A sudden change of direction

Hello, it has been a while.

So I'm well and truly stuck into my projects now. Having completed the percussive rhythm and the filming for the time lapse I turned my attention to the photography side of the assignment.

At first I had decided to work on the fashion aspect for the magazine shots. I went out and picked up a couple of fashion magazines to get some inspiration. It seems that high contrasty, shots with lens flare, and late summer/early autumn colours are in fashion. So Chris and I set out to a nearby Beech forest to take some earth colour shots. Although I'm happy with the shots they just weren't working for me.

A while before, Dave had kindly offered to help me with the jewellery section of the brief, and my brother had kindly lent me a few of his watches and I was happy with the outcome.

In the end, I just wasn't happy with the direction the shots were going. The photos didn't really give off the right image, and despite photographing my 'dressed to thrill' (I had a friend dress up in some tasteful PVC and latex) I felt they were a little too risqué and again not the ideal image I wanted to portray.

Even so, I don't want my work to go to waste, so I decided to blog about them, and show a couple of the pictures I took.

So, I've changed my mind, from fashion to food. I have a few solid ideas so far, and I look forward to implementing them.

Dangerously cute dogs and purrfectly sweet cats

Yesterday, the gang and I headed over to a place somewhere between Holywell and Trelogan to NCAR (the North Clywd Animal Rescue) it's a privately owned charity that takes on strays and signed-over cats, dogs and rabbits in order to try and re-home them. We had kind permission from Nicky Owen, the media relations officer at NCAR to film the day to day goings on. We all had a great time and hopefully managed to capture some great footage of the work that goes on there.

This is Adam Hobbs, he works alongside NCAR as a behaviourist, training and working with difficult dogs so that they can be re-homed. Here he is working with Marmaduke, who is a tri-colour English bull terrier. He was a little excited when another dog came by, but on the whole he seemed to enjoy being in front of the camera and posed a lot!

We filmed a family spending time with a small terrier (I forget his name) that they were thinking of adopting. This area is called the Paddock, and it's where they take animals to let them off the lead to run freely and tire themselves out playing with balls, Frisbees and running around the agility course.

As part of the filming, we decided to get a bunch of 'filler shots', shots the sit between more important ones as a way of both padding out the film and moving seamlessly between unconnected shots. This sign was one of many we filmed over the course of the day.

The gang and I discuss the days filming.

Sue turns 'dog whisperer' for the day. Del was another dog being trained by Adam, and seemed to take a bit of a shine to her.

Rabbit. Very difficult to film of photograph due to them moving around so much and the crossed bars on the hutches, none the less cute though!

Here, Owain talks to us about the trailer that travels around shows and pet shops educating people on the value of donating time and money to NCAR. We heard lots of stories of the generosity of the public at shows who disappear and return laden with blankets, food, donations and anything else that helps the staff at NCAR keep the rescue centre running. And at a running cost of approximately £850 per DAY they need everything people can spare.

If you would like to adopt, foster, sponsor a kennel or cat pod, volunteer, donate money, blankets, food, toys or time or would like more information please visit their website.

I just want to say another huge thank you to the staff (and the animals!) at NCAR for their warm welcome and openness to talk to us yesterday. Keep up the great work guys, and we hope you like our documentary, watch this space for more soon!!

3 weeks in, 8 assignments and a food festival.

Hello!

Well like the title suggests, we're now 3 weeks into the new year, when we were first given our assignments I felt a little daunted, like there was way too much to do in the time we've been given. I'm sure I wasn't alone in thinking that, but I feel more confident as I take each step towards completing the work.

I'm happy to have already completed one of the film projects and have taken steps in most of the other assignments.

For the past few nights, Conwy castle has been lit up in purple and green and it turns out it was all part of Blinc, a festival of the digital arts that was running alongside the Conwy food festival. I've never had the chance to visit one of these festivals but I've been told on good authority that it's well worth a visit.

It was a little rainy yesterday (Sunday) but I headed down into the medieval town and arrived at the festival just as the final stalls were setting up and only a handful of people were milling around.

