Portsmouth Time Lapse

Over the past month or so I've been wanting to do a time lapse of Portsmouth. I was inspired by Will Rudman's 24 hours in Portsmouth video which he created in the winter time. As we were editing our Portsmouth show time lapse we had a chat about it and now I finally got round to starting it! I've been going around Portsmouth for the past couple of days taking time lapses as well as videos and putting them all together in Windows Movie Maker. I don't really recommend using windows movie maker if you're using more that 3 files..... it's constantly freezing and muting the sound..... not ideal!! But anyway, with a lot of patience and restarting laptops etc it's ok.

I started off shooting at Southsea Common, near the beach. It was an absolutely beautiful day, and just busy enough to make the time lapse interesting. I positioned the camera so that you look straight down a path leading to the sea. There is also a lovely dog in the photo. I stayed in this location for about 5 minutes and took a photo about every 10 seconds.

I next strolled to the actual common and war monument. It's a huge field and I really wanted to show that in the time lapse. Since it was such a great day, there were quite a few people walking their dogs and having a bbq. There is a lot of movement in this scene, there was one moment where a whole load of birds went crazy, but unfortunately that was only captured in two photos so you can't really see it in the time lapse.

After that I went to the sea front. It was quite busy, so finding a spot where people wouldn't be in the scene was difficult. There were a lot of little sail boats everything as well as the huge ferries. The photo to the right shows a little sail boat that stood out against all the blue and white. It went ultra slow, and is then very quickly overtaken by a ferry! It's hard to explain but it looks great in the time lapse, I promise!

I then strolled to Albert Road. Not much was happening at the time, so I mainly took videos instead of time lapses. I did take this time lapse looking straight at the King's theatre. It reminds me of the framing of the first scene, with a road leading the eye toward the middle of the photo. I also like how on the top right you can see the sign "Albert Road".

This is a scene from quite while ago when I started the Portsmouth project. It's a scene from outside the bedroom window. It sounds a bit lazy... but I love it! In the time lapse you can see the shadow on the building to the left slowly rising. It looks really interesting. In the background you can also see a few ferries come by.

Towards the evening I went to the historic dockyard and took some really beautiful shots there. This first one is of the back of the spinnaker, a view that isn't as stereotypical. The sky is starting to turn a bit pinky/purpley which looks really nice. In the foreground there are some boats, which adds to the whole Portsmouth is an island concept and just behind that is Portsmouth Harbour station.

This shot is taken from the same location as the previous photo, but turned into a different direction. The pink sky is incredibly throughout this whole time lapse scene. I actually shortened the time lapse of the spinnaker because of the pink sky, but also because I love the way boats look on time lapse videos! I like the contrast between the little boats and the HMS Warrior. You can also see the little ferry going back and forth between Portsmouth and Gosport. This is definitely one of my favourite scenes.

I completely forgot to add this in. I also went to the Guildhall (obvious). I despise the fact that straight across from the Guildhall is a statue of Queen Elizabeth, and I'm sure any photographer would agree with me. Because of that statue, you can't take a front on geometric photo of the Guildhall! Anyway, I ended up taking a video there instead of a time lapse. A few people came up to me and posed for the camera, unfortunately that won't be part of the time lapse...

Lastly, another shot at the Historic Dockyard. This was complete luck. I left the flat at about 8.45 because we googled the sun would set at 9.21. When we got to the dockyard it was about 9 and the sun was quickly setting. I was lucky enough to get quite a long time lapse of the sun sinking behind the HMS Warrior. This shot is about halfway through in the time lapse. During this time lapse a huge ferry went by as well, which looks quite interesting, the whole new vs old thing.

Obviously I only added the stills from the time lapse in this post, but I did create a lot of videos as well. I really like the idea of combining still images with moving images, it brings the video alive. I will be doing some more shooting tomorrow. I will be going to Commercial Road, maybe down to the southsea shops and Gunwharf. Gunwharf has actually got a no photography rule..... which is a bit stupid.... but I'll have to go hide my camera somewhere so I won't get caught!!

