Response exhibition

Approached last minute during class and  got asked to photograph the exhibition being held at Flannels called ‘Response’ which was the same place as the ‘Put your money where your mouth is’ exhibition.

As living close to the exhibited area and not having any plans for the evening I thought why not? 

The only thing which I were unsure about was from the first exhibition held at Flannels, I put all the images on a disk and sent them off, then told they were very happy with them and what they needed but never heard anything from it as was told if they were used for advertising or anything that I would be contacted or have a copy of the published images.

Either way I thought its still experience, great networking and if I get asked each time an exhibition is held to take it up, even if I am doing it for free because in the long run it will benefit me especially getting to know the right ‘crowd’ shall we say (photographers, artist, companies, staff working at Flannels etc).

Unlike last time I learnt my lesson of walking up the ten million flights of stairs and took the lift, for the doors to open and the room layout to look exactly the same with the lighting and the bar area which were good as I knew the environment from previously and knew what I were working with. Even though I knew the experience was going to be more or less the same as the first exhibition and I wouldn’t really learn much from taking the pictures I also knew the same people will recognize me from last time and all I kept saying to myself is “this is good networking”!

The last exhibition had work up from the teachers of Leeds City College art and photography department however this time round it had the students work up and also professional photographers Martin Parr and Fay Godwin.

When walking around the exhibition and looking at the work I really enjoyed it, a large variety of work was displayed all in different styled frames which as a whole worked well together.

Whilst myself and Jess (other photographer) occasionally bumped into each other for a chat we both decided that our favorite piece of work was a portrait of an old man by K James, the old man being his farther. The expression his fathers face was brilliant and well captured, edited in sepia giving the image an older feel to it. With a thick black frame and boarder with a thick black edge bring the whole image together.

camera, FLASH, action!!

With not experiencing many shoots outdoors due to my lack of knowledge about flash and feeling slightly intimidated as not knowing how to light the environment correctly

I attended a lesson on how to use a flash gun to light outdoors.

We were shown a variety of ways and what the outcome would be if you were to use the flash in that situation.

The first technique was using direct flash, pointing straight forward at the subject, basically what not to do and the image is very flat with dull lighting.

The second was pointing the flash upwards towards the ceiling, meaning the ceiling would act as a giant reflector bouncing the light back down on the subject. Now creating a brighter, less harsh lighting on the face.

For the next technique I pointed the flash straight upwards using the diffuser that came with the flash gun which made the light more harsh but even skin tones.

Then a diffuser was added to the flash, called a Garyfong with the flash pointed towards the ceiling once again and changing the flash settings to exposure compensation to +1.

Keeping the settings as they are we then were asked to see the difference when the flash was moved sideways which then created a nicer more interesting light.

Taking off the Garyfong then replacing with a ring flash, we were asked to zoom out the lens to 18mm so we were able to see the difference of when taking portrait how it distorts the face and when taking pictures such as this, to stand further away and zoom in making the subject seem more in proportion.

 

Ruckus at Hukaz

My house mate was holding a DJ night at a place called Hukaz in Hyde park. She asked if I was able to come along to take picture of the night for her work and so I could experience night club photography. I got the impression it was just going to be like a night club which panicked me a bit with my flash gun. A shoot a few weeks back for an exhibition it was taking quite a while to charge up and what made me worry is the thought of strangers posing for a picture and my flash not going off or having to make them wait. As the aim of the night was to invite people so public could see the classes performance and have pictures taken just as they would in a nightclub.
The night was set to feature acoustic performances from a few of the students as well as guest DJ's who had been asked to play on the night and to make it more fun they added in face painting for whoever wanted it.
When arriving it was nothing as I thought it would be, it was basically a Indian restaurant with people sat down having drinks and food. Nothing like a night club. In a way I was slightly relived as I knew I could easily take pictures in this environment however in a way I wish it was more challenging as I thought I might of been leaving the place with experience or something to learn from were as it was really just snapping away and no skill needed.

The photographs from this event was going to be projected on a screen for the guest to see but when thinking more about it we decided to put them on Facebook and people then are able to tag themselves from the night. The reason why we thought this would be a better idea is because we wouldn't of been able to edit the images, seen them before going on the projected screen and it would of been very time consuming when I could of been taking pictures of the night instead.

