The Trouble with Mirrors

A fellow student, Claire, who was one of several very nice parents who had allowed me to use her son as a model for the 'Never Work with Children . . . ' shoots I had done, approached me a couple of months back, and asked was I interested in doing another shoot for her.  But this time, it was to take photographs for the shop and gallery where she worked, of some of the products sold there.  The photographs were to be used on a price list sent out to potential customers, and the products were the work of Nick Munro - heres a link to his online shop and website - Nick Munro .

I jumped at the chance - though I must admit, I gulped when Claire told me that alongside bar ware and some jewellery items, there were also mirrors to be photographed.  She explained that for the purpose of the price list, the images were to be high key lit, plain white background - oh boy - that was going to be fun, with mirrors!

I had a chat with Colin, who as always, was very helpful - he suggested that the mirrors could be photographed in the big light tent, with the camera lens shooting through a 'slot' in the front cover of the tent - sounded good, so booked the studio.  I knew I had a tight time frame to complete the shoot, as Claire would have to bring the items from the shop in Chester, and return them by early afternoon.  Colin kindly agreed to be on hand to help, so it was all systems go.

Arrived on the day to find that Colin was sadly poorly, and hadn't been in to set up the studio for the high key lighting needed - black back drop, firmly in place, and no one available to help me set up.  Added to that, no one knew where the light meter or the flash set up was - Oh boy - starting to panic.

I owe huge thanks to Stewart, who was in that day, and who dropped everything to help - thanks Stew - I really, really appreciate that you were there !

Claire arrived with the products - absolutely gorgeous items - a series of dull silvered bar ware, and a selection of cufflinks.  And - of course - the dreaded mirrors - that turned out to be too big for the light tent !

ARRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !

With Stewarts advice, however, a plan of action was formed, to tackle the obvious difficulties .  As the brief was to produce images of the mirrors, on a white background, reflecting white outwards, the mirrors were positioned facing the now set up white backdrop.  To avoid reflections, I had to balance and shoot from a very odd angle, whilst Stewart tried to stop me overbalancing.  Later, in photoshop, I would have to 'cut' the mirors out of the cluttered background, place them on white, and use various tools to change the perspective and angle of the items.  Again,. Stew gave me several tips on how I could tackle this in photoshop - which, Thank Goodness, I am pretty familiar with !

These are two of the original photographs I came up with, at the shoot . . .

They look pretty awful don't they?  However, several hours in photoshop, and I managed to turn them into these  . . .

I had a pretty good idea how to approach the post production necessary for this job, but I learn't a lot more, and refined several techniques that I hadn't had much cause to use before, so this was a really valuable learning curve for me.

Back to the shoot, and onto the bar ware.  The only slight problem here was in positioning the bar ware against the white backdrop, the green screen that had been put up at the opposite end of the studio was reflecting in it - more post production, but thankfully - a very easy job to correct this in photoshop.

Then - with time flying by - onto the cufflinks.

The first lot was a series in silver and white, and silver and black, each cufflink featuring a number from '0' to '9' - I used the light box for these, and was also able to borrow the uni's macro lens. With the numbered cufflinks, the shots needed to be taken from above, featuring the 'face' of each item - no problem from the point of view of shooting, the 'mount' attached to the light box took care of that - but the 'fixings on the back of the cufflinks made it difficult to position them so that the 'faces' pointed straight up into the lens.  We got round this by cutting 'slits' into white card, which was suspended on 'blocks', and pushing the 'fixings' on the jewellery through the slits.  This allowed the cufflinks to be firmly held in the position needed.  In post production, I needed to play around with levels a little, but it wasn't too bad - the problem with all the jewellery, is that it was from stock used for display purposes, and with the macro lens, it was evident that the silver on each was covered in tiny little scratches that really showed up .  Again, not difficult to improve in photoshop, but very fiddly and time consuming - some of  the finished pictures of this set

The last set to be photographed were more cufflinks, this time blocks of colour, set in more silver.  I struggled slightly, with some of the colours - the dark blue looked black - and again, little scratches really showed up.  However, more post production, quite easy in this case, and they were done .