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!

Preview night!!

On the 31st of May was the preview night!!! A couple days before that I emailed my lecturer asking if I could make a time lapse of the event, and he suggested I work with Will Rudman, another student on my course interested in time lapse videos. We got chatting on facebook and decided to work together! He had already filmed a short video of the setting up of the show, so it was a great continuation for him. We went to the exhibition space a couple times to decide on where to put the camera and talked to the technicians about health and safety things. We decided on having one camera above the open exhibition space, which as far as I'm aware no student has ever been! Will's camera was set up there and shot from 5-8. I had my 7D and 1000D on the exhibition floor and moved it around the space. Starting at the beginning where people came in (and conveniently pointing at my work..) and then moved it to the corner close to the bar area, then in the middle and finishing by looking at Will's work. While I was timelapse-ing with my 1000D, Will used my 7D to film some shots of people's work and people looking at the work. Finally, we also had a gopro in a separate room part of the exhibition. It was really great to work with Will and I'm SO happy I didn't do it alone!!! We spent 4 hours on Monday the 3rd of June putting all the time lapse scenes together and creating the most amazing time lapse video I've ever created!! Here is a link for it so do check it out! :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aepp6JEchwY

Anyway, so apart from filming for the whole preview night, it was fantastic!! I could see people coming up to my work and pointing at it, which is so strange haha. I couldn't spend that much time with my work since I had to keep a constant eye on my camera. However, after the show finished and I was on my way to Gunwharf, I got a phone call from a person interested in my work!! I was overjoyed. We met up a couple days later and chatted for about an hour and a half. It was great to talk to him and hear about his stories and his passion for nature. When I got home from meeting him, I checked my email and someone else was seriously interested in buying my work! Again, overjoyed!!! I will be meeting him either on Friday the 14th of Monday the 17th to discuss prices and things like that. I literally can't believe that I got so much interest in my work and that all my business cards ended up being taken.

On top of all that I got a phone call from Foxtons (estate agents) regarding a graduate job! What on earth!??? I sent my CV and website to Foxtons before Christmas asking for work experience and never heard anything back until now. I haven't been able to speak to Foxtons yet, but unfortunately I won't be able to take the graduate job since I'm going to Australia! However, I was thinking about either asking to work for the month of August, or whether I could just get some work experience with them. That way I would be able to continue in that industry in Australia. It would be fantastic to get a photography related job in Australia, rather than applying for something like Subway again (even though I really enjoy working at Subway).

It's been an incredibly exciting time since the exhibition!!!

VIVA practice and final

On the 14th of May I had my practice VIVA. If you're not sure what a VIVA is, it's basically an oral examination where I have to talk about one of my projects from the final year. It's not my work that is being marked but my awareness of the work. The guidelines included things like what is the context of my project, what research have I done, what theory have I looked at, what experiences have I gained from this project, etc etc etc. And you have to cram it all into 7-10 minutes. I decided to talk about my Succession project as I literally know everything there is to know about succession now. The practice was terrifying. I was surprisingly nervous, even though I practised multiple times! The only thing that threw me were the questions at the end, there isn't really any way you can prepare for that!!

I had my actual VIVA on the 24th of May. I took some notes with me as well as some hand outs for who ever was marking me and two books: Clyde Butcher's and Peter Lik's book. Another thing that was very difficult was the fact we had to do it in front of two people, the first was a lecturer who obviously knows all about our work and saw us progress, but also someone else who isn't part of the photography department and might now know anything about photography. This meant that instead of just saying "a deadpan style of photography" I had to go into what deadpan photography is. Same for the photographers mentioned. Again, all that in 7-10 minutes!!! I don't think I ever talked that fast in my life. I can honestly say I don't actually remember much of the VIVA presentation, and I can't repeat the questions!

