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.

Imagine That Feature

http://www.imagine-that.info/2013/03/elaine-de-vries-elainedevries.html?spref=fb

Pet Photography - Kayleigh

Shoot 5 with Kayleigh. I'm starting to be more and more interested in pet photography, and as always Kayleigh is my model. I decided to shoot in the same location as I did for the last shoot, but use a completely different lens. I used one of my all time favourite lenses: 50mm with an aperture of 1.8. For anyone that doesn't know what aperture is, it basically means if you have a very low number, the lens is open, and a high number (eg. 22) the lens is almost closed. If you have an aperture of 1.8, whatever you focus on will be sharp, but anything surrounding your subject will be blurry, whereas with a high aperture your whole photo will be in focus. I used an aperture of 1.8 in these images, and as you can see Kayleigh's head is in focus but her body and the pillows behind her are blurry. It was quite a hard shoot because of the aperture. In a lot of my photos, her nose was completely in focus, but her eyes were out of focus!! I'll have to use an aperture of 2.8-5.6 to get a similar effect but not as extreme.

I really like how the images look, they are very different from the last shoot. Kayleigh is such a poser! But the only reason she sat so beautifully while looking at the camera is because I had a treat in my hand!

During the summer I'm going to try and have as many dog/cat photoshoots as possible and hopefully earn a bit of money. I've ordered a book called "photographing dogs" which should come next week so that'll give me some useful tips.

Imagine That

On Twitter, I came across Imagine That, who, similar to BusinessBoom, create articles about people in the creative industry. I immediately sent them an email asking whether they could feature me. They replied incredibly quick, and told me to just write a little bit about myself: "a short bibliography/blurb about yourself. This can be anything from a sentence long to a full paragraph if you wish, it's completely up to you".

I've just sent them a little bit of text and my three motion blur images. I'm very excited to see the article!!

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. 

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!

Title

Thinking of a title is probably the hardest part of the whole project. I don’t want anything cheesy or obvious, but I don’t want something that sounds silly or too abstract. When seeing the title, I want people to start to understand the work, but not completely give it away.

I’ve been thinking about a title for a long time, but it wasn’t until the group tutorial recently that we got the ball rolling. Some things that were suggested were “moving on” or “immigration” or simply “movement”. It seemed to simple and rather obvious. I don’t want the title to ruin the whole piece!

Then Dan (a course mate) thought of the idea of adding up all the miles I’ve travelled together and have that be the title. I thought it was a fantastic idea!! It shows the distance I’ve travelled, without using obvious words.

I started to think about whether to include every single move, or just the out of country moves.

Moves:

1.      Within The Netherlands

2.      From Netherlands to America

3.      From America to Netherlands

4.      From Netherlands to UK

5.      Within the UK

6.      Within the UK

I don’t think the moves within the same country are as important as that happens a lot more. The 3 photos also indicate the three countries where I have lived, thus it would be more appropriate to only add the distances of the moves abroad, to The Netherlands to America, America to The Netherlands and The Netherlands to England.

I used the following website to find out the distance as google maps wouldn’t work as it was an overseas action.

http://www.javascripter.net/math/calculators/distancecalculator.htm

I could only get approximate locations so that’s what I did first:

Rotterdam, The Netherlands – Newark, New Jersey: 3639.962 Miles

Newark, New Jersey – Rotterdam, The Netherlands: 3629.962 Miles

Rotterdam, The Netherlands – London, UK: 198.990 Miles

= 7478.914

I wanted to be more specific so I used Google Maps to determine the exact miles between where I actually lived and the approximate location:

Nieuwerkerk a/d IJssel – Rotterdam: 11.3 Miles

Newark – Upper Saddle River: 28.3 Miles

London – Gerrards Cross: 22.0 Miles

So all together the distance would be:

First Move: 11.3+3639.962+28.3 = 3679.562

Second Move: 28.3+3639.962+11.3 = 3679.562

Third Move: 11.3+198.990+22.0 = 232.29

Altogether:

7591 Miles

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). 