I actually finished the shoot bang on time, which I was very pleased with, considering some of the obsticles I'd faced .  Completely new territory for me, and the experience provided me with several examples of finding a solution when faced with previously unencountered problems on a shoot, that may well help me in future work.  It was also valuable experience of working to a detailed and definite brief, and to a tight deadline . Claire later confirmed that the photographs were suitable for the the purpose they were intended for, so big thanks, Claire, for giving me a shot at this . And again, thanks to Colin for the advice he gave me in advance, and to Stewart, for his much needed and appreciated help on the day.

ARD502 - The Message - Time lapse

The brief wanted us to create a short film, using time lapse editing, that had to be made with consideration for it having a commercial application - for an advertisment.

I played around with quite a few ideas - I considered filming parts of the Welsh countryside, with the sky forming a large part of each frame to capture the changing light and clouds, with a view to it being an advertisment for the Welsh Tourist Board.  I also thought about filming a series of sunsets and sunrises, as maybe the basis for a range of paint colours, for a DIY chain.  However, after chatting with Simon, 'changing skies' and 'moving clouds' seems to be a very common solution to this brief, so I decided to look around for something a bit different.

A family trip to Chester Zoo was coming up, so I decided to look at creating an advertisement for the zoo, using the time lapse technique.  Camera charged and at the ready, off we set - on the greyest, most miserable rainy day imaginable:(

I'd planned the ad to start with a close up of the main entrance of the zoo, pulling out to show streams of people entering - we arrived, and the whole of the main entrance was shrouded in scaffolding and boards !  I shot instead a section of streams of cars entering the zoo and a shot of one of the posters that you see as you approach - not happy with it, but on the spot, it was the best I could come up with!

Inside, it just wasn't working.  Very few visitors in the actual zoo - not surprising, considering the miserable weather - and none of them looking particularly happy.  A lot of the animals were inside, away from the cold, and filming inside was hampered by glass viewing windows that invariably created problems with reflections.  And again, several sections of the zoo were undergoing maintenance, which made it hard to present the place looking in any way attractive.  

I got some nice footage of the elephants - though I realised some nifty cutting would be necessary as several times, as I noticed later, an elephant in the background was either relieving itself, or as in one sequence at least, the large bull was demonstrating very obviously that it had designs on one of the females !  Pleased as well with some footage of the penguins swimming underwater - I manged to get an angle on that, that didn't show reflections of myself filming.  Shots of the inside of the tropical house were difficult, due to shy creatures, sleeping and immobile snakes and lizards, and the fine mesh material that is used on some of the enclosures.  Got a great sequence, though, of a very bored baboon, who spent several minutes, licking the window at the front of its enclosure - then polished the glass, vigourously, with its hands. 

Several walkways around the zoo are made of wooden decking, raised off the ground - few people as there were, every time someone walked by, the boards bounced and it looked like I'd shot the footage that I'd obtained whilst standing on it, whilst perched on a trampoline - despite the tripod!

Once home, I reviewed the footage - I actually felt I had some decent sections - the elephants (once edited), the Baboon, penguins, some of the fish and other Aquarium creatures, some footage from the monorail (though for the most parts, due to the weather, the animal enclosures I'd shot from it appeared to be empty) - oh, a there had been a party of school kids, about 11 to 14 years old, that I had filmed - but on looking over that, although the quality was good and there was certainly a lot of - er - action - I ended up feeling that if I used it, it would merely give any audience the impression that the zoo had started an enclosure for captive Chavs !

At this point, I was considering starting over, anyway, when fate took a hand - PC decided to have a tantrum, and nearly every bit of footage I'd shot was 'corrupted' - and I'd already formatted the cards I'd used ! However, I did learn a lot, from the experience of filming - not least, to actually try and check out the location, and the weather report - BEFORE turning up with the camera!

