Mission Statement

     Currently I am studying Photography, on a BTEC National Diploma course in Cronton Sixth Form College.. the course covers a wide aspect of photography focusing in many areas. I started the course with minimal knowledge of photography but I am now starting to develop a very good knowledge of the subject as currently my end of course predicted grade is DDD, which the the highest mark for the course. Furthermore, as well as the photography course I am also a licensed tattooist within a local and well established studio called LA Tattoo Studio 2 in St. Helens, although my position in the studio is still as the apprentice. Please see the provided link to view the studio. http://www.facebook.com/groups/187480787978806/
     Outside of college my interests and motivations are still based around photography, as I like to pursue this interest outside of college and take photographs for my own pleasure based on many different things from documentary to directed. Also, tattooing is one of my main passions, and I am grateful for the opportunity to have started my career in this area. Closely linked to this subject, is my enjoyment and ability for drawing as it is an important aspect for tattooing. Currently, everything I am currently involved with/ working on both in and outside of college, directly links to my future aspirations.
     Next year, once my college course as finished, my main progression will be on my tattooing career as I have already started this and once I finish college it will become a full-time/ permanent job. I have opted not to go to university, as I have no interest in further education or the expenses. Especially considering I already have one of my dream jobs up and running. Although, once I finish college, I am still unsure what my photography future will consist of, although I will continue the subject through my own interest and continue to offer my services to people that I know until I am ready to take the next step with it.
     My long-term career goals consist of furthering my tattooing and photography ability as far as I can, as well as traveling around the world doing both tattooing and photography. Although, eventually I think it would be nice to open my own tattooing and photography studio where I can do both, however this is a far of ambition.
     I will use this blog primarily for my photography. I will use it to showcase my work both from college and personal projects, as well as updates on my photography career.

New Format... Test

This is an idea for a new layout, for when I post images to be included in a post. Rather than have them individually posted so that you have to scroll down, it would be a lot more aesthetic and easier if you could view a slideshow of the images and  have the possibility to view them separately from the entire gallery link. therefore, if someone wanted to see more of a particular style or type of photography, then they could simply follow the link on the gallery page. 

Anyway, here is a sample of how the slideshow will look and work, please note that the images I have used for this example are not new and have already been posted... I hope that you like it...

Surrealism becomes hard reality

For the first time, since I started my photography course I actually failed to pass a brief... solely for the fact that I never handed it in because I had not completed it... I simply ran in to too many problems and out of time and I was not able to quickly get over each problem.

Unfortunately, most of the blame is my own... I was unable to move on from the challenges of this brief quickly or at all, I let each problem drag me down until in the final week, I just gave up through disappointment. Which now, was the complete wrong thing to do... instead of getting dragged down by the problems, I should have learnt from them and quickly moved on rather than kicking my feet for a couple of days, but coming from a not so good project, I was determined to make this one work and act like my come back, however this was not to happen as at the first signs trouble, I jumped ship.

In this brief I ran into quite a few problems... firstly was my own mind, as the project was set on surrealism, therefore we could basically to anything, and I took to long to settle on a idea as the spectrum was just too wide for my narrow vision. Then I went through a few ideas before choosing my final one, only discarding each idea because it was too cliche. Instead of taking so long, I should have focused a lot more early on to nail down the idea that I would use.

Next, was the artist research and I just did not know how to present it or how many to research... in the end this took me three to four weeks to complete (the project was six weeks long) although, through this I managed to understand what I should do in future briefs for research as I quite enjoyed presenting the research in this project. 

After the research, came to mind maps and development of my initial ideas... this actually went well, this was during the week where my mind was at ease and thinking straight. I was easily able to develop my ideas into effective images, which I thought would be great and as a result got very excited about the end results... unfortunately possibly a little too excited as this is where I made the mistake of setting "my heart" on the way that the project would continue.

There after, it came down to the test shots, I only had three and five ideas wrote up in my proposal and generally in my mind, as I did not know what my last two images should be, however I continued with the three ideas I had... All of my images would be location shoots as the location was extremely important to the image and the location would give the image the atmosphere and stage for the viewers to interpret the image in the way that I wanted. Therefore, I researched local location, and I found the perfect locations, in my mind, and all within walking distance give or take an hour or two. Everything seemed to be going well, I had the idea, the location and my friends had agreed to help and be my subjects... perfect, I was back with a vengeance with this project... or so I thought. 