Since I had never been to Hukaz before and the only time I could go for a practice was an hour before. When the taxi pulled up I was really confused as all I saw was the restaurant. I thought they must have an up stairs or down stairs for the event. But no! It was in the tiny room with one toilet a DJ booth in the corner, a small bar and staff running back and forth taking dinner to people. 
After taking a few pictures to check the lighting that was all the practice I needed.
Feeling very awkward as I didn't want to take pictures of the customers eating and my flat mates course was still arriving the the venue I waited more or less an hour before shooting. Not only I felt awkward but didn't really know where to begin.

Finally someone approached me asking for a picture taken, after one person asked the rest started asking. I also then felt more comfortable just to approach them and ask if they want a picture taken. All said yea!

When people from the course were performing the best area to be stood to capture it all was unfortunately right next to the only toilet in the entire place and where the stair case was for the staff to bring food up. I was constantly moving around it wasn't a very ideal place and knowing they had a real club before they decided to move venues saddened me as I know the other place would of been much better and I would of gained much more experience and challenged myself.
Either way I uploaded the pictures on to Facebook and I edited them to have a cool tone as I find most club pictures have that effect, people have tagged themselves and all have said  "Thanks you were great" of course I was great couldn't of gone wrong really... too easy! 

SWAT

To help us understand in class how we work, whats our strengths, weaknesses ect we did SWAT analysis. This is what I put down for the following...

Study.

Strengths-  Meets deadlines and works well under pressure.

Weaknesses- Saves everything until last minute. If I have a long duration of time I won't actually do anything till closer to the hand in date as I work better under pressure.

Opportunities- My work would look a lot better if I paced myself instead of rushing last minute.

Threats- Losing marks on my work. 

Technical.

Strengths-Studio Lighting.

Weaknesses- Darkroom and outside (location) lighting.

Opportunities- Could be a lot more adventurous with my shoots by having them on location and well lit. Also add a different look/edge to my work by using film.

Threats- If I don't learn how to light on location it will limit what I am able to do at shoots.

Professional.

Strengths- Confident in approaching people and confident in networking.

Weaknesses- Haven't contacted a studio or a gallery for personal work.

Opportunities- Would be able to get good work experience and be able to show my work to the public.

Threats- When applying for a job, people with work experience would get the job over myself. Wouldn't get myself known as a photographer if I don't exhibit my work in some way.

Personal.

Strengths- Ideas for shoots/ creative.

Weaknesses- Not so confident in my work, I never think it looks right.

Opportunities- By getting confident in my work I feel like it would help the shoot instead of holding me back.

Threats- If I don't become more confident with my work it will hold me back and I won't have the ability to do my best. 

After doing the SWAT analysis my aim is to improve on all my weaknesses and make them my strengths by the end of the course so I am able to succeed. By also doing them now if I needed help I know the support is there were as on the outside world after my course it might not be available.

Put your money where your mouth is!

There is a new gallery that opened today in Leeds. This gallery at Flannels will be run by Leeds City College, where I am studying my foundation top-up degree. 

It opened tonight started at 6pm and ending at 8pm!

The work exhibited was by the staff of the creative arts faculty at the college.  

Me and my friend Jess put ourselves up to do photography for the event little did we know we were approach by a woman running it who worked for the shop Flannels in Manchester and came down to run this exhibition. She asked us to take a number of shots  as we will be going back to the shop with the images on a disk so she can use them for advertisement. At first we was slightly confused that we was doing all this work and no pay however she said that they have no photographers in the Leeds area for events such as these that they are running and will be in contact with us to use us as the official photographers which then made it seem worth our while. Not only we was gaining experience, pictures for our portfolio we could also have got ourselves some regular work.

Anyway on the way to Flannels for the exhibition we was wondering what type of work would be up. Jess said " from the flyer do you think its all of mouths" and I thought all the creative arts faculty wouldn't possibly just have an exhibition of pictures of mouths. When thinking about it a bit more on the walk down I worked out that the exhibition name was basically saying if we can teach it here is our work just as the saying 'put your money where your mouth is' made perfect sense. 

After walking up billions flights of stairs to see we could of taken a lift the area of the exhibition was really nice. Since us students are not allowed to say really nice without an explanation my reasons for saying this is that, it looked very modern with bar and tables. 

Candles and menus an area for a band and the walls which the work was on was very well lit.

The area was well presented and as soon as you got to the room people was there to take your coats and bags. Never had my coat taken off me before was nice felt posh!

To be honest I didn't really go round looking at the work I just started taking pictures of the people who was PRIVATELY invited ( how posh!) looking at the work and getting in small chit chat to one another.

