Saturday 11 December 2010

Fill-A-Book Project Photographic Progress

Okay! Here's the progress with my book.
I now have two books though, the new one being a novel called 'The Truth About Diamonds' by Nicole Richie. Yes, that bimbo who's shortly either marrying or already married her long-term man and father of her two children, Joel Madden. It was only a £1 in one of my favorite charity shops- nice hardback with tonnes of pages. So i thought, why not.

Anyways, being Blogger, the photos are probably gonna jumble up on me, mm, i'll try to get them in order as best as possible.

Green Day/Basketcase? Inspired


I love character pages, this reminds me of crumbling paint.
See below for progress

C's


D is for Deer.

Queen. A ball of fuzzball hair and a corgi, which my thumb just so happens to be covering.


Uni-power



Do it!

 Most of these pages shown are depicting one of our tasks, do something that represents a letter of the alphabet on every page.
Some of the photos are missing, due to the fact i didn't rotate them before uploading them from the server as i figured there would be a rotate button on here, oh how wrong i was!
More to come later...

Tuesday 30 November 2010

Snow/Winter(I-mean-Autumn) Shizz

Well, so far, a week after that lecture about blogging, i am indeed a failure! 
I've not uploaded any photos for the Fill-A-Book project...oops. My bad, college has been crazy busy.
But, 'bout this bloggingness - I just feel i'd have to nothing to blog about on a regular basis, other than college work, snow, being cranky, parents pissing me off, more college work, and more snow.
Oh and how shite this it-isn't-winter-yet-but-it's-gonna-snow-like-crazy-anyways-despite-we're-still-in-autumn!
Just can't appreciate it like i used to- just say, when i was 10. 
It used to be such a highlight, early before school, me and my little (now not so little) bro would play in the garden-making snow angels and lobbing hand-chilling snow balls at each other.
Ah, how times change. Now we just lob words of abuse. 
Aren't siblings darlings?

 ^^^
Just something to help me feel nice in this shitty time of year when tensions are high, and so are the gas bills. 
Bad times for Kat Von D last week, when i heard how her gorgeous kitty Valentine, replacement of the late Ludwig perished with Kat's home and belongings in a fire. Tragic! Hope Kat is coping with her loss. 

Tuesday 23 November 2010

Fill-A-Book Project

Well, well.. long time no post! 

I thought after the interesting lecture my tutor Jess (aka- cuppa tea and cake) gave about blogs and their many uses, i ought to update this with things other than compulsory blogged college work, and for example, the progress of a new project we were given today in drawing:

 Whey! It's awesome.

Basically, we were given a random book, i received some Christmassy poem book- it's decent enough with some nice illustrations, though just a lack of size and pages (only 48 to be exact)- Although this isn't a tragedy as i'll only just go buy another from one of the many charity shops in town.

Aswell as the book, we were handed a A4 sheet filled to the bottom of the page with tasks to complete in our books, e.g. " Make a self-portrait out of cotton and glue, leave a set of drawn footprints over several pages that leads to the creature that created them, get a stranger to draw on one of your pages then copy it on another page using different material." The list goes on and on...
I don't know about anyone else, but i can't wait to get into this! 
We have 5 weeks  roughly to complete the book, i want to be so inspired that the pages will be bursting with creativity- i usually really struggle to be creative with my art, so this should be interesting! 

I plan to take photos every couple of days to show how my books coming along. We're expected to do like  a page or so everyday, i'll certainly try and give it my best! 
Wish me luck!

Monday 1 November 2010

Pinhole Photographers

As part as my bloody long-winded putting information into a blog and a sketchbook malarkey, I'm required to include 2 photographers who photography pinhole style:

My chosen photographer no.1: Justin Quinnell, inventor of the 'Smilycam':

I first came across Quinnell whilst searching for pinhole photographers to use in my sketchbook. 
I immediately liked his fun style of pinhole photography, often using his own invention, the 'Smileycam', examples as shown above in the montage. ^^
He was born in Portishead 1962,  and now lives in Bristol where he lectures part-time at University College Falmouth.
He's had TV interviews on programs such as 'Jonathon Ross Show, and The One Show'.
I watched his appearance on The One Show, on Youtube which was quite interesting, whilst being educational.
He's practiced pinhole photography since 1988- bloody long time if you ask me!
And within that time, he's had tonnes of exhibitions and publications, and has held lectures at over 30 different universities in the UK.
He seems like a generally interesting guy, with a great knowledge for everything pinhole, offering all the information necessary in Rachel Weisz's movie The Brother Bloom, in which he appears in the credits as 'pinhole consultant'.
His style is so unique, i've never seen anything like the one of the 6 month solargraphs he produced, below. Nor anything of similarity to his 'Smileycam' photos. I love the spontaneity behind his in-mouth photographs.The images are enough to make you smile! I'd love to meet him, and be put to shame over my lame pinhole photography!

