This is by way on an introduction to a project that I've been putting together for a little while now, and that is going to keep me very busy for the next 2 or 3 weeks .
Over the Summer I've had a lot of contact with Wrexham Arts Council, attending and photographing several events at their request, and also several events that have come about because of the people I have been lucky enough to meet whilst attending Arts Council events .
Several weeks ago, Steffan Jones Hughes told me that Wrexham will be holding a big carnival day, on the 22nd of September, and he suggested it might be a really good event for me to photograph - well, if I can point a camera, I am happy, so of course, I was interested . This chat was followed up by an e mail that started to give me some idea of how big an event it would be, and Steffan asked did I know any other film makers/photographers who would be interested in getting together with me, and covering as much of the event as we could.
Straight away, I called on Holly Cooper, who I'd already worked with on the ReImagine live music event, and who I knew was interested in more event work, and spoke also to Dawn Field, another photographer, who I have also worked with before . Then, as event pages linked to the whole carnival started to appear all over facebook, I realised that 3 photographers would not be enough, and that it would also be a fantastic opportunity for any film makers that I knew, to document a big event.
And I mean big - before sending a 'shout out' to look for other photographers and film makers to take part, I listed what was involved -
On the 20th and 21st, there would be 4 dance workshops, organised by SWICA , (South Wales Inter-cultural Community Arts) and SWICA would also be organising the parade and street entertainment on the 22nd. Peace day would also be starting 3 days of events, tied in with the carnival - on the 20th there would be Peace Day workshops held at St Christopher's school, with 10 other schools taking part; on the 21st there would be a community picnic and live music on Llwyn Isaf, followed by more live Music at Saith Seren till late ; and on the day of the carnival, there would again be a big Peace Day live music concert on the bandstand at Llwyn Isaf, followed by more live music in Saith Seren. In addition, there would be a Zine Fair, in the Oriel Gallery on the morning of the 22nd, and to finish it off, the whole event was also linked to Helfa Gelf - The Art Trail, where for the whole month, Artists across Wales would be throwing open their studio's to the public .
Initially, I got a rather lukewarm response to my asking for volunteers to become involved in this project . This was disheartening, but for several reasons, I decided to persist - firstly, it was the opportunity and challenge this presented to work with a fairly large number of organisations, if I could get a team together - In terms of experience, forming connections, the chance to demonstrate and improve my ability to collaborate with others in the field, and the professional practise module of my degree, it would be invaluable . Secondly, through the connection with Wrexham Arts Council, over the Summer I'd become aware of just how much was actually going on in my home town, and how hard Steffan, the Arts Council and other organisations were working to provide community events that would be of benefit to Wrexham - and I felt very lucky to be given the chance to have a small role in documenting what was going on . Added to that, again, it presented the opportunity for me to meet more talented and creative people, which I think broadens my views and experience in a positive way . So there were a lot of reasons I really wanted to pursue this .
There was also the fact that increasingly, I was being approached with events that would be better for having more than one person working as a photographer, and also I was increasingly being asked if I could 'find' people to film events - particularly music events . So, the idea of getting together a bunch of students and ex-students, who could provide this sort of service in exchange for experience and exposure (and hopefully, in some cases, expenses at least covered) started to form . And maybe, eventually, it could even lead to paid jobs, for some, or all, of us - the experience would surely increase our chances . Holly had drawn the same conclusions, we had discussed it a few times, and both of us felt that it could be a really positive move, for all those involved .
So, I sent out individual messages, and made some phone calls, and also contacted Dave Robinson, who has taught some of the film classes I have taken in uni and who is very experienced and who (I hoped) would be able to suggest potential film makers, and I also spoke to Stewart Edwards, my film and photography lecturer at Gyndwr .
