Illustrating a Story

Back in January the Uni took my class on a trip to Gregynog Hall (http://gregynog.glam.ac.uk/).  Before we went they split us into groups and gave the groups short stories.  The story my group was given was “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl (if you fancy reading the story it’s here…http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lamb.html)  We were given an era in which our stories had to be based, 1950′s and a shooting style, Film Noir.

We researched the era and the props that we would need, identified key scenes in the story and familiarised ourselves with the Film Noir style (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir).  When we got to Gregynog we set about choosing a room in which we could shoot and shot the scenes over two days.

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(Test shots that were taken to test the lighting and scene setting)

I really liked the Film Noir effects and using photography to illustrate a story and would like to continue with this idea of photography for illustration purposes using other short stories, poems and fairy tales.

Circles Project – Week 2

I should have posted this on Tuesday, done a post on Wednesday and one yesterday but one thing and another kinda prevented me from doing so (lack of sleep, not coming home til late, the sun, sunburn, making things (which is an entirely different post…))  Anyway, its being posted now which is probably better late than never!

This week I have taken more photos for you to see of circles that can be found in and around the home.  I still have no concrete plans of how I want to continue with this project just yet as I’m not sure where it will lead me and what I may discover along the way.  This project is in its early stages and is an exploration into circles and why they fascinate me.

 

Anyway, the photos (I haven’t edited these, I figured I would just show the photos that I’m happy with for the time being and edit once I have “completed” the project)…

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Approaching a New Project

Heres how I start a project…

1) Get the brief and read it through fully.  Make sure that you understand what is being asked of you… (whoever ‘they’ are..lecturer, client, friend etc…)

2) Think about it for a bit and start writing down initial ideas, these could be in note form, as pictures, a bubble diagram/bubble chart/spider diagram/mind map (it has so many different names! See here… http://www.the-organic-mind.com/spider-diagrams.html)

3) Research the topic, for example, on my last project about the family I looked at sociology and the family, family definitions, society and family, family and friends, my own definition of family etc.  Cover every idea and term there is surrounding your given topic and read up about it.

4) Gather images linked to your topic, you may never use these but it is useful if you want to expand on the images or use them as an illustration in your presentations about your work and ideas.

5) Look at all the things you have found out during the research process and work through any ideas that you have generated throught this process (hopefully you will have written down any ideas along the way.) Think about which one suits what you want to do, which direction you want to take the project in and think about how to further yourself, this could be through further research/reaing etc.

6) Create your work.  Once it is created think about how you could continue with it or how you could improve your work and if you have time continue with the work or make adjustments.  Sometimes this will lead to more work or re-starting but dont be disheartened, the end product will be worth it.

7) Think about display.  I tend to think about display as I go along but rarely seem to display the work as I thought I would have at the beginning of the project.  My work “Model Family” was initially going to be displayed on a plinth that was going to rest on a desk but ended up being on boards that would be on a wall.

8) Once you have created whatever work it is that you set out to do, evaluate it and the process you went through.  There are always improvements to be made along the way and ways of doing things differently to suit you.

Remember, whatever way and however you create work, this is mine and works for me.  Some times I do change things about and start taking photos or creating something without doing any background work first, just to give myself a better understanding of what I want to do and where to go with my projects.  Hope this can help you!

 

Look Closer Exhibition- A Review

I was going to blog about this on friday but I couldn’t get to the opening night on thursday, friday I checked the website of the place where it is being held and it didn’t seem to be open, so I ended up going on saturday.

The exhibition is of 2nd Year Photo Art students work, held in the Riverfront Theatre, Newport. I thought this would be handy to see as a reference tool for myself as I will be a second year myself next year.  I thought it would be nice to see the work so I could see, myself, what was expected of us next year and also to support the students on my course.