One of the issues was with my flash, I had put new batteries in before leaving to the exhibition and had to replace them half way through. My flash took a very long time to charge up and in the main room where people was sat chatting and buying drinks to set the mood their was no lighting and just candles. I was altering the direction of the flash to try get the best light but it mainly just lit up the front and made the back of the room extremely dark. I over come this by changing the position where I was shooting, I moved into the exhibition area as it had bright lighting and zoomed in slightly at the bar area which seemed to of lit the whole image a lot better.

The only work I had a good look at was my tutors it was like playing wheres wally but finding were my teachers work was instead.

As the night went ahead more and more people started to arrive, the mood was good champagne and wine flowing, canapes being nibbled and background music with a live band. 

It was very busy, if I am honest I was really surprised by the whole event didn't expect the space to look like that and didn't expect that amount of people to turn up. Over all I would give this exhibition a 10/10! 

 

Aesthetic Perfection

 Whilst researching for essay and presentation I came across this picture, I have seen it before but never really looked at it and I think it ties in well with the whole body image topic because editing pictures before publishing plays a big part in what the viewer sees and thinks.

Celebrities and the industry around them, are often accused of producing images that affect young people's body image.
Britney Spears allowed the pre-airbrused images from a shoot to be used alongside the digitally altered ones, so people are able to see the difference.

Images that go in the media effect young girls wanting to look like them and be them. Which then could result in a eating disorder further down the line.

Super models in the popular magazine have continued to get thinner and thinner.
Some models go through plastic surgery, some are "taped-up" to mold their bodies into more photogenic representations of themselves, and photos are airbrushed before going to print.

...

During a class critique I printed out the 5 images of the girls and put them all next to each other on a A3 piece of paper and handed around the class. I was hoping to get some good feedback from this. 

I saw this as a test run so I know how to approach the questionnaire situation and if people would be able to understand what I was asking from them.

Good job I did this as well, because other didn't seem to understand the point of it and instead of rating the girls on there body shape what the girls was wearing and how pretty they were seemed to win the majority.

I asked the class to write on the A3 sheet which girl they thought had the best body type. The results I got back when reading was one was chosen because of her fashion sense and her hair, another was chosen because of her shape, height and skin colour and another was chosen because of her style and that she was pretty.

Even though I didn't get the type of feedback I wanted I have now know that, that way of approaching this is not going to work how I want it to so the way I am going to do it is get three girls with different body types, all wearing the same and not have there faces in the shot so they can not be judge by what they are wearing or how pretty they are.

Looking at body shapes!

To look at different body shapes I thought where else best than Leeds City Centre!

You see many different people with styles and shapes.

I approached young ladies asking if I was able to take their picture with reasons why.

This wasn't as easy as it sounds!

When walking over many avoided me like the plague.

However I managed to get a few. The reason why I approached the girls I did as I felt they showed a small variety of different body types. Some small and petite, one curvy and another quite tall. 

I am hoping to use these images in some form of questionnaire asking people which they prefer along with other questions.

Ellen Von Unwerth

She specializes in erotic feminity was a model for ten years before moving behind the camera, now makes fashion, editorial and advertising photographs.

Ellen has worked with people such as Beyonce, Rhianna, Emma Watson, Kylie and Christina.

I really like her images and enjoy looking at them as I find them inspiring.

Ellen has worked for many years in the fashion business and hard to get to where she is now. She has that edge about her photography that makes it appealing too many. She produces many sexy images and puts the famous people who she is working with in different situations, with a glamorous erotic feel to them. 

Its all about the sex appeal.

Heres a video from Beyonce's new album shoot with Ellen Von Unwerth

What Got me into Photography.

Well I picked it at A-level because it seemed like an interesting subject were you could be as creative as you wanted to be. Thought it would be a nice skill to have. Little did I know I would like it so much to go do a foundation degree in commercial photography then now studying a BA Hons.

So from choosing it because I thought it would much more fun than a subject such as maths or science has led to me want to earn money from this new found passion.    

Terry O'Neill

As a class we went to view Terry's work.

Leeds gallery is actually a two minute walk from my accommodation near the bus station so it is in a pretty good position with a cafe next door to it.

The gallery first opened in September 2011, with Terry O’Neill’s work being the first to be exhibited there.

Terry is a London based photographer and is celebrating his 50th year of being a photographer, after taking pictures of many famous people such as The Beatles, Twiggy, Michael Caine, Amy Winehouse, Elton John and many more.

