I'm currently working flat out at the moment with college work. It's very good, in many respects, although thoroughly stressful.
I've got about eleven projects in total. I did have twelve, but I decided I was being a bit over-ambitious about that.
So here's the run down (if I haven't written this already):
Location - editorial piece (I'm doing this on sport) - complete
Location - editorial piece (this is on charity) - complete
Location - advertising (mental health issues) - complete
Location - advertising (my friend's bakery) - still to shoot
Studio - catalogue products shots - still to shoot
Studio - set building advertising shots - getting there.... 50% complete
Studio - set building fine art shots - not quite got what I want.... 45% complete
Major project - hotel documentary series - complete (although I want a few external shots)
Major project - fairytale location series - 50% complete
So far, I've completed my sport, charity, mental health shoots. I'm almost done on the hotel series, and I'm currently working on the fairytale and studio projects. The bakery shoot has been temporarily postponed but will take place in a fortnight. My final deadline is 21st May, but I need time before that to edit, print, and fix anything that needs fixing before then, so I've set a personal deadline of 9th May for all my photography shooting to be complete. If I'm honest, I could probably sign-off the two studio shoots that are partially done, as I really need three images for each of those and I think I have three images I could use for that.
It was timely today to listen to the radio that thousands of pupils and students are currently starting their standard grade, higher, and other SQA examinations now. Part of this photography work reminds me of being back in an exam hall - although I have an answer for almost every question, I don't quite want to finish up early and leave, but instead make the most of every last minute in case I find an alternative and better answer in the remaining time. Although I potentially have a photograph for almost every shoot (save those I'm still to shoot), I don't want to sign them off just yet in case a better photograph comes along.
This week, I have been focusing on the fairytale and studio project. I also had my fourth hotel shoot at the end of last week.
It's fair to say though, I am feeling the stress. Trying to keep on top of so many aspects of so many projects is hard work, although there's something fulfilling about going to bed knowing you've worked hard all day. My days usually start around 6am, and end at around 12am, with driving, shooting, driving some more, downloading, editing, and sorting out all my kit for the next day. I've given up on budgeting through numerous trips to B&Q to buy props and things to help me build my sets, petrol costs (the train is completely impractical given the weight and bulk of what I need to transport back and forth to college), and parking costs.
As with the actual photography... my shoots are mostly going well. There are many things I would like to improve, sometimes with hindsight.
However, I think of the whole scenario as a learning curve. Part of the curve is learning to know exactly what you want, and learning what and when to compromise, and when you need to stick to the plan. Sometimes I don't always stick to the plan, and I think there have been occasions when I've found myself shooting something completely different to the way I want it to be. This past fortnight I've made a conscious decision to pull it all back to the original idea, stick to the script.
On top of all that, we've got all of our end-of-year things going on, and this is the time when we really do the administrative work. So selecting photographs for our college year book; advertising our exhibition; deciding what we're using in exhibition, deciding on an advert for the exhibition, submitting work for the class website... the list goes on.
My diary is full of shoots for the coming weeks ahead. As well as my college work, I've also got a wedding to photograph. On the plus side, I don't feel so nervous about it because I've been distracted by my college work lately.
One of the difficult obstacles however is not actually anything within my college education. My local printing company is relocating, and will be closed right around the time of the deadline of my work. This obviously changes things significantly as to when I can send work to print and whether my work will be finished by that deadline. I am tempted to use one of the highly recommended alternative printers, although it's not quite as convenient, and it sounds like most of my classmates are thinking the same thing so the printers might find themselves inundated with student work.
The next fortnight will be crucial and hard going, although I know it's going to pass so very quickly.
Showing posts with label shoot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shoot. Show all posts
Thursday, 29 April 2010
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
into April
The past few months have been increasingly busy, and finding a few minutes to update this blog has become increasingly difficult.
This past week, I've been working hard on my college projects. However, I'm currently at a point where I feel that I'm not as far forward as I'd like to be, and still have a lot of work to do. Sometimes I feel as if I'm not advancing as much as I think I am for the volume of work and the amount of effort I put in. However, I've felt like this before and usually it seems worse than it is.
This week, I've been focusing (no pun intended) on three projects - a still life/fine art project; a still life advertising project; and an editorial charity project.