Succession Framing

Because I’m going to be presenting my Succession project for the Eldon show, I need to get that professionally presented. I had mounted it on thin mount board as that is all I could afford, but with the help of my parents (and because they want to hang it up in their house) we decided to get it professionally framed. We went to a framing shop in Woking to see what they could offer. Basically what’s going to happen is it’s going to get a white frame, as I didn’t want it to take away from the photo itself, and it’s going to have a circular window mount, so it doesn’t look too layered (first the white border of the photo, then the window mount and then the frame). Finally, it’ll have a glass front. It’ll be done in a week or so, but unfortunately I won’t be going home anytime soon so won’t see it for a while!! 

Pet Photography - Kayleigh

 After the shoot from the previous post, I decided I wanted to do one more photoshoot of Kayleigh before I went back to Portsmouth. As mentioned in the previous post, I really wanted to take some photos outside, so I did the next best thing - in the conservatory. The colours in there are quite neutral (other than the new carpet) but it looked great with Kayleighs ginger fur. The top right photo shows a selection of my favourite images, and the middle right and left are my two favourites out of everything. Finally the bottom right is a cheeky unedited photo of Kayleigh.

The colour combination works really well: there isn't an overpowering red sofa behind her and the background isn't too plain. The subtle orange in the pillows ad the brown of the chair match with Kayleigh. I slightly edited the photos so that Kayleigh is a bit brighter and more colourful than the chair behind her.

I decided to choose these two images as my favourites because she's looking at the camera. Although there were a few photos where she was looking away that I liked as well, I prefer the eye contact.
I'd like to do more dog photoshoots with different dogs, but that'll be a project for the summer.

Pet Photography - Kayleigh

 When I get to Australia I will be assisting a very popular pet photographer, Caitlin McColl. To get myself ready for that, I've been doing some practice shoot with Kayleigh. I didn't realise how many things you have to think about when taking photos of dogs!! It's not only about trying to get eye contact with her, but it's also (obviously) about composition. The top photo is a great photo of Kayleigh, although it isn't taken in a very nice location (poles sticking out her head). The second photo is a lot better, although she is a bit close to the table. It's a colourful shot and shows her within a clear context. I'd love to take some photos of her outside, but it's a horrible day so that wouldn't look very nice.

It also takes a lot of patience... and a LOT of shooting. I do like the photos that I've taken, but will definitely need to take more.

Dissertation Hand In

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

8,111 words
50 pages
85 references

I have officially finished my dissertation. It's due on Tuesday the 12th of March so I'm a little bit early. Now that this is done and New Creatives has finished I feel like I can finally just take a break and relax.... even though I still have about 100 things to do!

New Creatives

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. 

New Creatives

Link of the Time Lapse shot at Aspex Gallery - my piece at Aspex Gallery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQHX21GcFwY

New Creatives

Yesterday was the New Creatives preview night at Aspex Gallery and it was absolutely fantastic! It was great to have a chat with the other buddies about their experience but also to see all the work up on the wall. It's a proud moment!! Portsmouth college were in the cafe space and Havant college were in the main exhibition room. There were maps that indicated which work belongs to who and which college, which was very well organised. 

My video was up on the wall in the cafe area, although a bit biased, it was definitely the best place in the gallery! The video was looped so it played over and over again. It starts off with some images taken at each of the colleges showing the progression of the work, and then it goes into a time lapse video of the curation. There are two different scenes, the image to the right is the second scene. After the time lapse there is a quote by Oliver Merkin talking about his experience of New Creatives, followed my a quote by myself. Alongside my work, I also had a little tag that explained I was a buddy.

The picture to the left was taken by Lauren Whatling, who offered to photograph the event. It shows some of the work created by Portsmouth College. It's very professionally presented and it looks great. I've said this so many times, but to see how the students' work has progressed over such a short period of time is amazing. I remember going to Portsmouth College for the first time and no body really knew how to interpret the theme.

