UCAS fair - Manchester

Today we went to Manchester to check out all the University stalls and talk to lecturers and current students. While we were there I spoke to a student at Leeds college of art, University of Westminster and University of Hertfordshire. I am undecided to whether I want to attend university and after going there today I decided it isn't the place for me.

Sean Dower - Visiting lecture

Sean Dower I found was very inspirational, he works in all aspects of the art industry and he explained to us how he achieved all the things in his life so far, so I gained a wider idea of how much work you need to put in to get to where you want to be. I liked his videos 'hot music' and 'no room in hell'.

Cedar Lewisohn - visiting lecture

Today we had a visiting lecture from Cedar Lewisohn who is an artist and curator based in London, he worked for the Tate for 6 years between 2005 - 2011 as part of a fellowship. Although the work he has produced over these years was interesting he wasn't particularly inspirationally to me, he didn't explain how he got to where he was today he just explained the work he had done, I was more interested to how he got the fellowship and how he worked towards his goals. Later on in the day I had a one on one tutorial with him and I found that he didn't really have much encouragement on my project or advise on where to take it next.

Second Shoot 'BIG' project

THREE RIVERS CARAVAN PARK 

This photograph is of the large family function room in the left side of the bar the interior is the same as it was when first built, even the furniture. 

           These are the bar and lounge doors, I like the reflection of the light on the door.

These are the wood cabins that some of the all year round residents live in. 

Tutorial

After discussing my ideas with Shaun I decided to go out on another shoot but this time shoot my images on film- 35mm black and white film.

First Shoot explained.....

This was my first shoot for my 'BIG  project', I decided to photograph the clubhouse/bar of Three Rivers caravan park to show the age of the place for example the carpets and the chairs have not changed since the opening of the clubhouse in 1982. I like these photographs because of the tones I decided to shoot it like this because it portrays the depressing feel that the bar holds. The residents that live on site are retired and have hardly any family that live close by, they enjoy the small community that the site holds. My next plan is to shoot the caravans themselves.  

more from shoot

First Shoot

Just a thought....

Sat here researching I have decided what my message of 'The residents' will be....(every documentary photograph needs a story)  because these people live there and have done for a considerable number of years they often get called 'gypsies' which is by no means fair because the name 'gypsies' comes with bad connotations from the media, I am going to try and so that these people are just innocent people who happen to live in a caravan/static home.

I am going to do this by researching Donovan Wylie who photographed travellers and produced my favourite book losing ground, and I am going to compare to the lives these people live.

Iain McKell also did a traveller series called 'The New Gypsies' I  am going to also research this.

Tutorial 10/10/12

Today we had our tutorial with Shaun McAllister and because my idea for my pathway project is quite extensive I have already started putting together my research and expanding my ideas. I currently work in a caravan park/country club. It opened in 1982 and someo of the residents that first moved in that year still live there to this day, It was opened by a man called Harold Cowburn who unfortunalty passed away at the beginning of this year (2012) therefore all these residents believe the place to be going downhill. The residents constantly complain to me about the lack of care by the new owner and her lack of know how about running a successful happy holiday camp.

My main influence for this is my favourite photographer of all time called Daniel Meadows he is a Welsh photographer and his all his work to me is fantastic he gets accross a message to his audience, but his work that has influenced me on this occassion is called 'Butlins-by the sea 72' this is where in the summer of 1972 he went and spent the best part of 6 weeks photographing and getting to know the sort of people that went to these sorts of holiday camps. I first saw this work when me and a friend went to the exhibition at bradford media musuem last year.


http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c7d767d8-d469-11e0-a42b-00144feab49a.html#axzz28tpDuOPG

Brief research

I have been researching into previous charity photography campaigns and I have found one for the Children's Hospital in Sheffield, where three photographers came together to hold an exhibition at the hospitals 'Long gallery' this campaign was called 'You're not alone' and was aimed to make children and parents feel safer by showing other people go threw the same things on a day to day basis. 

http://lahf.org.uk/“you’re-not-alone”-children’s-hospital-sheffield-–-until-june

CNW - Idea

After looking at the campaign before the start of the Paralympics I have come up with an idea for this brief, my aim to show a strength in everyone like in the Paralympic photograph because they are portraying there physical and mental strength and self motivation rather than focussing on their disability being their downfall they have used this as a strength.

Child Action North West - Brief

Today we got our first brief and I am very excited to begin it, we have to represent families and friendships in the North West in an inspiring and uplifting way. When people think of Blackburn they are very critical of the 'scumbags' that live here but as a matter of fact people who live in this area and work very hard to keep there families together while holding down a full time job or even with a disability meaning they have to work a lot harder, they deserve more credit.

I am currently researching the background of the organisation so I can get an understanding of the sort of help they provide and to whom.

 http://www.canw.org.uk/site/

Fourth Roundabout

Yesterday we had the best news of the course so far, that we were stopping roundabouts and it was our final day, we did screen printing we had a photograph in last week for, despite Kim thinking we didn't enjoy I thought it was good because it is a different way for us to display our photographs in a unique way, it was just a shame my photograph had too many grey tones for it to work in this particular printing.

Third roundabout

On our the third week of roundabouts we did, 3D and illustration.

During 3D we pick a photograph of our choice and reproduce a a 3D sculpture from that photograph,I chose a long exposure self portrait of my mum, all the photograph was blurred.

I welded the frame of the piece and used thin wire to create the image.

In illustration we again had to chose a photograph  to trace, we then using different techniques produced the same image differently, for example using ink paper and then working back into the image with different materials.

we then used a process called 'image maker' which was a process using PVA glue to make a image transfer, you glued one side of your image and then fixed it onto a piece of material (cloth) waited 4-8 hours until dry and then removed the paper to reveal the image.

Second Roundabout

On our second weeks of of roundabout I was ill but I have caught up by asking other classmates what the pathways were; media and fine, also what we did in those classes.

Liverpool trip 19th September 2012

On 19th of September we went to Liverpool where we visited the Open eye gallery and the Tate gallery, even though the open eye gallery was minimalistic the collections in there were very inspirational and I found it very helpful in moving my ideas forward, I also found this in the Tate.

One thing that did annoy me was the lack of understanding from some of the younger photography students, they found the work grotesque and were screaming and laughing, but hey ho not my education.

In the Tate there was a particular exhibition called 'The hotel, Room 28' by Sophie Calle that i find very interesting and the most influential thing I have seen since Donovan Wylie's 'losing ground'. Calle's work is a series of images of the same hotel room over a three week period and she documents the findings of the residents threw photographs. I like the photographic style of these images, the tones and the composition is very moving.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/calle-the-hotel-room-28-p78301

Museum visit

On thursday 6th of September we visited Blackburn museum and art gallery, we did this to try and inspire ourselves for the work we are going to produce over the next 6 weeks. We were given a task to choice a piece of art in any media I.e painting, sculpture or photograph and we are going to interpret this piece of art in our own way.

The piece I chose was a painting by John Collier titled Hetty Sorrell, it is based on a character from the book 'Adam Bede' by George Elliot.

Start of roundabout

Today - Tuesday 11th September 2012

We began our roundabout pathways where we were split up into four groups, our group firstly did photography which is my initial reason for doing this course, then we did textiles. I enjoyed all of the day however close minded people were complaining about opening their mind to new experiences.

If your not willing to understand other peoples art then how do you expect anyone to understand yours.

Enrolment week

During this week we have mostly been informed in more detail about the course, the majority of the three days we were talked to about various different aspects of the course and trips that are taking place. 

In my opinion the few days have been tedious and I want to get stuck into my own work as soon as possible.