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.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

2 Months in Melbourne

It's already been two months since we arrived in Melbourne and it's all been a bit hectic. We got all the important stuff out of the way immediately and moved into our flat exactly 2 weeks after arriving in Australia. Since then we haven't really stopped. My boyfriend got a job as a rigger for various events such as the AFL and horse racing etc. I also managed to get a job at Subway! I obviously started applying for loads of photography jobs, but never heard back from any of them, so Subway it was! I've been there for over a month now and working like crazy. The 'normal' shift is 10 hours, when in the UK 7 hours was a long shift! Tuesday I ended up working a 12 hour shift.

I work in the middle of the city on Bourke Street. It gets extremely busy there - we made 101 subs in one hour!! Bourke street is the main shopping street. Then there's also Elizabeth street and Collins street. Collins street has some of the more expensive shops, whereas Bourke and Elizabeth street are a lot more affordable. I really enjoy living so close to the city centre and working there. Melbourne is such a lively place, there is always something going on. There are constantly buskers everywhere and they are amazing!! Well most of them... I saw someone playing an air guitar as he was saving up for a real guitar... There are always protests going on, which isn't always the best but definitely entertaining! A few of them have started in front of Subway, so I get front row seats to the event!

One street up from Bourke street is Little Bourke Street. This is where China Town is. We quickly strolled through there on our way to the Museum. The museum has a whole marine science section so Kevin is looking for jobs/volunteering opportunities there.

One of the first real touristy things we did was go to the Shrine of Remembrance. We can see the Shrine from our flat so we thought we might as well start there! The shrine is absolutely beautiful. We had been admiring it for a while, but it was great to learn more about it. Like the fact it took 150 pages of equations to decide on the location of the shrine. Everyday as the sun sets, it illuminates the shrine as though there is a huge spotlight on it. Since it's built on a hill, everything around it is dark, but only the building is lit up. It looks beautiful! There are 4 streets that lead away from the Shrine. One of them is St Kilda Road leading to Swantson Street (into the City) and the other is towards South Melbourne (the street where the sun sets). I'm not sure about the other two. When you're in the middle of the city crossing Swanston Street you can actually see the Shrine in the distance. It's such a strange/amazing sight!
The photo above is taken from the balcony. The street straight ahead is St Kilda Road leading to Swanston Street. On the left side of the street you can see the tallest building in Melbourne. If you look closely you can see a spiral on top of a building on the left side. This is at the Arts Precinct. That's where the National Gallery is as well as the theatre. Every sunday there is also a lovely market with all sorts of things. They also had poffertjes (Little Dutch pancakes) so I felt right at home! Just past there is a bridge across the Yarra River.

If you go down the stairs you'll be at Southgate. This is an area full of restaurants. It's such a nice place, it looks beautiful in the evening. The next bridge on the left has a pub underneath it. It looks awesome!!

Just over the bridge on the other side of the street is a orangey/brown church. This is by Federation Square and Flinders Street Station. Basically where the city starts.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Arriving in Australia

You know when you think of Australia, you think about beautiful sunsets, kangaroos, koalas, white sandy beaches, beautiful landscapes, the Great Barrier Reef etc. Well I haven't seen any of that yet.. except beautiful sunsets. I had all these unrealistic expectations of how different Australia would be, but  arriving in Melbourne isn't anywhere near the Great Barrier Reef or in the outback etc. Melbourne is beautiful though.

We arrived last Wednesday and it was the most beautiful day to arrive on. It was 26 degrees and sunny and spring! Spring started on the 1st of September, instead of the usual 21st. We arrived at about 7 in the morning so had the whole day to get stuff done. We're staying with Kevin's step-sister, who has been incredibly nice to us and has helped us out with absolutely everything! On the first day we managed to activate our bank account so they could send us our cards (which ended up going to the UK.... ??) we got a simcard and an Australia number, we got a Myki card (for the metro) we wanted to register with medicare (they had a problem with me being dutch but having come from the UK...) we went to the South Melbourne Market (which was aaaamazing) and I think that might have been it for the first day. Luckily we didn't suffer from any jetlag since singapore is only a 2 hour time difference, but we were still pretty exhausted by the end of the day!