Before I walked in I heard my lecturers talking about me saying something along the lines of "The next student is extremely talented" and then them joking around how I'll go far, followed by my lecturer saying "she probably will go far".... WHAT!???? I can't believe I heard my lecturers say that!! When they came to get me I obviously had to pretend I didn't hear anything, but wow!!

Business Cards

After I got my 40 free Moo.com cards, I decided to actually splurge and pay for 100 cards. I got a set of 50 business cards solely for my 7591 Miles project. I used the three different photos of the series for the three designs of the back of the card. The front just had my name, that I'm a photographer, my website, email, blog and phone number. I printed another 25 cards for my Succession project and 25 of Kayleigh. The reason I printed 25 cards with Kayleigh on it is because I wanted to save those for the summer as I want to do some pet photography then. I put them alongside my exhibition anyway just in case. At the end of the preview night I only had about 20 cards of Kayleigh left and that was it! A couple days I came back and there were only 3 cards left!! I decided to restock with some of the free cards I got, and by the time I added those I only had one card left. It's crazy! I had no idea people would take my cards. I printed 100 cards thinking I could use them over the summer and take them with me to Australia and just cross out my phone number... But no, they're all gone. It's absolutely crazy!

Exhibition Set Up

 I'll start with the Eldon Show set up.  Way back on the 7th of May we started with setting up the show. This included lots of painting and creating 'fake' walls to hang work and a whole load more. Basically getting the space ready for an exhibition. It was a joint effort so for a week and a half everyone came in and helped out. On the 16th of May the setting up had to be ready as that was the first day to hang up our work! We all came in in the morning as it was our professional practice hand in and in the afternoon we came back to hang the work. For professional practice we had to hand in our portfolio (either physical or digital (eg website) as well as our 'final' blog post. I got a 61% got this, so a 2:1. Although I'm not super happy with it, I'm glad it was in the 2:1 mark. In my last tutorial my lecturers weren't very impressed with my portfolio so I was terrified of failing!! After the hand in and the feedback forms, the lecturers basically just sent us home so they could be alone and layout the work. At 2 we came back and oh my goodness!! My work was placed right at the front!! The top right photo is taken from where you walk into the exhibition space. My work is the first you see!! I was so excited that I immediately wanted to hang my work, before they could change their mind.

I asked my boyfriend to come in to help me as diy isn't my thing at all! I bought a whole load of screws and mirror clips as well as a ruler and a screwdriver. Who knew that stuff was so cheap? So we started off by measuring everything very carefully. We almost hung it up wrong! But thankfully one of my course mates set us straight. It probably took us about an hour and half to hang up the first photo... When we started on the second one we got a bit over confident and ended up hanging it about 5cm too high! That was easily fixed though. The third photo was up in about 10 minutes.

It looks like Kevin is doing all the work in these photos, but honestly it was a joint effort! When we finally got all three photos up we thought we were done for the day and we'd do my succession photo the next day. However, my lecturers urged me to keep going and get it all done in one day.


The Succession photo weight about 7kg and the technicians recommended I hang it up with mirror clips. We started off by getting rid of the original hanging method and made new holes in the frame. Pretty scary!! After that we carefully put in the mirror clips. That was the easy part.... After measuring the wall various times and figuring out where everything had to go, my lecturer helped me left the photo while Kevin drilled some more holes in the wall. Letting go of it was terrifying. But it stayed up!!


 I'm super happy with the spot the lectures gave me, and also that both of my work was next to each other. The work is so different, 7591 Miles is a lot more personal and has a more creative approach, whereas Succession is very scientific and precise. Below is a photo of it all hanging up on the wall. It was a very proud moment!

