Update

It's been a little quiet lately on my blog and that's because the majority of my course work has finished. Like I said in a previous post, all I have to do is hand in my portfolio and a final blog post and set up the Eldon exhibition and my VIVA presentation!

First of all, I got my dissertation mark back. I got a 2:1, which I'm obviously very happy about, although I would have wanted a slightly higher 2:1. But it's a good mark and that's all that matters. Also part of the dissertation mark is our VIVA presentation. This is basically just a chat about my work with two lecturers (one from my course and one randomer). I have decided to do it about my Succession project as I'm more confident talking about that one. It's a 7-10 minute chat about the concept, the research, how I have arrived at my final, and future plans. Squeezing that all into 10 min will probably be the hardest part. I have a practice VIVA on the 14th of May and my actual one is somewhere towards the end of May.

Last week I had a portfolio session which didn't go too well. After first recommending a box portfolio, my lecturers have now suddenly decided that a box portfolio isn't a good idea. They definitely didn't like my layout of it, so I'll have to change that.... somehow...... As for the final blog post. I literally have no idea what to write. At the moment my plan is to go to Australia for 2 years. I'm not specifically looking for a photography job to begin with, so I'm not sure how I'll get marked on that..

The eldon set up has also began! There has been a bit of drama about the fact that the people exhibiting in London have their own catalogue, while that same catalogue will also be presented at the Eldon show. Thus about 7 people who are part of the Eldon show aren't in the London catalogue! A special facebook group has been set up for the people not taking part in the London show where we have discussed the idea of making our own small catalogue to go alongside the other one. It would be about £27 each for 500 copies. We'll each have one photo in the book (I'll do my succession one, even though I do have the second project in the show too) and a little section explaining the work.
This week we've been put into groups to get Eldon ready for the show, eg. painting and setting up. I wasn't selected to be part of this weeks' work so I'll be in next week to sort things out. On the 16th and 17th we'll be hanging up our work, which will be a very interesting day.

So that's a little update from what's been happening over the past week!

Portfolio

Today I spent the day cutting the black border off of my portfolio photos and putting them in the plastic sleeves. It took me a while! I had to cut off quite a thick border on the top and bottom and two very thin borders on either side. And then do that for 18 photos.....

Then sliding them into the sleeve was pretty difficult too, for some reason they just did not want to get in there! So, again, trying to do that to each photo was a bit of a pain.

BUT! Even though it was a struggle, it looks amazing! The photos are just the right size and fit in the sleeve perfectly. Because the paper was quite heavy, it feels like a very expensive portfolio. There is a lot of work in there, even though there are only 10 slides.

I have put the photos in a specific order, starting with my 7591 Miles project and my Succession project. All the photos following that are in the order from favourite to least favourite.

I'm so happy with the look of my portfolio, and I hope that my lecturers will like it too, since they're the ones marking it!

Jessops Package

Today I received a very very very heavy tube from JESSOPS! I love Jessops and was devastated when they went out of business, however a few weeks ago I received an email from them saying that Jessops photo is back online!! Wooo!! So since I needed to print my portfolio, I decided to just have a look at Jessops prices, and they were cheap. At photobox it would have cost me around £100 to get 20 A3 photos printed and at Jessops (thanks to the 40% discount offer) I only spent £40!

Anyway, so my portfolio photos arrived today and I am literally so excited!! They didn't have an exact A3 size, so I printed them slightly bigger with a black border which I will be cutting off myself. The photos looks amazing, and the quality is great too! A lot of the time my photos print off quite dark when I use online printing services, but these came out the exact colour as on my screen. They feel like they're very good quality and the paper is very thick. I'm so excited to put them in my box portfolio from silverprint! I tried to pair the photos together so you could kind of see how it would all look, but I have very limited space in the flat (especially with the drying rack out!) But you can kind of tell.

I'm so happy that Jessops is back in business, I will definitely be buying more things from them. And hopefully they'll re-open some stores too before I go to Australia!

Portfolio

As part of my Professional Practice unit I have to hand in either a physical portfolio or a digital  portfolio. I've already got a digital portfolio (my website), but I don't think that's what I want to hand in. It's a very subjective thing to mark, and I have a feeling my lecturers wouldn't be big fans of my website... 

Anyway, so for Christmas I got a beautiful A3 Box Portfolio from Silverprint with 10 clear sleeves. It's something that my lecturers have recommended several times to different people, so I know they're a big fan. The reason I wanted an A3 sized box is so that it's big enough to see the quality of the photos, but not too big to carry it around. 

Since I only have 10 sleeves, I originally thought I could only have 10 photos. The whole point of a box portfolio is that you can take the photos out of the box and put them next to each other, rather than having them stuck in a book. A lot of my work is made up of series though, so I didn't want to sacrifice just printing one photo out of the series, or printing a series of eight (my ducks) and then only having two photos left! So What I decided to do was use both sides of the sleeves for the same project. For example, the final layout of the photos will be on the front side, and the back side will have one photo to show the detail and the quality of the photograph. 

The image to the right shows this in more detail. The last two images aren't part of my portfolio, I'm only printing them because printing 2 more meant it'll save me £20! The front side will have the circular succession print, and the back will have one landscape shot to show the detail (especially because it's a large format shot). The only ones that won't have a back are the Dutch ornaments, the two photos in The Netherlands, the Musician shot and the "Oldwood Field" shot (9 square images). The first three weren't major projects, so I don't think it's as important, but also the musician shots and the shot in The Netherlands will be about A4 size each, which is still big enough to see the detail. The Oldwood Field photo won't have a back because I feel that the images separately aren't as strong. Together they form the piece, but individually, they wouldn't stand out. 

The reason I went for this selection is because the majority of them are university projects, which is where I learnt everything. They all have a story behind them if an interviewer asks me. The motion blur images, the succession project and the ducks are my absolute favourite projects. I really enjoyed the shopping centre series too and I'm planning on continuing that. I wanted to include the magazine photographs and the musician photos to show I can also use a studio. The houses shots and the Oldwood Field photos are part of my portfolio because interior photography is another genre of photography I really enjoy. Finally, the Dutch ornaments and the photos in The Netherlands aren't part of my university projects but I think they are equally important.