Solargraph- a long exposure photograph which shows the path taken by the sun across the sky.
Quinnell's pinhole photograph of the SS Great Britain, Bristol


Pinhole Photographer no.2: Mark Tweedie: Pinhole photographer, poet and bookbinder:

Wasn't able to find a massive amount of information about this guy as he generally doesn't seem to be very well know. 
But i know from what i've seen that he's a wonderful photographer with a very dark, haunting style of pinhole photography.  And living in Coventry, West Midlands from what i find.
His photos are beautifully shot, it's definitely worth taking a peek at his gorgeous gallery. 
He appears to be an artist within his words:  

"The long exposures required, sometimes lasting hours, grace the images with a powerful sense of narrative.-here is little conscious thought behind this, more that the inevitably slow processes involved allow - if not impose - a wider view of what is happening at the time."

I've discovered that it's been difficult to find useful information about him from anywhere other than his personal website, and even there, it was more about the work than him himself!
Perhaps this is because he truly isn't that well know. Which is a shame really. As it means the world is missing out of his beautiful, mysterious images. Or perhaps be doesn't want his personal life to be know, but just his work- and for it to be appreciated.
 His photography style is so enviable, i would love to possess the creativity that his images posses. 

This is a wonderful example of his work, from his 'Dream Of Flight' series it makes me curious, wanting to know what went on in the photograph, if there's a story behind the image. I wonder if he uses himself as the model in this photo.
I've seen a photograph of the man himself, and i thought him to be a lot older. Like 50+. But i can't even make a rough judgment on his age though. If it is him in the photograph above, he appears to have a young body-certainly not that of pensioner. 
However old though, he'll still be the same mysterious pinhole photographer with more creativity than i could ever possess.


Pinhole Photography Research + Examples Of Photography Genres

Was meant to post this ages ago, but coursework from my other classes has been a burden....
Feeling a little bit stressed right now! Got two days till my assessment, well, one to get everything done by and printed off at college, ughhhhhh.... stresssed, lost my sheet for what i'm meant to include here and in my book! Shit!

^^^^
That was the state i was in yesterday, when i wrote it.
Today, i am calm, and slightly confident that i'll actually get to bed before 4am once i've finished my coursework that's due to be finished for my evaluation on the 2nd of this month, ooh that's today!

Firstly... Pinhole Photography, and a little bit about it! 


 Pinhole Photography can be used for art, science and fun! 
An inexpensive method of taking photographs, provided you borrow someones darkroom, and development chemicals.
Basically, all a pinhole camera is is a lightproof, lensless thing with a pin-sized hole on one side. The tiny hole is used to photograph, once exposed to light. 
Designing a pinhole camera can be pretty fun! It doesn't take much to create one either, some black flat paint, black gaffer tape, aluminum, a pin, and a camera of your choice!
Some of the most amazing pinhole photographs have been taken using normal/average everyday items, like Pringle/biscuit/cake tins, shoe/oatmeal boxes, even wheely bins and a discarded fridge! 
I also read somewhere recently of the worlds largest pinhole 'camera' - that being an abandoned jet hangar! It earned the title of world's largest camera, and the print made from the hangar- the world's largest photograph in The Guinness World record book.
Incredible!
 Leonardo Da Vinchi and Isaac Newton both used pinhole for research.
Pinhole photography has become recently popular over the years,  it can be described as:
'experimental, fascinating, fun, gripping, inexpensive, uncommon, unusual, scientific, simple, time consuming, unique, challenging, and artistic'
I agree with all of the above! 

Pinhole photography is incredibly clever, still to this day i'm amazed by the idea of it!
Although i still have a job trying to work out exposure times.
Exposures are varied, ranging from half a second to several hours.
And the photographing can be extremely unpredictable, so to begin with, when first shooting with a pinhole camera, you may create some duds! Well, if you're me, you will anyways! 
Once successfully developed, pinhole prints will appear softer, lacking image sharpness. 
This will help make a photo seem more characteristic. Which i think is the reason i love pinhole photography so much. It's definitely something to be tried, if anything  - at least once! 


