Monday 29th February 2016

Today we had a contextual lesson on being sustainable and we were asked the question we've been asked a million times in science "what environmental impacts do I have? and what do I do that is environmentally friendly?"

My responses for the first question was:
.The use of electricity produced by fossil fuels
.Eating meat
.Plastic waste

My responses for the second question was:
.Recycling
.Using public transport - this is friendlier because instead of having 10/20 cars on the road, you have only one bus transporting people around.
.Re using materials such as plastic bags instead of buying more or using the material bags instead

Next we talked about how our photographic practice can affect the environment. Similar to many things, this has a positive and negative approach. For example photography can be used as a voice to show things like climate change, however the negatives to this are using the chemicals in the darkroom or the use of materials we use when printing.

4D evaluation

In the afternoon we had a session on IMovie. We were shown a showreel, which is a collection of images made into a short film and we were told to make one for our 4D element of our project. I really enjoyed this task as I enjoy film/editing film as well as photography. We were allowed to use either pictures or film we had taken during this project, I decided to use film because I feel it looks more effective. The film I used was a video from the Bristol trip we went on, it wasn't actually my film, but it was one of my friends Ryan's - me and my friends have a shared folder full of videos we take of each other and as I didn't take any film of that trip I decided to edit his film instead. The reason I didn't decide to use my own images to create a show reel was because I didn't really like the though of a show reel, I feel that if you're making a 'film' it should be of film. Just for me personally I prefer to do this. I used an upbeat song from the IMovie software called "yearbook" which I though fitted well with this film, as it was in an 'urban city' which is usually stereotyped with upbeat music. I thought my final outcome of this film was pretty good, if I say so myself. I really enjoyed making it and felt it was a fun task.

I'm analysing another students work for this subject as it will give me a chance to practice critical analysis. I've picked Ryan Trower's showreel to analyse which is a collection of images from our trip to Bristol. The positives to Ryan's work here is that there is some awesome photography that he has produced, he's progressing on the HDR in his images and the fact he is carrying on with something he's been taught is really good. The music is okay, but I feel that maybe it should've been a bit more upbeat as the images include a lot of graffiti and city like images so personally if it was me I would've added an upbeat urban song. I also feel that the images should be still instead of panning around the place, maybe if there was an upbeat song it would fit but for this sort of music I'd say stick to having them still.

 

 

 

My Video

 

 

 

Ryan's Video

BRISTOL

Today we went to Bristol for the day, which I thoroughly enjoyed. We firstly went to a gallery called the arnolfini and saw an exhibition in which they showed us several different short films relating to certain subjects. The first one we saw was John Akomfrah: Vertigo sea, this was about a mans relationship with the sea and the exploration of its role in the history of slavery, migration and conflict. This film explicitly shows the greed and horror of the whaling industry. The film was quite hard to understand at first as I didn't really know what it was about, however the way the artist filmed and directed it was very clever and interesting. After we had watched a couple of these films we were allowed to look around the gallery a little bit. 

After we had finished in the gallery we were taken to Nelson street, which is a street full with graffiti. I was in awe by a lot of the art that was around me, it was amazing to be brought out of somewhere like where I live which is all countryside and enclosed to somewhere like Bristol which is full of buildings and art everywhere. 

After this we were allowed to roam the area to get lunch, take photos, shop etc.. We all decided to go to a place called Loot and another vintage looking shop, I loved this because some of the clothes in there were so cool! 

Tuesday 23rd February 2016

Today we did macro/still life photography in the studio. I found this task quite hard to accomplish because getting the right focus on this lens was quite difficult to achieve. However, I ended up taking some nice shots of a rusty can, really bringing the contrast out in the yellow and the rust colour on the can. I achieved this when editing, I put up the clarity and saturation so the colour really stands out.  As you can see there are two different shots of the can, one with the can standing up and one laying down, I decided to try both when taking the photo's to see which one looked best, I think in this case the image of the can standing up looks better.

 

In the afternoon we did a task to make the rubbish everyone had collected the day before into something. Me and Amy decided to turn our rubbish into a car. We then had a second task on making an outfit as such for our model. We were split into two teams and had to get as much rubbish as we could on to our model as we could in twenty minutes. This task was pretty hilarious, however it really puts how much litter there is into perspective. All of this rubbish was off of a small beach in Plymouth, think how much there is all over the UK, all over the world. You actually don't realise until you actually go out and open your eyes up to it.

 

Tuesday 9th February 2016

 

Today we were given access to Go Palace Theatre on Union Street to document the work being held there. We were also taking photo's to use bracketing technique to create HDR images.

