Preview night!!

On the 31st of May was the preview night!!! A couple days before that I emailed my lecturer asking if I could make a time lapse of the event, and he suggested I work with Will Rudman, another student on my course interested in time lapse videos. We got chatting on facebook and decided to work together! He had already filmed a short video of the setting up of the show, so it was a great continuation for him. We went to the exhibition space a couple times to decide on where to put the camera and talked to the technicians about health and safety things. We decided on having one camera above the open exhibition space, which as far as I'm aware no student has ever been! Will's camera was set up there and shot from 5-8. I had my 7D and 1000D on the exhibition floor and moved it around the space. Starting at the beginning where people came in (and conveniently pointing at my work..) and then moved it to the corner close to the bar area, then in the middle and finishing by looking at Will's work. While I was timelapse-ing with my 1000D, Will used my 7D to film some shots of people's work and people looking at the work. Finally, we also had a gopro in a separate room part of the exhibition. It was really great to work with Will and I'm SO happy I didn't do it alone!!! We spent 4 hours on Monday the 3rd of June putting all the time lapse scenes together and creating the most amazing time lapse video I've ever created!! Here is a link for it so do check it out! :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aepp6JEchwY

Anyway, so apart from filming for the whole preview night, it was fantastic!! I could see people coming up to my work and pointing at it, which is so strange haha. I couldn't spend that much time with my work since I had to keep a constant eye on my camera. However, after the show finished and I was on my way to Gunwharf, I got a phone call from a person interested in my work!! I was overjoyed. We met up a couple days later and chatted for about an hour and a half. It was great to talk to him and hear about his stories and his passion for nature. When I got home from meeting him, I checked my email and someone else was seriously interested in buying my work! Again, overjoyed!!! I will be meeting him either on Friday the 14th of Monday the 17th to discuss prices and things like that. I literally can't believe that I got so much interest in my work and that all my business cards ended up being taken.

On top of all that I got a phone call from Foxtons (estate agents) regarding a graduate job! What on earth!??? I sent my CV and website to Foxtons before Christmas asking for work experience and never heard anything back until now. I haven't been able to speak to Foxtons yet, but unfortunately I won't be able to take the graduate job since I'm going to Australia! However, I was thinking about either asking to work for the month of August, or whether I could just get some work experience with them. That way I would be able to continue in that industry in Australia. It would be fantastic to get a photography related job in Australia, rather than applying for something like Subway again (even though I really enjoy working at Subway).

It's been an incredibly exciting time since the exhibition!!!

Business Cards

After I got my 40 free Moo.com cards, I decided to actually splurge and pay for 100 cards. I got a set of 50 business cards solely for my 7591 Miles project. I used the three different photos of the series for the three designs of the back of the card. The front just had my name, that I'm a photographer, my website, email, blog and phone number. I printed another 25 cards for my Succession project and 25 of Kayleigh. The reason I printed 25 cards with Kayleigh on it is because I wanted to save those for the summer as I want to do some pet photography then. I put them alongside my exhibition anyway just in case. At the end of the preview night I only had about 20 cards of Kayleigh left and that was it! A couple days I came back and there were only 3 cards left!! I decided to restock with some of the free cards I got, and by the time I added those I only had one card left. It's crazy! I had no idea people would take my cards. I printed 100 cards thinking I could use them over the summer and take them with me to Australia and just cross out my phone number... But no, they're all gone. It's absolutely crazy!

Exhibition Set Up

 I'll start with the Eldon Show set up.  Way back on the 7th of May we started with setting up the show. This included lots of painting and creating 'fake' walls to hang work and a whole load more. Basically getting the space ready for an exhibition. It was a joint effort so for a week and a half everyone came in and helped out. On the 16th of May the setting up had to be ready as that was the first day to hang up our work! We all came in in the morning as it was our professional practice hand in and in the afternoon we came back to hang the work. For professional practice we had to hand in our portfolio (either physical or digital (eg website) as well as our 'final' blog post. I got a 61% got this, so a 2:1. Although I'm not super happy with it, I'm glad it was in the 2:1 mark. In my last tutorial my lecturers weren't very impressed with my portfolio so I was terrified of failing!! After the hand in and the feedback forms, the lecturers basically just sent us home so they could be alone and layout the work. At 2 we came back and oh my goodness!! My work was placed right at the front!! The top right photo is taken from where you walk into the exhibition space. My work is the first you see!! I was so excited that I immediately wanted to hang my work, before they could change their mind.

