2nd May 2013 - Transforming Heritage ...

After completing the first Sharpe's exhibition, i then moved on to the next exhibition which was called 'Transforming Heritage'. This exhibition was to reflect on the process of transformation within South Derbyshire and The National Forest. This was a development of the heritage project exploring how the area has been transformed. Again this was being held for the open public, inside of Sharpe's Pottery Museum, where each individual student has to produce a piece of work. 

The most important aspect for me with this project was practicing the type of photography that i enjoy creating at the moment which is old, style photographs with embroidered geometric stitching. At the time, i was very confident in the work i was creating and felt that it was possibly my strongest work yet, but there is still room for improvement and i believe i can push my work further as well and do some more experimentation work. This work again, is similar to the work of Shaun Kardinal with the embroidered stitching, but there were a few other artists that i looked into for inspiration and one of them artists was Lorena Arance. She produced such beautiful soft images of nature and landscapes, which were all shot on film. What i loved most about her images was that they focused on the beauty of nature and the images were very simple.

Below are a few images, showing Lorena Arance's Work ...

All images were taken from http://www.lorenaarance.es/projects/summer/ [Accessed:09.05.2013]

Like with Lorena's work, i wanted to show the beauty of nature in the most simplest way, as i believe that the most simplest of images is the most strongest. 

Having applied all my recent skills that i have learnt, i have created a piece of work that i really like and think fits well within the exhibition brief when you read the artist statement that i have to go with the piece of work. I love how much of a beautiful location hides so many hidden facts about itself, that people to this day wouldn't have any knowledge of. I have learnt about many new facts about the surrounding area that i may have not known before and i have also discovered new artists whilst doing my research, which i will always be checking up on to take a look at their new work.I have slightly improved on my knowledge of what it takes to produce a piece of work which is amazing, I have learnt to be a lot more critical of my work and push it as far as it can go. The knowledge and the skills that i picked up along this process and any other process will help me as a learner and a practitioner. As a next step, i need to think of what i should do for the next exhibition which is going to be held in late October, I'm thinking of doing something completely different but i think i need to do some experimenting over the summer holidays ...

18th March 2013 - Heritage & Yesterday

This exhibition, Heritage & yesterday, will be an exhibition to reflect on the heritage of South Derbyshire and also in the National Forest. The area is a historic amalgam of agriculture, heavy industry, mining, clay works and forestry. This exhibition is going to be shown to the general public viewing held at Sharpe's Pottery Museum, Swadlincote. Every student has to produce their own pieces of work to show in the exhibition which has got to match the brief of the exhibition.

For me, the most important aspect of this exhibition was to get it right, and to also have the motivation to do the exhibition work. As it wasn't a theme that i was very keen on and also a theme that i couldn't really get to grips with, it took me awhile to get ideas together and to get my work started. Initially, i felt that i definitely wanted to work with my embroidery work again, as it is something i really enjoy doing, but the problem with me was that what am i going to photograph to go along with the stitching. So, I instantly started shooting the interior and the exterior of the Sharpe's Pottery Museum, to see what different angles i could look at the old, historic building. Sharpe's has some really interesting interior where everything is stored which is something which i wanted to focus on. 

The work which i created is similar to the work of Shaun Kardinal, He is an artist that i am constantly looking at every time he creates something new. I love his twist on his work, he finds old postcards and then creates some beautiful geometric embroidery work to make them into something different. Below are a few examples of his work ...

All these pieces of work were taken from: http://shaunkardinal.com/ [Accessed: 09.05.2013]

Having learned on how to encounter this exhibition, i now feel that it went very well, could have gone better but for saying how much of a short time span i did it in i was very pleased with the work of produced. Most importantly, i have learnt a lot about the brief that i was given when at the beginning i had no clue at all, this will then help me with ideas with the next exhibition which will be held in the next month. I believe that i haven't really learnt a lot from this brief, but it has helped me develop on my embroidery skills as that is a crucial aspect for me as it it something that i am definitely going to pursue on. 

1st March 2013 - Format Festival ...

"FORMAT is focused on developing opportunities to platform the work of international photographers and to provide links for local/national practitioners to show work, exchange opportunities, skills and knowledge and for audiences to see, debate, develop and engage in the best of what photography is and can be ..."

(Format, 2012)

The main theme for FORMAT this year is factory. This year the students of the BSDC Photography, are going to be submitting their work into the yearly held festival which is known as FORMAT. We had to look into the different aspects of factory for example in work, at work or out of work and then produce a piece of work which was going to be shown at the festival .

