selfie assignment - in progress

my second college assignment is one based around selfies and self-portraiture. the aim of this assignment is to help us as photography students to see the impact selfies have in today's world and compare them to self portraits. the initial selfie is taking on a phone. the second part of the assignment involves making an analogue self-portrait using 35mm film and the final part is a portrait of ourselves made by an assigned partner, also shot on 35mm film. on completion, the three images will be hanging in the corridor, side by side. this will help not only us, but also people who view these images, to see the difference between the different ways of making self images.

i am a third, (almost two thirds) of the way through. the selfie image i chose was installed in the college corridor about two weeks ago.

my final selfie image

shooting on 35mm film means working in the darkroom and when i found out we were going back to the very basics of photography for our first image making assignment, i was very happy and excited to say the least. printing my own photographs in the darkroom is one of my favourite things to do. i find it relaxing and very peaceful. yesterday was my first day back in the darkroom since leaving college in England(nearly 5 months ago!!). i was a little nervous but it went quite well, and i am really pleased with some of the images on my contact sheet. i'm in the darkroom again on monday to finalize and make some changes to prints i made yesterday before my formative tutorial for this assignment on tuesday. (i have way too much to do before then and i am not looking forward to my life for the next two days.)

my contact sheet and a print from yesterday (sorry for the really bad quality)

i am off to England next weekend for a break and to revisit everything in, what i can now call, my 'old life', i guess. i am super excited to see some people there and am really looking forward to the trip. i will try update the progress of this assignment soon again. :)

shoot through it x

Vox Pop

As part of an assignment for my digital class in college, we were asked to go to a city center location to produce a vox pop. A vox pop involves going to a busy location with a topical, open-ended question in mind, stopping random people on the street, taking their picture and asking them this question. I think this was probably the most nervous photography related thing I have ever done.

The location was Grafton Street and my question was: ''How do you feel about the Chirstmas lights and decorations being up on the streets and in shops already?''

Luckily, people were nice when I finally built up the courage to go and do it. The images and answers to the question are as follows:

"I think it’s nice but some places go too extreme too early"

 "I think Christmas should be celebrated as long as possible"

"Too early. Christmas traditionally began on the 8th of December always and that’s the way it should be still"

 "It’s too early. This makes Chirstmas really long"

"It’s far too early. Halloween just ended, far too soon"

shoot through it x

Culture Night 2015 - Dublin

friday, september 25th was dedicated to culture night in Ireland. culture night is an annual event, not only in Dublin but all around the country. the main aim of this event is to celebrate culture, creativity and the arts within people's own location. on culture night, venues such as museums, galleries and historic buildings extend their opening hours for the public's enjoyment. along with this, other buildings which hold significant cultural history, and which usually wouldn't be open to the public, open up their doors for one night only! culture night for me this year was especially important as it was my first experience of this event in the city of Dublin. as it would be impossible to fit everything in, my main interests were Merrion Square (Downstairs Dublin) and Temple Bar. for me, these two locations hold the most history in Dublin and are two of my favourite parts of the city.

here are some of the photos i captured on the night which i would like to share with you. :)

shoot through it x

17-08-2015

one of the highlights of my summer is also one of the happiest, if not the happiest, moment of my life to date. after being awake all through the night, 6am finally came and i got offered a place on the photography course at Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology. being 1 of 2 photography degree courses in Ireland, and with only 30 out of 600 applicants being offered a place this year, i still can't believe how lucky i am to now be part of  this amazing college. i am really looking forward to what the next 4 years has to offer! :)
YAAAY!

shoot through it x

vacant dreams; reading, uk

the following three images are from an ongoing series, 'vacant dreams'. this series looks at spaces, objects, things that are left behind while people go about their daily business. for example, someones bed/bedroom and the way it appears after being slept in the previous night; how the sheets appear with different creases and folds, how clothes left lying around a room jump out and captivate me by how they lay. in this series i want to show the mystery i find in these places and things.

reading, uk

portrait of a place - finals

i'm just gonna continue on posting here as if a whole summer hasn't past without posting anything.... (i'm the worst)

here are my final images for the 'portrait of a place' assignment. this assignment was also my final project as a student at Reading College :)

for this assignment we were first asked to find and shoot 10 different locations. from our 10 chosen locations, we had to go back and shoot 3 locations of choice with a different approach. we had to use different technologies such as different cameras and shoot the locations from different vantage points,  with different framing and just play around with the location. we then had to choose one location as our final location. for me, i chose my garden shed. the cameras i used were pinhole camera, 35mm analogue film, medium format film and digital. for my final shoot i used digital camera. i would have preferred to have shot my final images on film, as my main influence, photographer Uta Barth, shot her out of focus images on 35mm film, but as i only had access to processing black and white film, i stuck with digital as these images needed to be in colour to show their true detail. i chose to shoot my final images out of focus because i had just discovered the photographer Uta Barth, and i really admired her out of focus/blurred images. i found it interesting how even though the subjects of the images i studied were out of focus, i was still able to identify and make a connection with them. i also shot in out of focus because it relates back to my first project i did at the beginning of my time in Reading College last October - ::: mystery; familiar yet unfamiliar places ::: - and i thought this was a nice end to, not only my college life, but also to my time living in England.

my final images were created around 9th June 2015.

shed things

yard brush

stripes and lines and wellies

plug

flowers or stars

shoot through it x

portrait of a place - working

i've had a super busy week.