We're staying in the southern part of the city, although it doesn't actually feel like you're in the city. We're about a 10 min walk from everything, which is the perfect location! A 10 min walk to the left is Melbourne market and Coles (the grocery store). The South Melbourne Market is amazing, it's open on Wednesday and Friday-Sunday and it's literally got EVERYTHING - fruit, veg, shoes, clothes, make-up, meat, bread, pasta, chemists, etc etc. And everything is fresh as well! Melbourne is pretty pricey, although if you look for the deals it isn't so bad. £1 equals AUS$1.7 so everything LOOKS more expensive, but when you convert it back to pounds it's a lot more bearable. We bought a whole bag of pasta for only $1, so I think we'll survive. A 10 min walk up brings you to Flinders street, this area is where all the shops are. There are a lot of shops that I know, but a few are new to me. Cotton On is my new favourite shop. It isn't too expensive and the stuff is super comfy! There are also Subways around every corner, so I'm sure I'll be able to get a job somewhere!

On the second day we went on our first flat viewing. The system here is very different from the UK. Instead of setting a time with the estate agent to view the place, they have open 'inspections'. Everyone who is interested will go to the same inspection. It's a bit terrifying because all these people are your competition. For the first viewing it was us, and two other couples interested. At the end when you're interested in the place, you can't just say 'Ok I'll have it' and pay the bond (deposit), you actually have to hand in an application and then the land lord will decide who they like best! So basically, you can apply for 10 flats, and get rejected from all of them... It's pretty stressful. So far we've seen 6 places, both in the centre of the city and to the south, and applied for two. We actually managed to get accepted by the first application we handed in! We viewed the place on Wednesday, handed our forms back on Thursday morning and by that evening we heard we were accepted!! Panic over, now we just have to get jobs....

We've both been applying for a quite a few jobs focussing on our studies. I have applied for four studio assistant jobs and am just waiting to hear back. Now that we know where we're going to be living, I'll also be able to apply at subway and other food places, just to get me going until I get a photography related job. Once we've settled into our own place, we can start thinking about doing some more touristy things, but at the moment we just need to focus on getting a job!



Sunday, September 8, 2013

Singapore 2


 On the second full day we went up Bukit Timah Summit, the highest point in Singapore. My dad was very happy to announce that there is in fact a country where the highest point is lower than Holland's highest point. Although it was incredibly steep! Instead of taking the easy route, we took a path which was a bit more adventurous and went right though the rainforest. We saw some HUGE ants, about 3cm big. Creepy. We also saw some super cute monkeys! They were right at the start, literally hanging around. They got really close the to path and were obviously expecting some food. The rainforest was beautiful. It was an incredibly humid day, and the path had really steep, uneven stairs. I don't think I'd ever been that sweaty!! Once you get to the top, you're not rewarded with a beautiful viewing point, you're surrounded by trees! But it was definitely a great, exhausting, sweaty walk!

 After a lot of relaxation and swimming and cooling down, we went to Little India, which is hectic! There were men EVERYWHERE, just aimlessly wandering the streets. It was just packed with people so it was very hard to take photos. There were little stalls everywhere selling things, like these beautiful flower necklaces. It was great to walk around, but because it was in the evening, it was too busy. We ended up going back the following day and it was a bit quieter.
 We also went out for dinner in Little India. This was actually a proper restaurant - something we hadn't been to before in Singapore. The food wasn't served on a plate but on a banana leaf. There was so much food! The first thing I ate was super spicy, and for the rest of the meal that hot tingling burning feeling was with me. Nothing could cool it down! The food was absolutely amazing though, I think the photo only shows the starters. By the time all the food arrived, you couldn't see the table anymore.
 The next day Kevin and I just went out by ourselves. We decided to go back to China Town since we didn't see all of it the first time. It was a weekday now so a little bit emptier. I ended up buying some beautiful scarves and some nail polish for very very cheap. The singapore dollar is about twice as much as the pound, so $10 was only £5.
 China town is one of my favourite places in Singapore. It was really bright and colourful with lovely little shops everywhere selling everything! The food was also delicious.

We also went back to Little India, but unfortunately I didn't take any more photos there.

