Visiting Lecturer - Vanessa Miles

Vanessa Miles came in to talk to us about Picture library Agencies. This is something that a I had never thought about before and I found it interesting listening to her story and the journey she undertook creating her own picture library and working for Greenpeace. I didn't realise there where so many job opportunities involved with picture libraries they include:

• Photographer
• Picture researcher
• Picture editor
• Web designer
• Data base developer
• Cataloguers

There are many different Picture Libarys including Magnum and Getty images and they are definitely worth a look at.

Visiting Lecturer - Dominic Burd

Dominic Burd completed his National Diploma followed by his BA honors degree at Plymouth College of Art. During his degree he worked on understanding and perfecting early photographic processes. After his degree he wrote many articles on these early processes for various magazines.

Since 1996 he has worked for 31 Studio who specialise in Platnum Printing. I decided to look on their website for information about there printing process and this is what I found:

"31 Studio has the capability to create prints from multiple sources, such as the historic glass negatives of Jacques Henri Lartigue, through all the many generations of film negatives, positives and prints, on to present day Digital Files.

We have our own Imacon / Hasselblad scanner enabling us to produce maximum quality scans in-house, for the creation of the necessary digital inter-negatives, that we now use.

Platinum printing is a contact printing process and our ability to create any size of negatives that we may need, has enabled us to make Platinum and Platinum/Palladium prints as large as 120 x 85 cm." http://31-studio.com

Dom told us that platinum prints can be created under tungsten light as UV light is the only light that effects the emulsion I found this quite interesting because normally darkroom prints can only be done underneath the red lights.

I found the lecture given to us by Dom very interesting and I particularly enjoyed looking at all the prints he brought in to show us. They where exquisite, beautiful and perfect! There is no word to describe the quality of the prints I saw they where simply amazing!

Public Liability Insurance and Equipment Insurance...

Public liability insurance would cover a business if a customer or member of the public was to suffer a loss or injury as a result of its business activities. If that person made a claim for compensation, the insurance would cover the compensation payment plus any legal expenses.

Policies are usually tailored to the individual business however as a guide, the insurance covers a business's legal liability to pay damages to members of the public for death and injury or damage to property or possessions, which has resulted from the business's activities. I found this information on http://www.simplybusiness.co.uk. 

After finding out what Public Liability is I decided to look at company's that can ensure your equipment whilst at the same time giving you public liability insurance. This is when I came across this website: http://www.photoguard.co.uk/. They can cover me for £95.00 a year to insure £2000 worth of equipment and give me public liability insurance. I believe this to be a really good price and although I do not want to purchase public liability insurance or equipment insurance just yet I do intend to purchase it in the near future.

Engagement Photoshoot...

So I have my first paid wedding photo shoot booked in for next May. I am really excited about this opportunity and cannot wait for the big day to come around. I have recently met up with the couple to shoot an engagement shoot. The day went really well however I am not overly happy with the results as I wish I could have booked equipment out from the stores rather then having to make do with my D90 camera I want sharper more crisp images. I also could have done with an external flash for more even lighting. I did plan on having an assistant that day to hold the reflector but as my assistant cancelled at the last minute I had to make do with just me. I look forward to showing the couple there results and I will post their feedback soon.

Wedding....

I recently shot some 'before' photographs at a wedding. However I am not yet able to put all of my images on as they have not yet been seen by the newly weds. Here are some of the images from the wedding:

It was a lovely wedding and I look forward to showing the Bride and Groom their photographs in the near future. The wedding was at Boringdon Hall in Plympton and is a beautiful location for a wedding.

Assisting Codie Hobbs at Shilstone House...

Today I assisted Codie Hobbs on her editorial luxury fashion shoot at Shilstone House. I really enjoyed the day. The house was very beautiful it's a newly restored Georgian country house. The house has a lot of character and has been beautifully furnished.

My job today included helping with lighting, checking everything was in place and just generally doing anything I was asked to do. I really like helping other people on their shoots. I was lucky enough to be asked to document Codie's shoot for her so here are a few of the images I took:

Artist Portrait....

I decided to team up with my friend and fellow student photographer Charlotte Nicholls to take our 'artist portraits'. We wanted to take images these images of one another so that we could each use the portraits of ourselves on our blogs and websites. Here are a few of the images I took of Charlotte Below:

Exhibition - The Best So Far

Trerise Gallery - The Best So Far - 18th March - 28th March

As part of our promotions project we were asked to hand in a framed print of an image that we think is the best so far. However the image has to be a recent image and must relate to what we want to do in the future. For this reason I chose a portraiture image that I took during my crime of passion series, this image was of Charlotte Nicholls. I feel that this showed what I can do. However looking back I wish I had not chosen an image relating to my future practice but chose one of my landscape images as that would have been more interesting to look at.

On the 18th March most of the group went down to the Trerise Gallery to help set up. I was glad to be a part of this and I enjoyed learning how to measure the walls so that we could hang the photographs in the right place. The exhibition is currently on and will be running until the 28th March 2013. I think that it was good that we had everyone's work on up as you could see that we don't have a 'house style' but each and everyone of us differs hugely from the other.

Our Private View was held on Wednesday 20th March from 7pm - 9pm and I really enjoyed the event. We had many visitor's show up that evening and it was nice to have so many people turn up to see our work and support all of us. From what I read in the comments book the show has been a success so far.