Photography Genres


Here's a few different examples of photography genres. Although they're not the same as those in my sketchbook.

Animal/Nature:

I absolutely love animal themed photography! It's simply described with no other word than cute! On my Deviantart account half of the stuff i've favored is someone's sweet fluffy cat, adorable lion cubs/foxes/puppies or beautiful, elegant horses. I love the playfulness animals can unintentionally display, like in the photograph of the two foxes shown above ^^  So lovely

Action:
                                                                                                                                  

I love action shots for the fact that they can be so wow-factorish! I look and think, how on earth did they manage to capture that so perfectly, with no blur to be seen.
Although, now i know, a super fast shutter speed is required to capture such a magnificent still image.  

Wedding: 

Wedding photos are always going to have the 'aww' factor, i aww because i love the happiness/love the photos show- everyone's smiling, making it very clear they're so so happy, so very in love. It's such a special moment! It's hard to describe it! I just hope if i ever get married, my photos will look just as beautiful, provided i don't blink in all of them!  

More Positive + Negative Prints

After struggling to work out how to change these prints at home from negative to positive as i don't have Photoshop on my laptop, only Paint Shop Pro 9 which i have little knowledge about using, i managed to rustle these together!:

This is a self-portrait, taken on the college campus. 


I originally wanted to capture my head shaking side to side, in order to create an illusion of having two faces like in the image above of Placebo's 'Meds' album. 
But i obviously wasn't shaking my head quick enough whilst the pinhole was exposed for roughly 30/40 seconds. I don't know, i struggled to keep tabs on the times i exposed my lens for.
My  bad.
Despite not getting the result i wanted, i still like this print and intend to upload it onto my Deviantart.



I think i'm gonna have to try and convert the negative of this print into a positive again sometime, next time using Photoshop. Don't get me wrong, i don't mind the positive Paint Shop Pro version, but i am intrigued over how it would look if i did it properly using Photoshop.
I really like both the negative & positive print of this!
They both are quite dramatic i feel, the negative version is really affective-  with the blacked out lighting suspended from the ceiling.
Definitely proud of this, shot it in the atrium at the college for roughly about 10 minutes, a perfectly timed exposure in my opinion! 
I preferred shooting inside the college, when photographing outside, you really have to get the exposure time right. 



This was the worst print. Ever. It's just crap. Ridiculously over-exposed, with very little detail.
Except for the grass, college building, trees and seating.
Mm. Exposed it for-? I don't even know. Too long obviously!


Wednesday 27 October 2010

Photography: Health & Safety

Here's the Health & Safety Rules for our photography class...... 

Darkroom rules
  • No eating or drinking
  • No running or fooling around
  • No coats or bags on the floor
  • Dry hands before using electrics
  • Use tongs to handle photo paper
  • Don’t mix the wet and dry side of the darkroom

Studio rules
  • No eating or drinking
  • No running or fooling around
  • No coats or bags on the floor
  • Beware of cables on the floor
  • The flash heads can get hot, handle them with care
  • Don’t look directly into the flash heads
  • Be careful when using the paper background system
  • Handle all equipment with care

Friday 8 October 2010

Photography Basics

This is just part of my necessary college coursework...... Photography
   (pronounced /fәˈtɒɡrәfi/[1]) (from Greek φωτο and γραφία) is the process, activity and art of creating still or moving pictures by recording radiation on a sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or an electronic sensor. Light patterns reflected or emitted from objects activate a sensitive chemical or electronic sensor during a timed exposure, usually through a photographic lens in a device known as a camera that also stores the resulting information chemically or electronically. Photography has many uses for business, science, art and pleasure.

Camera

   is a device that records images, either as a still photograph or as moving images known as videos or movies. The term comes from the camera obscura (Latin for "dark chamber"), an early mechanism of projecting images where an entire room functioned as a real-time imaging system; the modern camera evolved from the camera obscura.

Shutter
   In photography, a shutter is a device that allows light to pass for a determined period of time, for the purpose of exposing photographic film or a light-sensitive electronic sensor to light to capture a permanent image of a scene.

Aperture

   In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. In Photography this can be measured in increments called f-stops.