Back to the drawing board - eldest daughter due home from uni,  for the start of the Christmas holidays, and all 3 kids were planning to get the Christmas tree and decorations up.  So, I started playing with the idea of filming Christmas preparations, with the notion of the commercial aspect being an advertisment for some sort of Superstore, where you could buy everything you needed for it to 'Look a lot like Christmas' - all under one roof.

I filmed over the weekend and shot a lot of sequences - the kids putting up the tree, my youngest putting out Christmas cards, me baking mince pies and wrapping presents, my two daughters decorating the window with Christmas stickers, a slow burning Christmas candle and a snow globe - and the kids even insisted that the poor dog got in on the act, and dressed him in a Santa jacket, for me to film him !


The longest part of the editing process was actually uploading the footage I'd shot - over a weekend, I'd amassed several hours worth.  Once it was uploaded, was really pleased with what I had - and very glad that none of the accompanying sound would be used, when I heard some of the names the kids had called each other, whilst decorating the tree .  I edited together different sections, then using the notes from the lesson Simon had given us, speeded up the film - a few little cuts and adjustments, and it fitted the music - the original version of the song 'Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas' - and I was really pleased with the results, considering that to my surprise, the editing, once the footage was uploaded, took less than 2 hours .

It was at this point that I discovered that a fellow student had had virtually the same idea as myself - I can't imagine what the expressions on mine and Andy's faces must have been like when we both discovered that we had filmed around a Christmas theme - and both had footage of candles burning, tree decorating - and had even chosen the same piece of music.  It was way too late for either of us to start again, so all we could do is agree that 'Great minds think alike' - and carry on !

Overall, I actually like the piece of  film I came up with - I felt it captured Christmas preparations in a way that an audience would relate too, that there were enough sequences to demonstrate the variety of goods that the 'fictious' store was offering, and this was one of the film projects that, for the most part, that was fun to  edit, and where I had no problems at all with the actual technique I had to master. There was a 'glitch' due to the mac at the end, which caused me some panic, as (old news this) all our techs were at the CCI (again) - but once I got hold of Simon, he very quickly sorted the problem that was stopping me converting the film to quicktime - and it was done .  Part of the reson that I really liked the finished film is also down to the fact that its a nice bit of  our 'family Christmas', presented in a different way, for me to keep and look back on .


So - here it is - 'Its Begining to look a lot Like Christmas' - Time Lapse stylee .

ARD502 The Message - Green Screen

Assignment Instructions -

EITHER:

As the basis for a commercial :-

A) Use a green screen technique to place a person/s in a place they could never be or would unlikely to be (from the middle of a motorway to Mars - use your imagination). You can use a found background from any source. You will need a concept sheet.

OR
B) Use green screen to a allow a person to hold a conversation with themselves. You will need a synopsis and a script which must be approved before proceeding.

Hmmmmmm - this one took some thinking about !

Intially, I liked the idea of putting a person somewhere where they wouldn't usually be found - I played around with the idea of using background footage of an underwater sceen, or maybe a 'macro' view of travelling through a hedgerow, or long grass, and adding a person, perhaps a miniturised person, to perhaps advertise a nature/wild life magazine or programme aimed at children.  I actually went so far as to look for a selection of potential background footage, on the internet - but not one clip I could find fit exactly what I wanted - the environments were either too 'static', or I couldn't come up with the action of a person that I could fit into the footage I'd found that i could make work inthe way I wanted.

So, I started playing around with the idea of 'holding a conversation' with themselves - I thought about a series of situation where someone would actually talk to themselves - when faced with a decision, perhaps?  This led onto me thinking about the idea of your concience having a 'voice', and how there is the idea that we have an angel and a devil sitting on our shoulders, the first offering advice on being good - the second pushing us to give into temptation.

The more I thought about it, the more I could see this being something I could use for a commercial project - and I thought it would be fun to let the devil be the winner, in this instance!

