#l4peopleandplaces

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//Final Piece.

In order to bring the project to a close, we needed to compete our website (final piece) to its highest standard ready for assessment. I think I was quite good at keeping on top of the rest of my group and reminding them to upload all of their work so that I could publish the website for everyone to see.

I have now completed this, click here to view our final piece.

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05.11.15//Creating a Website.

// For our group outcome, we decided to create a website as we felt it would be the most successful way to display all of our individual outcomes as they are so diverse. Abba has produced a GIF and Diana had created a video, which eliminated the option of anything printed, the rest of the group members, including myself, have produced outcomes that are easy to upload, so we chose a website.  None of us have ever made a website before, so I googled ‘free website’ and ‘WIX’ was one of the first results. The process was so quick and easy and I was totally surprised, I thought it would take us a couple of days to create and complete, but instead it was more like 20 minutes!!

The homepage works as a preview into some of our images has a menu to navigate to any of the other pages I created. I have given each member of our group a page where they can display their final outcome/s and provide a brief explanation as to how they arrived at their idea.

//Check out the finished website here.

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//Finishing touches.

// Today I decided on the four images I plan to use as my final outcomes, I want this image of the homeless man to be my main image and then my three other text and image combinations to go along side it as a series. I wanted to keep the font consistent throughout all of the images, however I was unsure on the placement for this image as there is a lot of text. These are the three different ideas that I tried out. I liked the first one, besides the text in the bottom corner, so for my second attempt I removed this and was really happy with the result. For the final test, I went with my initial idea, which was to have the entire background covered in text, however there wasn’t enough content to fill this, I don’t like the gap at the end, but equally I didn’t like the font any larger, so the middle image will form the majority of my final piece.

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30.10.15//An Introduction to Photography.

// “Photographs don’t tell the truth, they never have.”

Today was the final of the subject talks and by far the one I was most looking forward to. Tim and Rob (photography lecturers) lead the talk and began by explaining that not everyone that completed the photography course would become a photographer and that in fact most don’t. I already like that this course will teach us a variety of skills that will be transferable to a range of different career paths, like editing, assisting or directing.

We were given tips and things to look for and include when researching photographs and photographers;

When was the work produced?

What’s the cultural context?

How is the image read? (changes over time)

From here, we were shown the different styles of photography that there are, along with examples of them by a wide variety of photographers. These were the areas that we covered;

documentary

photo journalism

landscape

fashion

portraiture

still life

experimental

fine art

As I am mostly interested in fashion and portrait photography, therefore the photographers mentioned in this talk that inspired me the most are Mario Testino, Annie Leibovitz and David Bailey.

Technical Skills // We then had a brief introduction to the technical aspect of photography and the camera. We were shown a diagram which explained the insides of a camera and how it actually works and we were also told about the basics of aperture, depth of field, shutter speed, ISO and white balance.

For the afternoon, we were given a task to complete in pairs, where we had an envelope with five images in. With nothing but the image itself and the internet, we had to find out three pieces of information for each image.

date it was published its function the author

Me and my partner completed this task pretty quickly as two if our images included celebrities, which helped us narrow down our search. For the remaining three, we used a combination of searching for descriptive key words and using google image search to collect this information.

After having this subject talk I am entirely confident that photography is the area of visual communication that I want to study for the remainder of my time at university.

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//New Edits.

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29.10.15//Editing...

//

Today I decided to experiment with the quotes I found on

Pinterest

 and some of my images that I thought they would suit the best. I was initially going to use the portrait of the homeless man, however I thought that landscape images would be more successful in terms of producing the atmosphere I had in mind. I was actually pleasantly surprised with how well they turned out, they were more successful than I thought they would be. As a result of this I am now considering producing something similar to this for my final piece.

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29.10.15//Digital Printing.

// Today Tony Davis came to talk to us about important things to remember when printing digital work. The most successful format for our work to print is a PhotoShop file or PDF. We learnt what settings to have our work set to on PhotoShop in order to produce the desired results for A4 printing.

International Paper - A4 Image Size - 24.9MB 

We were also told where we could complete this printing and where we could have specific workshops on the basics of the Adobe programmes.

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28.10.15//Final Outcome and Quotes.

Today I discussed with my group our ideas for our final outcomes and how we wanted to display them. We have decided now that each member will produce an individual outcome, but we will develop a method that can showcase all of our work in one place, thus producing essentially a group final outcome.

As part of the development for my personal outcome Colette gave me the idea of looking at quotes surrounding our two words, which is something I hadn’t thought of before. I think text could what is missing from my images in order for them to be a final piece.

These are a couple of relevant quotes that I found and pinned to my project board on Pinterest. I could use some of this found information, or even some of my own relevant text, combined with my most successful images to develop my work further. 

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27.10.15//Ikon Gallery.

‘Scroll Down And Keep Scrolling’ - Fiona Banner.

// Today I visited the Ikon Gallery to experience the Fiona Banner type exhibition. I chose a weekday to visit and I went around lunchtime, which I think is the reason the gallery was so quiet.  When I entered the first room I immediately noticed the only other person in the room with me was the security guard, which immediately made the atmosphere awkward, as all of the attention was on me. After viewing the art in that room, I turned the corner to follow where I could hear extremely eerie music playing. I was very anxious walking into the second room as there was very little light and as I just mentioned; music playing. I finally plucked up the courage to enter the room to see there was a video playing (see last picture). I then continued on to the final rooms to complete the exhibition. Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to visiting the gallery as I didn’t think I would be able to relate to or be inspired by any of the artwork there as there was no photography, however I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the exhibition pieces. 