In response to the messages and phone calls, fellow students Dave Fisher (film), Gemma Jones( photography), and Paul Lowndes (Photography) came on board, as did Mike Greaney, a talented photographer I had met whilst studying at AS level . Dave Robinson hooked me up with Dave Hale, a graduate in film who I had worked with briefly, during last Summer - and Dave Hale brought Luke Parry, another graduate, into the project on the film side . Stewart told me he was going to set up a FB page for all creative lens students - which he promptly did - and I put a post on there, explaining in more detail what was going on, and asking for volunteers - as a result of this, Beckah Hornsey, Ryan Ankers, Will Aron and Kathryn Lunt, all second year CLM students also came on board - several other people expressed interest also, but were unable to commit to the extent necessary . Stewart, after I had explained what exactly it was we were tackling, gave us the uni's full support, and made the uni's film equipment available to us - which was very much appreciated, as was Simon, spending time with the film crews and taking them through using the new equipment . With Dave Robinson also offering to oversee the film side and offer advice and support , this gave a good strong team to cover all aspects of these celebrations, hopefully in some depth, in both film and photography .
Whilst I was gathering together this 'team', knowing Steffan was swamped, I decided to 'take the initiative' and tracked down and spoke to all the various people and organisations involved, to establish contacts for us to work with, and to find out more about what each organisation/group/individual did, what they would like from this project, for information and just basically to introduce ourselves and explain what we were about .
As a 'team' we then had a series of meetings, where we eventually established who would tackle film for this project, and who would be the photographers . After 3 meetings, tasks were assigned and people were appointed 'lead' on various area's to be covered. By the last group meeting, I had produced what I guess could be called an 'info pack' - in it, I broke down the various days events, listed locations and contacts for each component, and included any pertinent information that I had - deadlines, info on consent forms, details about different aspects - it ended up as a 14 page document, and was a solid days work to pull together into a format that I hoped was clear. In order to allow the team to communicate effectively, following a suggestion from Holly, I set up a closed FB group - The Wrexham Film and Photography Collective - where any questions could be asked, and new information shared .
The organisation needed to pull together a project like this was immense - and something I don't think I had fully appreciated before actually taking it on . Because I was the initial person approached, and because I already had links with a lot of the groups involved in this event, it made sense for me to be the person who I guess, gathered and collated all the info and handled introducing the others in the team to the groups/organisations/individuals involved . It felt like I spent hours at a time sending and receiving emails, phoning people and researching, and taking copious notes - but, it was clear it was a necessary part of tackling a project of this size. I was very grateful to have Holly's help - as said, Holly had kindly covered a couple of the bigger events with me, prior to this, and had met several of the people involved with the carnivals various aspects .Once Dave Robinson and Dave Hale were on board, they thankfully took all the info and organised two film crews to cover the 3 days, and all I had to do was introduce them to the various contacts - at this stage, I felt it was better that they had direct contact, rather than going through me - the more layers in communication, the more chance that information could be misinterpreted or lost . Plus, film is not my area of expertise - better that those who were directly involved with the film side took over dealing with it - they would know better than myself what other information they needed to source, and what questions to ask . The two film crews consisted of 'Film 1' - Dave Hale (lead), Dave Fisher, Dave Robinson and Luke Parry; and Film 2 - Beckah Hornsey (lead), Will Aron, Kathryn Lunt and Ryan Ankers . Film 1 would cover the Peace Day events and Zine Fair, Team 2 would cover dance workshops, Parade and parade rehearsals and street entertainers .
The decision was made that with so much for the film crew to cover, and taking into account the amount of post-production involved, the live music at Saith Seren would be covered by photography only - we had to accept that adding more to the film side, given the size of the project and the number in the crews, would probably have lead to the standard of the completed work being compromised - Beckah took the lead for the photography .
Also, on the photography side, we arranged who would cover what, and where necessary, who would be the 'lead' person to communicate with the organisations involved - others in the group are every bit as capable as I would be at this side of things, and as said - such a big project that one person being 'lead' on everything could potentially lead to lost/misunderstood information, or simply something being overlooked . So, on the photography side, it looks like this . . .
Dance Workshps with SWICA , on the 20th and 21st - Sue (me)
Peace Day workshops at St Christophers on the 20th - Holly (lead) and Paul, with Gemma also attending if possible - with 300 children potentially involved, and several workshops plus the picnic, this was too big to ask just one person to cover .
Peace Day picnic and Music on the 21st - Holly and Paul.