 After Little India we decided to go back to Marina Bay Sands, where the weird boat building is and the Merlion. It was a very different site during the day, but equally unbelievable. Towards the left of the photo you can see the clouds getting a bit grey, there were DARK grey clouds coming our way, so we went into a shopping centre to stay dry, but it ended up never raining! (It did rain massively before, but we were in the metro when that happened).


That evening we went to a seafood place. Duck is also considered seafood....! It was delicious, like all the other food we had! And as you can tell from the photo, we thoroughly enjoyed it.










On the last evening we went to the beach front. I didn't have my tripod with me to taking photos was very hard. This photo had an exposure of 1 second and I was able to hold it completely still. I'm very impressed with that! Anyway when you look out, you can just see a line of lights. You'd think it would be land, but it's just boats! It was the strangest thing.


Finally, here is a photo of Marine Bay during the day and night. It's a huge difference!! Much more glamorous at night. I really enjoyed singapore. I thought it was a million times better than Dubai and I'd LOVE to go back!! Even if it was just to taste the food. I was quite surprised because I didn't find it very expensive. Once you've got the (really easy) conversion rate it your head, you'll start to realise everything is very cheap. Especially in china town!!

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Singapore

Singapore is beautiful.

We arrived in Singapore on the 30th of August in the evening and stayed with some family friends. This is another place where you just have to get used to the fact you'll be sweaty... all the time. It's around 33 degrees, but the humidity is 74%! It feels extremely hot, and when the air conditioning is on 26 degrees celcius, it feels cool. Similar to Dubai, there is a huge difference between the inside air and outside air as most places have air conditioning on full blast. It starts off being really nice and cool, but quickly becomes too cold! Other than that, it's NOTHING like Dubai. Singapore is a lot more real. Dubai was very American and fake with lots of walk ways and construction sites.

On the first night we went to get some food in the Singapore equivalent of a pub. It looked a bit dodgy, and in England you'd never go to a place like that! So it was incredibly surprising that it was the most delicious food ever, I think it was called Prata's! That was the start of our food adventures.....


On the first full day we went to a food market. It was incredibly busy and extremely hot, so definitely something we had to get used to. The market sold all sorts of things: durians (extremely smelly fruit), fish balls, fish heads... just normal things.... We brought home some strange looking fruits, including dragon fruit, ramboutan, custard apple and mangosteen to try. It all looked a bit strange, but it tasted nice!











After a quick swim to cool down, we started our journey into the city centre. We first had some coconut soup with all sorts of stuff in it called Laksa. It was pretty spicy and had some random things in it, but it was very tasty. We also had some lime juice. Lime juice is a really popular drink in Singapore, and they seem to sell it everywhere, we've literally had it everywhere. Some places sell fresh lime juice, which is quite sour, whereas other places just sell lime cordial which is very sweet.

This was followed by a quick visit to an indian temple. You had to take off your shoes outside before you could enter, but the ground was BOILING hot, so the 5 steps from where you left your shoes and to temple entrance was painful.. The temple was beautiful, it was very colourful and had some very interesting things in it. We then went on to view St Andrews Chapel.

Next we walked past Boat Quay on our way to China Town. It was strange to see the contrast between the small little colourful houses and restaurants compared to the sky scrapers.


China town was one of my favourites places, and I actually ended up going there twice! It looks quite modern in the photo due to the roof, but if you look at the buildings on the edges of the photo, you can see the chinese architecture. It had lots of little shops selling all sorts of pretty things and also had some great food places. On my second trip to China Town I bought 2 beautiful scarves for $10 (£5ish) and some nail polishes. The food we had there was (again) AMAZING. We had a plate of honeyed pork and spring rolls. Yum.








After China Town we went back home to relax and cool down, before going back into the city to get some food and see some more things. We went to a place called Lau Pa Sat, which is kind of like a food market. The street had been blocked off for a seating area and this is where they have the best satay! It was amazing.. again. The food was delicious but the atmosphere made it even better. Since the sun was down, the temperate was also a lot more comfortable.