So, I came up with the idea of advertising a tempting food - cream cakes!  This would involve a central figure, being faced with the 'tempatation' of biting into a cake, whilst a mini version of him/herself sat on his right shoulder, complete with halo, warning not to eat it, and on the left shoulder, a miniture version wearing devils horns, tempted and coaxed him or her into giving in and indulging.  The script would not have to be long or complex, and I came up with  the following, complete with a 'tag line'-

 

Angel- Ah, ah, ahhhhhhhh - a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.

Devil - Take no notice - Go on - its only one little cake!

Angel - You'll be sorry! Have you no will power?

Devil - Blow will power - just look at it - fresh cream oozing - go on . . .

Angel - Put it down - NOW!

Devil - Are you going to listen to him/her? Ignore him/her - just imagine sinking your teeth into that lucious cake . . . it'll be like heaven - you know you want it . . .

Angel  - No, No, noooooooooooo (gets squashed by hand )- Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Devil Voice 'Fresh Cream Cakes - Go on - You know you want it

The main issue with getting this project off the ground was one of facilities and equipment being available.  Despite the initial brief for this being handed out in the Summer holidays, upon our return to Regent Street, no new backgrounds had been provided in the studio - that included green screen.  Once the backgrounds did arrive, a suitable green screen area wasn't put into place until about 3 weeks before the end of the term.  Added to that, the studio was booked out for 'teaching' sessions, lasting whole afternoons or days, limiting the access to it that we had had before - and there was also the fact that the studio was required not only for the green screen filming, but also for photographic units that not only year two, but also the other years had to complete, so it was really difficult to book time in it, even if you were prepared to come in on any day, at any time .  And yes, there is a green screen studio in the new CCI building - unfortunately, competiton to use it is fierce, we have yet to be given information on how we go about booking it - and even if we could figure out how to do that, we can't use it until we have had the relevant 'health and safety training' - which we are STILL waiting for - oh, and the last time I asked about it, they were still waiting for the scoops and floor covering that would enable green screen filming to be done properly anyway.  As if that isn't enough, there is currently only ONE HD film camera working and available,  between all 3 years of creative lens media.  Lecturers and technicians were wholly sympathetic and I think, just as frustrated as students over this - and it goes without saying that this situation prevented us starting on these projects as quickly as we wanted, and made it difficult (if not impossible) to complete this work within the time frame given.  

Despite the fact that I haven't wasted time, because of this set of circumstances, I sought permission from Stewart to approach this project as group work - it would cut down on the waiting time to actually get into the studio, and due to the delays, would save myself and a few others from having to apply for an extention in order to get the work finished.  I really appreciate that Stewart gave consent, it lifted a lot of pressure, and it made it possible to finish this assignment within the time given.

So, Dawn and I joined forces - as I had come up with the idea and the script, Dawn undertook providing the storyboards.  We managed to get the studio booked in the second to last week of the term, and roped Dave in to play our 'cream cake eater' - big thanks to Dave, who for the good of the film, had to force down THREE cakes in total :)

Actual filming took less than a day - here are some of the photographs taken during the filming -

Photograph taken by Dawn - Dave and Temptation

The temptation!

Photograph taken by Dave - Dawn's tempted too!

Photograph taken by Dawn - I give into temptation!

Photograph taken by me - Dawn Filming

Photograph taken by Dawn - Devil Dave and Angel me - of course!

 

Editing took just two days - it had too - by now, we were running out of time to get all the units finished, despite having worked flat out.  I would have, ideally, liked to have taken more time with this part of the unit. But, the first day,  yet again both the techs we usually turn to for help were  down at the CCI for all or most of the day, so we simply edited the 3 sequences into order - without help, that was as far as we could go.  The second day, thankfully, Simon was on hand, and as always, was massively helpful.