Officially done with University

It's been a little while since my last blog post and that's because of my hand-in. Our "final" blog post was marked (previous post) so I couldn't blog until I got that mark back, which I've got back now!! The blog and my portfolio were part of the same until called Professional Practice and I got a 2.1! If you aren't sure what that means, it's the second best mark you can get. It goes First (70%+), 2.1 (60%-69%), 2.2 (50%-59%), Third (40%-49%) and anything lower than a 40% is a fail. I'm extremely excited with that mark because in my last portfolio tutorial, my lecturer wasn't very impressed with my portfolio... I also got back my mark for my VIVA presentation. The VIVA is an oral exam where we got 7-10 minutes to talk about our work (what it's about, research we've done, experiences gained and a whole lot more). This was one of the most nerve-racking things I've done on the course as it was in front of a lecturer and another person who doesn't necessarily know anything about photography. Instead of just going straight into each artist I looked at, or talking about what style of photography I used, I first had to explain who they were or what it was.... all in 7-10 minutes! Anyway, back to the point, I also got my mark back for that and I got a first!! I am incredibly happy with it, especially because it isn't the work that is marked, but it's how much you know about your work that matters. The VIVA and the dissertation are part of the same unit called Visual Cultural Dissertation, so my final mark for that is now a solid 2.1!

I'm only waiting for two more marks, which happen to be the most important marks! The first is my practical work of my 7591 Miles project, and the second is my research mark for both my Succession work as well as my 7591 Miles work. I should be getting that back sometime this week.

Other than the marks, a lot has been happening! Firstly we had the preview night of the Portsmouth Show which was a great success. Before the show I emailed my lecturer to see if I could create a time lapse of the night. He was very enthusiastic and recommended I work with another student interested in time lapses called Will Rudman. On the preview night we ended up using 4 cameras to take time lapses and some videos. We spend four and a half hours editing it yesterday and I am so proud of what we've made. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aepp6JEchwY&feature=youtu.be.

I've also continued the weekly photo challenges, but I will create a separate post for them. I will also add some more specific posts after this one to show you in more detail what I've been up to!

Professional Practice Plan

Throughout my three years on the course I've tried a whole range of different types of photography, including objects, landscapes, interiors, cityscapes, portraiture and more. However, something that has been consistent for the past few years in my passion for landscape photography. I started off being a bit clueless about photography, but the course has taught me that it's not all about a pretty picture; it's the meaning behind the photograph that makes you a great photographer.

In my third year I really started to think about my future: what I'm interested in and what kinds of jobs I want to get when I have finished the course. Therefore my two final projects are both about landscapes, but very different aspects of it. The first has a very scientific approach which is an area I'd love to go into, whereas the second project was a lot more personal. Because of my passion for landscape photography, I contacted quite a few photographers regarding their work and whether I could assist them on a photoshoot to gain more experience. After interviewing Fergus Heron, he agreed to let me assist him on a shoot in Horsell Common. It was a fantastic opportunity as I learnt a lot about large format photography and the ideal composition for deadpan landscape photos. It was also interesting to see his process of finding the perfect shot, and how he records everything in a workbook - similar to what I have been doing on the course. Another field of work experience I looked into was working in a camera shop called Harpers Photographic. This was a great learning experience, especially working in the processing lab, although it isn't something I would like to do as a career. Finally, I have also been part of a volunteering project called New Creatives where I worked together with a contemporary artist, Oliver Merkin, and helped Havant and Portsmouth college students create an art piece with the theme "making things makes us human". Their work was displayed at Aspex gallery, alongside a timelapse video I created of my experience. New Creatives has introduced me to some jobs I'd be able to do such as teaching or curating, but it's also given me more confidence to talk about my work and help others with theirs.

In 2010 I created my own Facebook Photography page and have been regularly updating that ever since. I also got a Flickr account where I do weekly photo challenges; I have a Twitter account, a Pinterest account, a blog, and finally a YouTube account. I update my blog as often as possible, usually a few times a week. My YouTube account has all my timelapse videos, my pinterest has a bit of everything (portfolio, landscape photography, pet photography, university projects, behind the scenes) and my Flickr mainly features my weekly photo challenges. Of course I also have a website with its own domain (www.elainedevries.com). My website features my portfolio, but also has links my University projects and my Commissioned projects (Pet, Band and Interior photography). It also has a link to my blog and Pinterest and a contact button. I also have a section with "links" that brings you to a list of websites where my work has been featured. Although I have an online portfolio, I also have a physical portfolio as I think it looks more professional to bring that in for an interview. It is an A3 box portfolio from Silverprint and includes a variety of my best work.

