So we're a couple of weeks into the holidays, and if it wasn't for the frenzy that is looking for a new home, I'd be at a complete loss of what to do, and be utterly desperate to get back to uni already.
I've already applied for around thirty jobs this summer with little to no success, and that includes getting any 'thanks, but no thanks' responses. Luckily, I've found The Hunger Games trilogy of books, and along with a few other additions to my collection I've got plenty of material to fill the gaps between sleeping, eating and seeing so many houses online and in reality that they're all blurring into one and I'm forced to differentiate them via unusual means such as 'this is the house with the death shed (looks terrifying!)' and 'this is the house with the out-door spiders breeding ground (aka, outside loo) and I hope no one ever sees our spreadsheet with all the properties on as Chris and I had a little too much to drink one night recently and while adding another batch of finds to the list, one or two little profanities may have found their way into the list.
This meant I had to find something to do with my time, and mercifully an opportunity cropped up that would fill my Tuesday afternoons and help a good cause at the same time. To cut a long story short, I'm volunteering for a charity shop. My own personal experiences of these places isn't that big really, I've ventured into several to wander around and see if anything catches my eye, the one time that really stands out is the time I found Woody in the local Tenovus charity shop. I used that wooden drawing mannequin in one of my uni videos, for those of you who have not seen Woody's Time Lapse Adventure, please click here to watch.
I don't want this post to be all preachy, that anyone should be purposefully shopping in charity shops, or volunteering themselves, but just to raise an awareness that I did not have before and share my feelings about what I'm doing. It's a mutual beneficial endeavour for both myself, and Manchester House, in Conwy that raises money on behalf of the local charity, Carers Outreach, that support adult carers, link to their website here. I'm going to be volunteering every Tuesday afternoon until the end of September, and I imagine it wont be the last time I'll be posting about it on here.
Sorry about the lack of funnies and pretty pictures though...
Tuesday 29 May 2012
Friday 25 May 2012
This is it! Final work of year two.
The summer holidays are upon us already, and I'm not really sure how to feel really. I do feel like I've spent A LOT of time doing written work this year, which I felt distracted me from my practical work. This means I've also spent a fair bit of time working from home which has its advantages and disadvantages.
Instead of so much writing, I feel like we might have benefited from more practical lessons. Lighting, and sound for both film and photography for example. However, I do feel that this year has seen a huge change in both my skill and professional development through work experience and tasters, and even though they haven't all gone exactly to plan, it has shown me that I am perfectly capable, and can adapt to almost every situation.
So what were we asked to do? Well we were given the option of choosing a direction. Personally I started out with the intention of concentrating on my photography. Then I decided I'd concentrate on both aspects of our course, and finally I decided I didn't want to pigeon-hole myself, or limit my experiences and went down the route of both. We had the option of doing a narrative film and two photography assignments, or a non-narrative and three photography assignments. When I read the list of the photography, there were three projects that stood out to me straight away. I knew I was going to do a narrative film straight away, purely because I do much better at coming up with stories than the idea of the non-narrative.
I close 'modern master' as my first project, choosing a painting wasn't as hard as I thought. Honestly, there was no real method to my choice, I simply typed 'well known paintings' into Google and came up with this.
Then, taking into consideration the part of the brief that asked us use the painting to advertise something I began with a suggestion from my friend Dave, by using the Apple logo, it worked very well. I took it a step further again.
Starting with the Financial Times, one of my initial ideas was a pound coin, to demonstrate the importance of money in the current financial climate. With the recession making itself felt in almost every household, there's little more current than that. For the advert, I used the slogan for the Financial Times, as well as using an image of an FT cover with a low opacity behind the figure.
Part of the brief was to bring the painting up to date, I've always been a fan of the Guinness adverts, although not so much the drink really. Initially I had the idea of using a pint of generic beer, but it was too non-descript, and so I chose a pint of Guinness instead as it fitted in quite nicely with the feel of the adverts. Apparently the slogan is 'good things come to those who wait' so I would change that, but really I'm happy with the whole idea.
