My Internship at Create Studios Brighton

DAY 1:

So my nerves were running high when I walked into the create studios reception on my first internship and the first thing I saw was a pool table so i knew this place was going to be pretty awesome! They also had 2 images composed of individual polaroids to create a portrait, something I attempted with my 'Pieces of me' project.

So the first day wasn't that hands on in terms of studio work, I was mainly doing data input for all the new fashion connections Create made at the 'London Fashion Week' and then had to organise the products for a shoot on the following day.. so i looked like an alcoholic! 

DAY 2:

In the morning I assisted a product photoshoot with the whiskey bottles above, it was interesting to see how detailed and how well composed individual product shots have to be as the audience has nothing else to focus on but the product! 

In the afternoon I was helping with set design for a bands photoshoot intended for the FRONT COVER and main article of a magazine 'SOURCE'! So wearing my overalls i got stuck in painting white barn doors in bright colours which were placed in a very graphic design fashion. 

DAY 3:

In the morning I edited images Create had taken for previous shoots for their website, which was a useful insight into copyrighting their images for internet use.

In the afternoon we prepped the set design for the 'source cover shoot' so everything was ready for the evening when the band was expected to arrive. They were an hour late so there was a bit of waiting around and I was told to expect this when working with musicians haha! The shoot went really well but I was exhausted afterwards and just wanted to sleep for the rest of the week!

DAY 4:

These were my last two days and both were completely focused on a shoot with a musician 'RUBY GOE' who wanted Create to film her music video for her new release and also some promotional shots! So the first day was spent on set design on a much larger scale.

I creates a 'bed board' style background, which took ages, painted 4 wooden boards in 'green screen paint' and 2 boards in baby pink and lastly created a translucent screen with a very thin film stapled over a wooden frame (which was a pain as it kept ripping). It was actually a lot of fun and very hands on and I couldn't have done any of it without the guidance of main set designer Matt! 

DAY 5:

This was my final day at Create and it was going to be a long one! Starting at 8:00 am we started off with a pink background combined with the pink headboard I made. I was amazed with the stylist's choice of clothes, they were so OUT THERE and i loved it! The make up team was also amazing and Ruby Goe was lovely!! 

This experience was really hands on and i enjoyed every second of it, if i wasnt holding lights here and there I was helping get the set together, i really felt like one of the team! Create have an awesome amount of equipment and it would be so amazing to one day work with them and have free reign over it all (including a HASSLEBLAD!) 

For Ruby's music video, she wanted quite a subtle and simple look so more focus would be on her and her lyrics, I really liked this set up as it would be ideal for fashion, portraiture as well as object photography! Plus her singing blew me away! 

Overall my internship was amazing at Create Studios Brighton and I would LOVE to go back and have as many more experiences with them as possible! 

Red moon in Dubai

There was an astronomical anomaly (big words!) in Dubai over the summer and i was able to take a long exposure of the change.. not to blow my own trumpet but im blooming happy with the final image! yay me! 

Dubai's Lifeline

Yippeee! My work has been published by 'Blurb' in Sweden and sent over to my home in England. I am astonished with the high quality print of the book however, i had hoped it would look a little thicker... I suppose I will have to keep taking photos!

Making a book!

So i've decided to fill my summer months with a little project.. I'm going to produce a photobook on an area of Dubai, the creek. I went back home for a few weeks in the beginning of July so it seemed ideal and I'll be able to submit it for one of my modules that i didn't do so well on this year at Bath Spa.

The photobook is basically going to be a visual journey of the creek, starting off from the commute from one side of the creek to the other using small arabic boats called abras, and then moving into the visual description of the trading port, specifically the traditional shipping boats called dhows, and their stock.

When I was planning this project I wanted to focus on the people of the area, the abra drivers, the men who crew the dhows and the people who move and transport the stock. With this in mind I maintained a 3rd person view of the scenes infront of my, capturing what I thought would tell a visual story of the area.

After looking at the transportation of the stock I wanted to focus in on what was actually being shipped, so I followed it to the shops in the surrounding areas known as the soukh. This marketplace is made up of hundreds of stalls in cool alleyways zig-zagging all along the creek. This is where is focused down on photographing the people of the area, the shop owners and the customers and I noticed that this traditional area has stayed the same in the ever evolving city of Dubai, something that is quite unique.