Roll on the night of the test shots, I am all there at the meeting place and who should be there but... only me... no one turns up, I contact them... no answer. We re-arrange... again, no one turns up. This continued three times, until I gave in and settled for a different location, again no one shows.

So test shots already a week late with two weeks left, I had to completely change the location and subjects, to my girlfriend locate around the corner from her house.

However, the shots did not even turn out the way I wanted, the basic digital camera that I had at the time was not good enough, it was not able to cope with night time photography and therefore the images turned out terrible... over the next week I continued to try to get my test shots, whilst continuing the rest of the project, however, due date... still only half of my test shots, not much that I could have done.

Although, I have learnt that I must not rely on people as much as I did in that project, also when things go wrong, I should get over them as quickly as possible without kick and screaming... as I know I am capable of creating effective solutions. Furthermore, as in the last week I effectively gave up, this was wrong and I really shouldn't of done that and I now know that, that was the wrong thing to do and I can ensure you that it will not happen again.
Luckily, I am able to go back to this project and not only finish it but make sure that it is as good as possible, only this time I will do things differently... firstly, I am going to refine my theme and influence through a selective mood board, then I will just experiment through images an try to be as fluent as possible... thus is all I have planned so far, the next step after this is yet to be seen as I react accordingly to how it goes and the results I get... all i know for sure, is that this time I will not fail again.

Film Exploration

The last day of term, I have recently got my new (yet old) film camera, and yet had not properly tried it out, a college class friend and a friend from another college who also studies photography, where on their way to a local graveyard, for my friends project and asked if I wanted to join... of course I would not pass up the opportunity to explore my new camera.

Basically, it was me, my new camera and a full roll of film left in a graveyard, to explore at my own will... it was fantastic and I really enjoyed myself. I had no brief to work against, just what ever I felt would make a good image. Also, I found the graveyard to be quite a great place to take pictures especially with a black and white film camera which basically pre set the atmosphere for me... yet the images and atmosphere just fit together and work really well. 

I just strolled at my own place, looking for interesting angle, points of view, graves, statues, etc

I must of spent about two and half to three hours just wondering through the graveyard with my camera and I had an excellent time and I am really pleased with the results...

Macro Photography

For my brief, of which is based on landscapes and nature, I thought an interesting experiment/technique for which I should try, is Macro Photography, as I believe it will be something a little bit different. For these images, I use a macro lens adapter, which is 10x magnified. The subjects, in relation to my brief where natural, most of the subjects are objects from which I brought from home, to specifically use with the macro lens. For most of the images I used the light box instead of the studio, however for some of the images I was outside with natural light. Before I started, I quickly researched images of macro photography, looking at no one in particular but to just get a feel for the typical style of which I want to avoid. After, a few shots I become very comfortable with the lens adapter and my own style of macro photography, therefore as I already found a shutter speed and aperture of which gave me correctly exposed images there was not much to alter. However, I found that by changing the white balance, it changed the whole colour and atmosphere of the image, and therefore giving it a completely different feel. Also, as I had not previously altered the white balance, this gave me a good opportunity to become accustomed to these settings and a good chance to experiment with it. 

I mainly used the pre-setting options of Incandescent, Direct Sunlight, Cloudy and Florescent White Balance. Each setting had a different outcome...

The effects that I prefer the most are Incandescent and Florescent, which are the majority of my final images...

Studio Photography

The next project that we have done, was based on studio work, therefore we had to create eight final shots all within the studio, to a professional quality. However, it was not quite as simple as this as for the entire project, we had to work with a partner... which isn't as easy as it seems. The aim was that each pair, would work together and ideally complete their work with a similar theme and look, however due to a difficult partnership with my partner, we opted for completely different style's as I went for the low key, dark and moody effect apposed to my partners high key, light effect.

Furthermore, for this project we worked with media make up students, which was a fantastic experience and learning process, as it gave me the chance to witness how the make up was applied as well as giving me the opportunity to work with other people, who have control over how he subjects/ images look, therefore it forced me to work with other people and discuss the outcomes rather than doing it all my way, which was very useful and something I definitely need to be able to do, if I want to become a photographer as a career path. 

The theme for the brief, was Aliens, again which was really good fun and made the studio work a lot more interesting as it wasn't a basic portrait shoot but it had a bit of difference, therefore making it more enjoyable for both myself and the media make up students. 

