new project

It's taken me a while to get this started (I haven't really been about for long enough to put stuff up, I'll put up my Berlin photos on my other blog when I've got them processed). My major project is based around illustration and that of a book which is yet to be published.

Context

Roy Muir is a published children's author who currently resides in Cumbria. After finishing his most recent children's book, he has contacted me through a mutual friend and has asked me to illustrate his story. I graciously accepted the offer in belief that it would be a short children's book requiring only several detailed images as this is what I was told at the time. I was told that it would be a short story for children around the age of six/seven (the contact I had was through a mature student who I had studied with for my Art Foundation).

After receiving the script I discovered that in fact it is an extremely long story, comprising of 3 parts of 2000 words so far, with apparently more to come, and it seems to be aimed at a slightly older audience than I was earlier informed. After questioning Roy I have managed to come to little conclusion about his requirements for the illustration other than they must be A5 size; I received no straight answer about whether they should be in colour or monochrome (which I think is pretty important as if the book is printed in black and white then rendering the illustrations would be extremely time wasting), and also the number of illustrations needed (one at the start of every chapter, only at important parts of the story etc.).

Brief

Instead of simply illustrating the story as I believe that it should be done, as this could be a very great risk due to the length if I completely misjudge Roy's requirements then it would be a lot of wasted effort and time to restart, I shall put forward a proposal to him showing how I believe that the story should be illustrated. Depending on how this is then accepted, I shall adapt the style in which it is then illustrated for publication.

evaluation

Well this project has been a bit unusual, in a way in which it doesn't feel complete because I don't have a solid final piece to show. What I've ended up with is a great selection of photographs, and £10 down. I think that it has been successful in a way in which I have learnt a lot from different types of technology, trying out new equipment and assessing its advantages and disadvantages of each, and when it will be useful to me in the future. I have also got to grips with programmes such as Flickr and geo-tagging which I shall now continue to use.

In this project I have explored different types of photography and cameras, different types of film and processing, and how these can then be published for everyone to see. I have come to the conclusion that even though I have had different problems with each type of camera, these can be overcome and all used to the advantage. Even if this may be using certain types of cameras in different light, and which type of camera I would use to achieve a certain effect or purpose.

I definitely could have improved my research with a wider range of cameras and processing, but issues such as money and acquiring types of film have held me back somewhat. With more time and money, and hopefully in the future, I shall continue to experiment with new types of technology such as PDAs and the interactive software available for these. I would also like to explore older technology such as my 127 film camera, as well as large format cameras which I am now aware are available to loan from college. I feel that this would widen my knowledge in the area of photography which is of an interest to me. 

web 2.0

As I use it a lot, thought I'd put a bit about web 2.0, "participatory Web" according to Bart Decrem, in comparison to web 1.0, "Web as information source".

Web 2.0 is the term used to cover the new type of websites coming back after the dot-com bubble in 2001, sites which can be interacted with by the user, in which they can control a certain aspect to as if it was their own rather than those which simply provide information. Web 2.0 sites can often also be accessed by the user offline.

Sites which I use which are considered web 2.0 are Flickr, social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook, and applications such as Google Maps and Earth. There obviously many thousands more available on the internet as it grows but there's no point writing a list. Web 2.0 is important to my project as it shows the constant advancements in the use of internet technology, even though there is a little controversy about whether this advancement is really as big as it's being made out to be.

Well heres a MASSIVE LIST of web 2.0 sites which are currently available, and I'm sure it's growing fair fast.

video

Thought I should write about this, as it's a different kind of technology we've been messing around with, but unfortunately I have nothing to show for it. 

A couple of weeks back we were exploring narrative alongside the use of video. This involved us creating a storyboard of a short piece of action we could film in an hour or so in or around college. After deciding on what to do in groups, we were then given the task of re-drawing the storyboard each using a different camera angle; extreme, long shot or close up. We then muddled these up to attempt to make an interesting piece of video. Me, Vic and Jon decided that for ours we would film climbing a tree and cartwheeling around it, as it was relatively simple and we could get squeeze lots of interesting camera angles into it (such as helmet-cam which was going to be amazing). Unfortunately Jon was ill on the day of filming so we had Anna as a super replacement. As Jon was meant to be bringing the equipment for helmet-cam, unfortunately we had to miss out on this, and we had to pretty much re-write our storyboard whilst everyone else had started filming.

