52 Week Photo Challenge Catch Up 2

I know it's all a bit late again, but better late than never! Since I have finished my course it's been pretty busy..ish. Firstly, I sold my work!! After the show I was contacted by someone who was interested in buying my work, so I met up with them to discuss prices etc and have been in contact with them for quite a while via email, and they are officially buying my work! I went to Brighton today to get my photos reprinted! It's super exciting! Other than that I've slowly started packing, I'll be leaving Portsmouth on the 6th of July and will be going back home for (less than) 2 months before going to AUSTRALIA!!

Anyway, back to the whole point of the post: the weekly photo challenges. The theme of week 24 was "colourful" and although this theme sounds pretty easy, I wasn't really inspired by anything! I couldn't find anything colourful in Portsmouth but didn't want to do something too cheesy. Something completely different - during this week I decided to create a Portsmouth time lapse and had been testing out quite a few different techniques, one of which was using the actual filming button on my camera and secondly trying to slowly blur the images in a time lapse. After going through the photos I decided that that would be the perfect photo for colourful! It was my second attempt at the "bokeh" style of photography, which I also used sometime in January. This one looks a million times better! The whole time lapse of Portsmouth bit will make a lot more sense later at some point, I'm basically creating a time lapse of my last 2 months in England, so it'll feature some bits of Portsmouth, Woking and hopefully London.

The following week was "Angle" and again I struggled quite a bit with this theme. I again wasn't too inspired (which I should be after just having finished a photography degree!!) In fact, I was so uninspired that I only took the photo today! Half way through week 26!! I spent the day in Brighton today since I had to reprint my photos at The Vault (lovely little place), and while I was there I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to catch up on my weekly photo challenges. The first thing I thought of when I saw the theme was taking a photo from a weird angle, like really high or really low, however as everyone else started uploading their photos, I noticed they looked at angles of a house or a building. I really liked that idea as I like architectural/interior photography. I thought the burnt down pier in Brighton would be perfect. It kind of goes back to the style of photography I love, the deadpan, straight lines geometric style of photography - something that I would have thought about when I read angle... geometric. Anyway I love how the photo turned out. I also quite like how everything is straight, except for the line of the sea.

Finally I'm up to date again, this week is week 26, which crazily enough is half way through the year!? What!?? This week's theme is "Game" and when I saw this I was shocked. I have never taken a photo of a game.... what on earth can I do!?? But since I was going to Brighton, I decided to stick with the idea of the pier, and walked over to the non burnt down pier. On the way there I walked past some of those typical fun fair type of games, so thought it would be perfect! I really like how the photo has turned out, it's so vibrant and happy! I like how the background is slightly blurred and you can see the fun fair continuing. I would have loved it if I used my 50mm 1.8 lens as it would have blurred the background even more, unfortunately I didn't have that one with me.

52 Week Photo Challenge Catch Up!

 So I need to do a lot of catching up.... Firstly week 19 seat. And I have to admit, this is a rubbish photo. So rubbish that I didn't put it on facebook and was very reluctant to put it up on my blog. However, you can't have a 52 week photo challenge without week 19! This week was a particularly busy week and I was so late with it, that I just quickly snapped a photo of the Guildhall on my phone. The theme was Seat so it looks as the people sitting on the Guildhall, and comparing it to my photo from week 17 'Steps' where the Guildhall was completely empty. So it was a good idea, just rubbish execution!

 Week 20's theme was Sweets, and for this I wanted to do something fun and original. I decided to make chocolate covered strawberries! I'd never made them before, bur they turned out really nice! I used a very low aperture so that I could get a really nice blurry effect, where only one of the strawberries is in focus. I love how vibrant the red ended up being against the bright green and the more pastel pink. The background works with it very nicely too as it's a very girly and pretty polkadot pattern. Definitely very sweet!

 The theme of week 21 was Dwelling, so as I was planning to go to my parent's house, I decided to take a photograph of the house. Again, I wanted to do something a bit more special so took a photo in this mirrored decoration ball. I sat right in front of the house and zoomed in quite a bit so that my reflection wouldn't be seen in the photograph. I like how the object is in the shade, whereas the house is in the sun. Again a great contrast between the green of the grass and the blue of the sky.

 The next theme was Letter. Wanting to do something special I decided to photograph the letters of my name around the house. Again not my favourite photo as it was quite rushed. I've been busy!!!

This is probably one of my favourites to create. It's week 23 Self Portrait. I was going through the self portrait photos by everyone else, and it seemed to be a common theme where everyone was still hiding behind their cameras! I really liked the idea of creating an anonymous self portrait so decided to play with lights. I used a 15 second exposure and drew a stick figure. If you look closely you can see me standing behind it. I'm really pleased with how it turned out and will definitely be trying more of these photos!!