Each has its own complications to overcome, which makes life a little more interesting. I'm starting to realise that I've set myself some pretty tough challenges to complete by 21st May. On one hand, if I achieve everything I want and to the standard I want, then I'm going to have a good portfolio by the end of the course. On the other, it's going to take a lot more sweat and tears (no blood, hopefully) before I get there.
Last week, I took a trip to a forest to get some textual images to overlay with some photographs I am intending on producing for my fine-art project. I've also set up a make-shift studio using some disused office space for my advertising shot. All I need now are some props to populate the space I'm using, and a brain of problem-solving techniques to get the photographs working perfectly.
I've also been working closely with a charity, who I occasionally help by providing voluntary photography work. In return, they've been kind enough to agree to let me come and photograph them at work, and very accommodating and kind.
Working like this can send me a bit up and down at times, in terms of mood. Fortunately, I spoke to my tutor and by the time I finished and had shown him my work to date, I was on an upward swing again.
I think for a few weeks I've felt that my work hit a plateau and I wanted to improve it. I wanted more from my photographs than I was achieving. My work was passable, but it wasn't quite what I wanted. My tutor was helpful and we talked about this "wall", and the idea that realising I'd hit it meant that actually I was challenging myself more and that was a good thing. My wall at the moment is trying to overcome a typical student photograph and make my work go beyond that.
I also found a photograph I've taken lately (shown here) which I actually really like. I could tell you lots of reasons why I like it, but I think what I like most about it is how simple it is, but how effective it looks at the same time. I think this is the sort of photograph I'm trying to achieve, and getting to that point is a lovely, although difficult, process.
My diary has become increasingly full - it's wonderful needing to use one, but at the same time I am completely lost without it, more than I feel about my mobile phone.
I've also been working hard on my new websites. I've decided to have two separate sites, one for my commercial work, and one for more social photography - weddings, families, pets, children, etc. I'm still ironing out a few "creases", but hope to have a proper domain name for the latter soon. Meanwhile, my commercial work can be found at http://www.kristinmitchell.co.uk.
This past week, I've been working hard on my college projects. However, I'm currently at a point where I feel that I'm not as far forward as I'd like to be, and still have a lot of work to do. Sometimes I feel as if I'm not advancing as much as I think I am for the volume of work and the amount of effort I put in. However, I've felt like this before and usually it seems worse than it is.
This week, I've been focusing (no pun intended) on three projects - a still life/fine art project; a still life advertising project; and an editorial charity project.
Each has its own complications to overcome, which makes life a little more interesting. I'm starting to realise that I've set myself some pretty tough challenges to complete by 21st May. On one hand, if I achieve everything I want and to the standard I want, then I'm going to have a good portfolio by the end of the course. On the other, it's going to take a lot more sweat and tears (no blood, hopefully) before I get there.
Last week, I took a trip to a forest to get some textual images to overlay with some photographs I am intending on producing for my fine-art project. I've also set up a make-shift studio using some disused office space for my advertising shot. All I need now are some props to populate the space I'm using, and a brain of problem-solving techniques to get the photographs working perfectly.
Working like this can send me a bit up and down at times, in terms of mood. Fortunately, I spoke to my tutor and by the time I finished and had shown him my work to date, I was on an upward swing again.
I think for a few weeks I've felt that my work hit a plateau and I wanted to improve it. I wanted more from my photographs than I was achieving. My work was passable, but it wasn't quite what I wanted. My tutor was helpful and we talked about this "wall", and the idea that realising I'd hit it meant that actually I was challenging myself more and that was a good thing. My wall at the moment is trying to overcome a typical student photograph and make my work go beyond that.
My diary has become increasingly full - it's wonderful needing to use one, but at the same time I am completely lost without it, more than I feel about my mobile phone.
I've also been working hard on my new websites. I've decided to have two separate sites, one for my commercial work, and one for more social photography - weddings, families, pets, children, etc. I'm still ironing out a few "creases", but hope to have a proper domain name for the latter soon. Meanwhile, my commercial work can be found at http://www.kristinmitchell.co.uk.
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Sees, shoots, and leaves
I've had a bit of a busy seven days, and this is the first day I've really had to get on with catching up on things.
I went to Windsor last weekend to visit my boyfriend. However, while he was working, I decided to have a trip to London for a day. It's been five years since I last wandered round London on my own and in the interim time I've simply followed friends from place to place, letting them be my tour guide. So it was good to have a day getting to know the city by myself.