Peace day Live Music at Saith Seren on the 21st - Will and Ryan.
Parade Rehearsal and actual Parade on 22nd - Sue (me) and Mike .
Zine Fair at the Oriel on 22nd - Holly and Dawn .
Street Entertainers on 22nd - Mike and Dawn .
Peace Day Live Music at Bandstand on 22nd - Sue (me) and Holly .
Peace Day Live Music at Saith Seren on 22nd - Beckah and Kathryn
Mike will hopefully be able to join the other photographers at one of the Saith Seren nights, at least :)
On the 22nd, Gemma is going to be literally where ever she needs to be - and she will be joined by Paul in the afternoon - it makes sense to have a couple of 'floating photographers', who are not tied to being at specific locations and events at specific times - they can literally 'wander' and in that way, hopefully they will catch a lot of unscripted and spontaneous moments, and be free to follow anything that comes up - the idea is this will give added depth to what is produced .
Helfa Gelf hasn't been forgotten either - Dawn and Mike have agreed to cover most of this, though Dawn and I covered the Glyndwr Collectives opening show as part of it, both Dawn and I have visited the studio's at Glyndwr to photograph some of the artists at work, and Dawn has already visited and photographed yet another artist at their studio .
Having got so far, and with the carnival now not so very far away, we are now at the stage where I feel pretty confident that between us, we are going to do a good job in delivering on this project . I am so glad that so many film makers and photographers have committed to the project, and I really appreciate all the hard work that they are putting in . I hope that this experience will stand us all in good stead, and hopefully generate more work experience and increase job chances for us all .
Its been a big learning curve, and pretty challenging - getting a team of this size together, having to sort and source all the information from all the organisations involved, connecting the various group members with the appropriate individuals and organisations, dealing with all the communication that's involved for something like this - all new territory for me. I've enjoyed it, but didn't realise in advance how much time and energy it would take , though I think from a learning point of view, its been worth every bit of effort I've put in .
Whilst all this has been going on, I haven't neglected actually taking photographs, either - aside from the Glyndwr Collectives opening show/exhibition, I have also photographed at two other music events in the last week or so . Blogs are to follow, on the absolutely fabulous time I had with @67, The Wrexham Community Choir and Africa Entsha, at the Glasshouse, Cefn Mawr, and also at The Wrexham Bandstand Marathon event, that Holly and I were lucky enough to go and photograph . As well as that, the photography page I set up , Moments - Photography By McGrane has been generating a lot of interest and I've spent considerable time keeping that up to date - and I really appreciate how many people have taken the time and trouble to look at and like the page, incidentally :) Once you generate a certain amount of 'likes' for a page, you start to get feedback and statistics - discovering that in some weeks, the page had been viewed over 2,500 times is incredibly gratifying - as well as surprising !
Blogs on the carnival will follow once we have the event over, and the work done . So for now, I'll just say Thank You to a whole lot of people who have helped us get this far, and who have welcomed and facilitated our involvement - to Steffan Jones Hughes (Wrexham Arts Council Manager), to Genny (Peace Day), Jenny (SWICA), Abi (Zine Fair), Laura (Oriel Gallery), Brendon (Live Music), Diana (Artist - Helfa Gelf), Vicky (Artist - Helfa Gelf), Angie (Artist - Helfa Gelf) , Katie (Artist - Helfa Gelf) and all the other representatives from the organisations involved; To Dave Robinson and Stewart Edwards for their support . And to the other film makers and photographers who are involved, and who are working so hard :) .
Showing posts with label event photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label event photography. Show all posts
Saturday, 15 September 2012
Saturday, 25 August 2012
Theatretrain - Summer Schools
As I have said before, both my daughter's have been heavily involved in the Wrexham Branch of Theatretrain, and over this Summer holidays, their involvement has continued, with my older girl getting work experience, and my younger daughter attending as a pupil, two of the week long projects that have been running, at the Forum Theatre, in Chester.
Steve, the Artistic Director, kindly allowed me to bring the camera into and take photographs of the end of week performances . These images have been used on the Theatretrain page, and also sent out as press releases .