Now I'm all up to date!!! The theme of this week is colourful, so I'm very excited to get started with that!

52 Week Photo Challenge

Last weeks theme was "Fruit". As you probably know by now, I like stretching the topics to create more fun/interesting shots. I've always wanted to include my hamster Chili in one of my photo challenges, and this is the perfect week! Chili belong to me and my boyfriend and he is literally the cutest little hamster ever. I've taken about a million photos of him and half a million videos. I think he's made an appearance in every monthly video so far!

Anyway, so obviously Chili is a hamster not a fruit, but he absolutely loves apples! So I decided to photograph him eating an apple, which sounds pretty easy, but when I want him to do something, he just does the complete opposite. He did not want to get near that piece of apple, let alone eat it.... I ended up surrounding the apple piece by sunflowers (which he is literally obsessed with). The picture looks pretty convincing, like he's actually eating the apple!

52 Week Photo Challenge

It's week 17 and this weeks theme was "steps". The first thing I thought of was the Guildhall, which seems to be an ongoing theme. The Guildhall is where I'll be graduating this July so I'm extremely excited. The government also recently took some time to clean all the steps, making it the perfect moment to photograph it!

I wanted to mainly focus on the steps, but not in an obvious manner. That's why I kept the pillars out of the frame, as well as the ground. I think the two main areas of photography that I tend to go into are Landscapes and Abstraction. The photo looks like it's got a huge lens distortion to it, which frustrates me so much! But the steps actually do curve like that, so there's nothing that could be done about it. I like my photos to be straight and that's why I stood right in the middle of the Guildhall. You can see a line going all the way up in the centre of the photo, making it a little bit more into my signature style of photography, in spite of the rounded stairs.

52 Week Photo Challenge

It's been a bit of a busy week, so I completely forgot about last week's theme! The theme was "Statue". Again, not my favourite theme as you can't really find another meaning for it, but I had a couple ideas. Portsmouth has quite a few statues so I wasn't short of choice. At first I wanted to take a photo of the lions at the Guildhall, but as the week slowly passed and the next theme was announced, I decided to find a way to combine the two themes into one photograph. This would be a bit more interesting than just a statue, and it would mean I was back on track with my weeks! The theme of this week is "glasses", which I quite liked. It's a bit more broad than the previous themes we've had.

Across from the Guildhall is a council building which has got these very reflective windows (glasses) and there is a statue of queen Victoria in front of it. I really like how the photo looks, I like how the statue is centred and the Guildhall is directly behind it. It's also interesting because the windows are a lot more modern than the reflection it it. The flags ad a pop of colour to it. Another thing that I like about the photo is that is doesn't have any people it in, so there is nothing to distract you. And finally, it was a beautiful day so the reflected blue sky makes the Guildhall stand out more, and the clouds towards the middle of the photo add a bit of mystery to it.

52 Week Photo Challenge

This post is a little bit late since I've been spending quite a bit of time working on my finals for the exhibition.

The theme of last week was "Utensil". I wasn't really thrilled about it since it's such a specific theme. You can't really interpret it in any other way... So being someone that doesn't like going for the obvious, I had real trouble figuring out what to do. In my kitchen I have this twisting rack where I keep all my utensils, so I thought it would be quite cool to take a slow shutter speed photo of that rack twisting. I took a few photos just testing it out, but I found that the images look better is they have more colour in it. So I removed all my black and boring coloured utensils and only kept the colourful ones in the photo.

I also played around with the shutter speed and the rotating speed. I started off with quite a long shutter speed (1.3 seconds) and rotated the utensils at a very quick speed. Although the colours looked quite cool, you couldn't identify the subject matter. So in the end I went with a shutter speed of 0.6 and twisted the rack very very slowly.

Even though I originally didn't like the theme, I do quite like the photo I've come up with. It isn't a portfolio worthy photo, but I definitely liked playing around with it.

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.

52 Week Photo Challenge

This week has been a lot better than last week. I've got more motivation, I had a good tutorial with my lecturers and I've got three weeks off for Easter! Anyway, so I've been less stressy and a lot more happy about doing the photo challenge.

The theme of this week is "view". This, like all the other weeks so far, is a very very very broad theme. I didn't particularly want to do a view from my flat, or anything in the building, because I've done that a several times already (week 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12). My initial idea was to go up the spinnaker again. I've wanted to go back to the spinnaker every since I first went there because I want to take a time lapse from up there. But... the weather has been horrible so I didn't think that would be the best idea.