In the morning, I met with a photographer and chatted to him over coffee and lunch. Sometimes it's good to just meet with people and talk to them - certainly faster to get ideas and responses and exchange thoughts than via email, and you can't always get the same dialogues when you're assisting or on work experience partly because you're concentrating on the job in hand, and also because most clients aren't going to be interested in listening to photographers talking shop when they're paying you.
Afterward, I headed to the Photographer's Gallery to take in the Deutsche Börse prize nominees. I was torn between Anna Fox, and Donovan Wylie.
I loved the way Fox presented her work, but more importantly the text to accompany the images worked because she told stories rather than being a bit oblique and the photographs reflected that. I loved her work for its complete lack of pretention. Her work was very saturated views of British life, although compared to Martin Parr. However, I think her work is more intimate than that of Martin Parr, her photographs were of things around her home or her parents home, of life in her local area and her world. Martin Parr's work tends to be on a larger scale, about life in particular countries. Her images were also presented in different ways - a blue notebook; a set of fold-out postcards; as well as the prints on the wall.
Donovan Wylie had photographed the decontruction of Maze prison in Northern Ireland. I loved Wylie's work because it lacked any sentimentality, leaving the viewer to consider their own feelings about the photographs. It felt to me that the photographs weren't about "the troubles", but about the next steps in Northern Ireland and the good things that lay ahead, about a new future in the same way that the deconstruction of the Berlin Wall had on the lives of millions of people in East and West Germany. What perhaps makes the decontruction of Maze Prison more interesting to me is how it featured so little coverage in the press, these photographs therefore don't come across as being a symbol or statement in the same way that the Berlin Wall, but an observation. I think it also comes across as being an observation of life in Northern Ireland, of getting on with things and not making a big fuss, maybe recognising that peace is, and always should be, normal life; its a right rather than a privilege.
The exhibition runs until the 17th April and is free. Also, it's just off Regent Street and Oxford Road, so perfect for anyone looking for something easy to access, and the Photographer's Gallery has a fantastic little shop and a nice cafe, both worth visiting.
My second visit, was to the National Portrait Gallery, where I saw the Irving Penn exhibition. Penn died recently, and was one of the most prolific fashion and portrait photographers of the twentieth century. I based some of my photographs last summer on 1940s - 1960s Vogue fashion shoots, which was the work of Penn and his contemporaries. The exhibition catalogues Penn's work across the decades. What it reminds me of, is the Vanity Fair exhibition that toured to Edinburgh in 2007, mainly for the fact that perhaps what we see is a different value of celebrity in different decades. In the most recent decade, celebrity has been about actors and actresses; singers; reality television stars; and TV show hosts. What these photos remind us, is that it used to encompass so much more: authors, poets, dancers, politicians who didn't lead countries who had nuclear ability, musicians, civil rights activists, scientists. Now we have a small group of representatives of people from those catagories in celebrity, but not in the same numbers as they had in the twenties or thirties. What is noticeable about Penn's work, is his ability to create a strong silhouette against the background. One of the things I also notice is how sometimes there is this centre divide, where one part of the background is dark and the other part is light and how Penn seems to light his subject in a way that you still get this clear silhouette.
The Irving Penn exhibition is on until 6th June, and costs £10.
The rest of my weekend involved meeting friends, which was great to catch up. I arrived back in Scotland on Monday and Tuesday I spent photographing a friend for one of my college projects. I've yet to look at the photographs on my computer screen as I didn't get home until late last night, but at the time I had an idea of something I wanted to try and do again. While trying to light the background, I had a small spill of light which highlighted one side of her face very faintly. While I managed to flag the background light I decided that actually I might try and create these highlights again but on both sides of her face instead.
My diary is fast filling up with dates of shoots and plans at the moment, and getting a lot more use than it has for quite a while. It's extremely satisfying but also slightly frightening at how quickly a week can pass, how fast a month can go, and how long I have left to complete all my projects.
In the Autumn, our tutor suggested we should get more photographers to give talks. I suggested Martin Parr, and my tutor responded with "why don't you ask him?". So I did. I didn't actually expect that it would come to fruition, but Martin Parr is coming to our college to give a talk in a few weeks time. I was sorry to have missed Vision 2009 in November when he gave a talk then, while I was on a college trip in Kinlochleven instead, so this more than makes up for that.