First - Les Miserables
One of the images I took was sent out with a press release and published in The Wrexham Leader the next week
And Then, 'Disney on Broadway '
I love taking photographs of the Theatretrain productions - every time I am blown away by how hard the kids and the teachers work, and the polished performances they always deliver - from the huge show I saw several of the various Theatretrain groups perform in The Royal Albert Hall, through to performances like this, where they only have 4 days to learn all the songs, scripts and dances, their standard is amazingly high, and they are always a pleasure to watch :)
Steve, the Artistic Director, kindly allowed me to bring the camera into and take photographs of the end of week performances . These images have been used on the Theatretrain page, and also sent out as press releases .
First - Les Miserables
One of the images I took was sent out with a press release and published in The Wrexham Leader the next week
And Then, 'Disney on Broadway '
I love taking photographs of the Theatretrain productions - every time I am blown away by how hard the kids and the teachers work, and the polished performances they always deliver - from the huge show I saw several of the various Theatretrain groups perform in The Royal Albert Hall, through to performances like this, where they only have 4 days to learn all the songs, scripts and dances, their standard is amazingly high, and they are always a pleasure to watch :)
Monday, 30 July 2012
ReImagine Wrexham - Part 2
ReImagine Wrexham would culminate in an evening of live music and interactive art on July 11th .
The live music was supplied by experimental band DRK MTR - the Oriel FB book page describes them as . . ."an experiment with music, art and poetry is the brainchild of 3 north Wales artists. Musician and Producer, Steve Nicholls, Poet, Sophie McKeand and Artist, Andy Garside, are collaborating on this project. Fusing poems of the earth with digitally created sounds and performing them with VJ projections the live shows are not to be missed."
This was again, a really enjoyable experience - DRK MTR were edgy and innovative, and somehow, their material worked incredibly well with the 'feel' of the event . . . and it was fantastic fun to photograph them, and the on-going interactive art that was still taking place .
This was a really great event to be involved with, for several reasons. It gave me the chance to learn more and add to my photographic skills, I really enjoyed seeing the artwork grow and develop, it was brilliant to be part of something that was appreciated by everyone I spoke to who participated, and again - I met some fantastically creative and genuinely nice people .
Some of the images I provided were published in an Oriel Galley Programme - sadly, they forgot to credit me, but hopefully, I'll be able to get a copy of the programme and scan it to add to this blog at a later date :)
The live music was supplied by experimental band DRK MTR - the Oriel FB book page describes them as . . ."an experiment with music, art and poetry is the brainchild of 3 north Wales artists. Musician and Producer, Steve Nicholls, Poet, Sophie McKeand and Artist, Andy Garside, are collaborating on this project. Fusing poems of the earth with digitally created sounds and performing them with VJ projections the live shows are not to be missed."
This was again, a really enjoyable experience - DRK MTR were edgy and innovative, and somehow, their material worked incredibly well with the 'feel' of the event . . . and it was fantastic fun to photograph them, and the on-going interactive art that was still taking place .
 |
| Yet more fantastic art work had been added |
 |
| Mikey - still painting |
 |
| The Band joined in too |
 |
| By now, my daughter was thoroughly hooked on ReImagine - and enjoyed encouraging others there to join in ! |
 |
| The art work wasn't restricted to the walls! |
This was a really great event to be involved with, for several reasons. It gave me the chance to learn more and add to my photographic skills, I really enjoyed seeing the artwork grow and develop, it was brilliant to be part of something that was appreciated by everyone I spoke to who participated, and again - I met some fantastically creative and genuinely nice people .
Some of the images I provided were published in an Oriel Galley Programme - sadly, they forgot to credit me, but hopefully, I'll be able to get a copy of the programme and scan it to add to this blog at a later date :)
UPDATE : I have been put in contact with Helen Odunaiya, Senior Performance and Improvement Officer, from Wrexham Council - Ms Odunaiya has emailed me with reference to using some of the ReImagine Images . . . Its really great to know that my photographs are likely to be used in this way, and I'd like to say Thank You to Ms Odunaiya for taking the time to give me the exact details of their use - below is a portion of the e mail she sent, explaining .