The exhibition areas are a room upstairs where a couple of students displayed works, one being an installation of a room with photographic elements and crumpled notes, photos printed onto fabric and a video piece.  The main exhibition is downstairs and consisted of sculpture, installation, photos and video pieces.  The piece I mostly enjoyed was one which was in a clear tank that was sealed with hinges, it looked like the kind of display box that would be put around a valuable art work.  The box contained a screwed up paper ball, just that, at the bottom, and nothing else.  It got me thinking about what may be written on that piece of paper, could it be some valuable piece of information, a confession, a letter or something that was not valuable at all, like a menu or a shopping list.  It wasn’t, in my mind what I thought or expected from a Photo Art exhibition, I imagined that the space would be filled with photos of different things.

I was pleasantly surprised about what I saw, the level of quality about the work and the unexpectedness of it.  The works there shattered my expectations, made me think and examine what was there.

The work was really well thought out and displayed well, the exhibition rooms themselves large enough that works didnt encroach onto each other and it was visually stimulating.

The website for the works and artists is www.uwnlookcloser.com and the Riverfront’s website is here http://www.newport.gov.uk/theriverfront/

I would love to write more about the artworks on display at the exhibition but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who wants to go and see it!  If you are in the area, go!  You won’t be disappointed!

Summer Bucket List

It occurred to me earlier that everything I have planned that I have talked about on here revolves around uni nad photos.  I really do have other things I want to try to do this summer while I’m off so I have compiled a list, in no particular order…

1) Create some new scrapbook pages.  I can’t remember the last time I did some scrapbooking and have a whole pile of photos, new and old, that I want to make pages for.  I found all my 12″x12″papers yesterday and had forgotten about how lovely they all were.  I think I will start working on layouts later this week/early next week and start pairing up photos with the papers I want to use.

2) Make some new cards.  Again, this is something I used to do ALL the time but since starting uni I haven’t really made any.  It would be nice to make some to sell or just to give away to friends and family.  I really hate buying shop bought cards as they can be too impersonal and the wording not quite right.  And there is nothing nicer than receiving a hand-made/crafted card either.

3) Make more jewellery.  I have been making jewellery on and off for years and recently purchased a lovely load of glass beads from Hobbycraft which I really want to use to make some lovely bracelets with.  I also want to use some of the beads that I forgot I had (they re-surfaced when sorting my craft room for moving the other day…).

4) Sort out/finish moving my craft room.  As you probably know from this post (http://artreviewed.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/please-excuse-the-mess/) I am moving my craft room from the dining room to one of my spare bedrooms.  I havent yet got much further with any of it apart from getting rid of the spare bed and a chest of drawers and matching wardrobe.  I really need to go through all the craft materials I have and work out what I want to keep and what can go and work from it that way.  At the moment I am moving everything bit by bit upstairs and then sorting it out.  It would also help if I went and bought the storage items I needed and got them up!

5) Sew more Sock Monkeys!  This is fun and simple and I started off making sock monkeys from a kit my friend bought me for my birthday.  I want to make more so I can have a craft stall somewhere and sell them along with jewellery and cards.  It has been something I have wanted to do for ages, and now, with such a long summer holiday starting I can use the time to create some!

6) Paint a canvas.  No idea what I want to paint onto a canvas but in my Foundation year I created a tree on canvas and really enjoyed doing it so I would like to make something else and have that on a wall somewhere.

7) Do something ‘Crafty’ with my photos.  I have tons and tons of photos on the computer that rarely get seen so I would like to print them out and create some kind of artwork using them.

8) Find a way of displaying my old photos.  This one is relatively simple, I have seen so many different, inexpensive ways of displaying old photos, I just need to decide which would work for mine and go for it.  At the moment I store all of mine in a shoe-box which is a shame as I’d really like them to be out.

9) Go to an exhibition.  Not for uni work, but because I want to go.  I really, REALLY want to go to the Damien Hirst one in London’s Tate.

10) Go somewhere I have never been before.  Now I can drive I want to go somewhere I have never been before and be a tourist for the day.  I want to experience the feeling of never seeing a place before and try to capture the essence of the place through photos and other media.  I want to explore!

