College End of Year Show

Showing off my pictures :)

End of Year Show 2012

Thursday 14th June was the end of year show at South Cheshire College.  Aimed primarily to display the works of the full time day students they were gracious enough to devote a whole room to the evening photography A level classes.

It took a while to find the classroom but as you can see from the photos they managed to devote a little space to each of the students on the course.  Unfortunately we had no choice over which pictures were selected for display and my two weren't among my best shots.  In addition we didn't get told to produce bio's or business cards and so we looked a little amateur compared to the day students.  

The night was good fun though and a chance to look at the work of classes we never actually got to interact with.  I've been to a few end of year shows and there is a definite 'feel' to the A level work.  I think this is because students work to a limited set of themes over the two years and retreat a lot of beaten ground.  University end of year shows have much more creativity and there is definitely a step up.  It was disappointing to hear one of the day students admit to his peers that he knocked up the photos he was displaying in ten minutes because the project deadline was looming.

Plenty of lessons learnt about image selection and display and the importance of having a decent bio and 'freebies' to keep people at your images for longer.  My board was out of the way and not very well lit and so for future shows I'm hoping to have a lot more influence on the final outcome.  There is a function on my printer to adjust an image based on the lighting it is displayed under and I may try this next time.  As my two pictures are a difficult to see in the first photo I've included enlargements here for you (click for enlargements):

Lonely Drive Home

Dreamer

You can see more of the work I did in college this year by looking at the blurb book I produced HERE and if you love the images how about buying a copy of the book?  I make a massive 50p for every book sold :)



My Portfolio site is now up and running HERE

RAF Cosford Airshow 2012

The Red Arrows arrive at RAF Cosford Airshow 2012

RAF Cosford Air Show 2012

I'm not really an aircraft photographer or enthusiast (despite being in the Royal Air Force!) but I can still appreciate a good air show.  I took a series of images from the show but couldn't help myself whenever I saw an interesting face or situation on the ground.  Next time I go I'm determined to concentrate on the aircraft!

The small set of images can be seen on Flickr HERE

The majority of the images were taken using my Canon 5D Mk2 with a Tamron 70-300mm f4/5.6 Di USD. The lens performed really well at capturing the fast moving aircraft.  I was shooting in full manual mode and making small adjustments as the weather conditions changed.  By setting the drive mode to Servo I was able to track the aircraft across the sky once I'd locked onto them.  

Shortly after the Red Arrows arrived my lens started to make a horrible grating sound and after another three or four shots it completely failed.  A warning flashed up saying I needed to check the connection points.  Despite cleaning these (rather hurriedly given the air display unfolding above my head) I couldn't get it to work again.  I tried a few shots using my Canon 24-70mm lens and this was fine.  

Back home I carefully cleaned the mounts and reattached the lens, worked fine.  Grrrr.  No doubt this means the lens is on its way out.  Time to dig out the warranty card and packaging.

New Business Cards

Moo.com comes up trumps again!  Click on image to enlarge 

New Business Cards

As I'm still on my crazy drive to increase my profile I thought it would be wise to get hold of some business cards.  At the end of the month I will be at The Eye International Photography Festival in Aberystwyth and this seems the perfect opportunity to get some face time with photographers, editors and curators.

There are a lot of companies who will make you business cards and their prices range from pennies to hundreds of pounds.  I've used Moo.com before and already knew that they produce amazing quality cards and, most importantly, are affordable.

The creation process is very easy and the website takes you through all the steps by holding your hand where necessary.  You can create cards that all have the same image on the back but using their cool print technology you can have as many different designs as you want.  This is a great way of showcasing your portfolio.  If you hand out cards to a small group of people then they are bound to compare the images and so in one fell swoop you can get several images 'out there'.  Listening to comments means you will get instant feedback on your work as I've found that people seem happier to criticise 'cards' as they seem less precious.

I ordered my cards a few days ago. It took longer for me to pick the images I wanted to use than the rest of the order process.  Once in the Moo website I had my order ready to send in less than 10 minutes.  There are options to customise almost everything on the card and for artists you can ignore the templates and generate your images in an art program like Photoshop.  I'm not that good yet and so stuck with one of the basic templates.  I entered my details for the business side of the card and hit send.

My cards arrived this morning and I am delighted with them.  The print quality is fantastic and the correct correction and brightness are very close to how I see them when I print at home.  One of the images is slightly more cropped than I hoped but I think this was my mistake for not positioning it correctly in the box clearly marked with something like 'keep your image inside this box'!  The cards feel smooth to the touch and  have a good thickness to them.  I opted for rounded corners and these had really added to the effect I was after.

I'm not in any way sponsored by Moo but if you want great cards head on HERE

Taylor-Wessing Prize Entry

Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize

I've been watching this amazing competition grow from strength to strength each year.  This year as part of my  drive to try and get my work 'out there' I have decided to enter the competition.  Eeek!  Now, I am fully aware that the eventual winner will be an absolutely amazing capture of someone in wonderful light and with everything technically perfect but I just want to think I would make it through the first round sifting phase.

The competition is quite expensive to enter, £24 per image, and I'm hoping that this will put off people in the recession but it does mean only the best will enter.  I also opted to pay an additional £10 and this will get me a copy of the catalogue of the finalists and overall winner.

The images that I've entered...

This image is entitled Rockstar Lunch and was taken whilst on a visit to Brighton.  This couple were out for a quiet stroll on the pavilion and a lunch in peace.  Instead they had me rudely interrupting them and my friend sticking a soft box in their faces whilst they ate.  They were a great couple to shoot and really great fun to work with, they just couldn't keep a straight face and I hope this humour comes across in the portrait.

This image is called Siren and was part of a series of images I took whilst experimenting with different photographic techniques.  I am really please with this shot as it is almost straight out of camera with very little work done in Photoshop.  My subject was very patient working underwater and didn't complain too much about the water being cold.  I did initially try to shoot with her in hot water but the steam kept misting up my lenses!

Anyway, fingers crossed for the competition!  :-)

Through the Window

Through the Window

Although college has finished there is still a group of us who stay in touch via Flickr and Facebook.  To stop us from putting our cameras away and to push our creativity we set a photographic theme each month.  For June 2012 we are shooting to the title 'Through the Window'.  

If you saw my first post on this blog you would have seen me gazing in amazement through my dining room window into an underwater world.  Having put my Photoshop tools to one side I set about looking at the theme more seriously.  

I would love to be considered as a documentary photographer and so I looked at the theme from that viewpoint.  I have driven through many small towns and villages and seen row after row of boarded up shops that have failed to make it through the economic recession.  I started to investigate what is left of the shops once the business inside has sold off everything and moved out.  It was very easy to find these abandoned premises as the 'for let/lease' signs mark them out clearly.

Walking around the county town of Shrewsbury in Shropshire I was surprised at how well this town is handling the recession and how strong the businesses seemed.  Moving only a short distance away from the busy town centre showed a different story and there were entire rows of shops that now lay empty.  

Pressing my camera up against the glass to reduce reflections and light flare I took a series images at around twenty locations.  Some had clearly been long abandoned whilst others still had remnants of the previous business still showing. 

The image shown above is my favourite from the series.  The doorway acts as an immediate focal point but then the viewer should start to notice more details.  The grimy and buckled walls and the badly stained carpets make the space feel cheap and dingy.  The floating ceiling panels serves to act as a counterbalance for the heavy darkness of the carpet and the leading lines in the image all point at the dark void of the doorway.

If you would like to see more images from this set you can find them on my portfolio HERE