As previously stated, my theme for this shoot was low key lighting, to create an intense, dark and unsettling atmosphere as I really wanted to portray the subjects as non-human and slightly dangerous. Also, with the fantastic quality of the make up of the subjects, I really wanted to follow through the quality and I believe that the low key lighting creates a quality image without any loss of atmosphere, which for me is an essential part of any image and how it will be portrayed. 

I really enjoyed this photo shoot, as it gave me the chance to really explore lighting options and effects, both low and high key, although I do prefer low key as for me it creates a deeper and darker atmosphere which was extremely fun to replicate in the photo shoot as I think it works very well. Also I really enjoyed trying out different effects to achieve different atmospheres, and seeing how an image is portrayed differently due to the atmosphere..

Below are my eight final shots for this project...

Selective Process

     From my previous post on Careers, I researched many different areas of photography, however only a few actually interested me as a career path. Therefore as a selection process, I have chosen the different areas of photography that appeal to me, as something of which I would be interested in, to continue as part of my career. These areas include;

Fashion, Glamour, Advertising, Fine Art, Nature, Landscape, Travel, Nude, Macro, Photojournalism and Documentary.

     Although, there are areas of which I am unsure about, but would consider doing them, so long as the assignment interested me, these areas include;

Still Life, Underwater, Architecture, Forensic, Product and Medical.

     Furthermore, as there are areas of which I am unsure about, equally there are areas of which I am sure I do not want to do, as these areas of photography do not interest me as being part of my career and I have no interest in doing that type of photography. Mainly, as these areas do not appeal to me, I don't find them creative or interesting. These area's include;

Wedding, Portrait, Candid, Secret, Headshot and Child.

     Now, my next step for my career research is to, focus solely on the area's of photography that I am interested in and to specifically find out, how to get a job and publicity in those area's of photography without the need to go University, as at the moment, University is not an option for me and is something that I think is unlikely to be as my next step after my college course is over.

Photoshop Techniques

Recently, both in college and at home, I have been experimenting with photoshop effects and techniques, which lean more towards graphic design, however I feel they are useful to me, to understand more about photoshop and how it works. Quite a few artists have inspired me for this, such as Miles Donavan, Julien Opie and Jason Brooks, just to name a few. Just a sample of the techniques I have done include vector based images, using layer masks, joiners effect, panoramic images as well as adding my own style to each image. Overall, I found most of them quite easy, however mainly the vector based images where tricky at first but more time consuming as one alone took me more than two weeks to finish. I have really enjoyed working alot more with Photoshop, and I will continue to research and learn new techniques and to better myself with the program...

Firstly, this is my Panoramic image which I created through Photoshop, by taking several images and merging them together through the Photomerge selection tool. This technique was extremely easy and presented no problems at all as well as being able to achieve it within seconds.

This is my joiners image, the image is of a Jim Morrison poster which I own. Again, I did this technique very simialr to the panoramic image as it is made up of several images which are then stuck together through the Photomerge option in Photoshop, however this technique can also be achieved manually, which for this image both ways where utilized as Photoshop was only able to creat half of the image and then it was up to me to complete the image manually. Again, this was a very easy technique which produces very interesting and aesthetic results.

This image was inspired by the work of Miles Donavan. I created this image using the layer mask tool in Photoshop and used a photocopy style image as the background of which then I used the monotone colour option. However, for this image to be different I created two of the same image only with different colours then offset them to create a 3D style image and then I added the background using the same effect as the main image. Aesthetically, I am really pleased with this image and feel it is quite strong aesthetically. I really enjoyed the process of this image as although it was easy, it was quite lengthy at first but never the less very rewarding at the end.

Again, this is another image of Jim Morrison (unless you have not noticed this will become a re-occuring feature) this time the image has been inspired by the artist Jason Brooks and his vector style images, however unlike his images I have not used the gradient tool, I have kept each shade a solid block as I prefer this look. This is my favourite image out of my experiments, as it was the most challenging and the most time consuming (two and a half weeks) however again, it was worth the labour as I feel this is a very strong aesthetic image and I am really pleased with how it turned out.