Next up was the 'elegance in decay/broken grandeur' project. This appeals to me on a personal basis because Urban Exploration is something I've been doing for years, where you find out about, or discover places left to rot/abandoned and photograph the eeriness, which can often turn out some really beautiful pictures. So I was lucky enough to already have a plethora of places I could visit, but what better excuse than this to take to the road and look for new places, here are some of my favourite shots.
The same factory, which consists of several separate buildings, this one looked like some kind of developing room as there was a big Kodak deveoping chest, possibly for X-Rays judging by the signs knocking around. This was a pendulum of sorts that we set swinging and used the flash to get a ghostly shot of the pendulum mid-swing.
This is an abandoned theatre in Dolgarrog, I've visited this place multiple times, and it's always very quiet and eerie inside even though its just set back from the main road through Dolgarrog by some trees. There's rubbish everywhere but you can still see the left over feelings of grandeur inside the main hall, along with dressing rooms, toilets, box office and upstairs where there's a hatch that presumably held some kind of projectors or lights.
This boat is moored on Conwy Quay, right next to a very well known boat called the Gray Lady, both of which are in need of some serious TLC. Sadly the very next day after this shot was taken some stupid people came along and set the Gray Lady on fire, and it has since been taken away.
This door belongs to a greenhouse on a huge estate that has been left to nature. It consists of a large house with a caravan outside (there was a way in, but it looked as if someone had recently been squatting there, and so I lost my nerve), several acres of land with ponds, and verandas, and across the estate is another large property that looked as if it may have been a residential home once. It has several out buildings, and sprawling gardens that would have looked stunning once, now like the greenhouses, they've been taken over by weeds and nature.
Part of the large estate in Caernarfon, this property was borded up on the lower floor, however to the right of this shot was a broken window where one could walk right in.
This is the Duke of Lancaster. A ship that has been landlocked in place near Mostyn ever since I can remember. You can see it from the coast road, and it holds a lot of mystery to most who spy it for the first time. We took an amble to the ship and got some great shots of it, we wanted to attempt to get onto the side of the dock that the ship is moored in. Sadly there was a very unpleasant guard who had few words for us.
Lastly for the photography projects was portraits. It's the very first type of photography I was trained to do and worked photographing people for years. It still holds a lot of appeal, and whether I'm in the studio or at location I'm in my element. My very first idea was to photography my dad, but because he isn't very mobile along with my idea no longer being original, I chose to photograph Chris instead. I feel like I know him pretty well, so choosing the shots that best describe him as a person came easily, here are some of the shots I used and my favourite pictures.
Finally for the project was my narrative film. Sadly, I wasn't able to film my initial idea, which was a horror film due to my being unable to source a decent location and also I needed a number of actors, as well as a lot of props that are sadly necessary to aid with the overall feel of the film. So I had to come up with something else, and fast as time was beginning to run out and I knew I'd need lots of time to edit as this was the first film I've edited alone.
Eventually, with Chris' help an idea formed into something I came to be quite proud of. It became pretty clear early on that most of my ideas have an element of darkness to them, and this was no exception. Although, it isn't all doom and gloom! The main issues I came across with making this film was Premiere Pro, we recently installed a new, and very fast desktop PC and the Adobe package, this meant I could edit at home, as travelling between Conwy and Wrexham has been proving quite expensive. However, it turns out that the more clips you upload into your sequence in Premiere, the slower it runs. This became infuriating after a short time as it kept crashing and not loading all the media clips. The day before I was due to hand in all my work at assessment, it miraculously loaded ALL the clips and so very gingerly, I made the last few changes, added the music and end credits and crossed everything and clicked export. It took about seven minutes. All the days of anger, and tears and frustration and worrying that I'd never finish it, and all it took was seven minutes.
Anyway, I don't want to give away too much about the film, and it's taken an age to upload to youtube so I'm just going to put the link to it here.
That's it, year two over and done with. What have I learned? Well, firstly that Premiere pro isn't worth the CD its printed on, or the space it takes up on our shiny new computer, I've learned that I can adapt well to new and unknown situations. Also, I would have liked my assessment to last a little longer, although I got some positive feedback, I was hoping it would have been a little more detailed than last time. Personally, I can't understand how fair marks can be awarded unless the work is taken away and looked at at least twice. In July, we'll receive our marks on Moodle and we'll find out how we've done in terms of a grade, but there will be no feedback and no way of telling what we need to improve and where we're doing well. This can get a little frustrating.