Other than the fact the Leeds Gallery is in a brilliant position , the building itself looks very modern, large glass windows allowing a lot of natural light into the exhibition. Inside white walls, very spacious, clean and professional looking.

(Image below)

The images were large prints with a thick black frame; white border then another border inside, the pictures was also hung by a clear wire. However not all the borders were even which I personally thought made them look slightly unprofessional?  

Terry signed every image on the right hand corner of his work which brought a nice personal aspect to the exhibition, as we asked the people who worked there questions about his work such as 'why is all the work in black and white but two images and why did he chose to display them together?'

They couldn't help us with that question because they did not know and the two coloured images were displayed next to each other because that’s how they set them up. So Terry himself had no input of how the exhibition was meant to be laid out, the images were just sent over and for them to lay out, which might have something to do with how the borders weren't even.

When watching online a few of his different exhibitions he has held the layout of the images and display seems to be more or less the same. Black and white images, black frames, white borders and large prints in a spacious, bright area.

(play video below, exhibition at Kildare Village, interview with Terry and his work).

 

Ways of looking festival!

'Ways of Looking is a new festival of photography in Bradford and runs throughout October 2011.'

Ways of Looking is free photography festival that as a class we got to visit and look at the photography and art exhibited.

We met at the National Media Museum where we were given a map so it made us able to go round to the different exhibitions and explore ourselves. Map below with areas marked were I got chance to look around.

I started at the National Media Museum were I saw Donovan Wylies work exhibited.

He photographed the architecture of conflict, structures built by agencies of the economic-military complex for the purposes of showing war in an efficient way.

He photographed landscape, observation, control and history.

Inspired at first by landscape of Northern Ireland in Maze2004.

Donovan's work was displayed as large images, with a white border and black frames.

(Sketch of layout below)

Underneath his images he had a description of each, also the company the images were printed through.

Donovan's images were military architecture that is designed to observe and control. The maze was designed to confuse inmates, not an actual maze but seems like one.

Not only did he display his work with very large images he also put the images into books Maze I and Maze II which are available to buy.

At the age of 20 Donovan joined Magnum he wanted to be part of an organisation and not isolated from other photographers. He was uneducated and only knew of one photographer.

Wylies likes to call his work 'conceptual documentary'.

To shoot Maze I and II it took a year and 100 days of shooting he wanted to show the repetition of control and bring the system out of the maze one machine to another.

When looking at the images I wondered as to why the majority looked the same but this was the point he was trying to get across. They are different images or different areas in the 'maze' but looks more or less the same because the way it was built and designed. To express this more so Wylies took the images at the same angle.

I really enjoyed looking at this work as it has a hidden depth even though they look the same they aren't and he was photographing his own history.

'These are pictures, visual images, and only by engaging the viewer visually do they resonate enough to inspire the thought and contemplation they should- about history, about geopolitics, about visual representation, about what we do to each other' Gerry Badger

                                                                                                                                  

The other photographer’s work I viewed was Daniel Meadows.

When you entered his exhibiting area he had a wall with a collage of images on a canvas fabric. I really like this as it showed his collection of work in one area so it was like a program for the rest of his exhibition. It had a collection of things such as letters, photographs, flyers, magazines, receipts, notebook pages and newspaper clippings. It was like a collage of his life.

'Daniel is a photographer, documentarian, digital storyteller and unofficial co-founder of a uniquely British photography movement'. Greg Hobson.

In 1973 Meadows began a journey across England in the free photographic omnibus, setting up free portrait studios and making documentary photographs.

Aged 21, Daniel bought a 25 year old double Decker bus for £360.20. He removed the seats to make space for a darkroom and a living area.

He used a bus as a darkroom and developed the images after taking them and gave them free to the people he took it of.

Meadows spent 14 months taking his

Greame Street

studio philosophy on tour around England.

He revisited the people in the 90's and took another image. So then they were able to see the difference from 20 years ago when he first started his project. Meadows had no information about the people who was in the previous images, he basically advertised and put up the images and waited for the people to contact him one of the ways was putting his images in Hartlepool Mail the news paper. (Image below of advert in Hartlepool Mail news paper).

 By revisiting the people from the first project it made it much more personal not to him but the people who was in the images. Some images had people missing from where they had passed away or where children had grown up to adults.

Meadows displayed his work as very large prints, black frame with no borders and were obviously done with black and white film.

He also had a slideshow with the first images taken then the 20 years later images, so you could compare the difference which I personally feel this made his exhibition, as it showed more of a purpose and more depth behind his first concept.