End of An Adventure

So this week is the last week of lecturers; before handing in all our final work. It has been an up and down two years, with many challenges put in my way. However I have stuck with it and now it's the end of my University Course. I am kind of sad to say bye to something that has been part of my life for so long and consumed so much of my time. However I have a lot of plans and hopes for what I do next.

I will however continue to work and practice my photography skills constantly and hope to soon earn enough money to start a small collection of lights for a kind of home studio.

Any new images will be posted onto my blog and maybe in the future I can even look into starting my own website to promote my own imagery.

Watch this Space!

Finally Reading

I am not a big reader; I am often doing other things that mean I am pushing way time to sit down and get into a good book. It's not something I have normally worried about but coming up to the end of my course I thought that perhaps I should start sitting down and spending more time reading in some form.
I was really taken by the Hunger Games film that was recently released and so thought more about looking into the trilogy of the books by Suzanne Collins. They were on special offer recently in a local book shop so I took the opportunity to buy them and to prompt myself into reading them. To my surprise once I started the book I couldn't put it down! Now for someone who starts a book and never finishes them...this is an improvement!
Now I am on the second book very quickly and the fact that with every page I don't know what is happening next; i'm gripped. These books have opened my eyes to the imaginative world that writers can delve into and take us with them. I am ashamed to say that I really wish and should have read more over the years but this trilogy has certainly opened my eyes to the world of writing.

Check these out! You maybe surprised ...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hunger-Games-Trilogy-Box-Set/dp/1407130293/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337415851&sr=1-3

Portfolio Printing

On thursday I sat down to tackle my portfolio prints ready for my deadline on the 19th May. I was using Hahnemuhle Art Rag paper for the first time and very nervous due to the expensive of the paper!
It was a good eye opener in terms of the need to get work printed in a few attempts as possible, so training your eye to look at everything.
The only issue I did have was that the Matt paper did not work well with all of my images. I was very disappointed with a number of images, but extremely pleased with others. In all it was an eye opener as to what paper works best with what.
For warm temperatures in you image or portraiture, then the paper is brilliant. It is definitely something I would recommend trying.

Hanging

On thursday we had to hang our 'channels' work. The challenge wasn't as hard as I had expected but seeing the time it took to hang work simply with pins; made me realise the difficulty we will face when coming to hang our exhibition work. Especially as some of my work is framed and needs to be arranged in a grid format on the day.

Here is the start and finish of the hanging process on thursday. I wish now looking back I had taken the middle image (scientific) in a portrait format so that it would have flowed in the same way throughout the work; however I am very happy with the images produced and the final outcome of the prints.

Picking up the peices

Today I heard a song by Paloma Faith and I am not a regular fan of her music but this was something different. I watched the music video and was in awe. She had taken a cinematic approach by using the idea that the man in the video had forgotten she was standing by his side and that she could easily have just a been a wax work waiting to melt away.
Why not take a look for yourselves and see what impact it has for you :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijel4Vcqd9g&ob=av2e

Burger Shoot

For my university assignment I was shooting burgers... yes cheese burgers!
I have found it more exciting than I first imagined I would, I have done a variety of images some of which are shown here. I later printed them out on A2 premium paper so they could be pinned in the college gallery space.
I hope you all like them! Why not try something different and experiment with the ability of photography.

Time to Frame

This weekend I need to start looking for some frames for my exhibition work. I am printing a main part of my work myself; on B/W pearl photo paper; and then framing them all in a style of box frames. Eventually making up a grid of around 3 images tall by 4 images wide. I think the frames need to be of a kind of black or dark wood affect; with the width that brings them out from the wall.
Perhaps something like this?

This is from a particular company called 'Framed London Prints'.
Or perhaps I should go for something a little slimmer like the frames from 'Best4Frames'

I like the idea of the images being brought out of the wall so I think the wider the better; I just now need to find a reasonable source to get the frames and wether to go for dark brown or full black. I also need to see about mounts and whether the images work with the paper being full bleed with just the frame around them; or to use the mounts inside the frames? This would however minimise the amount of the image you would see; and any frames larger than A3 would take up a lot of space in the gallery.

Surprising New Genre

For part of a University assessment last week; I had to take part in a dance shoot. Now I am somebody who is very much focused on Still Life photography and swaying from that genre is very hard. Perhaps it is because I am not quite so open minded as others; or perhaps it is because I feel my skills lie better with still life?
Either way I had to do my own part of the shoot. After helping set up the studio with my class mates it came around in no time. The nerves I felt were terrible because I feel as though I have been taken as far out of my comfort zone as physically possible. However; I was surprised by how well the shoot went. I felt that the dancer was so open to helping me in any way possible, I really couldn't have asked for a better model. (Thanks to Sophie!)
Together we got some fantastic photographs, they were much better than I ever expected and it opened my eyes to dance photography. After I wondered why I'd felt so worried; but once I looking back I probably enjoyed it a lot more than I had anticipated. I hope that it isn't the last I do within this genre.

Here are some of the images I took:

New Arrival

Today was the day that my photo book arrived. I was very excited to find my books waiting for me when I got home today. The anticipation and nerves as I opened the package was exciting. I just hoped that they would be to the high standard I was hoping for. I wasn't disappointed...
The soft cover book works well with the over all petite feel and design of the book. If it had been a book of larger quantity then perhaps a hard back cover would have worked better but I think my decision was right in this occasion. The printing looks good and Blurb haven't let me down. The images themselves are the main and only focus in the book rather than having any large text etc distracting from them.

Thank you Blurb; I am very very happy with my product!