PPRD week 1 16th 22nd

Monday was my lesson for digital imaging and studio practice, I am unsure about how well I can carry out my initial idea and I am thinking that I will need to hurry up and decide what it is I want to do for this project!

Tuesday we had a lecture, I think I was ill so did not attend.

Wednesday I had a presentation with Aaron who told us all about this new Personal Planning Reflection and Development Unit. In the morning I had the studio booked with Kat and I shot my high key and low key images with my Dad as a model because he is very photogenic. Kat also modelled for me. I processed the negatives the same day and thankfully they all came out OK. I attempted to print at around 5pm but was losing patience so decided to go home and print another time.

Thursday I spent at home doing sketchbook work and then finally Friday I had studio practice but managed to loan two darkslides from stores and some colour negative film to shoot my 5x4 over the weekend. I then left uni early to go prepare for the shoot but by the time I got to the location it was very dark and the weather was terrible.

Saturday was my planned day for the location shoot but the rain and the dark clouds didn't cease and so I ended up shooting on the sunday when it was a little less cloudy and not raining as much.

Throughout this week I planned for the photoshoot that I did on sunday which involved figure in the landscape for the unit technical workshops. I organised the use of a 5x4 Toyo Large Format Camera and a tripod from a friend in East Devon, we met on the Sunday in Tiverton and then went to a piece of land owned by my friends neighbour. We shot four 5x4 films in bad weather conditions and kept our fingers crossed that they were exposed properly. I thought of a few ideas for this shoot prior to actually taking the photographs and I decided to model myself as the figure after setting up the camera and everything else that needed doing. I wore a white dress that matches my cool skin tone and the cloudy skies that were present that day.

Busy Holidays

Lately I have been busy visiting relatives over the holiday period. I managed to buy presents for most of my family members this year, which is an achievement for me! 

For christmas I got 'The Photo Book' from my Aunt and it is wonderful! It lists many different photographers and a picture of theirs and will be super helpful with my photography work.

I finally finished writing my personal statement for The Arts Institute at Bournemouth today and am planning on applying through UCAS as soon as I get back to college. I have decided if I don't get into Bournemouth then I'm going to set up my own photographic business instead and work in Bournemouth.

Lately, I have been working on my photoshopping skills and have been bulking up my portfolio of work which I will need to print when I get back to college. Busy, busy, busy. Hopefully I will be able to afford the cost of printing my best images for my portfolio, otherwise I will have to print on standard matte paper and wont have the best quality for my work.

Using flickr.com I have uploaded some of my images to the internet hoping for constructive critism and feedback. If you would like to see them then please copy and paste this link or click it if you can; www.flickr.com/gemmiev

At some point in the future I have decided to do some volunteer work in another country, either working with children from uganda or doing conservation work for a month or two. I would love to be able to document my time there and have some images of another culture. Hopefully, I will be able to teach in another country and make a difference to people who are not as lucky as I am.

Here are a few images I have been working on;

This was created using two images in Photoshop, I experimented with overlaying the layers and changing the blending options.

I play on photoshop for hours to get the right effect and its not unusual for me to edit the same image four times before I find an effect I am happy with.

This is one of my favourite images.

I really love the colours in this image and the highlights on the eye. I like the writing on the t-shirt because it helps show the girls interests.

I have made some new year resolutions which I am determined to stick to, these include; 50 sit ups a day, eating more fruit and taking/creating one new image a day :]

I am going to end here because I'm watching jurassic park and it's distracting me :P

Thanks for reading!!