I photographed the main street while it was quiet, the bunting looked a little sad with no one around to enjoy it, but it did make a good picture.

There were lots of smells in the air as the day wore on, everything from stonebaked pizza, to champagne and oysters were on sale. Chocolate fountains, ice cream, Welsh oggies, chilli, crepes and caviare were just some of the treats on offer at the various stalls and chefs were doing live demonstrations and answering cooking questions in numerous tents across the town.

Not all the smells were pleasant though, there was a barrell outside one of the tents, a Victorian butter churn, and even though the day was overcast it looked and smelled rather gross as the day wore on, not to mention thai curry, ew.

Surprisingly, I ate very little at the festival. A crepe and some icecream was about the whole of it, there was just too much choice and after trying to decide what to eat for a good hour I gave up and headed home.
I brought some brownies home for Chris, he loves them, but even though I am also a chocolate lover, I'm not a huge fan of them. I find them too heavy, and these smelled amazing but were just too sickly!

I brought home a couple of toffee yoghurts, toffee ones from Llaeth Y Llan (village dairy).

Apart from food, the festival had music and poetry on different stages across the town, a beer tent, actors dressed in medieval costume acting at random, birds of prey and giant bubbles!

As I mentioned before, the digital arts festival Blinc was also on around Conwy, one of the strangest was two screens set up in the courtyard of Plas Mawr, they were displaying still images with loud sound effects of the sounds that might go along with the still. It was eerie, but designed to bring Plas Mawr back to life, as it would have been in the past.

Another display was in one of the towers of the castle walls, a projector was showing microscopic images taken of the unseen places of the castle. It was strange, and looked otherworldly.

Blinc had lots on offer over the weekend, the main event being an actual lights show displayed on the side of the castle walls using several projectors. This was on Saturday night, which I unfortunately missed but have been told it was spectacular. It also meant the bridge out of Conwy was closed for a while, and getting back into town was quite difficult that night!
I had a great day wandering around the stalls, listening to music and generally found Conwy had a lively and excited atmosphere. It was a little expensive to get in (£7 for access to all the tent areas) but it was still a really enjoyable day.

Today's blog is brought to you by the letter C and the number 3

Hello!

Welcome back!!!! So year two is upon us, and I'm at the end of my first week back enjoying a moment of piece, a cup of coffee and Scuzz on the TV in the background. It is possibly the first time I've stopped save for sleeping since Monday. I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong, I'm at my happiest when I've got plenty to do, I just didn't realise we'd have so much and so little time to prepare for it!

Are you wondering about the title? Well today's buzz word is commutation, or rather, lack there of. I've felt that despite having our briefs explained, that different tutors interpret them differently, and this has caused me a fair bit of confusion. I'm not alone in thinking this either. Then there's confusion about where are lectures etc are being held this year.

It would've been nice to have been informed about the layout of this term's critical studies lectures (contextualising design) turning up at 9am (to get a parking space) only to be told at 10am that the first half is geared towards fine art and the second towards the design students. It's great that the uni took into consideration what we agreed on last year that the subject matter was too broad to appeal to all types of art students and that it was mainly aimed at the fine art students. However, communication was lacking here too when one tutor told us we only needed to attend the hour intended for us, and another said both were important and relevant.

Perhaps what I'm saying seems petty or whatever, but this is a space meant for me to review and reflect on my lectures and university life. They're not massive issues, and I probably won't dwell on most of them outside of this blog, but it's important to draw attention to them as I'm sure I'm not the only student who has felt a little lost this week.

So, getting back to contextualising design, we were shown roughly half of a video called 'Beautiful Losers' about a group of artists (in a wide range of artistic disciplines) and their trials and tribulations whilst trying to 'make it' in their chosen field. It was quite a visually stunning, and impacting and sometimes brutally honest including one film maker who was stood in a children's park with a big ceramic dragon who told children nearby 'in 1986 we found Samuel's head right there' while pointing to the centre of the dragon. It got a laugh out of the audience, but I'm not sure about it's relevance. Another artist who was speaking about never really wanting to be an artist when he was younger and how he wanted to be a rubbish collector and that for his birthday one year he asked his folks to not only take him to a landfill sight but to also collect a bag of rubbish so they could all throw it on the pile. Amusing.