Fortunately it was a success and we did some dead good tree scaling, managing to walk to Hyde Park, find a suitable tree, climb it, film it, cartwheel round it, and walk back in 30 minutes dead on time.

The rest of the afternoon involved swapping video footage with another group and editing it to show the whole class at the end. We edited Katy, Nicola and Laura's group of them doing a dance round college. Unfortunately I have no idea where it is saved and who's memory stick it might be saved on, and same goes for the video we made and someone else edited :(

photographiee

Some of the photographs we took in the studio today. We messed around with shutter speeds and flashes to create different effects. My favourite is probably the group photo below, which was created using a slow shutter speed, ISO 100, and err I can't remember the aperture. Relatively small I think. We used a honeycomb on the flash to direct the light, which was then fired several times whilst being moved around when the shutter was open. We also had blue light pens to create the light trails.

Below was made by firing the flash several times whilst the shutter was still open, as I flapped my arms.
This was also a long exposure, firing the flash once at the start, then drawing light trails with the blue light in the dark.
We tried our hardest to make our background look white as it was a bit grubby. This was actually one of the first shots when we were just messing around.
Same as the square, firing the flash once then drawing in the air with the blue light pen.
Overall, I had a pretty good day.

photomaphy induction

We had our DLSR induction today in the Photography department in college. I was kind of expecting to be given a camera, talked through it and then told to spend the rest of the day out in town taking photos, which thankfully wasn't the case. We were first talked through the basic functions of the camera, the benefits and negative aspects of each auto function and when we could use each and the reasons for this, such as how different settings use different set apertures etc. After being talked through these we were given 20 minutes to try and use each different auto setting in and around the college. Mine are below..

Macro.. coffee stirrers in the cafe.

Landscape.. views from the viscom balcony
Normal auto.. horrible flavoured water in the cafe.
Macro.. stunning close up of Rossitron's face.
Sports.. Tasha and Vic jumping down the stairs.

I think this induction was actually very useful, as it has helped my to understand how to use the settings on my own DSLR a little more. Unfortunately we didn't touch very much on the manual settings except for how to set it up for use with the flashes. I definitely want to use the photography studios again, especially to play around with the infinity curve, even though I'm not sure what I could actually use it for at the moment other than messing around.

Also, in line with my comm tech project, this has helped to point out some of the advantages to using a digital camera. The obvious such as how it is possible to delete rubbish photos instead of wasting money on getting them printed (when they don't even give you the photos anyway), and the availability of so many different settings. On my two 35mm film cameras, there are no settings whatsoever, so the photographer has next to no control over what the image comes out like, whereas when using the DSLR the photographer is presented with a wide range of possibilities, numerous settings to help achieve a successful image. As the image is also instantly viewable on the screen, if there are any lighting issues for example, it is possible for the photographer to rectify these before taking another photograph, unlike when using film when it can often be a bit of a gamble for the non-expert.

narrative

In college we had to do some work which would be the starting point for us to look at different types of technology. Apparently everyone's work was shit so we had to do it again (oh yes, bitter about this), but we barely had any time and they didn't warn us that the bluetooth takes ages. A shambles, completely. 

But whatever, this is what we came up with second attempt. Basically to come up with the storyline we played a large scale game of Chinese whispers, in which groups came up with an extra line to add to the story which we would then illustrate using photos from phone cameras(ha!). We are all tremendously immature, and so the story involved four eyed sausages, Michael Jackson, Mike and death (bearing in mind we had no idea about the phone camera bit at this point), which was fairly amusing. Our table spent this wasted half hour playing heads, bodies, legs which I shall publish when I get the chance, otherwise they are here.

When we had to remake our photo narratives, we jumbled up the storyline a little to make it more interesting and added some new parts in. The result: 

1. A delicious vegan sausage on a plate, piping hot and mm mm yummy.

2. The strange boy is most excited about eating his sausage, but all of a sudden..

3. The lights go off!

4. ... and the sausage is gone!

5. Obviously, the boy is inconsolable at the loss.

6. In his despair he notices that the window is wide open

7. ... and there is a smug ol' bird with his sausage in its beak.

8. So he takes his pistol with 'victory' already inscribed by the barrel.

9. BLOOD!

10. Tasty bird for tea.

The end.

I'm not sure what we are meant to have learnt from doing this.