We had made life a lot harder for ourselves, as we discovered, by placing the 'Mini' Dave's on 'Big' Dave's shoulders - As Dave reached for and put back the cakes, obviously he moved - so, particularly with the 'Angel' Dave, this necessitated us using tracking, to ensure that the 'angel' stayed on Dave's shoulder.  Also, in lifting the cake to his mouth, Dave's hand passed in front of the 'angel' figure - only the 'angel' remained 'infront of the hand, which was obviously wrong, so help was needed to 'mask' the part of Dave's hand, so it looked like it was in front of the 'angel'.  With hindsight, placing the 'angel' and 'devil' on the table, either side of the plate of cakes, would have made the editing a lot more straight forward.  However, that would have limited us to just the one medium long shot, which I think would have made it less interesting, visually.  And, though I wouldn't yet feel competent in editing Green screen without some advice to hand, I felt the way we had done it pushed us to learn more.

We wanted an 'amusing' aspect to the finished advert - and I think Dave, saying the tag line I had come up with for the end of the film,  provided this - thanks again, Dave - you were brilliant!  As a whole, I like the basic idea behind the finished piece, and we certainly tackled editing Green Screen, and I think, fulfilled the brief - but I would have liked the finished piece to be that bit more 'polished'. But, despite the fact that I had dived straight into working at this module, and the other two we tackled this semester, time became a major problem - I honestly believe that had all the equipment been available right at the start of the uni year, had our access to the studio not been somewhat limited at times, and had we not had so many days where our access to technical support was severely limited due to the demands that the CCI has made on their time, then I could have probably become a lot more competent and confident about the editing involved in this piece, and as a result, the finished piece would have been something I was far happier with .  I do know that the ill health of a family member did put some pressure on me, towards the end of the semester, but I do feel that I can say hand on heart, that the impact of that  alone, was something I could have managed, without it adversely affecting my work . At the stage where our marks now start to count towards our actual degree, its frustrating to know that despite the fact that I worked flat out and to the best of my ability on all the units, I felt rushed and am not 100% satisfied with this final film piece - particularly when it had the potential to be a lot better.

The Finished film

ARD503 Design For Society - Support a cause/Community/Charity

This was my first choice out of the units offered in this module.

Instructions given
"Use photography and type to produce a poster campaign for two of the following awareness lufting campaigns.  In corporate the logo (if applicable) and tag line into the design.

My two choces were

The Enviroment Agency.
keyword - pollutin
Tag line - diabolical, dirty and dangerous

All High Street Charity Shops.
Keyword - promote
tag line - Charity Chic - clothes by . . . 

For both these themes, I had immediate ideas of what visual image I wanted to create. Stewart told us he would be happy if for each option, we came up with one poster that fulfilled the purpose, and that which could be used as a format for several other posters in the campaign.

For The Environment Agency, the tag line to me seemed very strong, and I wanted that to form an important part of the finished poster - the three words instantly gave me the idea of using a tryptic approach - 3 similar, linked images - in this case, one to accompany each word in the tagline.  I also considered what type of pollution to feature, and decided on litter pollution, as that seems to be a growing problem these days.  The words in the tag line were applicable - diabolical - yes, in terms of the environmental impact and damage . Dirty - yes, its an absolute eyesore, whether in rural or urban settings and encourages vermin. Dangerous - again, yes, the danger to wild life just from waste plastic like bags or drink can holders is immense.

Its sad that it actually took me very little time to find 3 suitable images - I merely walked around an urban shopping center, and within a very short space of time, I had 3 images that would work, of dumped rubbish.  These images by themselves may not have the visual impact  that can accompany other types of pollution - say an oil slick or polluted stream - but using them was deliberate on my part, to try and get across the message that no form of pollution is without impact or is ever acceptable.  I hoped that by combining the images with the tag line, and using appropriate text, I would get this message across clearly.

I dropped the 'and' from the tag line, as after consulting with Stewart, he agreed it wasn't necesary and detracted from the balance of the poster.  I felt it was appropriate to use the logo, but changed the colour to compliment the final image.