Lens
   The of a camera captures the light from the subject and brings it to a focus on the film or detector.

Exposure control
   The size of the aperture and the brightness of the scene controls the amount of light that enters the camera during a period of time, and the shutter controls the length of time that the light hits the recording surface. Equivalent exposures can be made with a larger aperture and a faster shutter speed or a corresponding smaller aperture and with the shutter speed slowed down.

Sunday 3 October 2010

Tattoos!

Well, good afternoon! After a little discussion with fellow college-mate James, he told me he could design me a tattoo! Happy times!
I've only really this year come up with the idea of an actual tattoo i'd love to permanently ink on my body, (or forearm actually!)
It'd be great to own an actual sketch of what i'd like, so when the time comes, i can hopefully just take it in somewhere and get it done.
And James is definitely the person i'd want to have design it, i've seen his tattoo based designs, immense! 

Basically, all i'm wanting is a tribute for my parents who aren't actually dead, but still.. in the form of an anchor.. because they share a love for the sea. They're not sailors, and neither am i. But, meh!
I actually own this necklace (great website, btw!) and i love it's form, so i'd definitely would like it to look like that when inked onto myself.


Next, i'd like it in a cameo style border, i have a love for cameos, so this tattoo will be all love!
I think it'd have to be quite delicate as i wouldn't want it to over power the whole tattoo! 
The internet provided me me the results of a rope effect somewhat on the inside of an oval border. Thank you Google, although, i'd have to make some changes:


Then to top it off, above my beloved parents name sprawled in separate banners, above and below the anchor, with the typical sailor 'mom' font. The image, below; is actually very similar to the original tattoo design i was hoping to get, before i changed my mind for this design.. mm, decisions, decisions!

Now when do i get this beast of a tattoo done? Well that is the question! 
When my parents aren't going to throw out of the house for it i guess!
Watch this space!

Friday 1 October 2010

Kickin' that bucket

What a quiet, runny-nosed evening i've had.
Thanks to whoever gave me this damned cold!
After watching Bram Stoker's  Dracula (1992 version with Winona Ryder and Gary Oldman) which i thought was pretty decent, i started to channel-flick, hoping to find something worth feasting my eyes on, to pass some time before i felt crappy enough to go bed.
I came across 'The Bucket List' on channel 4, i think. A film I've always wanted to see, but never ended up owning the dvd, nor seeing it in cinema.


I missed half of the film, but what i saw was somewhat inspirational for if i ever come to find myself in of having a form of terminal cancer, i'd like to think that i wouldn't lie in bed feeling sorry for myself, waiting to die.
It did make me a tad emotional, i'm such a sucker for things like that, but luckily noone was around to see me swimming in my own tears! 
I think only Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman were perfect for their roles, (couldn't imagine anybody else becoming the characters), Nicholson being the typical rich, 3-times divorced guy, and Freeman, the loving family man just wanting some free-time after lifetime of working to provide for his family. Fair enough if you ask me.
I was somewhat upset mostly to see that Morgan's character Carter died first, but i knew it was inevitable! I think the fact that it's difficult not to like Freeman plays a big part in my emotional attachment to his character.
Overall, a heart-warming film! I don't want Morgan Freeman nor Jack Nicholson to ever die! :( What a awful day it'll be...

Pinhole Photography College Work!

Hello! Well, this is the first ever blog I've written in, i guess there's a first for everything..
Each individual student on the National Diploma course has been asked to create a blog account.
So here is mine!
As shown below is some results from my attempt at pinhole photography:

But first,
 My Vans Pinhole Camera, woohoo!
Annie & Sheera with their Pringle tin cameras!

 Before & After, lightened and rotated using Adobe Photoshop
Used a friend as the subject for this!

For this photograph, i must have exposed it roughly for 2 minutes, correct me if I'm wrong though.. It's easy to loose track of exposure time when shooting and developing.
Really quite pleased with the result of this photograph, the first 7 or so images i shot all turned out to be complete failures!
So it was a delight for me to find photographs that weren't ridiculously  over-exposed!  


                                                




This was the first print that was somewhat a success, using my vans shoebox! I was finally happy, developing blacked out prints can be somewhat depressing.
I can't be sure on how long i exposed this for, I'm sure my tutor could tell me! He's a genius.
Mm, do i guess how long i did this for?.... A minute or two maybe?


Ooh, and here's a how-to page scanned from my sketchbook...

Hope it's readable. :)