Hi everyone!

As part of my photography course, I have to track my development on a blog. The posts from September 2011 until January 2012 are part of a module called Project Management, for which I was required to work in a group of eight students to create an exhibition. The blog followed every step we took in order to create a successful gallery. The blog posts starting from September 2012 follow my final year on the course. I'll be documenting my research and analysis of my final year projects, as well as include notes of my Professional Practice unit - which prepares us for a range of post graduate options. Finally it also looks at a project called New Creatives, where I'll be working alongside an artists to help college students get more involved with art.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Final day...

The third and final was another big success. Since we were open for longer and it was weekend, a lot more people were able to come to the exhibition. My family came and had a look through all of the work and wrote lovely messages in the guest book. Everyone got lots of compliments but the main thing that everyone wrote and spoke about was the variety of work - although everyone was given the same brief with the same theme, the work showed great diversity. 

The exhibition has come to an end now but it's been a lot of fun. We all had our ups and downs and worries but everything came together brilliantly. It was a very successful couple of days and only got compliments. I think the project has been a great learning experience, it has given me the confidence to one day have my own gallery. It taught us how to all collaborate together in order to create a fantastic exhibition and I wouldn't have been able to do it without my lovely Artea photography team. We also wouldn't have had been able to have such a successful exhibition without the tea ladies at "Mad About the Cake" so a big thanks goes out to them. 

Also a big thanks for all the people that showed up at our exhibition and to anyone else that has helped us along the way! 

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Second day...

The second day was even better than the first. We were open from 1pm until 6pm, similar to the first day, and people already started to show up before we opened! It was lovely to see how many people came to the exhibition to admire our work. Most of the people that came were friends and family, although there were quite a few strangers that had come in to the exhibition (meaning the leaflets did pay off!). It turned out to be a fantastic day as I managed to sell one of my photos! Someone had come in and looked through my portfolio and decided he wanted to get one of my photos printed A4 and mounted. Someone also came up to me and asked my where I had gotten my portfolio from as she loved the professional finish of it. Later that day the people who let me take photos of their house came to the exhibition. It was wonderful to see them again and they loved the work. They noticed some details about their house that they had never seen before (the repetition of arches - even in the wine cellar) and they joked how their house "was actually very nice"! They told me some more history of the Nunnery and took some photographs of me beside my work. Overall it was another very successful day and I hope that the last day will be just as good. We will be open a couple hours longer to get some more people to come. 

Friday, December 9, 2011

Opening day...

The opening day was a great success. People started coming to the exhibition before we even opened! Quite a few people from the course came to see the gallery and a few parents. Joe (the owner of Ultraviolet) also came to view the gallery and brought along a friend who wants to study photography. One of the tea lady's friends also came to the gallery (mainly for the discounted tea and cake price) but she also admired our gallery. A few of my friends came to view the work as well so it was really enjoyable. Everyone stayed in the gallery most of the day, although we did leave in turns to go get some lunch. In the afternoon Joe came back with two bottles of wine which we could share among ourselves. 

To the right is a photo of some of the people in the group. Unfortunately not everyone was there for the picture both the Isle of Wight girls had work commitments so they had to leave. We had a guestbook which people could sign to tell us what they thought of our exhibition. Everyone wrote really nice and positive comments. Some people that came to the exhibition even showed interested in buying some of my photos - not only the ones on the wall but also some in my portfolio! They will come back tomorrow to have another look.

Overall the first day was a great success. The second day will hopefully be just as successful. I know that quite a few peoples parents are coming and some more of my friends are coming so I hope it will be a good turnout. 

Time Lapse 2...

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Time Lapse...

Tom decided it would be a great idea to create a time lapse of the exhibition to show the progression of the set up. He will create two time lapses for the two days we will be setting up. The first one is below - it looks at the first day of setting up. As you can see I put up my work! There was a lot of standing around and discussing what should go where. We want each piece to have its own space and to stand out just as much as the next piece, so coming up with the idea of who is going to hang their work up where was quite a difficult task. A couple weeks ago some people from the group had already created a rough layout of the exhibition, but having the photographs in the exhibition itself, rather than pieces of blank paper roughly the same size, is obviously a massive difference. We had to change a few pieces around as the measurements given weeks ago weren't the same as the ones now. In the end we managed to sort out where everyone would hang their work and how much space they had to spare.


Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Venue...

I visited the venue today to help prepare for the opening day. The work is slowly starting to be put on the walls and the gallery space is gradually filling up. There are two large tables at the front which the tea ladies will be using and there is one small coffee table. Tomorrow two chairs will be brought to the gallery for the tea ladies, as well as two more coffee tables. Everyone's books and portfolios will be displayed on the small tables so people can look at the work on the wall while also looking at the bigger picture. 

I managed to get the wall space I wanted! I really wanted to have the wall on the right of the gallery and have my prints close to the middle, and that's where I ended up hanging my work! The other photographs that will be displayed are quite a bit larger than my photos. Originally I wanted to have A3 sized prints but since the gallery was so small I had to make some changes in how I wanted to display the work. My photographs have now ended up being the smallest photos in the gallery! I am a bit worried about this as I don't want my images to get lost between all the other photos. In order to prevent this I have made the colours quite bold and have made a square format which should stand out against the rest. I also added the piece of text I posted a while ago to have a bit more space on the wall.

I also met the tea ladies today! They came round to the exhibition to have a look at where they will be serving the tea for three days. They were very enthusiastic about helping us and will be bringing some covers for the tables as well as some cooler bags and a supply of water. Tomorrow the tea ladies will be coming by again to drop off some of the supplies. Only two more days until our opening day!!

Monday, December 5, 2011

Social Networking...

