Hi everyone!

As part of my photography course, I have to track my development on a blog. The posts from September 2011 until January 2012 are part of a module called Project Management, for which I was required to work in a group of eight students to create an exhibition. The blog followed every step we took in order to create a successful gallery. The blog posts starting from September 2012 follow my final year on the course. I'll be documenting my research and analysis of my final year projects, as well as include notes of my Professional Practice unit - which prepares us for a range of post graduate options. Finally it also looks at a project called New Creatives, where I'll be working alongside an artists to help college students get more involved with art.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Twitter

So I finally got myself a twitter: https://twitter.com/ElaineDeVries. I've only posted one tweet so far, and managed to follow 21 people (mainly from my course) but other than that, I have no idea how it works, what to tweet about and how I can write such short little updates! I should probably know it all, since part of my dissertation was about Twitter......

The Gold Room

I'm very very very happy to announce I will be taking part in The Gold Room's exhibition in March! I showed my interest as soon as I heard about it and submitted my Rubber Ducks project. The theme is "You Are a Window" and since my ducks project is an autobiographical piece, I thought it would be perfect for the show.

This is the email I received:


Hi Elaine,
I would love you to take part in 'you are a window' with your rubber duck series!
I will send you more details in March, but have confirmed you as an artist.
Lou x



Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Pinterest

Alongside all the other stuff from the post below, I also started using my pinterest account for my photography. It's got my portfolio, a section for pet photography, landscape photography, a behind the scenes section and my 52 week photo challenge photos. On top of that it's also got some photo/travel inspiration. I try and keep my pinterest updated as much as I can, I see it as a blog and portfolio in one. It's a great place to see my diversity of work, both with the subject matter and my medium, but also a place where you can learn more about me. The behind the scenes is a great way to see little bits and pieces from all my shoots, in one place, and the photo challenge also shows a lot of diversity.

http://pinterest.com/elaine721/

Updates

This week has been pretty crazy. Lots of hours at Subway, the studio, large format shoot, time lapse shoot, research, practical work, trying to find a place to get my work developed, more hours at Subway, lots of train journeys, tutorials etc etc etc. I'm exhausted.

First of all, I created a motion blur time lapse, which seemed impossible at first, then ended up being really easy, but then actually turned out was pretty hard. I'm not completely happy with it, and will definitely need some editing, but here is a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhCfJ67C84k. Next time I'm in the Woking area, I'll try this again, but get a more sturdy tripod. The reason the time lapse is a bit all over the place is because while moving my camera up and down, the whole tripod started bouncing up and down too. A sturdier tripod will mean straighter lines, which is what I want to go for.

Secondly, I had my large format shoot, which I already wrote about. The shoot itself was great and I do still love large format, however it's all the stuff you have to do afterwards that's frustrating. Such as the developing and scanning. It wouldn't be too bad, if the university colour processor was working, but unfortunately that's been broken for about 2 months and is currently in Germany.. After a lot of searching/panicking I messaged Fergus Heron to ask where he gets his film processed. He told me about this little place in Brighton where they process the film for £2.50. I phoned them up to see how long it takes to process and they told me 2 hours. The plan was to go to Brighton at 9.33 (be there at 10.45) get to "The Vault" (15 min walk) and get it processed (2 hours - 11.00-13.00), but somehow be back in portsmouth at 14.30 so I could go to work..... I asked whether they could have it finished any quicker and they could! They did it for me in an hour and 15 minutes which left me plenty of time to catch my 13.00 train to be back at 14.15. Phew.

I've also booked the scanner for Thursday afternoon so I can really see how all my images have turned out, but right now this'll have to do!

Finally, I got my marks back for my first semester project (the succession circle) and it's a first!!! Very exciting and an excellent start to the third year. Hopefully all my marks will be this good and I'll pass with flying colours! I also had my dissertation feedback tutorial which was great as well. My tutor explained to me that my content was fine and it's well written, the only criticism is that some bits are too descriptive and others need more analysis. Other than that it's just little bits and pieces that can easily get fixed. She said if the dissertation was marked, it would probably be around a 2:1! My hard work is definitely paying off..