11) Read at least 3 books over the summer.  I love reading and during term time I don’t seem to read that much so this one should be easy to do.

12) Visit friends more often.  Again, I can drive now and have more time so it would be nice to catch up with friends over the holidays for chats and cuppas and enjoy being with them.

13) Bake things.  So I can take them when I visit friends.  I love baking but it seems to be one of those things I rarely do anymore.

14) Work on the project for the Boyfriends birthday.  I can’t say what it is (he may read this..) but I do have until september to perfect it and get it completed!!! If I get it completed by then I will share what it is and share some photos of it too!!!

15) Create something using a frame.  I have seen frames full of things from plants to seeds to pencils and crayons.  I want to create some kind of “memory frame” that holds things that are precious and hold memories for me.

16) Organise my collections.  I have so many collections of things and they are not all kept together in categories or anything, they seem to be scattered around the house, whatever it may be, jewellery, nail varnish, sequins.  Organising them and keeping them together would be a good thing!

17) Take more “film” photographs.  I have several film cameras, 35mm and 120mm film ones.  I love film and the cameras and I need to start using them as much as I use my digital camera.  I love handling actual photos once they have come back from the developers, they become actual objects, not a computer file saved away on a hard drive somewhere.  And I like being able to do things with the actual images.  (ooh, this could tie in with my scrapbooking…)

18) Have fun.  If I don’t get half of this done, or none at all, so long as whatever I have done has been enjoyed and been fun then I think I will probably have achieved something along the way!

Oh, and I suppose 19), carry on blogging, and try to blog once a day!

Uni Summer Project

I had to go to Uni on Tuesday for my end of year review and to pick up the grade I had been given for the last module.  I must say I wasn’t expecting the grade I got for this project as my other projects had only ever been given C’s.  This last project, I got an A14 for it!  I am so pleased with it!  I think I’m more pleased with it because I went in to collect it without having any pre-conceived ideas of what I should be given grade wise.  I was pleased with the feedback too, I knew that I needed to do more research into artists that had done something similar idea wise as I hadn’t looked at any other artists work for this module and how they would have approached the subject I was trying to convey.  I was happy though, and so was my lecturer, that I had thought about how I was going to present my work and that I had made more models, simplified ones that I showed as a series, building upon each of them.  I was also pleased that I had chosen names for them that were equations of how they are made up, it continued the scientific theme I had going on.

While there I got given my summer project which is in two parts.  One is to visit an exhibition/show and write a review on it and the second is quite loose in terms of what we can do.  The main brief of our summer project is to produce a body of work which can be on any theme/idea of our choice and is to be self led and driven.  We can produce work that can be photographic/film/a book or whatever we choose so long as it is sympathetic to our chosen subject.

Now, I have already started a self driven project about circles that I posted my first images of here (http://artreviewed.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=694&action=edit )  but I’m unsure whether to use this project as my uni project or to do another project that I can run alongside the Circles one that I am currently undertaking.  I sat and thought about other project ideas last night, (I won’t share the list just yet as I am still working out if I want to expand on the themes and choose one of them), I came up with 22, yep, 22, different themes I could and would like to do.  What I’m not sure of , is whether these ideas can keep me going from now until october, work wise.  With my Circles project, I don’t have a definitive timeline, I can continue it until I see fit, I can stop and re start it whenever I want as I’m doing it for myself but the uni project needs to be clear and concise and I need to have set ideas to follow and explore.  I feel like I’ve been given this task to undertake and I’m just floating around on it.  I will admit I’m a teeny tiny bit terrified of doing a project which has no boundaries or guidance, except for myself.  Is my own judgement good enough?  Can I produce a body of work that is not just visually pleasing but meaningful also?  And can I keep it going all summer long?

There is really only one way to find out, and that is to do it…if it goes wrong then at least I have tried.