The Gallery has been open from 11am - 6pm daily. I stewarded on Friday the 22nd March with two of my fellow students. Considering it was chucking it down with raining I am surprised we had as many people show up as we did. We had a class of students from the college come down as soon as we opened then we had a few more people come in during the day. They all commented on the work and said that they enjoyed viewing our work. One lady came in even though she was in a rush and said that she wanted to come back when she had more time to view the work and that she would. Even though it was rainy and cold I really enjoyed stewarding and seeing the visitors that came to our exhibition.

Family Shoot....Freelance Work Experience

I have recently been working on my work experience project, for me it is important that I work on building up my contacts and complete freelance work. I like to work with people and figure that it will be best for me to develop my portfolio at the same time as capturing images that people can cherish forever.

I have completed a shoot for Mr.Hart and Miss Brown. I really enjoyed the day and enjoyed working with them. I did however realise how hard it is to try to arrange people and I do need to work on this. I am pleased with the results but I wish that the weather had been better that day so I could have taken more out door shots.

Here are some of the images from this shoot:

So it has become that time of year again and the final major projects begin. I am currently feeling very daunted by the freedom but I have chosen to stick to doing portraits for my project. The project is called 'People of Plymouth'. I intend to photograph people in their own environment on my route to work from Plymstock to the Townhouse Pub. I intend to have linking shots of the land/city scape these will be documenting my journey.

I have yet to take any photographs but I have been looking into the work of other environmental portrait photographers to try to grasp an idea of how I want to take my images. I now feel ready to get out and shoot so will be taking photographs of my first two subjects tomorrow. One is the cook in the Townhosue and the other is the landlady.

I feel that these pictures will have a particular meaning because although this is my current job and route to work, the pub will be closing in April. So by the time my images are viewed and exhibited the pub will be closed down and will begin to be transformed into student accommodation. These images will be documenting an end, not only to something in my life but an end to something in many other people's as well.

Assisting...

I was fortunate enough to assist on a photoshoot with photographer Eileen Long. The photoshoot was at Carnglaze Caverns in Cornwall. It was a brilliant day and I enjoyed walking up and down the 60+ steps over and over as I collected each group of women. I also helped to move lighting, hold coats and hard hats etc. I just like running around to be honest! The caverns themselves where rather beautiful and whenever I wasn't running around I was taking photo's of the caverns and documanting the event.

BUSY!

Hi all, 

I have been sooooo busy recently that I have not had the chance to update my blog. However I have been working on setting myself up as a freelance wedding and portrait photographer. I have now developed my logo and set up my website as well as creating business cards so I am very happy that i am managing to piece it all together.

I am also pleased to announce that I have my first Wedding photography shoot booked for may next year. I am already really excited about it and I met with the bride the other day. I loved talking about the plans for her wedding. I find it all really exciting and I am glad that they choose me to be the one to document there special day.

If you'd like to have a look at my website the address is : www.rosemcewingphotography.co.uk

Crime of Passion...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

College Project

So I have been extremely busy with college work hence why I have not had chance to update my blog. For my first project I have been creating Landscape images for Plymouth College of Art to use on their website, prospectus and other printed media. I have found this project very difficult for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because I wish we had more time. Secondly, because I have found landscape work a challenge not just technically but also because of the weather. The weather has not been brilliant and it has rained a lot but that’s because of the time of the year.

I believe that I have achieved what I set out to and I have created some eye catching landscape shots. Which images - if any - the college chooses to use is up to them. I believe I have fulfilled all the learning objectives, even though I have definitely had my struggles I think I have achieved quite a lot in the given time frame. Shooting landscapes is definitely not as easy as I first thought and I am glad that I narrowed it down to shooting in two places rather than three as the work load to successfully shoot in two places was a challenge on its own never mind adding elsewhere to the equation. Saying that, I do intend to carry on shooting landscapes as I think it is great to document places and I have enjoyed being in the outdoors even though I have had to suffer the elements!

I think my biggest weakness with this project is that I didn’t know anything about shooting at night, but I have learnt how to do this now with practice. I believe I have improved a lot and I am now able to shoot at night successfully. I also knew nothing about landscape photography before but I have spent some time reading about it in landscape magazines and I believe this helped to improve my work. I have learnt that time management is key to client work. Even though I have found this difficult my project will be in on time and I will have achieved my project proposal. I believe this is because of sheer determination. If I had the chance to do this project again I would have started shooting a lot earlier and also spoken to the client a lot earlier in the process so that I would be sure I was capturing what they wanted. 

I am worried that I have kept the pictures how I want them and maybe this isn’t a good idea. Maybe I should have had more tutorials when I started to edit the photographs to make the images more uniformed, rather than them being in my ‘style’ the way I wanted them to look. However the brief did state that we should ‘develop a personal style of work within the constraints of an externally set brief’ I believe editing the images how I wish is helping me to develop my own style even though I am still unsure of what exactly this is.

It took me quite a while to narrow down the images and I believe I have done so effectively. I have included both landscape and portrait views of the locations so the college are able to use either depending on what they need the images for. I have attached the appropriate metadata to the images on disc and I have tried to keep all my work to a professional standard and I think I have achieved this. I was pleased to get good client feedback and I am looking forward to getting our results as I feel that I have put a lot into this project and I have definitely improved from last year.