 The work to the right is some of the things created by Havent College. Again, seeing how these small ideas built up into something that looks so professional is great. The doodle piece is definitely my favourite. It must have taken so much time and patience to create it as it's all hand drawn.

All in all, I'm very happy to have been part of New Creatives. It has taught me some of the things I can do when I have finished the course, such as working in a gallery, being a curator or being a teacher. It was also shown me what a professional artist does. This experience has been a professional practice and has been a lot more valuable than a lecture on that topic. Thanks to New Creatives I've also gained more confidence in myself, both to talk about my work but also to help others with theirs.

New Creatives

Today I went to Aspex Gallery to help curate the show. When I got there, some students from Portsmouth college were busy creating a layout plan. I set up my camera to take a time lapse video of the work being hung up on the wall. The space Portsmouth college has is the cafe area. There are two walls so I shot two different time lapse scenes.

Havant college is set in the main exhibition space. Even though there were only 3 students, they have all produced more than one piece of work. Their section looks fantastic! Their development has been incredible from when I last saw it.

Facebook Username

I've been working on all sorts of ways to get noticed. I've got a twitter, youtube, vimeo, pinterest, facebook, flickr and tumblr account, but each of them have got different addresses. It's quite easy for a few of the websites such as twitter (https://twitter.com/ElaineDeVries) and pinterest (http://pinterest.com/elaine721/), but the username for my pagebook page consisted of all sorts of numbers and dashes etc. I managed to change it so something a lot easier. My new Facebook address is:
http://www.facebook.com/elainephotography

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.

The Bootleg Beatles

Last night Lauren asked me if I could come on a shoot with her at the Guildhall to photograph the Bootleg Beatles. Last semester she conducted a project about tribute bands, and has continued it this semester as a side project. I'd never been in the Guildhall before, and since I've done a bit of band photography before Uni, I thought it would be a great opportunity. 

When we entered the Guildhall, we got a special press pass which allowed us to basically do whatever we wanted. Before the show started we briefly met the members of The Bootleg Beatles, and had a chat about what to photograph and where to go etc. They were incredibly friendly, and seemed to be very relaxed. We took a few photos back stage, but the show was about to start and they were getting changed into their costumes, so we didn't have too much time. 

The show was absolutely amazing! We started off just walking around the audience trying to find the best place to photograph. It was a bit awkward to walk around while everyone else was sitting down, especially when we wanted to get some close-up shots right at the front. But as the show went on the more comfortable we got. There was a second level, although it wasn't in use, so we asked security whether it would be possible to go up there, and we could! 

We got some amazing shots, and after the show was finished we asked The Bootleg Beatles if they could sign our press stickers. I've just gone through all the photos and picked out 39 that are the best. I've set the contact sheet to Lauren, who is going to send both her and my contact sheets to The Bootleg Beatles. Once they've OK'd it, I'll be posting the photos on my blog and website. 

Budget

The thing I most dread....

·         Travel

o   £17.65 for Time Lapse in Woking

o   £17.65 for Time Lapse in Woking

o   £17.65 for Large Format Shoot in Woking

o   £13 for The Vault in Brighton

o   £30 for Artful Dodgers in London

o   £13 for The Vault Brighton

o   £17.65 for Picking up Print in Woking

o   £12 Taxi to Staples

·         Printing

o   £44 for Print at Artful Dodgers

o   £12 postage for print at Artful Dodgers

o   £10 for A3 prints at Staples

o   £2.99 for 6x4 test prints glossy

o   £2.99 for 6x4 test prints matt

·         Mounting

o   £45 for Dibond mounting at The Vault

·         Large Format Costs

o   £43 for 10 sheets of Film

o   £25 for Processing at The Vault

= £323.58

Motion Blur Time Lapse Analysis

The reason I decided to put these scenes together is because of the matching colours throughout the whole video. The video starts off with quite a light scene, with a pastel blue, light brown, a bit of green, and a pastel yellow. There is a dark line straight through the middle of the photos. To me, this scene almost looks like fire. It is one of the most abstract scenes in the video. The reason I decided to start off with this scene is firstly because it’s from my first motion blur time lapse, so it’s keeping it in order, but also because it’s completely unrecognisable. I want people to guess what they’re looking at rather than knowing it straight away.