After that we went to Marine Bay. This is where the strange boat building is and the Singapore flyer (looks like the London Eye). We made it just in time for the light show! It was such an unrealistic site. I've seen so many photos of this building online, but never actually thought I'd see it myself! It's the strangest building I've ever seen. The light show was beautiful, I did take a video of it which I'll post over the next couple of days.

That's it for the first full day! We ate so much food and had so much lime juice! Tried so many different things! It was incredible.

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Dubai!

On the 27th of August, I left for Dubai with my boyfriend! I packed and repacked my suitcase a million times in order to take everything with me I needed (and not just what I wanted). We had an evening flight, so we arrived in Dubai nice and early... 7 am. The flight was amazing. We were on the Airbus 830, which I believe is the largest passenger plane. It was extremely luxurious. We had a lot of leg space, we each had our own screens, there was a ridiculous amount of movies and tv shows to watch, there were games you could play, the airplane had little star lights at the top, etc etc etc! It was amazing. The airplane also had 3 cameras, one at the tail, one at the wheels, and one at the front and throughout the whole flight you could check out the cameras to see what was going on. Obviously, it being a night flight there wasn't much to see other than landing and take off, but it was still really exciting. Unfortunately I only got 2 hours of sleep on the 7 hour plane journey so when we arrived at Dubai at 7 in the morning, I was exhausted. We weren't able to check into the hotel until 2,  so we dropped off our suitcases at the hotel and went to The Dubai Mall.

When we arrived it was "only" in the 30s, which super high humidity, but during the day it got up to 44 degrees celcius, again with super high humidity. When you walk outside the air feels hot and heavy and horrible. Luckily we hardly had to walk outside as there are enclosed bridges everywhere.

The Dubai mall is HUGE. It's the largest shopping and entertainment destination in the world. It has an aquarium and an olympic sized ice rink, amongst other things. But also millions of shops. Literally. It was an endless mall, we haven't even seen everything! It's a mixture of America and England. There were shops like Bath and Body Works, Victoria's Secret, Sephora, BHS, Debenhams, Boots etc etc etc.

As soon as we could, we went back to the hotel to check into our room. We were absolutely exhausted and a bit overwhelmed.

The next day we went back to the Dubai Mall again in the morning to get tickets for the Burj Khalifa (tallest building in the world), but the earliest tickets we could get were at 8pm! After getting the tickets we walked back to the metro and went to visit the Mall of Emirates. The metro ride was amazing. There isn't a driver, so we sat all the way at the end of the train so we could see out the back. We saw beautiful views of the Burj Khalifa, although it was incredibly hazy.

After the mall of emirates, we went to The Gold Souq. Dubai imports 500 tonnes of gold per year, and has an annual business excess of Dhs 25 billion. That's why Dubai is known as the City of Gold. We walked through the Gold Souq and it was incredibly overwhelming. There were people everywhere trying to sell you gold. The only shops there were selling gold. It was crazy.

At the end of the day we went back to the Dubai Mall to visit the Burj Khalifa. It's 828 metres tall and almost twice the height of the empire state building in New York. The lift went up 10 metres every second. It was an amazing view at the top, the photo below is of the Dubai Mall. You can see how gigantic it is!

Although I sound super excited about Dubai, it was a bit of a disappointment. I thought it was going to super glamorous and beautiful, but in reality it was a huge construction site. It was as if it wasn't finished. It was a great experience, but I don't think I'll be returning any time soon. On the 30th, super early in the morning, we flew to Singapore where we'll be spending 5 days. And on the 3rd we leave for Melbourne.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Motion Blur

I am still in love with motion blur photography and did quite a bit of that in The Netherlands. I started taking some photographs at the three country point (3 landen punt) and fell in love with them. I was shooting digital and without a tripod, so the images look very different from my large format photographs.

These three images are just a few of my favourites from the day. They are all completely different and I don't think they would work as a set. The top left photo was taken at about 4 in the afternoon when the sun was still up in the sky. I honestly don't know how it got this beautiful boukeh effect, but I think that's the reason the photograph works. The top right was taken as the sun was setting. It shone through the trees and I shot right at it. It created these intensely bright lines that contrasted with the darkness of the surrounding trees. The colours in other photographs taken in this area were a lot more vibrant, but I liked the fact that the sunlight almost looks like a fire. The bottom left photo was taken away from the sun in a much more densely packed area. I didn't focus on the tops of the trees (emphasising the green), but I looked more at the trunks of the threes and how the sunlight hit that to create different colours. I'm absolutely in love with this photo. I think it's very unique and different from the others.