"I
am interested in using some images of the artwork for the Wrexham Local
Service Boards strategic plan from April 2013 to March 2024. It is a
high level
strategic plan looking at the future of Wrexham as a place and will be
signed off by all the LSB partners, ie Council, BCUHB (hospital), Public
Health, Probation, Police, Fire, AVOW, Glyndwr (LSB rep is Paul
Whiting) and Yale. I saw the exhibition and thought
the work could be great to represent Wrexham as it comes from local
people and is an individual piece of work and will bring our document to
life! . . .
In
terms of my timeframe the plan needs to be in place for April 2013 and
we have to have a 12 week consultation period. We are currently working
hard on
the plan with 3 high level themes looking at Quality of life, Economy,
and community involvement / safety. The final document will be printed
in paper format and we will also have an electronic version so it will
go out far and wide across Wrexham and to
all our partners and will exist for many years!
Thanks very much for your help, the photos are just great."
Monday, 9 July 2012
Mama Mia - Theatretrain Style
As I have mentioned before, my daughters have long been involved with the Wrexham branch of Theatretrain, with my youngest still being a very active (and enthusiastic) member of the school. This week saw the children in the 6 - 9 and 9 - 12 age groups present a short version of Mama Mia, at Ysgol Morgan Llwyd, as an end of term show for parents and family. Having been lucky enough to have been allowed to photograph one of their productions at The Forum Theatre, Chester, for one of my uni modules , I took along the camera, hoping to add to my experience, and once again, capture these very young and talented children as they entertained us. It was a simple performance, with the children narrating the sequence of events from the show, in between performing some of the numbers . Once again, so impressed by how hard these kids work, and by how much they obviously enjoy it ! The photographs I took are featured on the Theatretrain Wrexham, Chester and Mold face book page, and here are just a couple of examples .
Big thank you to all the children and teachers at Theatretrain - that was a really enjoyable show :)
Big thank you to all the children and teachers at Theatretrain - that was a really enjoyable show :)
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
CD/Album and Event
Final two units from ARD507, last semester of year 2, Photography option .
CD/Album.
We had to use photography and graphics to redesign a CD album cover. the aim was to improve the appeal of the original cover, and - yet again - type was to be incorporated into the final design.
In a similar way to the book cover, the biggest issue here was in being spoilt for choice - added to which, the original images on so many CD's/Albums were a little hard to improve the appeal of anyway!
However, after some thinking, my mind turned to some experimentation I have been doing with motion blur images, and I started to get an idea for using some of them to create a cover for a long time favourite album -
The idea was very simple, but I felt it could be very effective - I would take the words 'rain' and 'dancing' and use a composition of two images that represented them to create the cover.
I decided on two of the movement images to work with
I then turned these images black and white, and I also inverted them for some of final pieces .
Then to photograph the 'rain' component - easier said than done !
In then end, I found the best way to get the images I wanted was to photograph from the inside of my kitchen window, and I used both natural rain and my hose pipe, set on everything from 'spray' to 'soak' to try and capture water droplets. For some, using flash, and a shallow depth setting gave me the dark back ground, and by taking the largest size file I could, I was then able to crop down the resulting pictures, to get rid of the flash reflection (or any others that had sneaked through ! ) and isolate the parts that I thought would work best. I wanted the raindrops to be 'larger' than they would be in comparison to the dancing figure, in real life, as I felt this would have more impact, and using small crops, then enlarging them to the size of the dancing figure would achieve this.
And after photoshop, and some playing with filters and effect, these were some of the final images I experimented with
Then it was into photshop with all the images, to combine them as layers, and start playing with text - I had already decided to list the artists name by using her autograph, which had appeared on other other albums and posters. This is a selection of the pieces I came up with
I liked a lot of the pieces I came up with, and in the end, it came down to having two, that I had made into 3D representations of actual covers - although I like both, I think that side by side, its the second of the two images that tends to 'jump' out at you, so that one ended up as my final choice.
I enjoyed this unit, and was really pleased with the final results, which I felt fulfilled the brief. At assessment however, although there was no criticism of the images, again feedback indicated that the placement of the type could have been better - and again, I'm left incredibly frustrated that a component of my final work falls short, when we have had no instruction to assist us with this aspect of it.