Exhibitions I’d Like to Visit This Summer

Here are my top 8 exhibitions that I would love to go to this summer.

At number 1) Damien Hirst, 4th April – 9th Sept, £14, Tate Modern (http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/damien-hirst).  I LOVE Damien Hirst and all the work that he has created and I would give anything to go to this exhibition.  I was so excited when I found out that he would be exhibiting work this year!

2) Yayoi Kusama, until the 5th June, £10, Tate Modern (http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/yayoi-kusama )  I really want to go and see her dot patterns!  Yayoi has used many different mediums to create works and this really interests me as I love working with all sorts of different things and creating works that are completely different to each other.  Yayoi as created sculptures, drawings, paintings and film amongst many others and I am keen to go and explore her works.

3) Gillian Wearing, until the 17th June, £9.50, Whitechapel Gallery (http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/gillian-wearing) I have looked at some of Gillian’s work this year as inspiration for some of the ideas I have had.  It would be brilliant to see some of her works up close, especially “Signs that say what you want them to say, and not signs that say what someone else wants you to say.” which I think is a really interesting piece of work which involves the public and is quite revealing about what others are thinking.

4) Rachel Whiteread, 1st June – 30th December, price TBC, Whitechapel Gallery (http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/http://www.timeout.com/london/art/event/91795/rachel-whitereadexhibitions/gillian-wearing) 

I have looked at the work ‘House’, a cast of the inside of an end of terrace house for my project in Foundation on the home.  I would love to see her other works as the ‘House’ piece was really thought-provoking and was a source of inspiration to me.  I havent seen any of her other works and this would be a oppertunity to see some more of her pieces.

5) Martin Parr and Tom Wood ‘The Last Resort’, 5th May – 17th June, Third Floor Gallery (http://www.thirdfloorgallery.com/exhibitions.html)  This exhibition is of photographs of New Brighton.  It is a documentary of British holiday makers amongst other things and would be interesting to see as a photographer myself.  I’d love to see how the photos are captured and how they are exhibited.

6) Through the Mirror – The World of Anthony Browne, 2nd June – 23rd September, Free, National Museum Cardiff (http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/news/?article_id=752)  I’d like to go to this as it looks like fun!  I love the drawing style of Anthony Browne and am interested to see much of his work in one place as an exhibition!

7) Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year, 16th June – 19th September, Free, National Museum Cardiff (http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/whatson/?event_id=5731)  This would be a fantastic opportunity to see some award-winning photography by some of the best wildlife photographers in the world!  I can’t wait to go and see these works, not just to see the photos of the animals but to learn more about wildlife photography from seeing these works.

8) Brendan Stuart Burns – Glimpse,  11th May – 13th June, St David’s Hall (http://www.stdavidshallcardiff.co.uk/English/Exhibitions/)  I have seen a tiny amount of Brendan’s work and there is something about it that interests and fascinates me and I would like to see more of his work and how his work is created.  I think you can only really get a feel for, and an idea of how work has been approached, by seeing it in the flesh.  I think that this one will be really interesting to go and see.

Circles Project

 

So, I started my “Circles” project which I’m not really sure where it is going to go but it will be fun finding out!  I have taken photos of circles found in everyday objects and am going to try to find out where my love of circles has come from.  This is the beginning of my project so please be patient!!!

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All By Myself 27/3/2012

Over the Easter Holidays I decided to go and explore an area not too far from me – St Brides, Wentlooge, where the Lighthouse Inn is situated.  I left early and went by myself as a time to think and gather my thoughts on my uni project and to enjoy the weather.  It was a warm and sunny day although when I was by the water it was a bit breezy but not un-enjoyable.

I didn’t know really, what to expect before I got there, I had a thought that it may be like a beach where I could go paddling in the tide and collect some shells.  (Some places are hard to judge on google maps…) It wasn’t like I imagined but I wasnt disappointed.  The area is a flood defense and would stop the river from washing away houses and causing mayhem if ever the river was to rise too much.  This is where I walked, along the flood defense.  It was lovely and peaceful and I didn’t see may people apart from the odd dog walker and some lone fishermen.