52 Week Challenge: Week 4

This week the theme was "sign". I knew straight away I didn't want to do anything too obvious, like take a photo of a stop sign for example. I was planning to go to the studio with my boyfriend so I thought I should try and combine the two. The main reason I went to the studio was to take photos of a beautiful Azalea plant, so I wanted to use that as a sign in the photos. Since we're nearing Valentines Day and the shops are starting to overflow with pinks and reds, I thought of linking it to Valentines day, meaning the flowers would be a sign of love. My boyfriend and I are in the background looking all happy the emphasize the meaning of the flowers, without using any words.

New Creatives Portsmouth

 On the 25th of January Oliver and I went back to Portsmouth College to see how everyone is doing on their projects. There's beena massive improvement from last time. Sarah, the lady in charge at Portsmouth, has been the most organised person ever, making sure all her students had some work ready on a USB stick for us to have a look at before starting. We had a quick flick through all the work and everything looks great! There is quite a variety of work including photography, graphic design, fashion/textiles etc.

After Oliver and I were updated about everyone's project, we sat in one of the rooms and had a group discussion about each persons work. It was great to see that the students had gained a lot more confidence and were more able to talk about their projects. On the 1st of February, both Portsmouth and Havant college have to submit their labels to Aspex gallery, so they have to know the title, size, format etc. It's super early, since the opening is only in March, and because of that's it's hard to say how everyone's work will be presented. We helped students think of titles and had a chat about how to present their work.


After we spoke about everyone's work, I had a quick one-to-one with one of the girls who wants to do a photography project. She wasn't sure how to go about composing the shots so we talked about some techniques she could use.

Although the New Creatives brief says we should have three visits to each college, we decided it might be best to visit the students one more time closer to the time of the exhibition to see the final pieces and help out with the final bits and pieces.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

The Kindness of Strangers

While shooting in Horsell Common today, a dogwalker came up to me and was very interested in the large format camera. We had a little chat and he told me he also had a large format camera, which was about 100 years old! He seemed very impressed with the one from the University and also liked the sound of my project. It was nice to have a chat with someone about my project and who also had a passion for the large format camera.

A little bit later we saw him approaching us again, but this time he had a camera with him instead. He asked me if I was interested in 35mm photography as well, and when I answered yes he offered to give me his Nikon 35mm film camera and "a box with a few other things". I was literally overjoyed! It was such a nice camera with a great lens. We came over to his house where he had laid out all the gear (Photo above). It wasn't "a few other things" he had everything! Including a second lens, a whole range of filters, a flashgun, a second film camera, a bag, a roll of film, various clearers, etc. It was incredible, and he gave it all away for free! He also showed me his large format camera, which was larger than the 5x4, and a 35mm Leica camera. He explained he used to collect cameras and that's why he had such a nice set!

I'm so thankful for all the gear he gave me, I've already been playing around with the camera and it's fantastic!! Expect to see a whole load of film shots over the next couple of months.

Large Format Shoot


 I love large format, so when Daniel and Judy mentioned I should try the motion blur images with the large format, I was up for the challenge. I shot on the same film as last time, 160 ISO Kodak Professional, and bought a pack of 10 photos. Because motion blur is so extremely experimental, I have no idea whether the images have turned out nice or not. It’ll be the most frightening moment to get the photos back!

I shot the photos on the 26th of January 2013 starting at about 10am. I shot the photos in Horsell Common. I tried out a bit of everything, different shutter speeds and apertures, quick and slow movement, different locations, lighting etc.
The first shot was taking in quite a messy part of the woodland, the birch and pine trees were scattered all around and it was quite dark. The main colours were dark brown and a copper brown. There were blue skies. I used the lightmeter and got a reading of 2 seconds and an aperture of 64. Since the field camera doesn’t have a shutter speed longer than 1 second I had to use bulb mode, my handy assistant helped out with the process. While holding down the shutter for 2 seconds, I’d move the front part of the camera (with the lens) up and down at a certain speed. For this particular images, I moved the camera in long quick movements. 

I chose the second location because it was very dark and dense. As you can see from the photo to the left, the image is very dark, and the main colour would be a very dark brown, as well as a bit of dark green on the bottom of the frame. I used a shutter speed of 8 seconds, so there will be a whole lot of movement in this photo.

Again, in quite a dense area, however for this photo I faced against the sun. This way, the main colour will be white, with dark straight lines (the trees) standing out. The three photos so far have had very different colours and settings, meaning that (hopefully) the images will be very different from one another.