Event.
This was the final unit - we had to produce a mini portfolio of an event, over a one or two day shoot, and tackle it as a professional assignment. We had to produce at least 10 to 20 images, and use a range of shots to tell the story of what happened.
Both my daughters have attended Theatretrain for the last several years. Theatretrain is a National Company that teaches children aged 6 to 19 dance, drama and singing . There are classes held all over the UK, and through this group, my daughters have performed everywhere from the Local Stwit Theatre in Rhos, through to Chester, Manchester, and even the Royal Albert Hall in London. Luckily for me, my youngest daughters group, the 9 to 12's, were currently in rehearsal for a performance of 'Honk ' - a kind of modern day 'Ugly Duckling', which was to be performed at The Forum Theatre, Chester. Steve Davies, the artistic Director of the Wrexham, Chester and Mold groups very kindly gave consent for me to photograph both the morning and dress rehearsal, on the day of the actual show.
So, I spent the morning at Ysgol Morgan Llwyd, and the afternoon at the Forum, with this very talented bunch of kids.
The 'story' I wanted tell tell of this event was really to show how much the kids enjoyed it, and how well they worked with their coaches - the kids performed the whole show no less than 3 full times during the day, and not once did I see any of them lose patience, or look fed up - and same goes for the tutors. And rather than just get the performance aspect, I also wanted to get the kids when they weren't 'on stage' so to speak. I wanted the interaction with the tutors, that goes into producing a performance like this, and to show the amount of work that goes into it, during the rehearsals .
After the sessions, I edited and sent the pictures to Steve, who sent them out as Press releases, and some were later published in 3 local papers.
I really enjoyed this unit, it was great to see how much the children enjoyed this and it was educational to realise how hard the tutors work. From a learning point of view, this was the first 'event' that I had ever really tackled in this way, and dealing with the movement of the subjects and the lighting changes, and so on, was great practical experience.
To Sum up . . .
In terms of the practical work of photography, I really enjoyed this last module - aside from the issues with typography! It crystallized for me that whatever genre of photography that I settle on, I know that I have the most success with working with capturing images of people, especially when I feel I can have some time to 'get to know them' and get images that really capture who they are or what they are doing. I did find it damn hard work at times, partly because of the physical mobility issue that I had - this meant that some idea's that i wanted to pursue just were not possible, and it was really frustrating - but, I guess life can just be like that, and I finding that you have to change plans and adapt to situations is very much part of a working environment - as is delivering the goods under difficult conditions.
Year 2 as a whole - right at the beginning, I felt priority was given to film over photography - the first semester's practical work on our return seemed to focus heavily on the film side, and the units concerning film seemed so time consuming that I sometimes felt that I struggled for time to devote to the photography. In terms of the actual lesson/tutorial aspect, the balance in films favour was even more obvious - we had 2 hours a week with Stewart, which was pretty evenly split between film and photography, and 2 hours with Colin, just for photography - which was in sharp contrast to the SIX hours of tutorials that were devoted to film editing. I did raise this issue several times, but throughout the year, nothing changed, though I must add that both Colin and Stewart made themselves available when they could, for advice and help when I felt I really needed it. That isn't the same as set tutorials, though, and when I feel that I still have a lot to learn on the technical side, it is really frustrating.
What this year has done is made it very much clearer to me as to what direction I feel I want to move in, with my photography. As I have said, work involving people, be it portrait, street or as part of event photography, is something I am finding increasingly enjoyable, and an area of my work where I think I am seeing the most improvement. Especially, this year has seen an introduction for me to event photography, especially in terms of photographing the people at events, and its an area that I have really enjoyed - thank you to Stewart, who got me involved with the 'Store' project - I learnt so much, and its opened quite a few doors for me in terms of making contacts that are already generating opportunities for me to gain more experience in this field. I also think that I am able to be a lot less self concious and more confident about getting 'candid' shots, when working in front of 'the public', so to speak - and having this confidence has improved the images I am producing too.