The second scene is quite a bit darker, but still very obscure. The colours match with the darker colours from the initial scene. The lines are completely straight, which relates back to the tree trunk in the middle of the photo of the first scene. At some points you can see a bit more detail towards the tops of the trees, but it’s so quick that doesn’t defeat the abstraction.

The third scene is probably the most obvious scene. I’m standing a bit further away from the trees, so the landscape is more apparent. The tree on the left of the scene closest to the camera has the most detail. The reason I added this scene is so it starts to indicate what you’re looking at. Each photo is taken in such a similar way, that it almost looks as though I’m taking a photo of a blurred scene, instead of blurring the scene myself. What interests me about this scene is the fact that you can see the tops of the trees moving in the wind – something that you would normally take a time lapse of.

The colours in the fourth scene are similar to the ones in the first scene. It’s got a very pastely green in it, and a bit of light blue towards the top. In this scene there wasn’t any natural movement so I stood close by a road. It was getting a bit darker at the time so cars started to use their lights. This created interesting shapes within the time lapse and would make the viewer think about what they’re looking at. Again, in every scene so far, the trees have been completely vertical.

The fifth scene is a very interesting scene. This was taken on a different day than all the previous scenes so far. It was a very sunny day with cloudy intervals. This meant I could emphasize the natural changes in the landscape within my time lapse. This scene shows the sun moving through the clouds creating shadows, but also intricate shapes on the trees. The colours are a lot more bold when it’s sunny, but in the shade they are similar to the colours in the third scene. The blue at the top of the photos relate back to the first and fourth scene. This scene is a sort of transition between the start of the time lapse and the end of the time lapse. The first half is all taken on cloudy days, whereas the second half is taken on sunny days. Because this scene includes sun and shade, it was the perfect way to transition.

The sixth scene reminds me a lot of the first scene. The colours are very similar and composition of it is quite similar. The green bushes towards the bottom of the shot keep getting hit with sunlight and then darkening again when the sun disappears. It’s not as obvious as the previous shot, but creates subtle changes.

The final scene is looking up. One of my original digital photos was looking at the tops of the trees and it was one of my most popular photos, therefore I decided to create a time lapse of that image. The colours are similar to the previous scene, the first scene and the fourth scene. It’s very light, but still has some darkness to it. I like the fact that in some of the photos the tops of the trees are very obvious, whereas other photos are completely blurred. This creates confusion.

I decided to add Hans Zimmer’s “Time” song to it as it relates to my concept. The photos are about movement and the juxtaposition between beauty and confusion. But the music adds the sense of time to it. The images reflect on a journey, it’s me looking back at my experience of having lived in all these countries. 

Motion Blur Time Lapse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1yL3208sko

Motion Blur Time Lapse

As picky as I am, I decided to go back and work on my time lapse again. I thought I was finished with it, but there was something bothering me. The final time lapse sequence of the sky wasn't exactly what I wanted to do, and as I was flipping through my workbook, I noticed I'd taken another motion blur time lapse of the sky which was MUCH better, but I didn't have enough images. Now that I know a bit more about motion blur time lapses and how to edit them, I thought I would give it a go. It's currently in the process of being created, so I don't have a link yet, but when I do let you know! The right image is how the time lapse originally was, and the left photo is what I've changed it to. It's not as abstract, but it looks a lot better, and the faint colour matches the rest of the scenes.

New Creatives

This is the poster for New Creatives. The preview event is on Friday the 8th of March from 6-8pm, and the exhibition will be on from the 9th of March until the 14th of April. Come and check it out!! I'll have a time lapse video of my experience in Aspex Gallery too!

http://www.facebook.com/events/554768554546085/?ref=3

Website Design

I liked my website, but there was something not quite right. I loved the main page, and like I mentioned on the previous website design post, a lot of photographers have this kind of layout when you first come onto their website. I decided to change it slightly (right photo is old layout, left photo is new layout)

I think it looks a bit more organised as it’s all centred. The layout from the previous layout was a bit scattered. My name was slightly indented, but the “work” and “blog” text wasn’t. It looked a bit out of place. This layout isn’t like that. My name is just about the same length as the photo, and the three links are centred perfectly. I decided to add a “contact” button to the front page because it’s important that people can easily contact me if they need me. 

