1988. He was always interested in the built environment, how we mark the landscape and wanted to see things photographed so that one could get involved with what's inside the frame. Peter aims for his photos to impart a feeling of what an environment is like. As he says, he is, "Putting a rectangle around a space to create an inviting relationship."

Peter Durant is obviously passionate about his job and extremely focused. In fact he tells us, "It's the best job." He also tells us that he is given free reign with his work, rarely having to deal with intermediaries such as ad agencies, graphic designers, and so on. He admits that he has done a few art directed shoots, but hasn't really got on with that way of working, preferring to work his own.
He also informs the lecture theatre that deadlines are not so much an issue unless he's working for magazines. Photo shoots only go ahead when the weather and light are right, making between twelve to fifteen images a day.

If you're interested in an area of photography, assisting is a priority, he says. Peter learnt how to use filters and some tricks of the trade through assisting Dennis Gilbert. Peter informs us that good assistants are one step ahead. And they don't talk. He also believes that the same methodology should be applied when showing portfolios; show your work, listen, less talk.

When asked how to get to be an assistant, Peter advises to focus on an area of photography that you're interested in, find the best photographers in that area, contact them and keep contacting them. He says when contacting photographers make sure you send an email then follow it up a few months later. He in particular is very loyal to his assistants, only replacing them once they have moved on.

Apart from having his website and meeting people Peter doesn't really market himself. He doesn't think he does too well at it, but appears to be successful regardless. Peter does say that making a real living out photography is the hardest thing. Completing admin, filling out tax returns and the like are a drudgery, but the image taking always gratifies. "There is a level of pleasure I get from a finished shot which is enough for me."

Peter goes on to tell us that photographers have to always be visually in the here and now, constantly refreshing, framing pictures as you walk around, being in a space and looking, like a predator hunting for details. "Work to the best of your abilities," He tells us, "And do the best professional job you can. It will do won't do. Otherwise you'll slip down your own values. Some projects may not be so exciting, but you should bring the same sensibilities to it as the work you do find exciting."

As photography students, this is a time to indulge, Peter encourages. We should be feeding off images, being visually aware, the frame is key. "Get it wrong then you've got something to work from. If you don't do anything, you have nothing."

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