My Photo Series for The Big Spring Beach Clean

As part of my photography degree we were assigned a project where we had to create a series of documentary photographs that looked at the theme of Social Concern. As I am a member of the environmental charity, Surfers Against Sewage, I thought it would be the best idea to photograph one of their campaigns because the issues they battle against are very concerning for myself. After researching through their campaigns and events I found out that they would be hosting a beach clean local to me, so I got in touch and asked to photograph the event. They gave me the all-clear and these are the images that I got!

It was such a cold and windy day so it was amazing to see so many people come out to help when they could've been tucked up inside with a cuppa! It was great fun, and I'm glad we were able to clean up the beach so much! 

The Big Spring Beach Clean

So over the weekend I had the honour of photographing an event called The Big Spring Beach Clean which was run by a charity called Surfers Against Sewage. It was so much fun to participate and it was so heart-warming to see all these different kinds of people come out to help considering it was cold and windy!

I will have approximately 8 to 12 images that will form a documentary series and I'm hoping to get the majority of them edited tomorrow so you guys will be able to see them either Tuesday or Wednesday depending on how it goes! Wish me luck with my editing haha.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend, whatever the weather!

More Food Photography!

I've been playing around with some more compositions for food photography lately, my gosh its so fun!  The first photo is of a cozy chai latte smothered with marshmallows with a side of dunking biscuits and the second photo is somewhat of a template for me to use in future when photographing a main meal.

Next I want to either photograph a main meal of some kind or maybe some cute macaroons. 

Wordless Wednesday

[Test shot of some gypsophila for my Personal Best Project]

First Food Photo Shoot!

I finally got round to doing a bit of food photography thanks to a friend of mine who is starting her own home-based cake baking business! We made a deal where I could practice doing my food photography on her cakes/cupcakes, then we could both use the images and she threw in a box of cupcakes like the one above into the deal too! So here is my first shot, I stuck with very simple styling so it wouldn't distract your full attention from the cupcake and I went for a three quarters angle because then you could see all of the cupcake, the small bowl of buttons and glass of milk. I used the natural lighting coming in from the nearby window and used some white foamboard to bounce the light onto some of the harsher shadows to create a soft look. 

Any constructive criticism would be amazing, thank you!

Project "Companions" - First Shoot

Evaluation of Negatives

Upon investigation, I can see that the first shot I have composed may not work. These run from frames 1to 3. First of all, the double exposure looks a bit too messy to clean up digitally; I can't reproduce the double exposure digitally using the the two other frames because I must've accidentally cut off a section of the first frame while loading the film into the development tank, since it isn't as tall as the other frames. I now know to be more careful while unloading film.

Frames 4 to 6 seem fairly useable thankfully. The double exposure isn't too messy so it could be retouched digitally , but if it proves difficult I have two other photos to combine digitally. Next time I shoot double exposures I will borrow the tungsten lighting from the college, so I can use a higher shutter speed and reduce the amount of model movement between the frames.

Frames 7 to 9 are workable, for some reason the double exposure appears to have motion blur but I can't recall moving or bumping the camera. The two other photos are very useable and should combine easily in photoshop.

Frames 10 to 12 are also workable. The double exposure seems a little untidy but some retouching should improve it. I won't be able to combine frames 10 and 12 because the difference between the model's posture in each is drastically different.

I also shot frames 13 to 15' but these are just three different single exposures. I was taking the shots to finish my roll of film but I actually really like them, I think they show lots of character and represents the relationship between the model quite well as she was allowed to do whatever she wanted. I have scanned them and will work into them then put them into my workbook as experimentation.

Three Completed Shots from the Shoot

Projects "Companions" - Digital Experimentation

Had another play around with my camera this week, trying to look at composition, a bit of lighting and working on my professionalism with trying to maintain the cat's interest and keep her still for photos.

I quite like the composition of this image but to move forward with this project I'm deciding to step back and have somebody else interact with the cat(s) so I can get some background into the images. I used mostly natural lighting and indoor lights to light the shot but I feel it would benefit from being lit with my studio lights and playing with a bit of tungsten lighting to create a more natural looking light source. When photographing another subject with the cat(s) I will make sure that I have some cat treats on hand so the cat focuses on them rather than me and it will keep their attention very well, and may allow me to get some really candid shots!

Project "Companions" - Digital Experimentation

I'm thinking of exploring the relationship between cats and their owners so these are the first two images I have created. These photos are of my cat, Mia, getting chin-rubs from me and just looking up at me. I quite enjoyed taking photos of her and I feel like our bond has strengthened from it. In future I will implement a good light source so my images aren't so blurred from slow shutter speeds. I also want to try being in the photos with her by using a remote trigger to take the photo, I think that the visual representation of our relationship will be a lot stronger and clearer that way. I also want to start taking images of my sister and her cat and perhaps then my mum and her cat, so I can see if there are any differences in our relationships.

"Personal Best" Project - Some New Images

Some images that I took this morning where I am looking at alternative self-portraits, focusing more on emotions rather than appearances.

I think I would like to start a project to focus on the changes of my body through losing weight and trying to find the weight I will be happiest at. For example, after losing a stone in weight I have instead gained these stretch marks which I used to hate, but now I'm trying to change my opinion of them by looking at them in a different way. I think I will reshoot my stretch mark image as I want to have more detail in the image, to accomplish this I will use more lighting so I can use a f-stop of 8 or similar so all of my skin is in focus but the background blurs nicely.

