Documentary Task

For this task everyone in the class was assigned a location which were picked at random out of a hat. My location was a ballroom dancing class. This task took a lot of time and planning to make sure I knew where I was going and what I was doing. I also needed to plan the equipment I was going to take with me as for this task I needed a flash gun as well as my normal camera body because of the low light in the room. I wanted to capture the different views on ballroom dancing and not just the normal perspectives from watching a class. The first picture was two separate ones which I collaborated together in photoshop. I did this because it shows the females and males practising their steps however there are no top halves of the body as I wanted to show that many people dance so it does not matter what you look like, its all to do with the steps. The second picture was edited in photoshop and I feel this one did need some editing as I wanted to make the two people stand out rather more than the background. Picture 3 is showing a typical ballroom couples pose and I asked the teacher what other poses the dancers usually do but she said they stay in that one throughout. I shot picture 4 in the break the dancers had. They told me that they all have a 15 minute break for a cup of tea and this is a chance for them to chat. This picture seems to have worked out well as both women are looking at the man in the middle but he is looking at neither one of them. Pictures 4 and 5 are again the learning of the dances, picture 4 seems to show the men marching towards something rather than practising and picture 5 shows a clear diagonal line with the 3 women. This shows the difference between the men and women as the women got straight into lines and worked independently however the men seemed to stay more in a group and had a laugh and joke together. I really enjoyed photographing the ballroom class and it helped me to gain much more confidence with my photography as I was interacting with the dancers as well as standing back and taking my own pictures around them. I feel I have also progressed with my photography as I have tried to capture different sides to the class and different aspects of the people. Whilst looking at documentary photographers I also had a look for dance photographers and came across

A little taste of London

During the half term my family and I went up to London and we did all the typical 'tourist' things such as visiting Madame Tussauds, London eye, London film museum, West End show, Harrods, London dungeons, selfridges, and Oxford Circus by night. I had a really good time and there were loads of great photo opportunities. These pictures are my favourites and I like then for many different reasons. The picture over London from the London eye is one of my favourites because I really like the way the yellow sticks out from the rest of the offices and buildings. Also the picture of the old man with his instrument box really shows the life of London and the fact that there is a lot of hardship as well as wealth, this relates back to the street photography I have been focusing on and the likes of Bruce Gilden and Robert Frank can be refernced. I also really like the picture of the little boy on the scooter, this photo really stands out because as I was walking along oxford street I saw children and adults and businessmen in suits, however this picture captures it all in one. The little boy is dressed in a suit and is scooting along one of the most expensive streets in London, I think there is also a good element of fun implemented in this picture. The picture also relates back to the photographers I have been focusing on over the term and one of these being street photographer Bruce Gilden. Bruce4 Gilden did a lot of street photography and his work is quirky and fun and I think my image fits well into the Gilden style. My time in London opened my eyes to different types of pictures and I had a lot of fun photographing there.

A change in the weather

I was at the beach one lunchtime and noticed how the sky changed in a matter of minutes! I found this amazing and hadn't really noticed before how striking the clouds can look in the sky on a grey day! The three photo's are within about 10 minutes from each other and they capture the change from the grey block of cloud to the sun beautifully shining through the sky! After taking the pictures I tried to find a photographer that took extreme weather pictures to reference my work to. I found Jim Reed who was a storm chaser and his pictures were of very extreme photography. His pictures are fascinating and I found a lot of interest in them. He photographs exciting and big weather happenings and I think this picture relates back to him well as although the three pictures may not be so exciting, they do show the change from a normal sky to something very different in a matter of minutes. Below are some of Jim Reed's images, he particularly chases storms and other big weather events.

Mimmo Rotella style pictures

Inspiration for this task came from Mimmo Rotella. His work was very intriguing and gave me a great starting point for my pictures as I could create the film poster in the way that he has. Mimmo Rotella was an Italian artist who exibited much of his work around the world and if very famous in art and photography today.

This task was fun as I had no restrictions in what I was doing. It was purely a 'have a go' task for me in the beginning and I later developed the image to create what I have created now. Throughout the task I tried to keep in the style of Mimmo Rotella by referring back to his pictures to help me create my pieces. His work was very inspiring as it helped me to get a starting point for my pictures
The first picture was my attempt of using film posters to create an overview of the top films of the year within the Mimmo Rotella style. I think this worked well and I quite like the picture and how it has turned out. The second picture was supposed to tell more of a story. Perhaps the story of a boy going to an ice cream machine and receiving a really big sundae rather than the conventional cone. I used photoshop to create these images and used layers to concoct the different rips in the posters to create one picture, I also used the use off the lasso tool to pick the parts that i wanted to delete as well as using the magic wand tool to select places of the same colour and tone to delete to make the picture more tasteful and without to much of the same colour, finally I used the rubbing out tool to take out some extra areas I didn't want. I am happy with how both posters turned out however I think I could have made them a bit cleaner and as if they were not photo shopped.