It was commented at my last assessment that I am showing an awareness of what my 'audience' wants, and looking back over the briefs we have had, I think the work set in them has really contributed to my ability to do this, and I've learnt a lot about this aspect from the briefs.
There seemed to be a huge amount of academic/written work this last semester too - I actually enjoyed all of it, but again, I feel the time it took compromised my opportunities to learn more in a practical sense about photography. Having said that, Creative Futures week was incredibly useful in terms of the advice and information I took from it.
I think I have progressed with my photography, overall - I think I have demonstrated that I learn to cope with new situations and tasks, and sometimes, with the unexpected. And that I can usually find a way to resolve problems and snags that crop up, and where necessary, come up with an alternative way of getting the job done. I am hoping that next year, there will more opportunity for me to improve the technical side of my work - I am still struggling slightly with high key and getting white right, I'd like to learn how to use gels, and would also like to know more about coping with poor lighting on location shoots - amongst other things.
That my next year is the final year of this degree is something I am struggling to realise - its all gone so quickly - much as I am looking forward to the next semester, I am dreading it being over !
CD/Album.
We had to use photography and graphics to redesign a CD album cover. the aim was to improve the appeal of the original cover, and - yet again - type was to be incorporated into the final design.
In a similar way to the book cover, the biggest issue here was in being spoilt for choice - added to which, the original images on so many CD's/Albums were a little hard to improve the appeal of anyway!
However, after some thinking, my mind turned to some experimentation I have been doing with motion blur images, and I started to get an idea for using some of them to create a cover for a long time favourite album -
The idea was very simple, but I felt it could be very effective - I would take the words 'rain' and 'dancing' and use a composition of two images that represented them to create the cover.
I decided on two of the movement images to work with
I then turned these images black and white, and I also inverted them for some of final pieces .
Then to photograph the 'rain' component - easier said than done !
In then end, I found the best way to get the images I wanted was to photograph from the inside of my kitchen window, and I used both natural rain and my hose pipe, set on everything from 'spray' to 'soak' to try and capture water droplets. For some, using flash, and a shallow depth setting gave me the dark back ground, and by taking the largest size file I could, I was then able to crop down the resulting pictures, to get rid of the flash reflection (or any others that had sneaked through ! ) and isolate the parts that I thought would work best. I wanted the raindrops to be 'larger' than they would be in comparison to the dancing figure, in real life, as I felt this would have more impact, and using small crops, then enlarging them to the size of the dancing figure would achieve this.
And after photoshop, and some playing with filters and effect, these were some of the final images I experimented with
Then it was into photshop with all the images, to combine them as layers, and start playing with text - I had already decided to list the artists name by using her autograph, which had appeared on other other albums and posters. This is a selection of the pieces I came up with
I liked a lot of the pieces I came up with, and in the end, it came down to having two, that I had made into 3D representations of actual covers - although I like both, I think that side by side, its the second of the two images that tends to 'jump' out at you, so that one ended up as my final choice.
I enjoyed this unit, and was really pleased with the final results, which I felt fulfilled the brief. At assessment however, although there was no criticism of the images, again feedback indicated that the placement of the type could have been better - and again, I'm left incredibly frustrated that a component of my final work falls short, when we have had no instruction to assist us with this aspect of it.
Event.
This was the final unit - we had to produce a mini portfolio of an event, over a one or two day shoot, and tackle it as a professional assignment. We had to produce at least 10 to 20 images, and use a range of shots to tell the story of what happened.
Both my daughters have attended Theatretrain for the last several years. Theatretrain is a National Company that teaches children aged 6 to 19 dance, drama and singing . There are classes held all over the UK, and through this group, my daughters have performed everywhere from the Local Stwit Theatre in Rhos, through to Chester, Manchester, and even the Royal Albert Hall in London. Luckily for me, my youngest daughters group, the 9 to 12's, were currently in rehearsal for a performance of 'Honk ' - a kind of modern day 'Ugly Duckling', which was to be performed at The Forum Theatre, Chester. Steve Davies, the artistic Director of the Wrexham, Chester and Mold groups very kindly gave consent for me to photograph both the morning and dress rehearsal, on the day of the actual show.
