February Update!

So much for starting my blog up again! As ever the amount of University work I have got to get through is huge.

I have also completed my first non-personal/University piece of work for Emma Race of 'One Lump or Two?'. Emma asked me to photograph a small selection of her extensive collection of vintage teacups and essential tea party items . The work that I produced is to be used by her new company, some work is now possible to view on Emma's blog. Please take you time to view my work and also check out her company.

I am currently looking forward to my planned visit to 'Focus on Imaging 2012'. In case you don't know Focus on Imagaing is a Photography Exhibition based in Birmingham, England that is open to both businesses and members of the public. Canon, Nikon, Hasselblad, Olympus, Broncolour, Bowens and even Kodak are attending, among others, so it should be a good opportunity to test future releases or their current line-up.


Hopefully I can find some time between working and travelling that will give me an opportunity to see what Focus on Imaging is like to attend.


Also, check out my new Online Portfolio. It shows more finished and less experimental work than my Flickr.

Thanks for reading!

Christmas and New Year

So it's nearly Christmas and for some reason I've decided to make a new post, that reason being that my New Year's resolution is to get this blog back on track. I feel that maintaining the blog, even loosely, will help me with my degree on various levels.

An early Christmas present!

This time something has to change, people don't read blogs about other people these days, they want to take or learn something from it. They need a reason to read it. That's why I'm going to try to transfer what I'm learning from my degree onto the readers. Hopefully this will help people learn and maybe help others to decide whether a photography degree is for them! You should also look out for reviews and experiences of my own cameras and possible the Hasselblads I'll be shooting with next year!

Until next year!

I love Filofax

I may only have been using it for two weeks but I'm already wondering how I could manage without it! For anyone who doesn't know, a Filofax is an organiser that achieved iconic status in the late 1980s and became associated with Yuppie culture.

I've always wanted a Filofax, I had a FunFax as a child, but I've never really needed one. At Sixth Form and Secondary School, where one would be useful, they always gave out a diary for the year so there seemed little point. Now, at University, I was in a position without a diary. They didn't appear to be planning to give them out either, this was exciting. This meant Filofax.

So I got myself on the Filofax website and I had two shocks, one was the variety and the other was the price. I was dumbfounded by a glorified binder costing up to £170. Now slightly sceptical about whether I could actually afford one I tried to decide what I wanted out of my future Filofax. It needed plenty of space for assignments and briefs, needed to be big enough to fit folded A4 paper and needed to be understated but stylish. This narrowed my choice to an A5 series; the A4 was too bulky and not to mention expensive.

Eventually I decided on one of the cheapest in the range, the Identity. On the official site it cost £35 but I found it on WHSmith for £19 with the help of a voucher.

Sorry, not my own photo!

So how is it? Well, as I've said, I don't know what I'd do without it. I record all my briefs and deadlines in the Diary section along with a checklist in the To-Do section, I can keep train timetables in the cover pocket and I can record any other important student information elsewhere.

Since the purchase I have added a calculator for any difficult exposure calculations and am currently waiting for some 'sticky notes' from eBay.

So, if you want a fancy organiser look no further than the Filofax!

P.S I think I have fallen into the Filofax trap; I'm trying to justify buying a Personal size Filofax and I got slightly excited when I saw a fellow student brandishing a Filofax!

Week Three Round Up

Yet another week has passed and probably the most eventful of the three I have been there. Monday saw us learn about the stereotypical artist in an attempt to help us define what kind of photographer we are and where we want to place ourselves in the marketplace.

Tuesday is our practical day and my favourite day of the week, this particular session was used to introduce the group to large format cameras. It was a very interesting experience. Loading the massive sheets of film was fun but challenging, I'm not looking forward to handling fresh film at ~£2 per sheet!

The Large Format Cameras, ~£3000!

That was the interesting part of the week over, we learned about copyright and developed our ideas for our Large Format Brief of Identity but that was it!

Week Two Round Up

Well, another busy week of University has passed and by busy I actually mean very busy. A lot has happened, I started my real timetable of seminars, lectures and workshops and have even been given details of my first brief!

I have also been given plenty of 'homework' to be getting on with. I received a lengthy piece of work to do from all but one lecture, but work was needed to be able to participate in it!

So far I have started critical studies, this attempts to get us to see work from a new perspective and helps us to create new and original ideas. Practical work was fun, we learned the proper use of light meters for ambient and flash applications; I am still wondering when to use incident or reflected light, though.

Friday was perhaps the most daunting for most, we had to pick a photograph from our Sculpture Park Trip to present to our group of 50 students in a "Concerned Client Task". I was the last of the day to present and I actually received the best feedback for my presentation style, critique on my chosen photograph wasn't bad either!Below is the image, chosen to represent 'form' with elements of 'tone' and 'line'.

Canon 20D - ISO100 - f/5.6 - 1/400

I'll leave you with some important news. I bought a Filofax.

"School Trip"

Today we had a 'School Trip' to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. It took me over four hours to get there, and four hours back, so it was a long day.

It was a good experience, we were asked to take photos based around the basic elements of photography, which was fun. I also got to see what other peoples' work ethics were like. The images that I captured will be used later on in the course though I'd like to edit some now!

The Year To Come

For the very first time the class was given a hint about what we will be spending the next year of our lives doing. We were also given our first real brief outside of creating a profile picture for our Moodle accounts!

Today's course introduction, while telling us about how the year will be structured, also excited us by hinting at the first four tasks. The class of around 70 students was split into 4 groups, each group is going to take it in turns to do Large Format work, Medium Format work and also 2 modules on DSLRs! I'm in the first group to take on the Large Format work so I'm quite excited!

I'll end this post with a short message about my feelings on one aspect of modern University. Why must the emphasis be placed on free alcohol, cheap alcohol and getting drunk? I don't travel for 2 hours to be told where the best bars are or to be given drinks vouchers. I travel to learn about photography.