The general feeling I got from the film, so far, is that art comes from a part of you. Be it angst, wanting to be part of a sub culture, anger, or a need to save your own life through making something all these people shared a very visual way of thinking. I enjoyed the film, but looking at my scribbled notes from the day I don't think it had much of an impact on me. I guess we'll see once the second half is over....

On Thursday, I finally set foot over the threshold of the Centre for Creative Industries. A £5m structure designed to give students a taste of the industry, from sound booths, to a full size TV studio with lighting rig, green screen and removable seating for a studio audience, and an upstairs gallery it really has everything. Of course I cannot fail to mention the 3 amazing Panasonic £5000 cameras on tripods that have handlebars to move it around, needless to say my eyes nearly popped out of my head! The idea of being able to get in there and learn how to set up the studio, film, edit and work the gallery is exciting to say the least!

I feel a little more confident with the majority of my ideas for the upcoming projects, so we'll see how they go. Sorry that there's been no pictures to look at in this blog, but it was really to bring it up to date.

I hope you all have a great year two!

The Long-overdue Lols at Longleat!

Due to starting my new blog, Admit One Movie Reviews I've neglected this one a little as of late. I have been out with my camera a fair bit, but it's mostly to cover the summer brief and I don't want to post those pictures up here until after we've gone back to uni (I won't go into why).

So, a couple of weeks ago Chris and I travelled down south for a couple of days.
On the first day, we visited Longleat safari park, but more on that in a little...

The second day saw us in Winchester where we wandered around the streets looking for breakfast before heading out to Portsmouth later the same day. We headed to the Spinnaker tower, a 170m tower that somewhat resembles a ship's sail.

I photographed it from below, and against the blue sky it makes a striking image. There were three levels at the top, the first contained a glass floor that you could walk on. I wasn't brave enough to walk on it myself, but I photographed the view looking down. Not for the faint hearted. The main reason we went up the tower was to photograph the view of the city below for part of the summer brief. There were some great shots to be had from up there!

The day before we visited Longleat, I've never been to a safari park before, and Longleat was great as there were many other attractions, Jungle Kingdom, The Hedge Maze (which we did in record time!), a boat ride around the lake, a train ride around the park, the bat cave, the manor house, plenty of shops, hand feeding and animal holding and much more!




Chris held a small-ish tarantula, but I wasn't

feeling brave enough!

We went on a boat ride around the park, and there were lots of noisy, hungry sealions. There was the option to feed them but I didn't fancy

getting fishy fingers! We saw ant eaters, a rather strange looking chicken, a very nosy rhino, Anne the elephant, giraffes, zebras, tigers (amazing!), lions, wolves, a silverback gorilla (who lived on an island alone in the middle of the lake - he did have Sky+ and a HD tv to keep him company though!)

Perhaps one of the most interesting parts of the trip was the monkey enclosure. There are lots of warnings around the monkey enclosure, advising the drivers that the small monkeys will hitch a ride and will try to tear anything loose off your car! Well they did! One monkey hitched a ride on the top of a bus, and one riding on our car pulled the rear windscreen wash dispenser off Chris' car!

It was raining on and off that day, but it didn't put us off braving the maze, which was full of fairly big puddles but I managed to guide us into the centre, where we took a photo and then the quick exit. A word of warning though, don't eat the food there, at least not from the fast food outlets, very disappointing!

It was a great weekend. And after a long drive back, we were exhausted! Having never been to a safari park though I really enjoyed myself and loved being so close to wild animals. Especially the tigers, they were so regal and majestic.

On an unrelated note, I went power kite-flying a couple of days ago, and hopefully will be learning to kite-board soon. Watch this space!