i'm 1 week away from completing my final assignment for this college year. the project title is 'portrait of a place' and we basically have to use every process and technique we have learned throughout the year. so yes, this involves a lot of shooting, at 10 different locations, using many different cameras and materials. i really enjoy using alternative cameras to digital, such as pinhole, 35mm film and medium format (the cameras i have shot on this week). i've also been busy in the darkroom. (dark/processing rooms make me happy. there's something i find peaceful about them). i don't feel i have any of my final images yet, but my location is the garden shed and i've done a lot of test shoots there, so hopefully i'll be able to produced photographs of a high enough standard to get me a good grade. And of course there's all the book work documenting that i need to do too...

shoot through it x

IADT portfolio results

posting this image with great joy.
i received my portfolio results from IADT this week and to my surprise i am beyond happy to have scored full marks, 600/600!!! i really was not expecting the result i got. getting onto the photography course in IADT is my biggest dream. now i have to wait until August to see if i get offered a place.

studio low key

the final 2 images from my studio assignment.

i produced both high and low key studio images and i feel they work well together as there is a particular theme which runs throughout.

out of my chosen final images, the two below are my favourite and are two of my favourite images i have produced to date. 

studio high key

Here are some of the images I produced for my studio assignment in March. This is my first proper studio work and I am really pleased with how the photos turned out.

waters

been back in Ireland for 2 weeks. now i'm blogging from bed cuz that's cool

my intention was to capture images of water drops on glass. most of the images i shot for this project were set up intentionally. i had lots of photographs of water drops on glasses and unusual jars, mirrors etc., but i found them to be a little boring. the image included in this post was shot out of the blue. if you don't understand; this is the inside of a washing machine just after it had completed its cycle, hence why the droplets are still present. I have shown this image to many people, and most were first of all confused as to what the actual subject is, then unsure whether they liked it or not. But this is what I love.

this is just life

These photos were taken on my phone while I was back in Ireland last month.

alive

The idea for these photographs came out of nowhere. I took the only book I own; Isn't It Pretty To Think So by Nick Miller, opened it on a random page and began photographing it. I soon noticed one of the words on this random page was 'photograph', and it kinda freaked me out..? I began by experimenting with just one page, shooting different depths of field and framing etc., then it lead to playing around with many pages and eventually creating the half circle shaped thing. For the later images, I used the flashlight on my phone to illuminate the pages. I used a tripod, mainly because I decided to photograph the images at night for some strange reason. I felt it gave more depth to the book, and I guess the night time is when I feel most alive.

pinhole camera

I've got two new assignments to do. One is studio based and the other titled ''You're Having A Laugh'' is based on surrealism. I am looking forward to seeing what I can come up with for these assignments, but right now I think I have some mental artist block and it is not fun. I cannot think of anything.

Anyway.. to talk about what this post is actually about; pinhole camera.

For ages I had wanted to try out using a pinhole camera to produce photographs but never had the opportunity until a few weeks ago in college. As part of an assignment, we were asked to visually record using different methods e.g photograms, chemograms, cyanotypes. This gave me the perfect opportunity to use a pinhole camera. I haven't got a lot to say about pinhole, only that I am totally and utterly in love and obsessed with it and I wish I could use it all of the time. I am truly fascinated by it, and I still haven't fully got my head around how a square box can produce a photograph with such detail? How does that tiny little hole on the side of a wooden box capture the outside world like that? I think because I am so familiar with using digital or analogue, such a simple method like this slightly confuses me? In fact I don't think I will ever fully understand it.

The camera I used:

Some of the photographs I produced:

 

mystery; familiar yet unfamiliar places

I kind of regret not starting this blog sooner, because I have a lot to post to bring myself up to date with where I am now. Anyway..
I'm not going to start from the very beginning, but I think my first photography assignment I did for Reading College is a suitable starting point. This work is probably my best example of the photography I have a greater interest in; mysterious, black and white - rather than other areas. While doing this assignment, I rediscovered a love for a certain type of photography which is quite unusual and probably not even categorized as a proper type of photography; out of focus photography. We were briefed to produce a series of night photographs, one which had to be shot on film. 2 weeks into our 4 week period and I still had pretty vague ideas of what I wanted to do. I wanted to focus on my move from Ireland to the UK, and how I felt about the life I was living at the time. I saw the move as quite a dark and sad time. I felt trapped in a city; buildings, cars, people e v e r y w h e r e  as opposed to living a tiny town, with a population of 800 and near the ocean. I also felt quite lonely. I sat and took a look at my test shots, and while they matched my original ideas, I felt they weren't quite enough. I noticed a certain sense of mystery running through them. I also noticed, without even thinking about it, I had shot a few images out of focus in each different test shoot. This is when I decided to produce an out of focus story of my everyday life at that very moment in time. I began by re-shooting at the same locations; my bedroom window, the pathway outside my gate, two of the main roads and by the river where I walk everyday to get to college. I think my final images depict exactly how I felt at the time, and what I was going through. The images are out of focus, but the fact that you can still make out a location shows that I have a slight idea of where I am, but not fully familiar with the place yet. The image by the river includes buildings that reflect on the water. These buildings trap people, but I see the river as a possible escape route out of the city. The river also reminds me of the seaside back home.

 

(Shot on Nikon D3200)

Shooting with film at night, something I had not done before, was my biggest fear; different exposure times and reciprocity law failure etc, was all a struggle the first time around. Luckily, it worked after my second attempt! The film images could be separate from our digital images, so I just shot objects around the garden and outside my gate. I think the time of night had an impact on how mysterious these images looked; 9pm appeared more mysterious than 6/7pm for some reason!

(Shot on Pentax K1000 - film (Ilford HP5 PLUS)

So I managed to complete my first assignment.. From having no idea if the work I was producing was good enough and if my journal layout was even fit for a pass grade, I was delighted to be resulted with a distinction from my work.

I'm kinda obsessed with this..