City/Urban Poland

These next few images were of my visit to Poland. From visiting places during the day I concentrated on using the night time for photographing Krakow. The culture is very different to our and I wouldn't really get images like this in England unless going to places like China town, and the Christmas outdoor markets at Christmas. Although the first one was taken in the morning upon arrival. Using a Canon camera and 15mm fisheye lens.

Fine Art 3

The concept behind these images, was to go to the old Royal Infirmary in Blackburn that is now abandoned and very run down inside, and photograph people that have had things done there when they were little, such as broken bones and sprains etc. I managed to get 8 models and take them all back to the ward for injuries and found a chair in one of the rooms. going back 8 times with different models I got them all to pose on the same chair but in different styles as though looking back on their experiences.
I am please with the outcome of these images as I feel they are all technically correct taken with a canon camera and zoom lens, I had a high apature to create a grainy noisey feel in the images. Also slightly edited in Photoshop to create a higher contrast and the clarity to make the images bold and gritty looking. I also added a vignette to the images to make them look a little old to suit the shots. I didn't want to add any textures to the images as I didn't want to make the photographs themselves look old. I really enjoyed taking these pictures, and had fun in the location, although difficult to find people silly enough to come in with me! I think I accomplished what I set out to do and will be using these 8 images as finals that are to be printed on A4 paper to add to my portfolio.

Familiar Place

My origional ideas for this part of the brief were to use an old camera with film to create some memory felt imagesI, although I have practiced the use of films in the past and the darkroom, but never enjoyed it and always found it stressful, but then I discovered the hipstamatics app for the iphone. Although not a technical camera, neither were those old holga's so I thought it wasn't too important as long as I showed my abilities with the use of composition and choice of appearance in the shots.had explored many technical sides with the other sections of the brief with lighting etc. Also I felt I I was really impressed with this as it gave the effect of many old camera's and films in the shots. I visited many places where I grew up and where I used to play. I also took pictures of my garden which hasn't changed. I also decided to take some images of familiar places to me now, such as work which is always really quite and quite peaceful of an evening as not many people come in. Although I won't be presenting these images I was impressed with the result and enjoyed experimenting with a new toy.

Trip to Manchester

So we went on a trip to Manchester to a couple of exhibitions, in the urbis and the war memorial and Lowry. I found all of the exhibitions pretty useful and interesting. Don McCullin being great as I have always loved his work, although not a field I would like to go into I have great respect for him and his images, it was great to see his work in the flesh, and also to see some of his colour work, which I hadn't seen before.
The Urbis was also pretty interesting as it had little bits from loads of past exhibitions, I was suprised at how much of the work I had seen before but was nice to look back on the work and reconnect with it.
The most interesting and useful part of the trip, for me, I felt was in the Lowry. Specifically the images of the circus people. My favourite part as I always love work a little different from the norm, and people that are a little strange. Along with the presentation of some other work in there which was in old farm house style windows, with the old wooden frames. I was really inspired by this and feel it would be great to do something similar in the future.

All in all, the trip was pretty successful if you ask me (:

Corporate Portrait 2

I feel the candid portrait was the hardest for me, and the one that I struggled the most with. Which obviously means I should have challenged myself more and taken a few more images, therefore I'm a little disappointed with myself for not contacting more people to get some shots. I feel this is my weakest point due to a lack of self confidence in this field. I didn't feel comfortable taking the images although the place is full of nice people. I feel the images aren't overly strong and not something I would class as work that is to my full potential.

Filter experimentation

After buying a load of filters off ebay for dead cheap I thought I would see what effects each of them had, as half of them weren't labled so I didn't know what each of them were. I set my camera on a tripod and correctly exposed the shot, then left it in the same position so that all the images would show exactly what the filters did, including exposure differences and colours. Some of the images really obviously don't suit the picture, but thats helped me to realise which ones would fit this kind of shoot. The bottom image has no filter on.