February 2013

Last month I created a video of all the things my boyfriend and I have been up to in January. This started out because of the idea we're moving to Australia in September and want to do as many things as we can while we're in England. Although we haven't done as much as last month, I created another short video about February!
http://youtu.be/q6BtKr06yTs
I really like creating these videos as it's a great way to remember this year. It'll be a pretty crazy one: England, The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Germany, Dubai, Singapore, Australia..... By the end of this year we'll have an amazing video filled with memories.

The Harlem Shake

Since my dissertation is all about virality, I was very interested in seeing how the Harlem Shake video went viral. I first heard of the Harlem Shake at Subway, but had no idea what it is, but soon it was literally EVERYWHERE. It even started playing on Subway FM! Anyway, videos popped up out of no where and all of a sudden I stumbled upon a video taken at the Portsmouth University Library! A few days later I found a Facebook Event for the Harlem Shake to be performed at the Guildhall in Portsmouth so I went out to see it. It was great to see how many people had turned up, although there wasn't very clear direction, it was a great to see all the different costumes.
Here is the video I create:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvDabzcYl8o
And here is the official video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FxE0uzkvlA

Large Format Shoot with Lauren Whatling

On the 8th of February I assisted one of my classmates with her Large Format photoshoot. She had never used the 5x4 camera before, and since I love it so much and can't afford to buy more film, is was a great opportunity for the both of us to work together. We went to her grandparents' house in Southsea as her project revolves around their lives. I took a time lapse of shoot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl9kHM6tMmg

It clearly shows how much time it takes in order to take one photo! There was so much preparation involved: getting the camera set up, getting it in focus, light meter reading, waiting for a cloud to pass by, take another light meter reading, record what the readings are, take a photo of what you're taking a photo of, and then of course the process of taking the actual photo.

The photos are uploaded on Lauren's photography page, in the album named: "Large format Images Final Uni Project".
http://www.facebook.com/LaurenWhatlingPhotography?fref=ts
http://laurenwhatling.wix.com/laurenwhatlingphotography

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.

Concept

After doing a whole load of research on abstraction and why people use abstract art, I noticed that everyone used the idea of abstraction to express themselves, or show emotions. Vladinsky thought that colours evoked specific emotions, Pollock’s work looked at wild physical action and have come to represent the revolutionary mood of the time, Willem de Kooning’s work centered around aggressive applications of paint that created emotionally intense imagery, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman used the expressive potential of colour within their work, Jitka Hanslova used the forest where she grew up as the foundation to her work and finally Charles March took photographs of the trees around him, as they have always played an important part in his life. He used abstraction to add a sense of emotion to the work.

After all this, I started to think about what the photos evoke in me. They are about movement and the juxtaposition between beauty and confusion. What immediately occurred to me is my moving experience. I have lived in three different countries, and although this has been a fantastic experience, it’s also been incredibly hard. These images accurately portray my feelings towards my past.

0-7 – The Netherlands

7-9 – New house in The Netherlands

9-12 – America

12-14 – The Netherlands

14-18 – Buckinghamshire, UK

18-20 – Both Surrey (parents) and Hampshire (Uni)

Obviously this shows movement. Although it has been tough, I absolutely love the fact that I’ve lived in all these places. 

 

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!!

Business Boom

It's been a little quiet on my blog, but like always I've been doing a lot of work. Firstly, I got my article published on Business Boom a couple days ago!! Here's the link:

http://businessboomcollective.com/0212/elaine-de-vries-photography/

It's a great article and I'm very happy with the outcome. It's an amazing opportunity to have an article about me on a website and therefore I've added a "Links" section on my website with a variety of websites that have my work on it. At the moment it's just Business Boom and Sunrise Senior Living (where I took some photos to gain work experience). 