the history of photography

This was one of my first attempts at photoshop, other than the visual elements project and I think that it worked out quite well in the end. I did find it quite difficult using photoshop as I have no previous experience at all, but when I got the hang of things I could just about work my way around what I was doing. All in all I think I managed to complete the task to the best of my effort and it didn't turn out to badly

Inspiration for 'up close and personal'

Bruce Gilden was the inspiration for this task. Bruce is a street phorotgapher that works on the streets of New York, he is also a member of Magnum Photo's. I find his work very interesting and fun, Bruce seems to get incredibly good images in such a short time frame, which I think is amazing! The images below were just a few of Bruce Gilden's picture's I looke dat for my inspiration. I find them very intriguing however still amusing. Bruce Gilden portrays his picture's ina laid back way, however when I went out to take picture's I found it very difficult to walk up to random people and snap in front of them. I have a lot of respect for Bruce Gilden for this main factor of his photography.

upclose and personal

This photo seems to show that the man does want his picture taken as there is a slight smile on his face, also on approach he made no effort to move and just stood as I snapped away at him.

This lady wasn't so happy! She turned back and gave me a nasty look after I took her photo, I wonder why this is?

This man was in a hurry and I think this shows in the picture, his face looks stressed and he seems like he has somewhere to be.

This little boy looked up straight away as I stood in front of him, I think he enjoyed having his photo taken and was quite intrigued as he watched me for a while.

This man really did not want his picture taken! I aimed the camera at him several times and he turned away every time so after a couple of shots I moved slightly further away and got this shot. I am quite happy with it, however I wish I could have got in closer.

Our assignment was to take a photographer and take some photo's in the style of that photographer. I choose Bruce Gilden as I find his photography very intriguing and fun. I did have a struggle to take some of the pictures as it was quite awkward to walk up to people and take pictures right in their face with the media's perception of photo taking in public. However I did have a lot of fun, and looking back on the pictures I think they all tell a story.

4 visual elements 2

This task was to find 4 pictures that had 4 of the 8 visual elements included in them. This task was quite easy to do with finding the pictures, however when it came to photoshop I struggled as this was the first time I used photoshop, however now I do understand how to edit these images to get them into this state. The first photo; top left is a diary which I think represents the colour elements of the 8 visual elements, the colour is vibrant and varied. Top right is 3D, I took this picutre whilst in Malta at the airport and the image really captured the mood of everyone, trying to get away from the airport and out into the open for their holiday. Bottom left shows pattern, the pattern of the different sized rocks under the water makes it more intruging as we are uncertain of whether the picture is taken in a small pool or in the ocean. Finally bottem right shows tone and and 2D, the tone is shown throught the different colours of light shown and the 2D is shown in the boat on the river.

4 visual elements

This picture shows 4 visual elements and how they each compliment one another in individual ways. The was one of the first photoshop tasks with an introduction to photoshop.

younger years are the best years

This picture goes with the picture below 'just an old man?'. The picture is of my grandad aged 17, which was about 65 years ago. The picture is just a standard portrait but with the other picture below I think it tells a story. This picture was taken just before my grandad went to fight in world war 2. At this time he would have just been a young man without having lived his life. I think this paints a very poignant picture as with the other picture we can see that he wouldn't have thought of a wife or having children. The picture was taken in the time of black and white basic photography with 6x6cm negatives. I found the picture whilst searching through old pictures and took the 'just an old man' in response to this one as it is my grandad over 60 years on. The picture is clearly a portrait and my grandad told me there were many of these taken of men in their smart clothes to give to parents and close relatives. The quality of the image is relatively good but obviously slightly grainy as it is old.

just an old man?

This picture really does mean something to me personally. Only some things in the picture are obvious to the viewer, these being the old man looking out of the window into the garden however it means so much more than that to me. This is my grandad sitting at the dining room having his afternoon tea, something that I never did quite understand, however my nan and grandad used to have this everyday. As well as my grandad there is the statue of the two people on the windowsill. This was given to my nan and grandad for their 60th wedding anniversary, to symbolise a very long marriage with a lot of hardship, including the war and rationing which came with it. Without showing my gran dad's face I can give the viewer an unidentified person that they can relate to themselves. It could potentially be any nan or grandad or mum or dad.

dolls house

Having a little look in my dolls house I thought this picture really captured the reality of the house and how every attention to detail had been considered and the display is so well thought out. The image is amusing as well as very neat. The doll shows the era of the house and the cutlery and other utensils seen helps to display an age which as I child I never understood. 'a picture tell one hundred words' really means something in this image, as it brings back a very happy childhood in which I played with the dolls in the doll house and made up stories about their lives however never understood the historic time which the doll would have been brought up in, had it been a real child like me.