The Beginnings of my "Companions" Projects

For this new project, we are visually exploring and representing relationships. These relationships can be between humans and animals, familial bonds, professional scenarios, social and romantic partnerships. Our challenge is to capture and represent the relationship between the subjects to make the message clear and visual.

Here are some images I have collected that will go on to inspire and support my new body of work:

*If you spot your image above and it is not credited accordingly then leave me a message so I can fix it for you. Many thanks!

Goodbye "Making Strange!"

Well, the "Making Strange" project is all done and dusted now. Here are my final images and my evaluation for the whole project!

"

Evaluation

I am quite happy with how eye-catching my final prints are. I think this is because I used a mixture of darkroom printed images and hand-drawn elements which are not typical of photography degree work. I have also noticed that I have significantly improved my ability to step back periodically and evaluate recent tasks. I usually struggle with gathering my thoughts and putting them onto paper but because I made a personal goal to work on this attribute, I believe I have made a special effort to do so and I hope to continue this through my future projects.

Unfortunately, I do not believe my final prints are of professional standard, which saddens me. I think this is because I lack knowledge and a lot of skill in darkroom practices as I have only done similar work once before. I know for a fact that if this was a digital project rather than an analog one, that I would be so much happier with my final prints and they would be more visually effective because the majority of my photographic knowledge and skill lies in using a DSLR and Adobe Photoshop. On another note, I don’t think I spent enough time in the research and ideas process, therefore I didn’t find or was inspired to create a sound project idea. Because of this, my project changed at least three times as I was adapting to analog limitations and generally not finding past projects exciting enough to proceed with.

The visual effectiveness of my final prints is heavily affected by my skill with a new film camera. I have not yet managed to focus an image with it so it becomes tack-sharp, therefore all my prints have a slight soft-focus look to them. Although I do like the appearance of soft-focusing, I don’t think it fits with the idea of my project. I do however quite like the contrast between photographic image and pen-drawn elements, and I find their visual effectiveness quite striking.

Ideally, I would’ve liked the mask of lines to be part of the darkroom process, but I lack the knowledge on how to communicate this idea effectively with darkroom tools. If I were to do this project again, I would research into methods where I could gain crisp black lines on the photo paper without scratching lines into the negatives or other destructive methods. In my next project I am going to set another personal goal to make an extra effort to go out more often to shoot and trying to record as many ideas as possible. This way I believe my next project will be of a lot higher standard.

From my Making Strange project I have learnt an abundance of darkroom techniques which although are only basic, they are a firm base for me to expand my knowledge on with the next project. I have also learnt that the work process for an analog project is different to that of a digital one. I believe this is because analog projects are limited by the cost of resources and the amount of resources too, whereas digital projects work best when you make use of the seemingly endless memory card storage and digital experimentation in photoshop. The most important thing I have learnt is the sheer importance of the brainstorming/research phase at the beginning of a project. I rushed into this one excitedly, thus making the rookie mistake of not building a strong enough knowledge base for my ideas to build upon. I will definitely remember this throughout my future projects and will make an extra effort to do this thoroughly.

                            " 

Project "Making Strange" - Negative Sandwiching

Recently I have been entranced with the images produced through the process of negative sandwiching, which is where you overlap two or more negatives to create a whole new image. I would very much like to try this process with my own images so I have gone and shot a film of self-portraits and then I will go out and shoot a film of interesting backgrounds that would compliment. 

*The images above are not my own, you will find their sources if you click on the respective image. 

Project "Making Strange" - Character Profile

Maeryn. 

A celtic name meaning "bitterness". This is a reference to my own celtic name and heritage.

She is an alternative reflection of me. She wears a mask because she has no identity, she is me.. but she can't be me, while I am being me.

She is like a vardøger from scandinavian folklore.

"...where a spirit with the subject's footsteps, voice, scent, or appearance and overall demeanor precedes them in a location or activity, resulting in witnesses believing they've seen or heard the actual person, before the person physically arrives." - Vardøger, Wikipedia 

She started appearing within the last two to three years, while I've been coping with my late teenage years. She may have been around for a lot longer than that in essence but that is when her physicality began.

She doesn't do anything but stand and stare, usually appearing before I have to make a big choice in my life.

*This shares some similarities  with the film "Black Swan". Although, I do not like that film, I think I will try to watch it to try and gain more ideas.

Project "Making Strange" - Lynn Hershman

I really like Lynn Hershman's "Phantom Limb" series (two first images). I believe it links into my research and my "Making Strange" project well, also it is a good example of how other photographers choose to explore identities. Although the images I have seen do not contain masks, there still is the fact that their faces are obscured. In this way, their identities are unknown but we are given an impression of their personalities by the choice of objects featured.

 I am particularly fond of Hershman's creation of "Roberta Breitmore" and I look forward into researching how Hershman has depicted a whole new character/alter-ego.

"Roberta Breitmore" was a fictional character created by Hershman as a private performance piece. Breitmore was so well developed as a character that she had her own mannerisms, handwriting, psychiatrist, credit cards and even an apartment. (The last image is a construction chart of Roberta Breitmore as she was being created by Hershamn.)