So, I spent the morning at Ysgol Morgan Llwyd, and the afternoon at the Forum, with this very talented bunch of kids.
The 'story' I wanted tell tell of this event was really to show how much the kids enjoyed it, and how well they worked with their coaches - the kids performed the whole show no less than 3 full times during the day, and not once did I see any of them lose patience, or look fed up - and same goes for the tutors. And rather than just get the performance aspect, I also wanted to get the kids when they weren't 'on stage' so to speak. I wanted the interaction with the tutors, that goes into producing a performance like this, and to show the amount of work that goes into it, during the rehearsals .
After the sessions, I edited and sent the pictures to Steve, who sent them out as Press releases, and some were later published in 3 local papers.
I really enjoyed this unit, it was great to see how much the children enjoyed this and it was educational to realise how hard the tutors work. From a learning point of view, this was the first 'event' that I had ever really tackled in this way, and dealing with the movement of the subjects and the lighting changes, and so on, was great practical experience.
To Sum up . . .
In terms of the practical work of photography, I really enjoyed this last module - aside from the issues with typography! It crystallized for me that whatever genre of photography that I settle on, I know that I have the most success with working with capturing images of people, especially when I feel I can have some time to 'get to know them' and get images that really capture who they are or what they are doing. I did find it damn hard work at times, partly because of the physical mobility issue that I had - this meant that some idea's that i wanted to pursue just were not possible, and it was really frustrating - but, I guess life can just be like that, and I finding that you have to change plans and adapt to situations is very much part of a working environment - as is delivering the goods under difficult conditions.
Year 2 as a whole - right at the beginning, I felt priority was given to film over photography - the first semester's practical work on our return seemed to focus heavily on the film side, and the units concerning film seemed so time consuming that I sometimes felt that I struggled for time to devote to the photography. In terms of the actual lesson/tutorial aspect, the balance in films favour was even more obvious - we had 2 hours a week with Stewart, which was pretty evenly split between film and photography, and 2 hours with Colin, just for photography - which was in sharp contrast to the SIX hours of tutorials that were devoted to film editing. I did raise this issue several times, but throughout the year, nothing changed, though I must add that both Colin and Stewart made themselves available when they could, for advice and help when I felt I really needed it. That isn't the same as set tutorials, though, and when I feel that I still have a lot to learn on the technical side, it is really frustrating.
What this year has done is made it very much clearer to me as to what direction I feel I want to move in, with my photography. As I have said, work involving people, be it portrait, street or as part of event photography, is something I am finding increasingly enjoyable, and an area of my work where I think I am seeing the most improvement. Especially, this year has seen an introduction for me to event photography, especially in terms of photographing the people at events, and its an area that I have really enjoyed - thank you to Stewart, who got me involved with the 'Store' project - I learnt so much, and its opened quite a few doors for me in terms of making contacts that are already generating opportunities for me to gain more experience in this field. I also think that I am able to be a lot less self concious and more confident about getting 'candid' shots, when working in front of 'the public', so to speak - and having this confidence has improved the images I am producing too.
It was commented at my last assessment that I am showing an awareness of what my 'audience' wants, and looking back over the briefs we have had, I think the work set in them has really contributed to my ability to do this, and I've learnt a lot about this aspect from the briefs.
There seemed to be a huge amount of academic/written work this last semester too - I actually enjoyed all of it, but again, I feel the time it took compromised my opportunities to learn more in a practical sense about photography. Having said that, Creative Futures week was incredibly useful in terms of the advice and information I took from it.
I think I have progressed with my photography, overall - I think I have demonstrated that I learn to cope with new situations and tasks, and sometimes, with the unexpected. And that I can usually find a way to resolve problems and snags that crop up, and where necessary, come up with an alternative way of getting the job done. I am hoping that next year, there will more opportunity for me to improve the technical side of my work - I am still struggling slightly with high key and getting white right, I'd like to learn how to use gels, and would also like to know more about coping with poor lighting on location shoots - amongst other things.
That my next year is the final year of this degree is something I am struggling to realise - its all gone so quickly - much as I am looking forward to the next semester, I am dreading it being over !
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)