Still Plodding On!

Well College is well underway and there is so much to do.

That is all........

Slacker is Back

Good Afternoon my fellow bloggers and Vicki's new Buddy Alan! Hi!

Well what a boring summer it has been. I must admit there has been some awesome moments of fun (like camping in my back garden) but when most friends work full time and I am at home with the Dog you do start to go a bit crazy - it is surprising how dinlo one can really go. But the slacker is back with the help of a very nice Macbook Pro - it is most definitely love.

I had all intentions of planning out a whole new project and making the most of the time off, but after having a break and clearing my head of all FDeg stuff, I never got back into the swing of things and I am ashamed to say that my poor RZ has been sat in the bedroom all summer. I have taken some photos but nothing great, just the usual snap shots and fun times but I am really looking forward to getting back to college and getting in the darkroom to make some big prints.

I am hoping that the blog is going to be my friend this year and that I am going to to be updating like there is no tomorrow. I know that this is going to be stressful year and that there is a lot of work involved. I always go in with the same attitude of - I can get it done, I always do. Yes it is true, but i want to be able to be working hard all year and achieve the best grade possible, I am sure I will occasionally be doing the final little bits to the early hours but I want to be able to spread the work out. My biggest fear (sound like Andy) is not having the strongest of projects and having to talk about it to the board. My projects always become stronger towards the end so I need to go to the induction day on Thursday with a few possible ideas that I think will work - but i am finding it so difficult to decide on what I want to do. I know that there is a part of me that would have loved to have done still life - but I feel that being my final year at college is the perfect opportunity for me t0 take on a great Documentary project - God I am going to find it hard to stay away from shallow Depth of Field. There will always be work out their for Still Life and once college is complete and I have done some travelling that is when I will go live in a Studio!

I have a couple of possible ideas that I would like to work on but I think I need to talk to Ian and before i do that I must try and get some research and answer the question of why?!

"It's the end of the Road"

Well the time has come to bid farewell, it's been emotional my friends!

Live Long and Prosper

Final Presentation!

As the project has nearly come to a close I decided to make a book instead of normal prints. I chose to get my book printed at photobox.com and I have never used it before but the results from others have always been positive.

I should recieve it within the next couple of days and may take a couple of photos to upload or just wait to show you all next week!

Now I must complete the written work that I have left to do!!

Final Images?

Well as you all know I have had a few problems with this project but I know feel as though it is all starting to come together.

I went through all my images from the start of the project and selected a few that may work well together. I then adjusted the brightness and contrast in photoshop as they were all looking a bit dull. I started to play with the colour balance but that was taking it a step too far.

I may need to go out a do one final shoot but I am hoping that I have enough photographs for the final body of work.



They are not in a final order and I uploaded them as a contact print because it was easier to do so. Some of the colours are better and I have tried to mix them up a bit. But maybe it is still a tad too green?! Or will it not look so green once in a portfolio box - or little postcards?!

Still soo much to do!!

I have run out of goodbyes?

Well here I go again!

To begin with on a positive note I have printed Calvin's portraits at A2 so that is one thing I can cross off my to do list. After all the hassle of scanning them in - although it was interesting to learn more about the curves, colour balance, histogram etc - and to bring the exposure back from nothing was an achievment - that took 1 and a half days. Yesterday I thought I would be able to print after doing a little bit of clean up with the images - how wrong I was. FIVE HOURS - yes FIVE HOURS LATER - I had finally finished cleaning and "healing" 3 portraits. They were covered in dust and that was with cleaning them before they went into the scanner. Once I had sorted them out today we discussed printing them sepereately so they were more life size - like Rachael printed hers - but Calving decided they would look good enough on one A2 sheet. I also managed to print them smaller - so that is something else I do not have to worry about.

Now we head to the negatives. I picked my negs up from 20/20 today and they are as I thought they would be - not very good. I dont look at these and think wow - like I do when I have looked at others Holga work. All of my images seem to be very flat and dull - oh and very green. That was my problem as I found it easier to travel to the woods - where there were not many distractions but obviously it is very green - so I did try a few shots in the Urban Landscape. I then had a camera problem - because the strap fell off and back opened clightly - so exposed the film to light! Looking at some of them I could probably scrape together 10 seperate images for this part of the project - but I just feel that i have not pushed myself enough with the technique. I am going to try and play with some of them in Photoshop and up the contrast and play with the colour balance to see if there is any improvement.

Now lets see if these will go big?!

If the edits do not work out too well - I may need to think about changing the idea. Very late in the project I know - whatever I do will either have to be digital or black and white. Only idea I have floating around at the moment is working with flash blur? Getting people to move all over the place - mainly focusing on different style portraits but still incorporating the flash technique.

We'll meet again!

Not much to say!

The blogging bug has finally come back to me - but is it too late.
Went out frantically shooting the other day and I am going to pick up my films tomorrow so I am hoping for the best. As I had mentioned previously - it was either colourful or electrical and I went for electrical in the end because the majority of colourful objects I had were mainly candle holders - so could have got a bit repetitive - although I did get a few funny looks when I was carrying a hoover across the common and laying on the floor next to it?!