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.

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.

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.

Printing and Mounting

Hi Elaine

As explained re telephone conversation. The original print supplied was made as a result of scanning the negative and outputting the image via a digital machine onto photographic paper.
As we were instructed to produce a hand print we were unable to match the supplied print as the colours and contrast on this type of digital print are greatly enhanced by the machine used.

I will return a test strip with your negative and sample print to show you the problems we encountered.

Bryan O'Leary

Unfortunately I couldn't get my image handprinted at the Artful Dodgers as somehow the negative was scanned wrong and the colours were changed. These are two photos to show the difference between the negative and the scan. I am not sure how this massive difference happened, as I scanned them in properly (choosing the right film, not editing etc). The difference between the images is that the scan has come out very red – something I love about the photo – whereas the hand print has more realistic colours to it – a browny grey.

After having seen the hand print, I have decided to stick with how I scanned in the photo. Although the colours in the hand print are more realistic to what I took a photo of, the redness of the photo is partially why I love it. I think it also better to stick with the scan as it fits in the with the sequence of the three photos and finally I feel it better portrays my concept. It’s about confusion and beauty. The colours from the hand print make it very obvious as to what you’re looking at. The redness makes it more abstract and confusing, but also more beautiful and special.

This is why I have decided to stick with the scanned image rather than the hand print. I do not want to sacrifice the outcome of my photo if the only reason is for it to be hand printed. 

I went to The Vault in Brighton today to get my scanned images printed. As explained earlier, I wanted to stick to my scanned image rather than getting it hand printed. I decided to get it printed A2, mainly as that’s all I can afford at the moment. It will come to £32, although the mounting will be another £45. I’m very excited to see the outcome of it. I was shown a different photo mounted on Diabond and it looks fantastic and incredibly professional.

I am only getting the red motion blur image printed A2 and mounted, and the other two photos in the series will be A3. Luckily I only need to have one image professionally presented and mounted, and the other two can be a smaller size (although still professionally done but not mounted). 

Artful Dodgers

Today I went up to London to go to the Artful Dodgers. It was at Chancery Lane and definitely not what I was expecting... I had to get buzzed into the building and walk down to the basement, getting a bit lost in the basement! Anyway, you enter Artful Dodgers and it's just one room filled with prints everywhere! It was great to see the other people's work and the scale of everything! I will be getting the photo to the left printed A2 sized (20x24 inches) on matt paper. They will post it to me in a huge tube on Monday the 11th and include all the test prints. I've very excited to see how it's going to turn out!!

The reason I went to Artful Dodgers is because they specialise in hand printed images from the dark room. According to my lecturers they will look a lot better and will have a lot more depth and detail to them. Having them hand printed will also mean that I'm not making use of any digital technology, they are taken in an analogue style and will also be printed that way.

When I get my photo back from the Artful Dodgers, I will go back to The Vault in Brighton to get it mounted on Diabond (similar to aluminium). When I got my negatives developed there, I had a chat with one of the guys there about mounting options and he showed me what diabond is and how it would look. I thought it looked fantastic, so I'll be getting that done for my final. Hopefully I can get it all done in time for the "Crit" - our little Eldon exhibition for everyone on the course - but with my shifts at Subway, New Creatives commitments, my dissertation hand in and all my lectures, that might be a bit unrealistic. Luckily our final deadline is after the Easter holiday.

On Wednesday 6th I'll be helping up at Aspex gallery to set up the show and hang up the work. I'll be creating a time lapse video of this which I will exhibit in Aspex gallery.

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..