The finished poster

My second choice took more research and work, but I really enjoyed doing it.  I have always liked the fashion images created by the likes of David Bailey in the 60's - and I thought a similar apporach would emphasise a 'retro' feel that would work well in a campaign of this nature.  I also changed the tag line, slightly, to 'Charity Shop Chic' - I felt this left the posters open to be used as a campaign by several different organisations.

I approached a local charity shop, Barnardo's, and need to say a big 'Thank you' to Jeanette, the manageress, who with one phone call obtained permission for me to use the premises for a shoot.  She also, very kindly, allowed me to use a selection of the actual clothes in the shop, made changing facilities available, and allowed me to re-arrange and basically take over the place for several hours - she and her staff were incredibly obliging and helpful and made this a really enjoyable project to do .

My model is Emily, a long time friend, who was fantastic - she has little experience at modeling, but she was incredibly cooperative and patient and was great to work with.

I looked at a series of photographs from the 60's, that had the style I was hoping to emulate -

(Above images obtained from Google search for 'David Baileys Fashion shots from the 1960's')

I really enjoyed this shoot, comming up with lots of photographs that I really liked.

As can be seen, I experimented with both black and white, and selective colour - the black and white shots were an attempt to enhance a 'retro' feel, but I felt the selectively coloured ones had more of an impact .  I wasn't 100% satisfied with these pictures though, so spoke to Stewart, who suggested that the text was way too intrusive, he said that the text could be a much smaller part of the finished image.  I liked the contrast of this, in comparison to what I had done with the Environment agency work - the idea that the image would be strong enough to draw an audience in, and in them looking closer at the image, then the text would deliver the message - so back to the drawing board, and I pulled back the text on several images.

I much preferred the less intrusive text.  I liked the poses Emily had used, and I felt that these combined with the angle of several of the shots had come close to getting the feel I wanted for the photographs.  Emily had looked at the images I had given her, taken by Bailey, and I felt the expresion she had, in several of the pictures, was absolutely spot on. I really liked the fact that in all but the first very photographs I had taken, Emily was wearing clothes from the actual shop - down to the shoes and the jewellery and accessories, all were items for sale in Bernardo's .

This was my favourite of the photographs I got, and my first attempt at turning it into a poster.

However, I then felt there was 'too much' background, and that the colour of the text was too 'bold', so my final attempt -

 

I chose this photograph for several reasons - firstly, the outfit was exactly the sort of clothing that I felt would fit the 'chic' part of the tag line - I felt it was 'retro', yet fun and modern.  I loved the pose - the movement in her hair as she jumped, and the motion blur of her feet made it interesting.  The selective colour made Emily very much the central figure, drawing attention to what she was wearing, but there was enough of the background there to show clearly what the location was.  I felt it had a 'fun' feel that would appeal to a lot of younger people, who may be shopping on a budget, so it would appeal also to their pockets - and I also felt that it would appeal to the more environmentally aware modern day customers, who on the whole, feel recycling is a good and necessary objective  - it hopefully promotes the message that you can be environmentally responsible - and look good at the same time.

I also created posters using the actual tag line given in the brief - I really felt the 'changed' tag line looked better for the purpose of the poster, BUT, the brief was very specific.  if I were presenting this work to a client, I would present the poster with tag line as specified, but I'd also have the other there, and should the opportunity present itself appropriately, I'd offer it as an alternative.

I enjoyed both of these assignements - it was interesting to use two different approaches to the design - text and image playing an equal role in one, and letting the image being the main focus in the other.  It was also interesting to find that although I am very happy with both final pieces, the amount of work that went into them varied - despite having very clear idea's on what I wanted for both posters, it took longer and more work to get the Charity shop one 'right' - I guess thats a good lesson for how different assignements can work out in real life !

Module ARD502 - The Message - Illustrating a Feature - Part 2

Next up -

Vine and Dine.

As always, started by listing as many possible ideas as I could for what this feature could be about.  I looked at possibly wine reviews, or vineyard reviews and then decided that there were two avenues I would like to pursue - I liked the idea of a still life style photograph, using either cheese and wine, or a feature on a recipe that involved using wine as an ingredient.  I came up with the idea of basing the style of photograph on painting of food and wine, and looked on the internet at several paintings that I felt had the 'feel' I wanted to achieve.