I asked my boyfriend to come in to help me as diy isn't my thing at all! I bought a whole load of screws and mirror clips as well as a ruler and a screwdriver. Who knew that stuff was so cheap? So we started off by measuring everything very carefully. We almost hung it up wrong! But thankfully one of my course mates set us straight. It probably took us about an hour and half to hang up the first photo... When we started on the second one we got a bit over confident and ended up hanging it about 5cm too high! That was easily fixed though. The third photo was up in about 10 minutes.

It looks like Kevin is doing all the work in these photos, but honestly it was a joint effort! When we finally got all three photos up we thought we were done for the day and we'd do my succession photo the next day. However, my lecturers urged me to keep going and get it all done in one day.


The Succession photo weight about 7kg and the technicians recommended I hang it up with mirror clips. We started off by getting rid of the original hanging method and made new holes in the frame. Pretty scary!! After that we carefully put in the mirror clips. That was the easy part.... After measuring the wall various times and figuring out where everything had to go, my lecturer helped me left the photo while Kevin drilled some more holes in the wall. Letting go of it was terrifying. But it stayed up!!


 I'm super happy with the spot the lectures gave me, and also that both of my work was next to each other. The work is so different, 7591 Miles is a lot more personal and has a more creative approach, whereas Succession is very scientific and precise. Below is a photo of it all hanging up on the wall. It was a very proud moment!

Hand-In

Last Thursday was my hand-in for two units: Advanced Practice Research and Self Led. For Advanced Practice Research I had to create two research workbooks for each of my projects (Succession and 7591 Miles). Self Led only referred to my 7591 Miles project. For this I had to hand in my three finals, my development workbook and a reflective writing, which basically just sums up all the research I've done and how I've come to my final.

It's a bit of a strange feeling now that I've handed this in. It's the same as after my dissertation hand in - I'm happy that it's all done, but I've still got another hand in and a whole exhibition to set up! Usually the hand-in means the end, but we've still got so much to do!!

The next deadline is the 16th of May, which is when I have to hand in my portfolio (pretty much done) and a final blog post explaining what I'm hoping to do over the next 5 years and how the course has helped me get to that. This means I won't be blogging for a while after the 16th (until I've got my mark back).

Anyway, a few days before that I have my VIVA practice presentation. The VIVA is an oral presentation about my work, however it's not my work that is being marked but the way I talk about it and my knowledge of the subject matter. I will be talking about my Succession project for this as I feel the most confident at that project. My actual VIVA is sometime closer towards the end of May. Also around the start of May we have to start setting up our Eldon exhibition. We start setting it up and deciding where all the work is going to go on the 7th of May, but the actual exhibition isn't until the 31st of May! I'm a bit worried about hanging up my work, since my Succession photo is incredibly heavy and I literally know nothing about drilling holes and stuff.....

7591 Miles Finals!!

Today I went to Brighton to pick up my other two final prints for the Eldon exhibition. It feels like the millionth time I've gone to The Vault, but they're lovely and have done a fantastic job with all of my prints. The photo to the right are all three of them. They literally look beautiful. The colours are so bright and having them printed shows so much more detail than when I see them on my screen. The orange and the green in the third photo are so vibrant which relates back to the bold red in the first photo.

 The photo to the left is just a detail shot of the mounting and the paper. It's printed on matt paper and has a seal over it which looks really nice and feels smooth too. I think it's fingerprint proof, but I'm not 100% sure. The diabond mounting is very light and sturdy. I can't wait to put these photos up in the Eldon exhibition alongside my Succession photograph.