I'm looking towards my final year with a mixture of emotions, a combination of trepidation, and fear that it's my last and most important year and that I've still no clear idea about what direction I want to be heading in, and excitement at the unknown. Where will I be this time next year? I can't believe how fast my time at university is going, and I do worry that when I leave that although I can say I've met some wonderful people, and had some wonderful opportunities and experiences, but I really haven't learned an awful lot. But I remain open-minded and I'm still extremely grateful to be living this life-long dream. :)
Instead of so much writing, I feel like we might have benefited from more practical lessons. Lighting, and sound for both film and photography for example. However, I do feel that this year has seen a huge change in both my skill and professional development through work experience and tasters, and even though they haven't all gone exactly to plan, it has shown me that I am perfectly capable, and can adapt to almost every situation.
So what were we asked to do? Well we were given the option of choosing a direction. Personally I started out with the intention of concentrating on my photography. Then I decided I'd concentrate on both aspects of our course, and finally I decided I didn't want to pigeon-hole myself, or limit my experiences and went down the route of both. We had the option of doing a narrative film and two photography assignments, or a non-narrative and three photography assignments. When I read the list of the photography, there were three projects that stood out to me straight away. I knew I was going to do a narrative film straight away, purely because I do much better at coming up with stories than the idea of the non-narrative.
I close 'modern master' as my first project, choosing a painting wasn't as hard as I thought. Honestly, there was no real method to my choice, I simply typed 'well known paintings' into Google and came up with this.
American Gothic by Grant Wood
Whistler's Mother - James McNeill
The Son of Man - Rene Magrittees
The first two paintings I've seen before even if I don't know the names of the artists or the titles. When I saw the man with the apple I knew straight away that'd be the picture I'd choose. With living right by the sea, there is a number of places that would be suitable to take the picture, and luckily between us, Chris and I had the suit and the bowler hat and the rest was down to photoshop.
Beginning with the obvious I recreated the painting using a red apple photograph.
Starting with the Financial Times, one of my initial ideas was a pound coin, to demonstrate the importance of money in the current financial climate. With the recession making itself felt in almost every household, there's little more current than that. For the advert, I used the slogan for the Financial Times, as well as using an image of an FT cover with a low opacity behind the figure.
Part of the brief was to bring the painting up to date, I've always been a fan of the Guinness adverts, although not so much the drink really. Initially I had the idea of using a pint of generic beer, but it was too non-descript, and so I chose a pint of Guinness instead as it fitted in quite nicely with the feel of the adverts. Apparently the slogan is 'good things come to those who wait' so I would change that, but really I'm happy with the whole idea.
Next up was the 'elegance in decay/broken grandeur' project. This appeals to me on a personal basis because Urban Exploration is something I've been doing for years, where you find out about, or discover places left to rot/abandoned and photograph the eeriness, which can often turn out some really beautiful pictures. So I was lucky enough to already have a plethora of places I could visit, but what better excuse than this to take to the road and look for new places, here are some of my favourite shots.
This tree is near an abandoned factory in Beaumaris.
The same factory, which consists of several separate buildings, this one looked like some kind of developing room as there was a big Kodak deveoping chest, possibly for X-Rays judging by the signs knocking around. This was a pendulum of sorts that we set swinging and used the flash to get a ghostly shot of the pendulum mid-swing.
This is an abandoned theatre in Dolgarrog, I've visited this place multiple times, and it's always very quiet and eerie inside even though its just set back from the main road through Dolgarrog by some trees. There's rubbish everywhere but you can still see the left over feelings of grandeur inside the main hall, along with dressing rooms, toilets, box office and upstairs where there's a hatch that presumably held some kind of projectors or lights.