Below are some of the images I have chosen for my photobook 'Go with the flow';

Crop & Tale

Crop & Tale was the wittily named exhibition of Bath Spa Photography and Graphics work, held in the centre of town next to the Roman Baths. It was my first insight into an exhibition and all the hurdles you have to overcome prior to one, although this was mainly run by the graphics students (as there's ALOT more of them than us) we all had our little jobs to do. I originally wanted to exhibit my 'Day in the life' work from last year but with it being a second year show it seemed a bit inappropriate, so instead i chose my 'Still life' work and portrayed both square images at a A3 size. I would have preferred to have the images framed with a square frame but due to organisational issues i had to adapt with a normal rectangular one, didn't look too bad and I had my own wall! 

Advanced Darkroom Workshop

Fibre-based printing, a workshop designed to help advance our darkroom skills (including how to mix the chemicals correctly and the right procedure if working in darkroom alone).

Trip down to Brighton!

So i thought i'd go and visit my sister, enjoy the sunshine and the pebbles in Brighton. I took my old canon 35mm and just snapped away without any real intent but i like the fact that the pictures i took of random areas of brighton kind of painted a picture of the weird seaside town and its busy lifestyle.

 

Project 14: Immigration in the UK

This is my final project for my second year at Bath Spa, and the concept behind the brief was to convey the field of photography that I enjoy most and would most likely follow through to doing after graduating. Unfortunately, in the first few weeks of the project, I had a family emergency which meant I couldn't focus on work properly for a month or so. This then turned the project into an almost constructive output whilst going through a tough time, and gave me something to focus on. Originally i wanted to focus on the mix of cultures found in the UK today, in the style of Steve McCurry, however, after some serious thoughts about how to convey this i took the style of Gillian Wearing's "Signs that say what you want them to say and not what someone else wants you to say" project and approached shop owners along a high street in Bath to explain how they feel about living in the UK or how they feel to be British. 

Overall, I am happy with the final outcome, however, it isn't a real insight into the photography style that i'd like to go into. Below is more of what i'd rather do (in an ideal world i'd get paid for it too!)

Cyanotype workshop

The Cyanotype workshop was particularly fun for me because it didnt have any pressure on it... i could just play around and be happy with the results, which i definitely was! Its a printing process that gives a bright cyan blue print. I love the strong colours of the blues and the different tones you can achieve by layering different materials onto the coated paper. The process was popular in the 20th Century, and is how the term 'blue prints' came about. Learning about all the chemicals and how the process works was really interesting, and i loved not knowing how the images were going to turn out. 

 I printed a negative version of some images i have already taken onto acetate paper and used it as a negative to create a positive cyanotype print, the longer the print is exposed to sunlight the darker the shades of blue of the cyanotype print.

I also wrote words onto acetate paper and used them to add an extra detail to the cyanotype print. Words that contradicted the actual image I think were the most effective, for example, 'delicate' against a picture of the Eiffel Tower.

I would love to work with this process again but i'm not sure when it would be most appropriate and how well it would work as a final outcome.

Working with 5x4 for Visual Poetry

So after receiving many comments during my crit saying that the images should be more detailed and that the concept behind the project shouldn't be quite so obvious I decided to re-shoot, using the HARDEST CAMERA in the world! 5x4!

The film had to be loaded into slides in pitch black darkness of the darkroom (which was quite tricky) but then the whole set up of the camera was so much worse. I had to ensure the camera was focused and set correctly before loading each individual negative slide and then exposing it for around 2 and a half seconds (due to the 125 iso).

The next horrible step was developing them, where once again in pitch black darkness, i had to load the negatives individually onto a holder which had grooves on to help but it was fiddly and annoying. Anyways, they developed alright.

I took 5 negatives:

-1 didn't even expose.

-2 have light flares from where light has somehow managed to leak into the slide/camera before exposure and look like so:

and 2 are quite promising although the one of the model and the dolls house isn't quite in focus (which is really annoying).