Youth Centre Opening

On Saturday, 20th November I attended my second event as a photographer. This time it was for the opening of the new youth centre in Widnes. The centre is the start of many new developments for youth within Halton. The centre's opening was brilliant, the council spared no expense and went all out on the hollywood theme for the opening. They had entertaining from singing to dancing as well as a magician. Food was offered and there was a special appearance from Titan the Robot, which personally was the highlight of the day. The centre is state of the art and free to all users, as well as being opening 7 days a week. Overall, I really enjoyed the day and it was a great confidence booster for me, as this was only days after my first attempt at being a event photographer this gave me the chance to work on ideas and gain more experience in this area. The experience I gained was excellent as this was an all day event, I was able to wonder round at my own leisure and photograph whatever I wished with time to spare... so for that reason I found this event to be easier but no less useful. As this was in the middle of the day and the building had windows, the lighting was quite good and was easier to capture shots with good exposure without increasing my ISO, as I did this during the speaking contest and alot of my images had noise on them although this didnt really happen during this event, which was good for me. Below are a selection of images I took at the event...

Halton's Public Speaking Contest 2010

On Tuesday, 16th November I attended Halton's Public Speaking Contest 2010 as the events photographer along with another student from my college photography course, James Wrigley who was also a photographer for the evening. The contest was held at Kingsway College and it is a chance for all schools within the borough to showcase some of their best students from both key stage 3 and key stage 4 who excel in english especially verbal communication. As part of the contest each student has around 3 - 5 minutes to discuss or argue on a subject of their choice... the subjects ranged from global warming, society to music. All students who participated did really well as this isnt as easy as it sounds and I should know as I was one of the competing students in the first public speaking contest although I came second, I really enjoyed the opportunity and it was a useful tool to develop. This was my first attempt at photographing an event as it was only the third week into my course after I had started although I feel I did quite well and the evening went well. It was an excellent learning opportunity for me and I learnt alot, such as how to quickly set up my camera for when I didnt get the shot I wanted and to take as many shots as possible in the amount of time. I feel this opportunity helped me in my course as one of the projects was a documentary based project which is similar to what I did on the evening of this event. Below are a few of the images I captured at the event...

Low Key Wet Photography

As part of wet photography, we learnt about studio work with film and as part of this we looked at low key lighting especially in the work of George Hurrell. George Hurrell was a 1930's and 1940's hollywood photographer who was one of the first to photograph what is now known as glamour photography although as it was the 30's visual content is minimum. Although he made major contributions to glamour, his main style of work was portraits. His clients where hollywoods best including Norma shearer, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo. Hurrell's instantly recognisable work was based heavily on the dramatic lighting which is known as low key lighting. Low key lighting is a lighting effect which creates a high contrast image and a chiaroscuro effect within the image, which accentuates the contours of the subject with deep shadow and bright highlights usually on one side of the subject. Average photographs are created with a three light set up which includes a key light, fill light and back light... where as a low key lighting set up includes a key light and either a fill light or more often than not, just a simple reflector, which is used to control an areas contrast. Low key lighting has a higher lighting ratio such as 1:8 compared to a high key lighting ratio of 1:1. Low key lighting works best in a studio or under very controlled environments as this effect works best for potraits. During this project, I learnt alot about studio lighting and the set ups needed to create a low key lighting effect of which I think will be extremely useful in the future. Also, I learnt about light ratios which is really important and useful. Below are a few images from my low key shoot...

 The first image is the fully exposed contact strip for my negatives... the exposure time was five seconds.

This is my final print before I experimented with the magenta filter, it is the complete shot... I am very happy with this image as I think it has worked quite well. The exposure time for this shot was three seconds. This image is a hurrell replica and not my own set up as I reproduced the set up of which I thought was used to create the original image.

This is the same shot and negative as the previous image although for this shot, I have enlargered and printed a specific part of the negative to create a close up shot. Again, this is before I have used the magenta filter, the exposure was five seconds. I am pleased again with this image as I think it has worked well. Although the original image was a replica this close up image was that of my own ideas.

This is a different shot, although for this image I have experimented with the magenta filter. I increased the filter to seventyfive and increased the exposure time to seven seconds. I think it came out quite well and I am pleased with the outcome. Again, this image is a re-created attempt of a Hurrell image.

This is again the enlarged negative only this time I have used the magenta filter... still at seventyfive although the exposure time was thirteen seconds. I am very pleased with the outcome as I think it is a good example of low key lighting.

The difference about this shot is that it is my own shot, pose and set up where as the other's where Hurrell replica's. This is the complete shot and I have used a magenta filter although it is only set to fifty and the exposure time was five seconds. I am very pleased with this image as it is my own set up and it has came out the way I intended and I feel works really well and also is a good example of low key lighting.