This might sound a bit cheesy, but I'm so proud of myself for finishing these two projects. Both of them used large format film, something I never thought I'd ever use, let alone enjoy! I also started playing around in the film-making world by creating time lapse videos, which is something I'm hoping to continue. Both of the final projects are beautifully presented. The Succession photo looks a million times better in its frame, and these three 7591 Miles photos also look a lot more impressive printed and mounted.

122x54cm Canvas

My boyfriend's dad loved my 7591 Miles photos so much that we wanted to have a canvas made with all three photos on it! He had quite specific sizing for it, so I first created the canvas in photoshop to get all the measurements right. It ended up being 122x54 cm. There is a 5cm border around the photos and 2.5cm between each photo.
I got it printed at The Vault in Brighton, who I have been visiting A LOT recently. They first developed my 5x4 film, I then got my A2 print printed and mounted, I then picked it up, and today I picked up the canvas. I'll have to go again next week to pick up my other two A2 photos in the series..... Luckily I really like Brighton.

The photo above is what it looks like all together. The photo is quite dark so it doesn't show off the colours very well. It's so vibrant!! The red in the first photo really stands out and the green in the third photo looks incredibly. I'm amazed by the quality of the print, as I wasn't sure how it would look. The thick white border around the photo looks great too, it makes the colours pop even more.

Personally, I prefer having each of the photos printed individually, but I think they look fantastic printed like this too. To the left is a little detail shot of the canvas. I love it.

Like I said earlier, I will be going back to Brighton next week at some point (and do a little bit of shopping...) to get my other two photos printed and mounted. I received an email back from my lecturer saying that I will definitely have both Succession and 7591 Miles project presented at the Eldon show. The exact words were "Yes we will make the room", so that is very exciting.

Other than that, it looks like spring has finally arrived in Portsmouth! It's beautiful outside and when you stand in the sun it actually feels like I only need to wear 3 layers instead of 4! In Brighton it's still wintery and gloomy though.

Business Cards

I've been going a bit crazy over free samples lately. I've order anything and everything ranging from make-up samples and moisturisers to puppy toys! One of the many many things I ordered are business cards from Moo.com. Moo is an online company that specialises in professional looking business cards for reasonableness prices. I desperately need some new business cards as I ordered mine from Vista Print for very cheap and they aren't very good quality (Card Paper). I've also got an image on it that isn't even in my portfolio anymore!

Anyway, so then I came across Moo's free business card samples. You could order 10 cards for free with free postage and everything. This is where the crazy part comes in... I got them sent to 4 different addresses so I managed to get 40. I sent one pair to my flat in Portsmouth, one to my parent's house and one to both of my boyfriend's parents' house.

3 out of 4 are now at my flat in Portsmouth and I will be collecting the last set sometime in the near-ish future. First I ordered some "Pet Photography" business cards, since I'm very interested in that field at the moment. They look beautiful. The quality of them is amazing, they are very thick and smooth business cards and have got a matt finish to them. The second set I ordered is of my 7591 Miles project. It's simply got on photo on the back. The third set I ordered was my Succession photo. I originally wanted to have the circle on the back, but I have having all sorts of problems, so I just put it tiny on the front to get the idea, and then the clearing photo on the back. I quite like it this way because I love the clearing photo, and it shows the quality of the photograph. Finally, I printed my ducks. At this point, I figured out that you can choose multiple designs for the cards, so I chose 4 different photos (3 blue, 3 purple, 2 red and 2 yellow).

When I order my real business cards (I won't just live off of free samples...) I reckon I'll create several different designs to show the range of photography I can do. I'll probably order 100 cards and choose maybe 5 different projects? I haven't quite decided yet, I wanted to have a look at the quality first.

I don't expect to get rid of all of my business cards during the Eldon show, so I will be using them in Australia too, although I'll just have to cross out my mobile number and write a new one. Or maybe.... order another few free samples to various different addresses. Neighbours??