Apart from that, I've also completely changed my website. I am so fussy with how it looks and want it to be as professional as possible. It's still a tumblr site, however I've installed a new theme. I feel it looks a lot more professional and more like how a photographer's website should look. to the left is a short little about section and my name. When you click on my name it brings you back to the main screen. I've added 9 pieces of my favourite work. The majority would be landscape photography (I would class the shopping centres as landscapes as they are shot in the same way). And the ducks and Dutch memorabilia also link together. I like how I'm mixing the photos with the videos. When you click on the photo it brings you to a new screen where there is a description and if there are more photos in the series (eg the shopping centres) you can scroll down to see all of them. 

On the left hand side I've got a list of clickable links. The first one links to my blog, the second to my Pinterest (which I'm still constantly updating), and the third goes to a second Tumblr website I've set up which solely shows the work I've done while being on the course. Finally there is a contact button, which opens your email program and a links section. 

I love the idea of having a separate tumblr for my University work. Although there is quite a bit of overlap now, slowly my University projects won't be part of my portfolio, but will still be on my second website. 

I've also been super busy at Subway, which has been taking over all my time. I keep getting called in for 6 hours shifts (even though I'm only meant to be working 6 hours a week!). It's so exhausting, but on top of that I still have to do my research, edit the practical photos, go to lectures, have tutorials, go to crits etc etc etc. And on top of THAT I have to update my blog, flickr, website, pinterest, facebook page, twitter, youtube and I also recently got a Vimeo. The second semester of the third year is definitely the toughest of all. 

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! 

Time Lapse 3

It's been a little quite on the blog, but I've still been busy! I put together my third (and hopefully final) timelapse on Monday. It was a really nice and sunny day although there were cloudy intervals and it was really windy. This worked perfectly with the time lapse, as normal time lapses are usually about the movement of the landscape, eg the tops of the trees moving in the wind or the sunlight moving over time. In the motion blur timelapses, obviously I'm already moving the camera, but since I got the technique down, it was really interesting to see how each of the photos are almost identical, yet the sunlight moves through the frame (it'll make more sense when you view the video) or the tops of the trees create movement.

I pieced together my favourite scenes from each time lapse and made a final piece. The scenes from the second time lapse were all taken on cloudy days, so I couldn't just have half the video in the shadow and half in the sun without some kind of transition. The scene I was talking about earlier, with the sunny intervals is the link between the sun and the shade. I'm really happy with the outcome of my time lapse and hope the lecturers will like it just as much!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naKX4y7kB7M

Motion Blur Timelapse 2

I wasn't too happy with my first time lapse and I wasn't really sure whether I wanted to do another one. However, Daniel seemed quite impressed with it, and since I do love making time lapses, I thought I'd give it another go. I knew what I did wrong in the first one, so I know what I had to change. I went out again today, but it was a completely different day. It was dark and cloudy and completely motionless. I thought this would be the perfect day for the time lapse, as the darkness would allow me to take longer exposures. But.. it turned out it was just as boring on the time lapse as it was in real life. I did manage to make it a bit more interested by getting the lights from cars in the time lapse. It created some interesting shapes.

After viewing it on the laptop I was thoroughly impressed with myself. Instead of a time lapse that literally looks like I'm shaking my camera about, it's more like I'm taking a video of something that actually looks like that. Each of the photos look almost identical, so the movement in the photos is just the tops of the trees moving (other than a little bit of up and down movement). 