A few days later, I visited a small village in Germany called Monchau. It was a very nice little place and I took some more motion blur photographs there. The photo I took were completely different to anything I'd done before; they were of buildings. The photo to the right is my favourite, although every one else who I have spoken to prefer the two photos below. The photo to the right is taken of the front of one of the houses. The black panelling creates vey interested shapes and makes the photo look a bit haunting. Although the lines on the building itself aren't completely straight, the line at the edge of the building is dead straight. It almost makes it look like it's framed, or that there are two photographs next to each other. It's a very abrupt end.

 These two photos are a lot more vibrant. The village had lots of flags everyone, the sky was completely blue and there was a lot of green from the trees. This created a huge contrast with the black and white of the houses. The first of the two photos is a bit more identifiable, than the second, however it's just blurred enough to still be confusing. Because I used a slower shutter speed, there isn't as much movement and it has made the colours a lot more visible. The second photo was a much longer shutter speed and thus the colours look a bit washed out.
 I'm really impressed with these images from Monchau. I never expected motion blur images to work this well of buildings. I guess I was a bit stuck in my tree photos! I'd like to continue this style of photography when I'm in Australia as it's very unique and different. It's a lot of experimentation though, especially without a tripod!!


Thursday, August 8, 2013

Update!!

It's been a ridiculously long time since I last blogged. July has been a hectic month. It started with me quitting my job at Subway and moving out of my flat in Portsmouth. Soon after that my brother came to visit from America. After that it was my 21st birthday and my graduation!! That was followed by my boyfriend's graduation and immediately after (the day after) driving to Belgium, spending the night in a chateau, and then driving to Holland. Only to continue the hecticness and celebrate my parent's 25th wedding anniversary and my grandparent's 50th! We spent some time at the "3 landed punt" (three country point) where Holland, Germany and Belgium touch. We then celebrated my brothers 23rd birthday, drove back to the UK and now I'm spending some time with my boyfriend's family before we leave for Australia. Phew. Crazy!

The first thing photography wise that happened is my time-lapse! In my previous post I mentioned some scenes from my Portsmouth time-lapse video and I finished it soon after. I absolutely loved creating the time lapse and was overwhelmed by the response. It was like my dissertation coming alive! It reached 1000 views within a week. It's now stalling at 1600 views. It got mentioned on the University of Portsmouth Alumni Association on Facebook and later got featured on Strong Island. After that it was picked up by "Shaping the Future of Portsmouth" who also featured it on their website.



After that I graduated!! I'm super happy with the marks I got, I would have obviously wanted to graduate with a first, but I did get at least one first in every single unit.

I'm also not sure if I've mentioned this before on my blog, but I sold some work! After the Eldon exhibition, way back in May, I was contacted by someone from the University interested in my work. I got contacted by three different people, but only one ended up buying my work. They were interested in my 7591 Miles project, and asked about prices. It was really difficult to come up with a reasonable price, because I spent SO MUCH money on it, and did want to make a profit. I gave the buyer some options and they ended up wanted to get it in A2 and mounted on MDF instead of diabond. I got it printed in Brighton, so had some more lovely day trips to there, and gave it to them the day before I moved out of Portsmouth. I'm so happy to have received such an amazing response to my photos! It's really boosted my confidence and I'm excited to continue in this style of photography.

Monday, July 1, 2013

Portsmouth Time Lapse

Over the past month or so I've been wanting to do a time lapse of Portsmouth. I was inspired by Will Rudman's 24 hours in Portsmouth video which he created in the winter time. As we were editing our Portsmouth show time lapse we had a chat about it and now I finally got round to starting it! I've been going around Portsmouth for the past couple of days taking time lapses as well as videos and putting them all together in Windows Movie Maker. I don't really recommend using windows movie maker if you're using more that 3 files..... it's constantly freezing and muting the sound..... not ideal!! But anyway, with a lot of patience and restarting laptops etc it's ok.