Because the exhibition is only 3 days away, it is very important that our social networking sites are constantly updated and our website is complete. I am still in charge of updating facebook and twitter and have been posting little updates every now and then to keep people interested. I have been promoting everyone's blogs as well as the pub quiz and the bake sales. Other than that I add the website to the posts and have little count downs to the opening night. I try and post/tweet a variety of different things so I don't keep repeating myself. Along with that I am also trying to promote the group as much as I can by posting about it in my status or posting my blog on facebook. 

On twitter I have managed to get 41 followers! Quite impressive since I had never even been on a twitter page before this project started. Again on there I am posting everyone's blog and adding little tweets promoting all the other pages we have. 

Tom is in charge of the website but it has been a bit of a mission to get everything on there. The only things we are missing at the moment ar Tom's gallery, most of Kate information, Naomi's about me, and Adam's profile photo. It is a bit of a shame the website isn't finished because we have been promoting it on our leaflets and social networking sites. Hopefully we'll be able to have the website completed by Thursday.

Here are the links:

Portfolio...

I think the presentation of the portfolio is just as important as the photographs that you put in there so I wanted to get a cover that could protect my work, but also looked professional. I bought the cover in the photo to the right from Staples for about £16. It has a hard cover but has a layer of softer material around it so it feels nice and does the job of protecting my work. Inside are 24 see though wallets where I will put my photographs in. I only have 40 pages so somehow I will have to add some more photographs or pieces of writing. I want to fill up the whole folder otherwise it will look like it isn't finished. On the inside of the front cover is a little pocket where I have put some business cards to promote myself. The first page starts off with an "about me" and from then on every page has photographs. The book finishes with a photograph of me and my contact details. 
I ordered the photographs from a company called photobox because I love the quality of the prints and at the time they had a 50% discount on all 8x10 photos. I received the photos the day after I ordered them but it appeared that the text was slightly cut off. This was quite worrying as it was getting so close to the exhibition date. I spoke to photobox about it and they let me print the photographs again with free delivery! The second time round they look much better. The portfolio shows off a lot of different themes of photography that I have tested while being at Uni, but it does explain the type of photography I want to do. My portfolio will be at the exhibition alongside the smaller books so when you're there feel free to browse though it!

Portfolio...

I want to have an A4 sized portfolio that features all of my photography and includes lots of different themes, but I also want to have something that shows off the photography that I want to do in the future. This is Travel/Landscape and Wildlife photography. I am not doing these kinds of photos for the University as it is a bit expensive to travel for every project we have to do and wildlife doesn't match any of our set themes. I printed off these two books from truprint. They were only £5.99 each but since I was able to get a 50% discount code from them, I got both of them for £5.99! Incredibly cheap - I wasn't really expecting too much from them, but to my surprise they came out amazingly well. The quality is beautiful and the book has very thick paper making the photos look even nicer. I am really happy with how they turned out and am going to make a book like this for a couple more themes (once I have enough photos to make a book). I will be displaying these at the exhibition as well as my A4 portfolio and if people are interested in buying these they would be £10 each (I have to make a bit of profit!)

Leaflets...

I have managed to collect all the different leaflets by the other groups on the course. All of them have turned out very different from one another - none of the look similar in the slightest! The only similarity between them is the size. Everyone has chosen A5 leaflets. The bottom right leaflet by 10 Degrees South is on very thick paper whereas the other 3 are on thin paper and are a lot more flimsy. Not only are all the leaflets different, all of the exhibitions will be completely different from one another. 14 metres squared are going to be exhibiting in Bonzo Studios on Albert Road. They will have free drinks and food and will have a green wall they have to work around. Some have framed photos and other are having installations. They will also have live music. The Big Picture are displaying their work in a cinema in Old Portsmouth. They will have the big screen (hence the name) and will also have visiting speakers and short clips of photographs explaining their work. The final group is called 10 Degrees South. I know the least about their exhibition. All I know is that they will be having their exhibition in the Round Tower in Old Portsmouth. 

For more information about any of these exhibition here are the links to their website:

Meeting...

There was a meeting on the 1st of December at the venue itself to discuss the last bits and pieces that still need to be sorted. Some of the people in the group hadn't seen the venue yet, so it was a good opportunity for them to have a look at the venue and get a feel of the place. The main decisions made were about when we wanted to hang up the work and when we were going to move in the furniture. Because we still have to attend lectures this week, we are having to work around that, this means that people will be putting up their work both on Tuesday and Wednesday. The furniture will be brought to the venue on Tuesday so by Thursday everything should be finished!

We finally managed to get the name of the tea ladies helping us, they are called "Mad About the Cake". They will be coming round to the exhibition sometime this week to have a look at the place. We are in the process of getting a small refrigeration for the tea ladies, but we haven't managed to get a hold of one. Worst case scenario we will put the milk outside. As there is an issue of running water in the venue - not having any - the tea ladies suggested that they could bring their own bottled water. They are being incredibly helpful and we owe them a big thanks. 

Dominic was responsible for getting an ad in the University magazine, Pugwash, unfortunately we didn't get an ad, however he managed to get something even better! Someone on the Pugwash team is going to write an article covering our exhibition in the next issue!

The risk assessment has also been finished. There are 6 pages in total with possible risks although most of them are very low risks such as wearing appropriate shoes (I am willing to risk this, but I think I will be wearing high heels), sweep the floor before opening, hang the photos at a level that is out of reach for young children etc.

Another subject that was discussed is a dress code. We all feel it is important to wear something smart casual as it is an exhibition, but we are trying to create an intimate feel to it.

I can't wait until the opening day. We have worked so hard to get to this point, it will be amazing to see the final result and to see what other people think of the gallery.