The two images left and right are taken in exactly the same location, but have two different meter readings. This is because I loved the way the still photo looked through the camera and thus wanted to take a photo without the movement. The bottom light meter reading shows a shutter speed of 2 seconds and an aperture of 22, again very different from the other photos. This shot will mainly have medium browns and a bit of dark green. But what will make this photo stand out is the sunlight hitting the trucks and branches of the tree. It will create interesting shapes in the photo. 

Again, the two images to the left and right are taken in the same location but have different meter readings. One is a movement shot and the other is a straight shot. The main colour is this photo will be green, as there is a lot of shrubbery towards the bottom of the photo. The sun is still hitting the trees very nicely, which will hopefully create interesting shapes. The long exposure is 4 seconds at 32 and the still is ¼ seconds at 11.
I have never had the camera point this way, so the focus was incredibly interesting (blurry at the top, then in focus, blurry at the bottom).



One of the most popular photos that I showed in the tutorial was of the sky, no one could identify what it was. Therefore, I wanted to take another shot similar to that. Facing the large format camera up was quite difficult, and trying to view the image was even harder! The main colours in this photo will be blue and green, as the tops of the pine trees had this beautiful light green which was just hit by the sun, and the sky was a nice even blue.
Hopefully all the images have turned out nicely...


Sunday, January 20, 2013

New Creatives

This is a long overdue post. Before the Christmas holiday, both Portsmouth college and Havant college came to Aspex gallery to have a look around and to see where they will be exhibiting their work. It was nice for the students to look at the place and imagine their own work hanging on the wall. They sketched the area so that they could look back onto it when creating their final pieces. Whether they display their work on a white wall or on a brick wall could make a huge difference to the look of things.

Next week I'll be visiting Portsmouth college for their last tutorial session. After that we will all be selecting the 20 best works (although since the groups are smaller than 20, everyone can hang their work) and finally in March Havant and Portsmouth college will deliver their work to Aspex gallery. The exhibition will be on the 8th of March.

Analysis of Tutorials


For the 1:1 tutorial I presented both of my ideas to Judy and she said she preferred the motion blur images, and thus for the group tutorial I decided to only talk about that project and leave out the second one.
The summary of the 1:1 tutorial is basically do A LOT of research. I have the visuals for the project, however I haven’t quite got a concept yet. Judy has given me a whole load of things to look at.
The group tutorial was really beneficial. Everyone said that they loved my photos, which was a relief. No one on the course has done images like this before (that I know of) so it’s definitely original. Again, it was said that the concept might need some more work, but Daniel explained that I shouldn’t pressure a concept, I should just see how the project continues. Because I showed the work on my iPad, Daniel said it looked a bit like Hockney’s iPad drawings, so I need to think carefully about how I want to present the work (digital or printed). People found the pictures interested due to the ambiguous nature.
We then moved on to talk about where the project could do. Daniel first mentioned I should create a motion blur time lapse. I was pretty shocked, how on earth can I create that?? But I’ve been thinking about it for a little while and I’d love to try it! He also mentioned I should use the medium format digital back to get the most amazing quality. I explained that I love the large format, both Judy and Daniel said I should try it on the large format camera, which could end up being easier. Other things that were mentioned by the group were to really test everything: different types of motion blur, and movements of the camera, different mediums and different ways of presenting. I have to put my own stamp on it.
When we got to the critical thinking part, no one really knew what to say – which I obviously loved. The main things that were said is to make sure it’s not too amateur and that I need a concept, it shouldn’t just be about the technicality of it.
Finally we arrived at the overview, which basically just says do a lot of work. From today until Friday I'll be doing a whole load of research. Learning more about motion blur and in camera movement, looking at paintings and drawings and of course photographers. Saturday I will be going out with the large format camera (5x4) to take some shots (very exciting) and on Sunday I will attempt to make a motion blur time lapse (very exciting too!). Hopefully the colour processor will have been fixed by then, or else I'd have to go on a trip to Southampton to get the photos developed. 