March

It's time for my monthly video! It's something I've been doing since January, and basically every month I take a whole load of photos/videos/time lapses and I put them together in one video at the end of the month.
January: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krNZrlufyUA
Feburary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6BtKr06yTs
March: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i15xhVqT6U

March has been pretty busy! It started off with me going to the Artful Dodgers in London, and also visiting the BEST burrito place in the world (at the westfield in stratford). It basically works like subway, but then it's a wrap and it's filled with all sorts of tasty things. I love it. So I took a photo of it to show everyone how incredibly full it is! I then photographed a tribute band called The Bootleg Beatles, who dressed up like the Beatles and sang their songs. I accompanied Lauren Whatling as it's one of her projects and it was great fun! I do have a few blog posts about the experience, but I really enjoyed that. At the end we also received their autographs which was very exciting.

That was then followed by New Creatives! New Creatives is a project I've been working on since October 2012 where I worked alongside an artist, Oliver Merkin, and we went to Portsmouth and Havant College to help students with their art work. It was then displayed at Aspex Gallery in Gunwharf. I first took a time lapse video of the curation of the show, which was then displayed at the exhibition, and that's followed by some photographs of the preview night taken by Lauren Whatling.

The video then continues to show some of the work Kevin and I have been doing, so it includes my dissertation, which I handed it at the start of this month and Kevin's dissertation poster which he got a fabulous 2.1!

I then went to my parent's house for a couple days and photographed my parents' beagle multiple times. She's a great model, but also very naughty. I've got a photograph of her holding some stolen chopsticks. Of course, I couldn't leave out my little hamster, Chili! Who is also a massive poser.

In between my Kayleigh shots and Chili shots there is a photo of my with a giant suitcase. I bought myself a huge huge huge light weight suitcase for £40, which was quite a good deal as it was meant to be double that. It's literally gigantic. Which is good, because I've also done a whole load of shopping to fill it up with.

I then went to the circus in Portsmouth. I received some free tickets from Subway since we let them advertise. It was a great show! I took a whole load of photos but also some timelapses! It was surprisingly difficult since I had to use a really slow shutter speed, but the time lapses have turned out quite nice actually!

Finally, I also got a whole load of stuff done for uni. My Succession photo has been framed and is hanging up in my parent's house. It looks amazing!! It looks so much more professional and expensive now it's framed (which it should do....). I also got my 7591 Miles photo printed and mounted on diabond. I love it. It looks fantastic. However, my lecturers like it too, which could be seen as a positive, but they want my to print the other two photos in the series exactly the same..... That's pretty pricey.

Anyway then the video finishes with some more shots of Chili, who really did not want to be photographed and tried to escape.

Framing/Presenting

After a bit of a stressy start of the day, thanks to the snow, I managed to pick up all my finals! First we went to the framing shop in Woking where I got my Succession photo framed. As mentioned in a previous post, I wanted to have a white frame, not too thick of overpowering, and a circular mount so it wouldn't be too layered. I wasn't too sure about the circular mount, but it looks amazing! In fact, it doesn't actually look like it has a mount, which is good, because nothing distracts you from the photo itself.



The top right and the middle left photo are both of the succession photo. You can't see the photo itself very well because of all the lights. I'm so so so happy with the white frame, I think if it was a black frame the photo would have looked a lot smaller and enclosed and the frame would be a main focus point. The glass looks beautiful as well. It makes the photo look very expensive (which it is...) and the glossiness of it makes the photo look more 3 dimensional.

The photo to the left is just a close up of the mount and the frame. It looks beautiful. Unfortunately I could only see the photo for a few minutes before it got wrapped up and put in the back of the car.





We then drove to Brighton to pick up my A2 photo for my motion blur project. I should really start to refer to it as 7591 Miles as it sounds so much more professional. Anyway, this also looks fantastic!! I printed it on matt paper so it wouldn't look like one giant mirror and it's mounted on diabond. The mounting is literally gorgeous. I'm so happy with it!! Diabond is basically the same as aluminium mounting, but a lot lighter in weight.

I can't really find the right words to describe it all, because both of these projects are the most professionally presented work I've every created. My Succession photo will be up in the Eldon exhibition in May/June, 7591 Miles will be handed in as my final for this project.