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.