This weekend, I'm heading back down south for my rescheduled photoshoot which was cancelled last month due to the weather. Hopefully I should have a bit more success and an update for you by early next week on how the shoot went.
I went to Windsor last weekend to visit my boyfriend. However, while he was working, I decided to have a trip to London for a day. It's been five years since I last wandered round London on my own and in the interim time I've simply followed friends from place to place, letting them be my tour guide. So it was good to have a day getting to know the city by myself.
In the morning, I met with a photographer and chatted to him over coffee and lunch. Sometimes it's good to just meet with people and talk to them - certainly faster to get ideas and responses and exchange thoughts than via email, and you can't always get the same dialogues when you're assisting or on work experience partly because you're concentrating on the job in hand, and also because most clients aren't going to be interested in listening to photographers talking shop when they're paying you.
Afterward, I headed to the Photographer's Gallery to take in the Deutsche Börse prize nominees. I was torn between Anna Fox, and Donovan Wylie.
I loved the way Fox presented her work, but more importantly the text to accompany the images worked because she told stories rather than being a bit oblique and the photographs reflected that. I loved her work for its complete lack of pretention. Her work was very saturated views of British life, although compared to Martin Parr. However, I think her work is more intimate than that of Martin Parr, her photographs were of things around her home or her parents home, of life in her local area and her world. Martin Parr's work tends to be on a larger scale, about life in particular countries. Her images were also presented in different ways - a blue notebook; a set of fold-out postcards; as well as the prints on the wall.
Donovan Wylie had photographed the decontruction of Maze prison in Northern Ireland. I loved Wylie's work because it lacked any sentimentality, leaving the viewer to consider their own feelings about the photographs. It felt to me that the photographs weren't about "the troubles", but about the next steps in Northern Ireland and the good things that lay ahead, about a new future in the same way that the deconstruction of the Berlin Wall had on the lives of millions of people in East and West Germany. What perhaps makes the decontruction of Maze Prison more interesting to me is how it featured so little coverage in the press, these photographs therefore don't come across as being a symbol or statement in the same way that the Berlin Wall, but an observation. I think it also comes across as being an observation of life in Northern Ireland, of getting on with things and not making a big fuss, maybe recognising that peace is, and always should be, normal life; its a right rather than a privilege.
The exhibition runs until the 17th April and is free. Also, it's just off Regent Street and Oxford Road, so perfect for anyone looking for something easy to access, and the Photographer's Gallery has a fantastic little shop and a nice cafe, both worth visiting.
My second visit, was to the National Portrait Gallery, where I saw the Irving Penn exhibition. Penn died recently, and was one of the most prolific fashion and portrait photographers of the twentieth century. I based some of my photographs last summer on 1940s - 1960s Vogue fashion shoots, which was the work of Penn and his contemporaries. The exhibition catalogues Penn's work across the decades. What it reminds me of, is the Vanity Fair exhibition that toured to Edinburgh in 2007, mainly for the fact that perhaps what we see is a different value of celebrity in different decades. In the most recent decade, celebrity has been about actors and actresses; singers; reality television stars; and TV show hosts. What these photos remind us, is that it used to encompass so much more: authors, poets, dancers, politicians who didn't lead countries who had nuclear ability, musicians, civil rights activists, scientists. Now we have a small group of representatives of people from those catagories in celebrity, but not in the same numbers as they had in the twenties or thirties. What is noticeable about Penn's work, is his ability to create a strong silhouette against the background. One of the things I also notice is how sometimes there is this centre divide, where one part of the background is dark and the other part is light and how Penn seems to light his subject in a way that you still get this clear silhouette.
The Irving Penn exhibition is on until 6th June, and costs £10.
The rest of my weekend involved meeting friends, which was great to catch up. I arrived back in Scotland on Monday and Tuesday I spent photographing a friend for one of my college projects. I've yet to look at the photographs on my computer screen as I didn't get home until late last night, but at the time I had an idea of something I wanted to try and do again. While trying to light the background, I had a small spill of light which highlighted one side of her face very faintly. While I managed to flag the background light I decided that actually I might try and create these highlights again but on both sides of her face instead.
My diary is fast filling up with dates of shoots and plans at the moment, and getting a lot more use than it has for quite a while. It's extremely satisfying but also slightly frightening at how quickly a week can pass, how fast a month can go, and how long I have left to complete all my projects.