Saturday, January 19, 2013

5 Thinking Hats


Information:
·         Landscape project
·         Different more abstract approach
·         Technology – people blurring images
·         Motion blur, abtract paint like process
o   Nick Knight Flora
o   Doug Chinnery
·         Horsell Common & Chobham Common
·         Use blur to create more abstract painterly projects
Emotional:
·         Photos amazing
·         Conceptual part might need some thought
·         Beautiful – remind me of Hockneys iPad drawings
·         Very nice – better than Chris’s so far
·         Potential
·         Look at history of paintings
·         Interesting – ambiguous
·         Looks fresh
·         Like the pictures
Creative Ideas:
·         Could have the photos painted
·         Have them huge
·         Shoot a blurred timelapse
·         Research what is out there
·         Put your own stamp on it
·         Experiment with abstractions – other mediums
·         Explore now as an interesting time to be making pictures
·         Use the medium format digital
·         Try a 5x4 version
Critical Thinking:
·         Be aware of the “amateur” experimentation with photography
·         The technical ease could make it more familiar
·         Experiment with location, different spaces
·         How you mount & present them is very important
·         Use the camera in different ways
·         Try zooming in and out
·         Make it not just a technical exercise
Overview:
·         Do a lot of research
·         Try different techniques
·         “in camera movement”
·         For next time – show a few different ways of displaying work

Foxtons

In the second year I did quite a bit of architectural photography and really enjoyed it. Thus I decided to contact Foxtons in Woking regarding work experience. I haven't heard anything back yet, so I might phone them up next week.

Alumni Session 2


Jon Adams:
The first speaker was Jon Adams, who talked to us about the arts council. The chat was a bit confusing and didn’t really have a focus. He basically explained that his dad was a military photographer and that’s how he got interested in photography, although he studies palaeontology. The Arts council is where you can receive funding for your projects. You submit a proposal, including a budget, and then if you’ve writing a convincing enough proposal you can receive the money you have asked for. This is obviously fantastic information, but I feel like they should have told us about this in the first year, not the last semester of the last year. The process takes about 6 weeks, so if we were to apply today, in 6 weeks time a lot of the project would have already been finished.

Lauri Holford:
Lauri is a digital retoucher for Urban Outfitters. He graduated in 2012 and very quickly got the job. A digital retouchers job includes things like post production editing for the online content, going to shoots and preparing & styling the shoot and models. He assists photographers regularly, he is responsible for the online visual merchandising (where everything goes on the site) and retouching the catalogue images. He listed the ordering:
1.      Shoot
2.      Post production editing
3.      Colour matching
4.      Uploading/organising the site categories
5.      Maintaining consistency on the website
6.      Ongoing amendments to images on site
He showed us quite a few different photos where he had to edit the colours, the models’ skin tone or shorten the jeans slightly. He got into this job because at University, he played around with photoshop quite a bit. For his final project he used retouching and realised he wanted to continue in this direction. He started to apply for jobs in March and applied for just about anything. He got contacted by Urban Outfitters and had a few interviews and was successful.

Darryl Snow:
Darryl is an architectural photographer at Foxtons. In the second year he decided that he wanted to be an architectural photography. He applied at Foxtons and first had a phone interview, then a group, then another phone interview and finally an interview with the manager. He calls himself a protographer, meaning he isn’t just a photographer, but is also responsible for drawing a floorplan of the property, and other architectural things.
He really enjoys his job and says it’s a great way to get his work out as it’s advertised on or in a monthly magazine, the Foxtons website, a brochure, screens etc. He had to teach himself quite a bit of photoshop skills, one of which was adding blue skies to cloudy images.

Davina Wilby:
Davina started off with an art foundation course and then decided to study photography. On the course she started to think about a teaching job. While studying she worked at Goodwin printing and started to get valuable contacts. One day someone from Fareham college told her about a teaching job available teaching an adult class. That’s how her career started. She had to apply for a PGCE so she could continue in teaching. At the moment she is teaching at a college and loves it. To the side she still works on her own photography and explained that being a teacher doesn’t mean you can’t continue your hobbies. 

Friday, January 18, 2013

52 Week Challenge: Week 3

This week the theme is stone. I have never really thought of stone as a theme for my photography, so thinking of an idea was quite hard. I didn't want to do anything too obvious, like take a close-up shot of some rocks, so instead of thinking of a stone itself, I wanted something more broad. I really like landscape photography and thus wanted to somehow combine the two, that's how I came up with the idea of shooting at Portsmouth beach. It's a pebble beach so would fit with the theme. When I think of beaches, they're sandy and soft and warm and sunny. I looked at the completely opposite of the stereotype: cold, stones, snow, cloudy: miserable really. My original plan was to go on a normal winter day, just cold and miserable but I didn't anticipate the snow! I went to the beach nice and early, at 9 in the morning.