Something that I've had planned for this week was the circus! I received some free tickets for Billy Smart's Circus in Southsea Common from Subway as we let them advertise there, so I thought it would be a great idea to combine this weeks' theme with that.

We had great seats (with our VIP tickets!!) so this was my view. It was pretty tricky to take photos at the circus. The image to the left has a shutter speed of 1/8th of a second, so I'm shocked it's not moved! This photo was actually taken before the whole show started, but I decided to go with this photo because of the colours. It's so bright and colourful and everything you'd expect from a circus.

52 Week Photo Challenge

This week has been rather uninspiring. The weather has been pretty rubbish and I just feel exhausted!! But, it's a weekly photo challenge so I went out anyway. The theme of this week is "Old". It didn't seem too hard to begin with, but it ended up being a bit tricky. I first thought about the broken/burnt down pier in Brighton, although that's a bit of a stereotypical overused image. So I wanted to visit the pier in Portsmouth instead. I walked all the way down to the pier, but like I mentioned before, it was so uninspiring! Any photos I took just looked rubbish. So I continued to walk along the beach front to the war memorial. That didn't really go down well either. Again, I didn't want to take a shot of all the names on the wall as it's very over done. I continued to walk around Portsmouth for about an hour to an hour and a half, which wouldn't have been too bad if it wasn't freezing!!

On the way back I started to think about the type of photography I like and what's been recurring throughout my work. It's both landscapes and abstract photos, which is what brought me to my final idea. I decided to take photos of some wear and tear in my building. It's an incredibly old building so it fits the theme in that sense, but the wear and tear (cracks and broken bits etc) emphasize the ageing of the building.

I didn't think they worked individually to get the point across, so I created a set of three images. I made sure the lines were straight in each of the photos and instead of taking three very similar ones, I wanted to look at three different places. Two horizontal shots and one vertical, to break up the sequence. The first two are more obvious than the last one. The last one has incredible cracked detail on the green tiles, and a crack just above on the white wall.

I think it's a bit of a different approach to the theme. Instead of going for something more obvious, I looked at what type of photography I enjoy and from that I was able decide on what to shoot.

52 Week Photo Challenge

This weeks theme was B&W. I'm not the biggest fan of taking photos in black and white, unless they're taken on b&w film. My initial idea was to take a photo of the old style of architecture in Portsmouth. However since the weather has been so miserable, the photos didn't look as nice as I expected them to look. When I converted the photos to black and white, I was even more disappointed with how they looked.

I went out again today, to see whether there was anything else I could take a photo of. I started off at the Guildhall, and took photos from the side (in a deadpan manner, making sure all the lines are straight like usual), but again when I converted it to black and white it didn't look right. After that I took some photos of Park building. Park building is one of the university buildings, but the architecture is very similar to that of the Guildhall. They looked quite nice, but as I was taking photos up instead of forward, it didn't fit with my usual style of photography.

Finally, on my way back, I thought it would be a great idea to take photos of the building I live in, but again, that didn't work either. The building is surrounded by a busy road and traffic lights and all sorts of distracting things. As I was about to give up, we walked past some strange detail on the building which I've never paid attention to before, and that's what I ended up taking a photo of. It's taken straight on, so to top and the bottom are completely horizontal and there is no distortion. This is a great addition to my abstract photography. I didn't convert this photo into black and white, which is probably the reason I chose it! The brick itself was already grey, and with the blackened shadows, it looks as though it's been edited!

52 Week Photo Challenge

When I found out the theme for this week I was incredibly excited - it's Painted. My project for this semester is all about photograph looking like paintings, so I decided to do another motion blur photoshoot to get that effect. The photo to the right is my favourite from the shoot. It's quite different from the photographs I've taken for my project as the main focus were the straight lines, whereas this photo has "loops". I felt this looked more like brush strokes and thus made it look more painterly.

For this shoot I didn't use a tripod. I remember from my first few motion blur shoots I didn't use a tripod and the images weren't as geometrically created. The image to the right looks a bit more "free" meaning the lines aren't completely vertical. 

I love the abstraction of the photograph, without knowing what it is, it would literally be unidentifiable. My large format images do show a bit of forest detail, however in this photo everything is incredibly blurred. The photo is taken in a portrait style to steer away from the traditional landscape photography. Because it's still winter and it was a cloudy day, the colours don't indicate it's a woodland either. 

