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!