I liked both these paintings by Cezanne

 And I also liked these paintings, that I found on the internet .

I liked the often 'rustic' feel of a lot of the art work that I looked at, and also the way that a lot of attention is paid to the textures and colour of the food stuff featured.

To help  create the 'rustic' feel, I used again a small bale of hay, and also a wooden board.  For the 'recipe' section, I bought a casserole serving dish in a burnt orange colour that I felt would compliment the other colours, and also brought along some of the raw ingredients I'd used to make the bourguignon.

Here are some of the images from the recipe shoot

I then moved on to photographing a selection of different cheeses with the wine.

I was really happy with the images I got from these two shoots, so then moved onto adding text

The text on this one is too big and too dark

This one, with white text that is smaller, I think works much better.

Again - text too big and intrusive

And in all these images, I needed to go back into photoshop, and 'clean' up areas like blemishes on the veg shown, and gravy marks on the side of the dish.










This image is more how I think the final page could and should look, and I think that there are several of the images I got, both with the cheese and with the recipe shoot, that could be used in this manner.

Pass the Pasta.

Immeadiately I think of pasta and the image that comes to mind is a family meal, possibly al fresco - and all the idea's that I liked that I had around this catagory had this idea of 'families' at the base.

I thought about doing a restaurant review, and approached the local Frankie and Benny's restaurant -  this specialises in pasta and pizza dishes, and is a very typical 'family' restaurant.  The manager and staff were very happy for me to come in and take photographs, and very kindly furnished me with the area managers phone number, to just confirm with her that it would be OK - several phone calls where I'd left messages and four frustrating weeks on, and I had to abandon this idea, as the area manager didn't get back to me - having wasted all this time waiting to hear from her, I had meanwhile started to pursue another idea, and given the ever looming hand in date for the work in this and the other two modules, I decided in the end to stick with the other idea.

The other idea came again from the whole idea of families - I started thinking about a recipe section based on pasta meals for children - I thought that this idea could convey the idea that pasta meals are fun for kids, and maybe appeal to parents who had 'fussy' eaters.

So, studio booked, spaghetti and meatballs cooked, and youngest daughter dragged into the studio to eat a plate of pasta - at 10.30 in the morning - Thank you Katie - you were a wee star !

I really loved a lot of the images I got - Kate enjoys this type of food, and got stuck in, and I just fired off shot after shot .

Then I looked at putting the images together, and/or with text

I liked the idea of using a tryptic presentation

This photograph was probably the one I liked best out of all the shots I took .

And I liked it presented both as a piece on its own, and combined with smaller images, to create the final pieces.

I really enjoyed this unit, out of all the briefs we had in the modules this semester, this 'illustrating a feature' was probably my favourite.  I learn't a lot about photographing food under studio conditions, and it made me really think about the details - from the necessity of 'cleaning' up spills and blemishes, through to the type of text to use and how to research and develop idea's.  I ended up producing a massive ammount of work, and did so under quite a tight deadline, when you consider how much other work there was in the 3 modules from this semester, and how we had all been hampered by lack of equipment and studio time, plus the fact that several of the film modules were extremely time consuming .  Personally, I would rather have had a more balanced set of modules, because it did feel like priority was given to film, both in terms of our timetable and in terms of the briefs - this was the only photographic unit that I really felt I had been able to spend a lot of time on, and I would have loved the option of doing more briefs like this and dropping some of the film work.  I understand that the degree I am doing is not called 'photography', but 'Creative Lens' - but I was under the impression that at least EQUAL consideration would be given to both until we got to the point where we were able to specialise, and I don't feel like the modules did offer me the opportunity to do that - the film modules that we HAD to do were for the most part, so time consuming that I couldn't spend an equal ammount of time on the photography.  I'm assured that this will change in the next semester, and I really look forward to that.