After I graduate I will be moving to Australia. This is both for personal reasons but also to further my landscape portfolio. Australia is known for its beautiful landscapes, and I'm hoping to do more projects similar to my Succession project, where I look at a more scientific aspect. I like the idea of creating awareness of environmental issues within my work. Something that I have become increasingly more interested in lately is pet photography, which is why I will be doing some work experience with a pet photographer in Melbourne, Caitlin McColl, once I have arrived in Australia.

Update

After today I won't be able to post anything until I receive my mark back for my blog. I'll still be doing all sorts of things like the weekly photo challenges, the eldon show construction, and the actual eldon show. Once I've received my mark back, I'll have a huge blog update on everything!

For the past week and a bit we've been busy with she Eldon show construction, painting walls, placing walls, etc. Tomorrow we'll start organising where everything is going to hang and tomorrow as well as Friday will be the actual hanging of the show.

I also had my practice VIVA presentation where I talked about my Succession project. It went really well, my lecturer gave me a few tips on how to make it better and I have the final on the 24th of May!

Portsmouth Show Catalogue

As I mentioned in a previous post, there was a bit of drama/confusion about the catalogues presented at the Portsmouth show. Basically, the London show people created a catalogue for the London show, however they also decided to present this at the Eldon exhibition. To the people not part of the London show, it seemed a bit weird as we're part of the show, yet not in the catalogue. Anyway, we got together on Facebook and talked about having our own little catalogue. It''ll only feature about 12 people I think, but at least we'll be in a catalogue!

This is my page! I could only take up one page, so decided to add my Succession print in it. I also added a bit of text and my email and website. I think it looks great! I'm really happy that we're creating our own little catalogue, although I do think it'll come across as a bit weird having two different catalogues, but I'm glad I'm part of it now!

Monthly Video: April!

This is our 4th monthly video of what we've been up to in April! It hasn't been a busy month since we've had all sorts of important deadlines, and therefore Chili is featured quite a bit!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmOMeGz8xlw

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!

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.

Hand-In

Last Thursday was my hand-in for two units: Advanced Practice Research and Self Led. For Advanced Practice Research I had to create two research workbooks for each of my projects (Succession and 7591 Miles). Self Led only referred to my 7591 Miles project. For this I had to hand in my three finals, my development workbook and a reflective writing, which basically just sums up all the research I've done and how I've come to my final.

It's a bit of a strange feeling now that I've handed this in. It's the same as after my dissertation hand in - I'm happy that it's all done, but I've still got another hand in and a whole exhibition to set up! Usually the hand-in means the end, but we've still got so much to do!!

The next deadline is the 16th of May, which is when I have to hand in my portfolio (pretty much done) and a final blog post explaining what I'm hoping to do over the next 5 years and how the course has helped me get to that. This means I won't be blogging for a while after the 16th (until I've got my mark back).

Anyway, a few days before that I have my VIVA practice presentation. The VIVA is an oral presentation about my work, however it's not my work that is being marked but the way I talk about it and my knowledge of the subject matter. I will be talking about my Succession project for this as I feel the most confident at that project. My actual VIVA is sometime closer towards the end of May. Also around the start of May we have to start setting up our Eldon exhibition. We start setting it up and deciding where all the work is going to go on the 7th of May, but the actual exhibition isn't until the 31st of May! I'm a bit worried about hanging up my work, since my Succession photo is incredibly heavy and I literally know nothing about drilling holes and stuff.....

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.

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.

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!

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.