I quite like the photo, it's taken in a deadpan style so something that comes across in quite a bit of my work. I have never taken a snowy beach picture so it's definitely a first. I tried to get the camera as straight as possible. You can't really tell from the photo, but it was so incredibly windy and cold and snowy all at the same time. You could hardly look up as snow would get into your eyes!


Sunday, January 13, 2013

Aaron Reed


Hi,
I’m a third year photography student at the University of Portsmouth. I am currently doing a project about landscape photography taken in a motion blur style. While researching I came across your Abstract work and saw the motion blur images of forests you have. I was wondering what inspired to you take these images. Did you take them on the camera or manipulate them afterwards? I read in your bio that you got images published in National Geographic, this is something I hope to achieve one day. How did you start your photography career?
Thanks,
Elaine de Vries

Reply: 
Hi Elaine,

Those images were created intentionally in camera. It is a technique called intentional camera motion or ICM and you can google that for tons of info on the subject. I started in photography by taking a few pictures at the beach one day. I just really enjoyed it. Good luck!

Aaron Reed - Aaron Reed Photography

The Gold Room

The Gold Room is an exhibition space on Elm Grove in Southsea who posted on their Facebook page that they're curating an exhibition in May and if people were interested to message them. Obviously interested, I immediately messaged them and this is what I received:


52 Week Challenge: Week 2

The theme of the second week is "Tall". The first that came to mind was my dad, he's pretty tall... but he's at home and I'm in Portsmouth so that's not happening. I starting to think about buildings and taking photos from a high point looking over a city which then led me to the Spinnaker. Since I moved to Portsmouth (2010) I've always wanted to go up the spinnaker, but didn't get round to doing it or kept putting it off. We looked at the weather forecast and luckily it said today was going to be partly cloudy, instead of miserable and rainy.
We only got out of bed at 10, realised it was clear blue skies, and were at the Spinnaker by 11. It was amazing! I never really knew what it would be like up there. It had three stories the first one had the glass floor, where I took the picture of this week (left). The second floor had a cafe and the third one was right at the top. 

After we went down again, I took a photo from the bottom up. Both pictures are unedited!

Friday, January 11, 2013

Dissertation

My finished dissertation draft. 44 pages and 7,189 words, 85 references:

What impact can virality have on businesses and organisations using social networking sites?

Fergus Heron

On the 2nd of January 2013 I assisted Fergus Heron on a Photoshoot. It was a great opportunity to see how a professional photographer goes about doing his work. We went to Horsell Common at about 11 in the morning and finished close to 2. Heron originally planned to take one photo, but ended up taking two.

Before Heron starts shooting with his 5x4 Large Format camera, he needs to decide on what he wants to photograph. He spends quite a bit of time walking around Horsell Common using his iphone or a small compact camera to sketch out possible images. He uses this as his practical side of the research. Instead of just taking one quick photo, he takes about 5 to look at different styles of composition. When he's found the perfect shot, he will take his 5x4 camera. When I went out with Heron, he wanted to replicate a photo he took on his iphone back in March. 

When we got to Horsell Common I realised how much gear he actually has. He had one ladder, a huge tripod bag, a rucksack for his large format camera and a waterproof case where he keeps lenses and other important accessories. Heron started to unpack his tripod and I was literally shocked at how large the tripod was. It went up so high and that's why the ladder was needed - to be able to look in the back of the camera. The reason why Heron had such a high tripod was because in order to get the whole image in focus, it's best to get to higher up. It also meant that he would have a further vantage point for his photos. 

After setting up the camera to get an almost identical picture to his original photo he explained to me some steps he took to get the perfect shot. He explained that his aperture is mainly in the middle, so about 16. He used the metaphor of a cars engine, cars work best when you drive at a constant middle speed, and it's the same with large format photography. Another reason was that if the aperture is too low, you could potentially see a darker outline on the photos. Heron talked in great detail about his composition and how it's important to have something in the bottom corner stand out as well as a top corner, to create a direction of viewing. 

