Year One / Unit Four

Unit four was by far my personal favourite work of mine. I have done so much landscape during the day, so I wanted to challenge myself and complete the whole project at night. My main inspiration came from the second album “Where I Go When I Am Sleeping” by Casey. Their music means a lot to me and I wanted to produce something that reminded me of them, I am proud to say I have. The two main artists I looked at were Paul Gaffney and Walker Evens, Gaffney went on walks aimlessly, I feel my book follows a similar pattern to this. Walker Evans was a landscape photographer in the America during the 1930’s, his work has been very influence to other photogenes such as Gaffney. I mainly looked the way he took photos which was from of building with bold text in them and from a perfect 90 degree angle.

I am also really proud of the book I created for this unit named “This Is Where I Go When I Am Sleeping And These Are The Chemicals That Led Me Here”

Shooting at night

For my unit four, I shot a lot my images at night. I had shot all my previous landscape during the day, so nigh time photography gave me challenged I had not face before. I knew I had to use a tri-pod, however after the first shoot, I brought a trigger to be able to take longer photos as my camera limited me to 30 seconds. Some of my exposures were up to 10 minutes, so I had to set my camera up to not take in a lot of light, otherwise sources like lampposts would be over blown. Although I didn’t carry on long exposures in my university work, I did with my personal photography, going to busy places to capture the red and white light traveling through the landscape. 

 I had experimented with long exposures a while ago, but never for school. I found all the images looked very similar, which was the main reason I moved away from in my unit four work. Once you get that perfect shot with cars going both ways, there’s not really anywhere else to go there. I constantly look at my work and think to myself “how can I make this better” and when the answer is a simple thing such as a lower angle, I lose connection with my own work.

How the technology side of photography will advance in five years

In my first year of university, I was required to give a Pecha Kucha to my class and course leader. These types of presentation consist of a PowerPoint playing 20 slides for 20 seconds each amounting to a 6 minute 40 second presentation. I was given free choice on what this said presentation was about, however for my benefit, I wanted to pick a topic that interests me. I went with the tittle ‘how the technological side of photography will advance in the future’. With this, I had to complete extensive research on current and next generations of camera bodies, lens and drones.

Shooting The Wombats @ Ally Pally

With the realise of their 4th studio album, The Wombats took to the famous stage of Alexandra Palace on March 27th 2018. I was invited along by their first support act Bloxx, who I have shot many times before, this being their biggest show to date. However this was also my biggest show, I felt very out of my depth and small compared to everyone else around me. I have never had to be escorted to the photo pit before, and because fans were being crushed at the barrier, I was also asked to leave before the third song had finished. The whole event still feels quitter surreal, I do not think I will shoot Ally Pally again for a long time, but I look forward to when I do.   

Year One / Unit Two

For my second project at University, I was set the unit “Environmental Portraiture”. We were given free choose as to which format to use and the people we choose to shoot. I have not done much portraiture in the past, so I was willing to challenge myself to produce a body of work I was proud of. I first wanted to do this project about homeless people and their portraits, however I found this would be too difficult and dangerous. Instead I went for people who worked in local shops and taking their photo in their work space. This while unit really boosted my confidence as a photographer; I can now go up to people and ask if I can take their photo and explain why. I would like to do more planned shoots in the future, I would have to pick a location first, or perhaps walk around with them to find interesting location.