I started off shooting at Southsea Common, near the beach. It was an absolutely beautiful day, and just busy enough to make the time lapse interesting. I positioned the camera so that you look straight down a path leading to the sea. There is also a lovely dog in the photo. I stayed in this location for about 5 minutes and took a photo about every 10 seconds.

I next strolled to the actual common and war monument. It's a huge field and I really wanted to show that in the time lapse. Since it was such a great day, there were quite a few people walking their dogs and having a bbq. There is a lot of movement in this scene, there was one moment where a whole load of birds went crazy, but unfortunately that was only captured in two photos so you can't really see it in the time lapse.
After that I went to the sea front. It was quite busy, so finding a spot where people wouldn't be in the scene was difficult. There were a lot of little sail boats everything as well as the huge ferries. The photo to the right shows a little sail boat that stood out against all the blue and white. It went ultra slow, and is then very quickly overtaken by a ferry! It's hard to explain but it looks great in the time lapse, I promise!
I then strolled to Albert Road. Not much was happening at the time, so I mainly took videos instead of time lapses. I did take this time lapse looking straight at the King's theatre. It reminds me of the framing of the first scene, with a road leading the eye toward the middle of the photo. I also like how on the top right you can see the sign "Albert Road".



This is a scene from quite while ago when I started the Portsmouth project. It's a scene from outside the bedroom window. It sounds a bit lazy... but I love it! In the time lapse you can see the shadow on the building to the left slowly rising. It looks really interesting. In the background you can also see a few ferries come by.
Towards the evening I went to the historic dockyard and took some really beautiful shots there. This first one is of the back of the spinnaker, a view that isn't as stereotypical. The sky is starting to turn a bit pinky/purpley which looks really nice. In the foreground there are some boats, which adds to the whole Portsmouth is an island concept and just behind that is Portsmouth Harbour station.

This shot is taken from the same location as the previous photo, but turned into a different direction. The pink sky is incredibly throughout this whole time lapse scene. I actually shortened the time lapse of the spinnaker because of the pink sky, but also because I love the way boats look on time lapse videos! I like the contrast between the little boats and the HMS Warrior. You can also see the little ferry going back and forth between Portsmouth and Gosport. This is definitely one of my favourite scenes.
I completely forgot to add this in. I also went to the Guildhall (obvious). I despise the fact that straight across from the Guildhall is a statue of Queen Elizabeth, and I'm sure any photographer would agree with me. Because of that statue, you can't take a front on geometric photo of the Guildhall! Anyway, I ended up taking a video there instead of a time lapse. A few people came up to me and posed for the camera, unfortunately that won't be part of the time lapse...

Lastly, another shot at the Historic Dockyard. This was complete luck. I left the flat at about 8.45 because we googled the sun would set at 9.21. When we got to the dockyard it was about 9 and the sun was quickly setting. I was lucky enough to get quite a long time lapse of the sun sinking behind the HMS Warrior. This shot is about halfway through in the time lapse. During this time lapse a huge ferry went by as well, which looks quite interesting, the whole new vs old thing.

Obviously I only added the stills from the time lapse in this post, but I did create a lot of videos as well. I really like the idea of combining still images with moving images, it brings the video alive. I will be doing some more shooting tomorrow. I will be going to Commercial Road, maybe down to the southsea shops and Gunwharf. Gunwharf has actually got a no photography rule..... which is a bit stupid.... but I'll have to go hide my camera somewhere so I won't get caught!!

Thursday, June 27, 2013

52 Week Photo Challenge Catch Up 2

I know it's all a bit late again, but better late than never! Since I have finished my course it's been pretty busy..ish. Firstly, I sold my work!! After the show I was contacted by someone who was interested in buying my work, so I met up with them to discuss prices etc and have been in contact with them for quite a while via email, and they are officially buying my work! I went to Brighton today to get my photos reprinted! It's super exciting! Other than that I've slowly started packing, I'll be leaving Portsmouth on the 6th of July and will be going back home for (less than) 2 months before going to AUSTRALIA!!