For me, i found that this theme was very challenging as i am not really into photography which includes people at work or photographing old factories so it took me awhile to think of a idea on what to do to put towards the festival. For me the most significant element of the festival was to do something i had never tried before and which was totally out of my comfort zone. Looking into different artists, arose ideas in my head and once i found that one idea, i  got to work on it straight away as it wasn't the most simplest of ideas. At the time, i thought that i wasn't going to get the work complete in time or that it wouldn't be good enough to put up along with amazing photographers world wide. This maybe because of the lack of concentration i had whilst doing this project, as it wasn't something that i was entirely into, i didn't give it my all. In the end, i did like the work that i had produced but there were certain aspects which have could have been better, for example; the editing process could have been a lot neater and also a lot tighter, for example; the shapes didn't match up correctly, either one was too high or the other was too low, this was maybe because of how much i had rushed the piece of work. But if i was to produce the work again, i would take a lot more time and effort into making it a lot better as i did enjoy the overall effect it gave to the photographs. 

This work that i produced, was similar to the work of Jelle Martens. He was a huge inspiration to me whilst working on this project and every time i looked at one of his images, it really made me push on forward as i wanted to create something as abstract and interesting as his. I tried to focus on which photographs would work well together and also to see what pattern i should follow in my work.

Below is a few examples of Jelle Martens work, which was my main inspiration for this project ...

This image is available from: http:// 4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZavPi9_veOM/TxVJMPkm3gI/AAAAAAAACds/mOhLVScy8Ts/s1600/1.jpg

Having applied my new skills into my newest work, i now realise in which path i should take with my style of photography, that is one of the beauties with experimenting with different projects. I now ask myself on how much further i can take myself to see what other effects i can put into my photography to make it better. I have learnt about what colours work together and when working on an image which holds other images inside, how to pick which images would look best to make the image the best it can be. I have significantly improved on my skills which makes me feel so much better about my work and it also gives me the confidence to do something i have never done before. This knowledge and understanding will make me a better photographer and be essential to me as a learner, as i can make mistakes and change them as i go which will make me prepared for what holds in the real world. 

References

Format 2012 (2012)

About Format | Format Festival 

[Online] Available from: http://www.formatfestival.com/about-format 

[Accessed: 20th November 2012]

14th November 2012 - David Severn ...

24th October 2012 - Brian Griffin ...

24th October 2012 - Prospectus Final Photographs ...

For our first brief on the first year of the University Course, FDA Digital Media Production Photography Pathway, was to create images to go into the college FE/HE BSDC Prospectus. We were asked, along with the design students, to come together to produce work that was going to be new, fresh, original and eye catching but also show different aspects of the campus and also the surrounding areas and obviously show different areas in which the students could learn in.

Every student has a specific area to work within so that everything got covered, my areas were to work with the Catering students at first, then go down into the Textiles classrooms and then finally i also had enough time to go into the Motoring Vehicles area of the College. 

For me, the most significant aspects of this task, was to try out new ideas with my images and try to be more daring than sticking to the old, boring College images that we see today. At the time, i thought to myself that i was giving myself too much of a big task to handle by myself, but i thought to myself, i need to push on and just get my head down and get the work done. I had plenty of photographs to look through and plenty to edit to see which would work best for the Prospectus. The most important aspect as well, was making sure that the images were going to fit in with the rest of the work, as all the final photographs were collected on a memory stick from all students and then they looked through them to see which would work better together.

Having experienced this type of photography, i now realise that it is something that i don't want to go into within my career as a photographer. But, furthermore i have learnt a lot from this experience; for example, being able to work alone and get some really interesting images and also being pushed on a really tight time scale but still produce an exceptional piece of work to put forward to go into the Prospectus. Being involved in this experience, it didn't do much for my photography skills but it helped me advance on my photoshop skills, as i liked to distort the photographs with different shapes and to bring something different to the photographs. It took me awhile to figure out on how to achieve the look i was going for, but i got there in the end and self taught myself on how to create that look. This experience made me feel very pressured and it wasn't something that i particularly enjoyed, but i did get the work done in the end and i do like the photographs that created even though they are much different to what i would normally create. Learning this skill will be very important to me as a learner and a practitioner, as i will be able to push my photographs a lot further with what i have learnt. Because i did not like the subject that i was shooting, but loved the editing process that i did on the photographs, i need to apply my skills to photographs which are my style and make them into something which will have my name on it as soon as you see it.  

9th October 2012 - Chris Mears ...