In the Autumn, our tutor suggested we should get more photographers to give talks. I suggested Martin Parr, and my tutor responded with "why don't you ask him?". So I did. I didn't actually expect that it would come to fruition, but Martin Parr is coming to our college to give a talk in a few weeks time. I was sorry to have missed Vision 2009 in November when he gave a talk then, while I was on a college trip in Kinlochleven instead, so this more than makes up for that.
This weekend, I'm heading back down south for my rescheduled photoshoot which was cancelled last month due to the weather. Hopefully I should have a bit more success and an update for you by early next week on how the shoot went.
Monday, 22 February 2010
Looking back, looking forward
Well, sadly my photoshoot scheduled last week didn't go ahead due to poor weather conditions. It's a shame, but it's only been postponed rather than cancelled completely. Hopefully I'll get another chance later on.
Meanwhile, I decided to go and visit my grandmother, since I had some time free and no other plans. Rather glad I did, as I also got to see her neighbour's animal menagerie. The neighbour helps with the local animal protection, and has several cats which need re-homing. Amongst those, were two mother cats and their two litters of kittens. Kittens are always cute, especially when the kitten I got to snuggle had only just opened his eyes, and barely fit into the palm of my hand. She also had some lovely dogs which she was keeping herself - all rescues. One was a sweet little Jack Russell pup, so I had a lovely visit playing with kittens and the puppy.
This week looks a bit more quiet than last week was. The momentum has calmed a bit, but I think having upped my efforts a bit I feel more inclined to push more and find more work to do. One of the things I've been meaning to get stuck into, was contacting companies about potentially borrowing samples to photograph for three studio based projects. I admit, I sometimes feel a bit uncomfortable contacting people. Explaining who I am and what I want something for, and what I'm requesting.... it's not exactly your everyday request. Fortunately, I've been quite lucky - most people tend to be quite helpful, which makes the process considerably easier.
Although I've no shoots lined up for this week, I am planning on trying to get some more practice shots going. I want to try and experiment more with outdoor lighting techniques, as well as just trying to take more pictures. I managed to get outside this afternoon, just as the sun was setting. It was actually really nice light - cool, low, and crisp, it had a lot of atmosphere to it. The actual pictures weren't anything special as my focus was entirely on light. I decided to completely ignore composition and the usual tick-boxes of good photography, and concentrate on light. I'm not going to post the results, but it was good just to strip back the whole photograph to one specific area.
As for the week ahead - well, the weather this week looks quite changeable, so I think I'll have lots of different opportunities for taking photographs, which I can hopefully post on here.
Meanwhile, I decided to go and visit my grandmother, since I had some time free and no other plans. Rather glad I did, as I also got to see her neighbour's animal menagerie. The neighbour helps with the local animal protection, and has several cats which need re-homing. Amongst those, were two mother cats and their two litters of kittens. Kittens are always cute, especially when the kitten I got to snuggle had only just opened his eyes, and barely fit into the palm of my hand. She also had some lovely dogs which she was keeping herself - all rescues. One was a sweet little Jack Russell pup, so I had a lovely visit playing with kittens and the puppy.
This week looks a bit more quiet than last week was. The momentum has calmed a bit, but I think having upped my efforts a bit I feel more inclined to push more and find more work to do. One of the things I've been meaning to get stuck into, was contacting companies about potentially borrowing samples to photograph for three studio based projects. I admit, I sometimes feel a bit uncomfortable contacting people. Explaining who I am and what I want something for, and what I'm requesting.... it's not exactly your everyday request. Fortunately, I've been quite lucky - most people tend to be quite helpful, which makes the process considerably easier.
Although I've no shoots lined up for this week, I am planning on trying to get some more practice shots going. I want to try and experiment more with outdoor lighting techniques, as well as just trying to take more pictures. I managed to get outside this afternoon, just as the sun was setting. It was actually really nice light - cool, low, and crisp, it had a lot of atmosphere to it. The actual pictures weren't anything special as my focus was entirely on light. I decided to completely ignore composition and the usual tick-boxes of good photography, and concentrate on light. I'm not going to post the results, but it was good just to strip back the whole photograph to one specific area.
As for the week ahead - well, the weather this week looks quite changeable, so I think I'll have lots of different opportunities for taking photographs, which I can hopefully post on here.
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