52 Week Photo Challenge

I start every post this way, but the topics just keep getting harder! This weeks theme was "hot", which is pretty hard when everything around me is cold! For the longest time I had no idea what to do, so I just started to take some pictures of the food we were cooking. It didn't really work out like I'd hoped, so I was about to put my camera away when I turned around and looked back at the kitchen and actually quite liked what I saw. The lighting looked great, especially with the pink-ish glow from the extractor fan and the oven. You can see the steam coming from the two pots on the hob, which indicates it's hot. Instead of taking a photo of fire, or boiling water etc, I wanted to step back and look outside the box.

I've always quite liked architectural photography, so this fits in with that genre of photography. Something I'm always very aware of in all my photographs are the lines. I try and shoot everything from a very straight angle and use symmetry  This is a recurring theme in the majority of the photos I've taken for the photo challenge: Technology, Weather, Stone and Tall.

52 Week Photo Challenge

This week's theme was "technology". The themes keep getting harder! For the longest time I had no idea what to do. I know technology is all around us, but I didn't want to take a picture of something obvious. People started uploading their interpretations of the theme on the 18th of February so I was able to get some inspiration from their photos. My initial idea was to take a photo outside, rather than staying inside and making it easy for myself, but that didn't quite work out. I didn't feel very enthusiastic about anything I saw outside, and started to think more in depth, as well as looking into what kind of photography I like. Obviously I like landscape photography, but I'm also really interested in abstract. Thus I decided to create something abstract. That way, it wouldn't be anything obvious nor anything that someone had already done.
This is what I came up with. It's a close up of a Bose speaker. Because taking the photo, I started to think about what kinds of things make an abstract photo interesting, and in my opinion it should have some kind of pattern to it. When looking through my abstract imagery, I usually tend to take photos of a repeated pattern (eg. windows on a building, solar panels etc). The amount of repetition in this weeks photo is almost endless which makes the viewers' eyes jump around the whole photo, trying to establish what it is.

52 Week Photo Challenge

This week the theme was "weather". It look me a while to think of what to do. Again, I started off by thinking about the things I didn't want to do, in this case just a plain photo of the sky. But it's quite difficult to get around that, since the theme is pretty clear. Instead of taking just one photo, I wanted to compare the weather over a few days. Hopefully getting a sunny shot, a cloudy shot, a rainy shot etc. I started this on Thursday and took a photo everyday at around 17.00. Thursday through Sunday were all beautiful days, which I wasn't really expecting. However I think it worked out in my favour.
The shots look great together and there is a real continuation between them because the weather is so similar. You can tell each of the photos is taken at a similar time by looking at the orange glow towards the bottom of the photos. It's interesting to see the recurring dark clouds in the first three images and a completely cloudless sky in the final one. If had been raining or a completely white sky, I don't think the photos would have worked together this nicely. I wanted to keep a bit of skyline in the photos, to make sure it wasn't just a plain photo of the sky. It kind of contextualises it. Trying to keep that the same in every photo was incredibly hard though!!

52 Week Photo Challenge

For this week the theme is "Foreign". I'm foreign so it was pretty easy. I didn't want to take a picture of myself as that would be a bit silly, but throughout a lot of my photography, especially the work on my website, I've a explored the idea of my past and the different countries I've lived. I didn't want to make it anything depressing as I love the fact I've moved around so much. My initial idea was my ducks. They've been getting so much attention lately so I thought I'd do something similar. For Christmas I received a duck with the Dutch flag, and I already had one with the English flag and the American flag so I photographed each of them against a white background indicating the three different countries I've lived (so far). 

I really like the look of them, and think they will make an excellent addition to my portfolio! 

52 Week Challenge

The theme of week 5 is Illuminated. This has probably been the theme I've struggled with the most... and it's only week 5! I have never really taken any photos focussing on lights so I had no idea where to begin. After google-ing for a bit, I came across a series of photos of blurry images taken at night. The blur was so extreme that the lights created this large circles in different colours. I loved these photos and thus decided to try it myself.

The photo to the right is taken from my bedroom window. We live on the fourth floor of a building so we're nice and high. The window is tilted at an angle so you can only see the sky when you're looking out. I never really bothered to get a chair and have a look at the view, but this theme was the perfect opportunity! There is one quite high apartment building and a few houses surrounding that. I blurred the camera so much that each of the circles ended up being quite big. I tried to get as many different lights and colours into the frame without being able to identify what you're looking at. I really like how the photos has turned out, and it really fits in with my other abstract work. I titled the photo "Portsmouth at Night".

After posting the photo on the flickr page, someone commented "awesome bokeh". Not knowing what that meant I googled it. It turns out, this style of images is called Bokeh!

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.

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!

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!

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!