He took quite a few lightmeter readings but it took quite a bit of patience as Horsell Common is a very popular dog walking area. Thus, he had to take some more lightmeter readings. He talked me though all the steps of large format photography, and said that one of the most important things is to check whether the shutter is closed when you put the film in, and that you don't have the shutter release wire in the way when shoot! 

After the first photo, Fergus Heron decided to take another photograph as he'd been wanting to take a photo in a second location for a while. We set up the camera in the second location, but since we were already elevated, he didn't have to have the tripod as high. The composition was incredibly important and it took quite a while to get something he wanted. The iphone or compact camera screen obviously have a different ration than the 5x4 camera, so the composition needs readjusting. He explained it's important to always make sure that you can see the bottoms of the trees, as it looks very odd when you have a "floating" tree, so to say. 

It was an incredible experience to work with Fergus Heron. when he finished shooting he asked my about my projects and gave me some advice on the people to look into. He will be sending me digital copies of the two images that he took! Working with his has made me feel so nostalgic for large format photography! 

52 week challenge: Week 1

I went to school with a girl called Caitlin McColl, she was two years older than me so I didn't really know her too well. When she graduated from High School she moved back to Australia to study photography in Melbourne. Over her time on the course she became really passionate about pet photography and started her own business. She is now quite a popular photographer in Australia! This is her website: http://ragamuffinpetphotography.com.au/

When I made the decision to go to Melbourne, I immediately thought of her and asked whether I could do some work experience with her. She agreed and we'll sort something out closer to the time.

Anyway, she recently started this project with a lot of other pet photographers called the 52 week challenge where you get a different theme every week and take a photo. I was so inspired by her project that I decided to look for one too. I only have a little hamster so a pet related one wouldn't work out too well, so I stumbled upon this one:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/2012weeklypic

It started in 2012, but they're continuing it this year. The theme of the first week was "Living" and the second week is "Tall". I think I've got the perfect picture for week one. On the first day of the new year my boyfriend and I went to London to go on the London Eye and the Aquarium. The photo to the left is my photo for the theme "Living". Since my boyfriend and I are moving to Australia (and hopefully staying there for a very long time) we want to embrace our time in England and do the things we've always wanted to do, but never really got round to doing it. We're living life to the fullest!

Quick Catch Up!

It's been quite a while since I posted, but I've been up to a lot. Over the Christmas break my main focus was my dissertation - a 7,500 word essay. I have been planning since September, but only got down to writing it in December and January. My dissertation is about viral media/marketing and how it affects businesses and organisations. After writing about the start of the Internet and platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, I specifically looked Invisible Children, with its Kony 2012 video and Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. I handed in my 44 page draft today and will receive feedback in February.

I also received my first mark, a 67% so a high 2:1. This was for my proposal for the second semester project. I'm quite happy with the mark although I would have loved to get a first! I will receive my mark for my Succession project sometime in February. Next week I'll have a tutorial regarding my research book as a guide to see how we're doing.


Over Christmas I've also been thinking about my second semester project. I already knew that I didn't want to go through with the proposal I handed in, but still didn't manage to get a concept for the motion blur work. For that reason I decided to think of a second project. The second project looks at human presence in a landscape. I went out on one photoshoot to see what it would look like and I surprisingly really liked the images I came up with. I have a couple different styles I'm looking at. The first (image right) is quite an obvious approach to the project as it clearly shows a path. The first image is of a path that's made my people trampling the ground. I like the composition of the photo as the fallen tree points to the path. I also like the contrast between the completely vertical trees compared to the fallen tree and path with are at an angle. The second photo is even more obvious, but there is something that really stands out to me. I like the deadpan style of photography as well as the obvious path. It's right in the middle of the photo and leads the eye from the from to the back, creating a vantage point.


The second concept is a lot less obvious as shown by the photos to the left. The top photo is in the same location as one of the photos from my previous project. It shows a beautiful landscape covered in this luminescent grass however when you closely look at it, there is a telephone line going through the back (as shown by the zoomed in area).
The second photo is similar. It looks like a lovely grass field, however to the left of the photo is McClaren (a technological car factory/story/research centre). The hill towards the centre of the photo is covering part of the research institute. So at first glance it looks like a nice field, however you're actually looking at an artificial field covering up a car research centre.

Finally, Over the break I also assisted Fergus Heron on a photoshoot. It was an incredible experience, which I will write about in a later post.