Two days of studio fun!

So I've been a busy, busy bee this summer. What with all the location shooting it was time to head into the studio once more!

After recently purchasing a new backdrop set-up, Chris invited me to try it out. I didn't need asking twice as white was one of the colours he bought. White is notoriously hard to light correctly, and admittedly the pictures shown here have been somewhat extensively photoshopped. I don't mind though, as practice is important.

The model I worked with was Lisa, I had put a casting call on one of the modelling websites I'm registered with (as a photographer, obviously) and Lisa was perfect. We arranged to do a shoot based around block primary colours. I wanted something jazzy and colourful for my portfolio. Plus I haven't photographed a girl for a while now, and they're much easier than boys to photograph.

Lisa brought lots of clothes with her, and we had a fun couple of hours taking shots. I had been to Clair's Accessories the day before to get some bits for the shoot, including a huge lollypop! It's a great place for buying props for film and photography. Chris and I also found another shop in Llandudno called the Gold Mine, and it certainly was! Lots of vintage clothes, all begging to be photographed. Chris bought a 20's style flapper dress with the intention of finding a model to photograph it on, I look forward to seeing the results from that shoot!

On Friday, Chris had arranged to do a shoot with another model, called Lex. Since he was in Wrexham the day before, at a wedding Chris suggested I might like to shoot him also. I thought this was a good idea even though I had no official ideas for the shoot. Lex was very open, and friendly and was full of ideas of his own too.

We even took the wheel off his Mercedes and did some shots with that. I'm sure the neighbours had a field day wondering what on earth had been going on over those two days!

The only shot I really had in mind was the 'aftershave' style shot. I have no idea where I'd seen it before, but since Lex had dark skin I thought it would work well. I'm very happy with the results even if I'm now drowning a little in editing work. I don't really enjoy the post-production stage as it can be laborious, especially if you have dust spots! Luckily the shots of Lex won't need that much work as the black background is so much easier to light and hides lots. I've had a great two days in the studio, my camera is taking a well earned break before Chris and I head down south for a few days on Wednesday this week. I plan on finishing the summer work for uni and getting my Zeiss out to play again!

Epic day trips, studio work and FIRE POI!

So far this summer I've photographed a storm in a multitude of gorgeous places. I've been very lucky to be able to visit some of Wales' and the north west's best kept secrets. This last week has no exception, we visited Bodnant Gardens which isn't far from Conwy and is a well cultivated garden, lots of flowers, water features and interesting architecture. It isn't normally what I'd go for, but photographing it was fun and challenging.

I played around with reflections in the various fountains and pools dotted around the gardens, Chris had seen a shot on the website that he wanted to recreate, and it turned out really well. He was very lucky that there was no one in the shot considering how busy the gardens were that day!

We also visited Llandudno prom in order to try to begin work on part of the 'movement' brief for my summer work. Watch this space for pictures as they are a work in progress! Talking of pictures, in a recent post I mentioned having bought an old box camera, the Zeiss Ikon, well I went to pick up my first set of prints on Monday, I'm pleased to say that they exposed well even though several were out of focus or over/underexposed. I'm happy that I now have a starting point to improve on my photography.

Being into all things extreme, it came as no surprise to learn Chris did fire poi, and what better excuse to take the camera out again and get some long exposure shots. The fire was vibrant, and I got some really interesting and creative shots. It was spitting a little with rain, and a little cold near the Sychnant Pass, but it was well worth venturing out for!

Lastly, on Tuesday my friends Abbey and Patrick came around to Chris' where we set up the studio in order to do some more portraits of them. They're getting married next year, and are both very relaxed around the camera, it was nice to catch up again so soon after the last time and I hope that they like this set of photos too!

And finally, a huge thank you to Patrick for getting his hands dirty trying to fix my car! And to the wonderful Chris for letting me use his studio kit for the pictures I did of Ashleigh, and of Abbey and Patrick :D
I hope that the remainder of the summer is as memorable as it has been so far!