Notice: This is my old student Blog, I am now running my professional blog at www.gemmiev.com/blog.html

This is a blog I created at Uni, now I am a full time professional photographer and I blog through my website at www.gemmiev.com/blog.html come take a look if you would like to follow me.

Thanks

My Photography.

So here I am, 10/04/12 I'm working full time in a care home close to where I live and work is okay but I still constantly think about being a professional, full time photographer. I stopped working for Pixifoto after a year as I felt I had learned what I needed and I wanted a new challenge. I used the forthcoming 8 months learning as much as I could about starting up a photographic business from insurance and branding to registering for tax and understanding VAT. I finally registered myself as a sole trader on the 6th of April 2012 for the new tax year and I am hoping my business will grow as I learn more about the industry.
I have built my website and have tried to make it look as professional as possible www.gemmiev.com

Following on from my apparent blogging gap year!

Sadly, after a year and a half of bad luck and an unreliable father I had to defer my second year of university in order to get a full time job and be able to live with a regular income and food!

I am not too upset about leaving university as I feel I have learned a lot from the first year there and I know that the second year is more about building on the skills learned and about the theory side of photography, which I'm not brilliant at but I don't feel is essential to me becoming a full time photographer. Also, I have all the suggested theory books that I'm slowly reading through at my own pace so I can improve my understanding.

After leaving university I moved back to Tiverton and started looking for a job. Within a month of looking I found my current position as Photographer/Sales person and have never looked back. I earn the company well over £2000 a week and I have learned a vast amount about working with children and photographing groups. The different techniques and poses are endless and the training I've had has really furthered my education of photography. I cannot be sure what this says for the Degree and it's importance in getting a career in your chosen subject but I'm saving 6 thousand pounds by not getting the final year done and I think that the degree is not what it's cracked up to be. It's overly expensive and I feel sorry for those who will have to pay even more in the future just to get one, especially if they realise it's not worth it and they leave without a job.

One down side of my job is that the copyright of the images belongs to the company so I have no images to show for all my hard work, which is a bummer but at least I know I can do my own private sittings at home and have the know how for working with children.

Thankfully, I have carried on learning about photography whilst working full time and I am confident at shooting groups of people and children and knowing the different poses and rules that can be followed to create a more aesthetically pleasing image than a simple snapshot.

Photography is so complex and I find myself continually finding new articles, books, emails or websites that shows me something new and interesting that I can pour over and take notes from. One book that I am just starting to read is: John Berger's 'Ways of seeing'. I'll write notes on it when I've read it but I think it'll take me a while because it's quite complex. next on my list is Graham Clarke's 'the Photograph'.

Onto my Photography now. I haven't shot much personal work whilst working full time as my hours are long and I'm always exhausted when I get home. One shoot I have done was taken for my mother and her new dog named Jinx. I'll post one of the pictures up;

She was such a good model bless her, she sat still and didn't even move when we put her in a washing basket! Everyone comments on her little jumper. I think she's adorable :D

16th - 23rd December

This week is the hand in week for my Technical workshops and my DISP project. I think I will be able to hand them both in on time but I do think that I could have made more of an effort on my DISP project. I have changed my mind so many times for the DISP project but ultimately my final idea that I have used is my best in my opinion because it has a strong concept.

I spent most of this week doing the DISP Project and I printed the finals for it and for the fill in flash part of the brief on the wednesday afternoon. I found it difficult to know all the settings for the printers and the paper settings but had help from a third year and from the technicians.

I shot all the images for DISP this week also, I was not very organised for the DISP project but I think the final image is good and I have a good research file.

8th - 15th December

I spent most of this week in the colour darkrooms printing my medium format finals and my 5x4 finals. I am really happy with my printing and I am enjoying it. When out of university I concentrated on getting my book work finished and made sure that I had written everything up that needed to be written. I also annotated my contact prints.

30th -07th December

This week I spent most of my time printing in the darkroom ready for the next week. I also helped out some class mates who were shooting 5x4 on location. I drove harry, faith and matt to different locations in Bournemouth and assisted with setting up the camera on to the tripod.

23rd - 29th

Monday I had my digital imaging lesson and I learnt how to extract images with accuracy and without a rubbish result.
Tuesday I had a free day but came in to develop my 5x4 film. Whilst waiting for my film to develop I sat in with some uni friends in the studio and watched them shoot their films for high key and low key. When my film had developed I managed to get some 10x8 paper for the colour darkrooms and I contact printed my medium format high key and low key negs and also my 5x4 negatives. I showed the contact prints to Paul and worked out what I need to do next. I think I may have to reshoot my high key prints because they aren't high key enough.
Here's one of the 5x4 negs, its a picture of the neg on a screen so its not great quality but you get the idea.



















Wednesday we had a guest speaker come into the uni who told us all about how we should protect ourselves and our images when going into work. It was very useful to find out all of that information and I have a handout which I can refer to when I need to.

Thursday was a day off but I spent it doing research for my technical workshops unit and looking through the essay questions in the PVC Unit.
Friday I used the studio to create a seperation of light set up and I shot 5x4 transparency film using a class mate as a model. I will be processing the film next week. I also collected a metz flashgun and a hot shoe from stores at uni friday afternoon to use at the weekend.
Saturday I experimented with the metz flashgun so that I would be used to it for when I shot the digital part of my brief.
Sunday I took some pictures of an elderly gentlemen at the canal for my portrait brief.