This is the Duke of Lancaster. A ship that has been landlocked in place near Mostyn ever since I can remember. You can see it from the coast road, and it holds a lot of mystery to most who spy it for the first time. We took an amble to the ship and got some great shots of it, we wanted to attempt to get onto the side of the dock that the ship is moored in. Sadly there was a very unpleasant guard who had few words for us.
Lastly for the photography projects was portraits. It's the very first type of photography I was trained to do and worked photographing people for years. It still holds a lot of appeal, and whether I'm in the studio or at location I'm in my element. My very first idea was to photography my dad, but because he isn't very mobile along with my idea no longer being original, I chose to photograph Chris instead. I feel like I know him pretty well, so choosing the shots that best describe him as a person came easily, here are some of the shots I used and my favourite pictures.
Finally for the project was my narrative film. Sadly, I wasn't able to film my initial idea, which was a horror film due to my being unable to source a decent location and also I needed a number of actors, as well as a lot of props that are sadly necessary to aid with the overall feel of the film. So I had to come up with something else, and fast as time was beginning to run out and I knew I'd need lots of time to edit as this was the first film I've edited alone.
Eventually, with Chris' help an idea formed into something I came to be quite proud of. It became pretty clear early on that most of my ideas have an element of darkness to them, and this was no exception. Although, it isn't all doom and gloom! The main issues I came across with making this film was Premiere Pro, we recently installed a new, and very fast desktop PC and the Adobe package, this meant I could edit at home, as travelling between Conwy and Wrexham has been proving quite expensive. However, it turns out that the more clips you upload into your sequence in Premiere, the slower it runs. This became infuriating after a short time as it kept crashing and not loading all the media clips. The day before I was due to hand in all my work at assessment, it miraculously loaded ALL the clips and so very gingerly, I made the last few changes, added the music and end credits and crossed everything and clicked export. It took about seven minutes. All the days of anger, and tears and frustration and worrying that I'd never finish it, and all it took was seven minutes.
Anyway, I don't want to give away too much about the film, and it's taken an age to upload to youtube so I'm just going to put the link to it here.
That's it, year two over and done with. What have I learned? Well, firstly that Premiere pro isn't worth the CD its printed on, or the space it takes up on our shiny new computer, I've learned that I can adapt well to new and unknown situations. Also, I would have liked my assessment to last a little longer, although I got some positive feedback, I was hoping it would have been a little more detailed than last time. Personally, I can't understand how fair marks can be awarded unless the work is taken away and looked at at least twice. In July, we'll receive our marks on Moodle and we'll find out how we've done in terms of a grade, but there will be no feedback and no way of telling what we need to improve and where we're doing well. This can get a little frustrating.
I'm looking towards my final year with a mixture of emotions, a combination of trepidation, and fear that it's my last and most important year and that I've still no clear idea about what direction I want to be heading in, and excitement at the unknown. Where will I be this time next year? I can't believe how fast my time at university is going, and I do worry that when I leave that although I can say I've met some wonderful people, and had some wonderful opportunities and experiences, but I really haven't learned an awful lot. But I remain open-minded and I'm still extremely grateful to be living this life-long dream. :)
Thursday 24 May 2012
Irate Pirates! Mutiny on Conwy Quay!
The weekend of the 19th and 20th of May sounds like just another day in the calendar for the unsuspecting folks of the small market town of Conwy. But if you were nearby, chances are you'd hear the boom of the cannons, see people dressed as up, see odd looking ships in the harbour and hear nothing but 'ARRRRRRRRR!!!!' because for the first time ever, Pirates took over the town for two action-packed days.
Slave auctions, barrel rolling races, best dressed competition (win your own weight in beer!), magic shows, smugglers market, storytelling, and firing cannons are just a few of the delights that were taking part across the whole of Conwy for two days. But don't just take word for it, I took a few shots on Sunday, and had a whale of a time! Next year I'll definitely be dressing up!
Slave auctions, barrel rolling races, best dressed competition (win your own weight in beer!), magic shows, smugglers market, storytelling, and firing cannons are just a few of the delights that were taking part across the whole of Conwy for two days. But don't just take word for it, I took a few shots on Sunday, and had a whale of a time! Next year I'll definitely be dressing up!
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