Anyway, back to the whole point of the post: the weekly photo challenges. The theme of week 24 was "colourful" and although this theme sounds pretty easy, I wasn't really inspired by anything! I couldn't find anything colourful in Portsmouth but didn't want to do something too cheesy. Something completely different - during this week I decided to create a Portsmouth time lapse and had been testing out quite a few different techniques, one of which was using the actual filming button on my camera and secondly trying to slowly blur the images in a time lapse. After going through the photos I decided that that would be the perfect photo for colourful! It was my second attempt at the "bokeh" style of photography, which I also used sometime in January. This one looks a million times better! The whole time lapse of Portsmouth bit will make a lot more sense later at some point, I'm basically creating a time lapse of my last 2 months in England, so it'll feature some bits of Portsmouth, Woking and hopefully London.

The following week was "Angle" and again I struggled quite a bit with this theme. I again wasn't too inspired (which I should be after just having finished a photography degree!!) In fact, I was so uninspired that I only took the photo today! Half way through week 26!! I spent the day in Brighton today since I had to reprint my photos at The Vault (lovely little place), and while I was there I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to catch up on my weekly photo challenges. The first thing I thought of when I saw the theme was taking a photo from a weird angle, like really high or really low, however as everyone else started uploading their photos, I noticed they looked at angles of a house or a building. I really liked that idea as I like architectural/interior photography. I thought the burnt down pier in Brighton would be perfect. It kind of goes back to the style of photography I love, the deadpan, straight lines geometric style of photography - something that I would have thought about when I read angle... geometric. Anyway I love how the photo turned out. I also quite like how everything is straight, except for the line of the sea.

Finally I'm up to date again, this week is week 26, which crazily enough is half way through the year!? What!?? This week's theme is "Game" and when I saw this I was shocked. I have never taken a photo of a game.... what on earth can I do!?? But since I was going to Brighton, I decided to stick with the idea of the pier, and walked over to the non burnt down pier. On the way there I walked past some of those typical fun fair type of games, so thought it would be perfect! I really like how the photo has turned out, it's so vibrant and happy! I like how the background is slightly blurred and you can see the fun fair continuing. I would have loved it if I used my 50mm 1.8 lens as it would have blurred the background even more, unfortunately I didn't have that one with me.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

52 Week Photo Challenge Catch Up!

 So I need to do a lot of catching up.... Firstly week 19 seat. And I have to admit, this is a rubbish photo. So rubbish that I didn't put it on facebook and was very reluctant to put it up on my blog. However, you can't have a 52 week photo challenge without week 19! This week was a particularly busy week and I was so late with it, that I just quickly snapped a photo of the Guildhall on my phone. The theme was Seat so it looks as the people sitting on the Guildhall, and comparing it to my photo from week 17 'Steps' where the Guildhall was completely empty. So it was a good idea, just rubbish execution!
 Week 20's theme was Sweets, and for this I wanted to do something fun and original. I decided to make chocolate covered strawberries! I'd never made them before, bur they turned out really nice! I used a very low aperture so that I could get a really nice blurry effect, where only one of the strawberries is in focus. I love how vibrant the red ended up being against the bright green and the more pastel pink. The background works with it very nicely too as it's a very girly and pretty polkadot pattern. Definitely very sweet!
 The theme of week 21 was Dwelling, so as I was planning to go to my parent's house, I decided to take a photograph of the house. Again, I wanted to do something a bit more special so took a photo in this mirrored decoration ball. I sat right in front of the house and zoomed in quite a bit so that my reflection wouldn't be seen in the photograph. I like how the object is in the shade, whereas the house is in the sun. Again a great contrast between the green of the grass and the blue of the sky.
 The next theme was Letter. Wanting to do something special I decided to photograph the letters of my name around the house. Again not my favourite photo as it was quite rushed. I've been busy!!!
This is probably one of my favourites to create. It's week 23 Self Portrait. I was going through the self portrait photos by everyone else, and it seemed to be a common theme where everyone was still hiding behind their cameras! I really liked the idea of creating an anonymous self portrait so decided to play with lights. I used a 15 second exposure and drew a stick figure. If you look closely you can see me standing behind it. I'm really pleased with how it turned out and will definitely be trying more of these photos!!

Now I'm all up to date!!! The theme of this week is colourful, so I'm very excited to get started with that!