Something that stood out to me during the shoot was the fact that one still image looked completely abstract and unidentifiable, but when the series of photos played as a movie, it was quite obvious what you were looking at. The photo to the right is an example of it. The photo is taken of a really dirty pond. The bottom of the photo is the reflection of the tops of the trees, the green colour is the dirtiness of the pond, the browny-red colour is the muddy ground and the dark lines are the tree trunks. It's not the most obscure photo, but if you didn't have any of the information it could be pretty confusing. Anyway I created a time lapse, and when I played all the photos it just completely contextualised the photo. Some photos aren't as blurred as this one, so when I played the movie it almost seemed like it was picking out all the recognisable bits. The ground is probably the most recognisable in this shot, so if the next shot had the trees in focus, followed by the water in focus, you see the whole shot!

This is the link to the edited version of the video. I used one scene from my previous time lapse as I loved it! But the rest is all taken today. The shot above isn't part of the time lapse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYlzi83aWYw

Comparison

I'm happy with the middle and the right image but am unsure which one to use for the first one. Both images are quite similar in colours so they both fit nicely with the other two images. The top photo is a bit more obvious, whereas the bottom one is completely obscure and unrecognisable. In the top photo, the trees go to the bottom of each of the photos, however in the second sequence the bottom of the photo is very dark and doesn't have as much detail.

If I go for the first sequence of photos, the first and third are quite obvious as to what the photo could be of, however in the second sequence, only the third photo is obvious. I think the next step is to get the photos printed and see what they look like in real life, rather than a screen!

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!

Large Format Contact Sheet

These are all the images I took on my large format shoot. The three images that aren't moved are different techniques. The middle one in the top row is just a straight picture of the landscape, the right photo on the top row is a technique called tilt shift. I created this by keeping the back of the camera straight, and tilting the front part of the camera (with the lens) slightly up. The photo is blurry at the top, in focus in the middle, and blurry at the bottom. The right photo on the bottom row is also tilt shift, but slightly different. This photo is blurry on the left, in focus in the centre, and blurry to the right. I created this by, again, having the back straight, but the front of the camera is tilted left to right. I'm happy and relieved that all the motion blur images came out with the motion blur effect. The first image is very dark, but has the most movement out of all of them. The first photo on the middle row is definitely my favourite. The other two on the middle row are quite similar, although the third one shows the most resemblance to a real landscape photo. Unfortunately the middle bottom photo messed up, but that's just 1 out of 9!

Large Format Scans

Yesterday afternoon I spent an hour scanning my large format images and I'm so happy with how they came out! The colours look beautiful and very different in each of the photos. The photo above shows three of my favourite images. The first one is the most obvious as you can identify the most features, however the colours are so bright that it returns to the abstraction. The middle photo has completely different colours and is probably my favourite out of the three. There is no indication of what the photo could be of. The third photo has the colours an ordinary landscape photo would have, but is blurred in such a way that it's the most like a painting. The three of them look so different from one another, and that's why they work as a set.

Business Boom

"Business Boom Collective is the ideal place to see features of up-and-coming and freelance creatives from the UK and beyond. In collaboration with a collection of modern and slick websites including Business Boom Bolton, The Mancunianist as well as our latest store feature, I Think I Need I Want, it is the perfect place to read up on the brightest individuals and most current businesses linked to the worlds of fashion, photography, art, design and more."

Everyone kept telling me how great Twitter was and such, but now I've experienced it first hand. One of my friends on the course retweeted a status by Business Boom and having your work featured on their website. As an up and coming photographer who's trying to make it out, of course I'd want my work featured! I immediately sent them an email with my website and within a couple of hours they replied that they really liked my Rubber Duck series and they'd "love to put something together for you". They asked me to write a bit about myself, my education, inspirations, aspirations etc. I've just written a short piece including a bit about my rubber duck series, my The Netherlands photos and of course my Succession project. I can't wait to see what it all looks like!! 

January 2013

My boyfriend and I have decided that this year is the year we get off of our butts and do stuff. We have been documenting everything we've done and put it into a 1.30 min video. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krNZrlufyUA

We're going to create a video like this every month, and by the end of the year we'll have a compilation of all the videos to show how our year has been. The reason we specifically chose this year is because we're starting off in England with our final months on the course, then graduation, Holland, France, Belgium, Dubai, Singapore and Australia. It'll be a whole load of countries and special events.