Here are some of the photos I took on my day out.

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My Cameras – Photos

Here they are, my cameras (as posted about here http://artreviewed.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/a-new-camera/)

From Left to right -

1) Fuji film DL-270 Zoom 35mm film camera.  This was my first “proper camera” bought for me by my parents for Christmas one year, probably about 1996/97.  It has a panoramic format button which makes photos long and thin and captures more detail either side of the frame.  I haven’t used it for years as I have a feeling that the film take up spool, which loads the film automatically, is broken.

2) Kumagin Superheadz Super Fat Lens 35mm film toy camera.  I bought this last year in the Victoria and Albert Museum and have used it a bit, not as much as I’d like to though.  It takes amazing wide-angle photos which vignette slightly around the edges and, some of the photos I have taken with it on a sunny day have these sunbeams across them which are really pretty.  You can’t zoom in with this one, it is purely a point and shoot camera.

3) Canon EOS 3000, 35mm film camera.  This is the camera I bought the other day.  I have taken a few shots with it but havent gotten anything developed yet.  I don’t have a manual for it yet but am going to try to find one later on the internet.

4) Holga GTLR, 120mm film camera.  I bought this back in November for a project that I was doing for my degree.  It is a Glass Twin Lens Reflex camera which means that the lens’ are made from glass, it has 2 lens’ at the front, one to view through and one that takes the picture, you need to be careful about how you position your image that you want to take as the lens you take the photo with is some distance from the lens you view through which can lead to unbalanced photos or subjects with heads cut off!  I haven’t used this camera nearly enough as I would like!!!

5) Olympus OM-40 35mm film SLR.  This camera is not really  mine.  It belongs to my boyfriends brother who has let me use it for several of my projects.  I really like this camera, it is a Single Lens Reflex camera which means the lens you view through is also the lens that takes the image.  It is easy to use and has a nice weight about it, it’s not to heavy nor light.  It is the first film SLR that I have used and I would love to do more with it!

6) Kodak Easy Share C913 digital.  This camera I bought about 3 years ago after my last one died.  At the time I needed something that I could chuck into a bag and take anywhere with me and not worry too much about it.  It has a zoom button that allows you to get quite close to the subject without losing quality and is small and cheap enough to take anywhere.  I used to use this all the time but haven’t used it for nearly a year as the battery life is quite unpredictable in it.

7) Samsung NX DSLR.  This is not technically my camera.  I bought it for my boyfriend as he wanted a camera that he could learn to use and take photos with.  I didn’t want to get him something similar to my Kodak as I felt that wouldn’t be much fun for him so I got him this.  It is brilliant!  One of the best DSLR’s I have used (apart from mine obv’s!) Its design is based around a compact camera but it has all the features of an SLR, (different lens’, settings etc).  It’s not one I use much but my boyfriend has had fun taking photos with it!

The ones not included…

8)Pentax K2000 DSLR, as I was using it to take photos of the cameras with!  This is my baby!  My Grandma gave me some money before I started uni to get myself some equipment that I needed, so along with some birthday money I received from her I managed to buy myself this.  I use it pretty much constantly and it has never let me down really, though I must say that it will eat batteries if you use it in really cold weather!  I carry this with me almost everywhere I go and is the first camera I reach for when I want to take photos.

9) Voigtlander GTLR 120mm film, box camera.  This was purchased from ebay in November and worked for a bit.  It is really old and the winding mechanism that pulls the film through and makes the exposure counter work seized up.  It is currently at my parents where my Dad is painstakingly cleaning it up bit by bit and fixing it for me.  I used this camera twice and really can’t wait for it to be back in working order (if it can be fixed that is) so I can use it again!  The one image I managed to retrieve from it was beautiful and so detailed and crisp, I’d love to be able to take more photos like that!

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