 

Bracketing is a simple way to create HDR images. One or several images are taken and exposed correctly, and then an equal number of over exposed images & underexposed images are shot, which are then all combined in Photomatix. We bracketed using shutter speed instead of aperture, as this is a more successful method. In theory, this method sounds pretty easy, however it is much harder in practice, especially in a dark theatre with people constantly moving around. In this case a tripod was a must, if they were taken freehand the images would've been blurry and created a "ghost" effect around the outside of the final HDR image.

 

I thought it was an amazing experience to be let into the Theatre as something like that doesn't happen everyday. It originally opened in 1898 as a upmarket theatre, the venue eventually became known as the 'Dance Academy' in the 1990s, becoming one of the best clubs in Britain, due to its darkness and excellent acoustics. The building closed down in 2006, when it was proved that the owner was dealing drugs and it's been closed ever since. However it has now been taken over by the charity Go Great Opportunities, who are now in the process of trying to get it back up and running. It is expected to cost £40 million and will take around about another four years to complete as they're aiming to have it done by 2020. However because the building is grade two listed, it is hard for the volunteers to gain planning permission and carry out any major work inside.



 





THE FUTURE



 Monday 8th February 2016

 

 Today we were given a new brief/ project which was all about the future and saving the environment. 

 We had a lady called Chloe come in to talk to us about her brief which was:

 

  The Brief:

  Regen SW would like to invite you to work alone or collaboratively to create a 2D piece of artwork 

  and/or text that explores an aspect of sustainable energy. 

  The resulting artworks will be:

 

· Profiled on the website power

  culture.com – A blog that explores our energy generation through the arts and is shared 

  via Regen SW’s networks and social media channels with the sustainable energy sector

· Displayed at an Art & Energy symposium in October 2016 and The South West Green Energy 

  Awards in Bath in November 2016

· Considered by The Institution for Civil Engineers for display in bus stops across the 

    South West.

 

 Also with this particular brief there is a prize of £250 which is super awesome!! 

 The second brief was Devon wildlife trust, this was mainly about coastal pollution etc..we were

 given 5 categories that we could do which were:

. Terrestrial pollution 

. Plastic

. Climate change

. Over fishing

. Protection of the sea 

 
 We were then given a summary of the whole brief by our lecturers which, summed up, is a project

 about looking forwards; what will industry, employers and the planet need from artists and

 designers in the near future? 
 'The Future' project is both a live client project and also an opportunity to experiment with ideas and communicating messages to the world. 

 I think this project is a good way to get ideas across about how I feel on this subject, much like

 our last project 'the other's' however I feel that this could be quite a hard project as well. 

 

 In the afternoon we did some work on HDR with Chris, I enjoyed doing this because it gave us

 another skill to use if we want it. I'm not a huge fan of how HDR looks but it was still nice to

 develop another skill. 

  Creating a Manual HDR using Smart Object Layers

 1. Open Raw File in Photoshop Raw plug- in 
 2. Open image whilst holding shift key down (opens as smart object)

 3. Create another Smart Object layer of same image (eg. By selecting Layer > Smart Object > New Smart Object Via Layer) 

 (or open another copy of image in Raw, open as smart object and drag and drop image on top of the other open file using the move icon from the tools palette)

 4. Select an area you want to change on the top layer (eg the sky), e.g. using quick selection tool.

 5. Go to Layer > Layer Mask > Hide Selection

 6. Double click on the layer below to allow adjustments in Raw. 

 7. Adjust in Raw e.g. change exposure, contrast, clarity; in order to create a darker, more 

 contrasty sky. Click OK

 8. You will then see the changes affecting the bottom layer, through the top layer – so the 

 sky will be changed but the rest left unchanged. You can also adjust the top layer in raw as a smart object.

 9. Save when satisfied (you may wish to flatten image first)

 

 Creating a Manual HDR using Layers
 1. Open Raw File in Raw Plugin, adjust exposure/contrast/clarity (e.t.c.) for the sky. 
 Select Open image, so that the adjusted copy opens in Photoshop

 2. Open original Raw file in Raw Plug inn again, this time adjust exposure/contrast/clarity (e.t.c.) for the foreground/building. Select Open image again so that this adjusted copy opens in photoshop.

 3. In Photoshop; Select All > Edit > Copy

 4. Click on the other image that has been adjusted for the sky. 

 5. Edit > Paste

 6. You will then have two layers – the layer on top will have been adjusted for the sky, the layer below for the foreground/building.

 7. Then either erase the foreground/building using the Eraser from the tool palette on the top layer – leaving the darker sky with the foreground/building from below showing through, 

 or select the sky on the top layer, go to Select > inverse, then delete the selected foreground/building to reveal the lighter version below

 8. Next merge the two layers, then save

We also had a lecture on landscape and marine photography in which we were shown some photographers

such as Andrew Nadolsk, Jonathan Critchley, Chris Burkhard and Stuart Franklin.