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Each group’s final pieces from ‘An Introduction to Illustration’.

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23.10.15//An Introduction to Illustration.

// “Illustration is one of the most versatile art forms in today’s visual culture.”

Today was the penultimate of the ‘An Introduction to...’ talks and this time (again as you can tell by the title) was the turn of illustration.  Similarly to the structure of the previous talks we began the day by listing and looking into the different areas and styles of illustration that we could focus on and potentially work in. These included;

editorial

reportage

fashion

cartoon

animation

performance

3D 

graffiti 

publishing

packagine

advertising

theatre set design

The sections I had the most interest in were fashion illustration and illustration combined with photography. These were areas that I have worked in previously during college projects.

There was a video that was recommended to us, which was; “Why some people don’t have one true calling” - Emilie Wapnick. After the days activities I watched this video and I related to it a lot. Similarly, I have many different interests and hobbies of which I was unsure which to choose as a ‘career path’. This is one of the main reasons that helped me to decide on BCU and this course in particular, because of the wide variety of areas we can explore throughout the three years.

During the afternoon, we were given an activity to complete in groups of three. Like the game we played as children, we were given a large sheet of paper which was folded up into three sections; one for the head, one for the body and one for the feet and legs. We then swapped our sheet of paper with two other groups until we had completed three sections on three different pieces of paper. At the end of the day we then had a ‘grand reveal’ of the final pieces.

(A series of the final images will be in the following blog post).

I really enjoyed the illustration talk and in particular the activity attached to it, however I still feel photography is the subject area which is most suited to me and I am extremely excited for that specific subject talk next week.

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22.10.15//Target Audience.

// This afternoon Colette spoke to us about progressing with our projects and the specific criteria that we will need to include in order to pass. One of the areas of the criteria was to specify your audience. Who are you making your work for and who do you want to view it?

After we were asked this question I decided to get my team together and decided on a specific target audience for our work. We all decided that our pieces are more suitable for a gallery-based setting instead of the commercial option, despite the fact we are still unsure of how we intend to present our final pieces. As non of our work includes and explicit language or adult content, our work will be appropriate to be viewed by all ages, which allows our work to be viewed by a larger audience.

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22.10.15//Printmaking Talk.

// Today Justin came and gave our class a talk regarding printmaking and the many possible outcomes of working in the print industry. He spoke about different techniques such as photo-etching and he showed us the work of well-known artists and printmakers as well as his own work. To accompany his work, he told us his story in terms of his career and how his personal life has direct links with the work he was producing at the time. I found this section of the talk particularly interesting as I had never thought too much about linking my personal life and experiences with the work I was producing. Specifically, he talked to us about a piece of his work which is titled ‘still looking’. I really liked this as a piece title and he proceeded to tell us about how at the time he was still looking into the area of design work he wanted to focus on. 

Currently in terms of the project I feel a bit lost as I��m not sure on the direction I want to take my work for my final piece, so I am now considering making links (maybe using text) to how I feel and the images I have captured so far in this project.

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15.10.15//Creating GIFs.

// As the title of this post suggests, I spent today learning how to create a GIF. We began the day with a talk which was essentially an introduction to GIF making, as we were taught what exactly a GIF was and also how to use PhotoShop to create one. After the brief introduction, myself and @bcumiapowell decided to work together to hopefully produce a GIF or a series of GIF’s that were relevant to the project.  The first GIF we set out to create was using the word ‘melancholy’ I had the idea to use a font initially, but then as you see the GIF develop, have the letters dripping, almost like tears, in order to convey a sadness represented by the meaning of the word. I think for our first ever time creating a GIF it was an ok result, however I didn’t feel as if the tears were as successful as I’d hoped.

After we felt that we understood how a GIF really works, we decided to attempt another the other of our words ‘flabbergasted’. As the meaning of the word is essentially the opposite of the word melancholy, we decided to create a bold, bright coloured GIF that stands out a lot more than the previous GIF did.

Although I was pleased that we were able to produce another GIF without any assistance, I still don’t particularly like the end result. The final GIF we produced today was, in my opinion, the most effective and relevant to the project. We made a direct link by using the map of Birmingham as the background and linking the text to the photograph I took on my initial visit to our location of the homeless man.

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These are some of the most successful images that were taken on the second visit to our area.

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12.10.15//Disappointing Second Visit.

// Today myself and @bcumiapowell revisited our area in hope to capture images and sketches of the fans waiting for the One Direction concert. We thought this would be a perfect opportunity to capture the atmosphere and use our findings as part of our focus on our word ‘flabbergasted’. My aim for the day was to photograph the masses of fans with their excited faces and banners in hope the atmosphere would portray in my images, however the reality was slightly different...

When we arrived at the venue, they main doors were already open, meaning there were less fans queuing than I had hoped, this also meant that the atmosphere wasn’t as buzzing as I expected it to be. Instead of seeing endless flabbergasted fans, we were presented with standard, almost melancholy queues of people.  Despite this, I still attempted to emphasise the excited atmosphere in hope the images would convey this well.

I think after this we will need to revisit our initial ideas for ‘flabbergasted’ or think of a way that we can incorporate it in with our melancholy work.

Images to follow.