Online Degree Show

I have submitted 5 of my current images into the Graduate Showcase. This goes live on 25th of May, the same day as the Degree Show private viewing.

Critical Evaluation

Degree Major Project – Critical Evaluation

As I come to the end of my third year studying for my photography degree I feel a duality that I have both learned and grown an incredible amount as a photographer and yet I feel like I have just scratched the surface and still have so much left to learn. I guess this is exactly the nature of the industry I am about to enter, always changing and evolving and as times have proved regressing. For example, there has been a resurgence for analogue photography that was presumed long forgotten, alongside this however are such technical advances that allow mobile phones to capture moving images. I also read an article recently suggesting that for photographers to continue working within their industry they will need to look at videographer skills also as these are more in demand for all genres of photography. This suggests to me that my life as a photography student whilst formally completed will always continue.

My project for this module was I feel a culmination of all I have learned during my three years studying leading me back to my artistic roots of surrealism and abstract art. The idea was to produce a series of images to compliment my dissertation subject “Creating desirability within the fast food industry a public health issue” in my dissertation I discussed the advertising of fast food and the morals of a photographer creating images in such a desirable way. This led to my Degree Major project looking at healthy foods verses Junk foods and the warped way in which we view what is and isn’t good for us. I settled on a plan to produce a series of abstract, fine art images that would lead the viewer to question what they are seeing. My goals were to create vibrant, high key, detailed images of both healthy foods and junk foods.

I didn’t have a fixed idea of final presentation until much later in to the project, though I had lots of ideas throughout. What I decided on for my final exhibition I feel compliments the subject of my work, I opted for wallpaper with a repeated abstract print. From time to time I would see abstract food images on the walls of cafes, this has influenced my decision. After lots of deliberating I decided to experiment with printing ten more images on table mats. This was a risk because I had not used the company before and had no idea how the images would turn out. I did also have a backup plan available where I would get prints on smaller aluminium rectangles or just standard fine art prints in frames. My risk paid off though and I am really pleased with the finish of my table mats. These were my chosen option because they complement the fact that I am working with food. The images have worked in such a way that I can see the colourful ones being sold as a set in somewhere like Lakeland. This is a possible revenue source for me in the future.

I feel that my idea and execution has been a success over all however there are elements that could have been improved. Successful elements are the healthy images both the frozen ones and the kiwi in water. The colours are bold and striking, the ice creates a layer of distortion enough to give the viewer some questions and the images do have an abstract feel. The wallpaper though not initially how I had pictured it has been a success, I am really pleased with the quality and the bold colours of my image choices. Because I have selected the mirror print the wallpaper is very abstract and my daughter even commented saying that one of them she would even consider as a wallpaper for her home. Area I feel I could have improved would firstly be the junk food images, though they capture the junk food in the way I had intended the colours are bland and unexciting. This is the nature of the foods however so if I were to carry this project on it may need a different direction. Another area for improvement is finding a working space where I have plenty of room and equipment available, I worked in a small set up at home which was adequate however it is very easy for me to become distracted by goings on in my home and family.  Though I have been much more time conscious this whole year of study this is always an area that could use improvement. I was lucky with my final images given that I printed so late however this could have been a different story.

Regarding my continuing development I am sure that I will always be learning to one degree or another. I am enrolled in several online courses that I have yet to complete and these include post production which is an area that I am keen to develop. In particular, meeting industry standards including Capture One. I will continue my membership with the AOP, The Societies and will look at other associations that will support my entry in to the photographic industry. With a background in Network Marketing I understand the importance of networking, contacting people and continually putting myself out there to secure future work. I follow the creative review magazine online it is a great resource for keeping an eye on upcoming trends within the food photography industry, in their recent article they talk about how modern trends have moved away from the dark and documentary style to a brighter, vibrant coloured and softer focus. With these more modern images being sought after for a wide range of customers. (Creative Review, 2017) This is the area I feel my work fits in to however this feels like a slight contradiction to the recent winners and highly commended images from the Pink Lady Food Photography Awards, of which most have the dark documentary feel. What this suggests is that there is room in this industry for all types of food photography. My inspirational artists list continues to grow and not just around food but other genres too. This is a very long way from where I started three years ago, where the only famous or influential photographer I knew was David Bailey. My knowledge and professionalism have improved greatly and I look forward to what the future brings.

1060 Words

 

References:

Creative Review. (2017). Trends in modern food photography – Creative Review. [online] Available at: https://www.creativereview.co.uk/trends-modern-food-photography/ [Accessed 14 Apr. 2017].

Pinkladyfoodphotographeroftheyear.com. (2017). Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year. [online] Available at: https://www.pinkladyfoodphotographeroftheyear.com/finalists-gallery-2017/ [Accessed 14 May 2017].

Competition 4 – Lenscratch

The fourth competition I am looking at is a student competition with Lenscratch, an online photography blog .

The prize is in $ and allows for the free upload of 15 images, I need to write a third person biography to enter this one and the deadline is 28th of may so this will be completed in the next week after the hand in deadline. I also need to confirm that this is open to international students and not just those based in USA.

I will either enter my bod of work from my most recent project or I will use the series I had created for last years Final Major Project.

Finance Team

As part of our exhibition preparations we needed to choose teams to be assigned to, whilst I would have preferred to be on a more creative team (Like most of the creative students) I did also put my name down on the finance team as I am fairly competent in budgeting. It makes sense really as I am a mature student who has experience of budgeting in my every day life.

I didn’t have a huge role on the team, I was with two very organised students who took control of the heavy duty chores such as creating spreadsheets and opening bank accounts. I was however useful in fielding messages, helping people with the details for making their payments and helping to follow up with some of those that needed more time.

The payment for Free range has to be made by 18th May

We asked for all payments to be made by 21st April, giving us time to ensure all payments were in to cover the costs and that we had money available to cover the cost of printing our advertising materials.

Costs

• Hire = £4,200
• Damage Deposit = £600 (After some discussion the University agreed it would be best if they covered this cost)
• Electrics + Vat = £120

Total = £4,920

University to pay = £1600

Left to pay = £3320

We each agreed to pay £150 so that we would have enough of a budget left over for drinks, entertainment advertising etc. Between 39 of us there would have been £2530 left to spend. However a number of students dropped out and we were down to 30 students exhibiting. Though we requested a minimum payment for those only exhibiting at U of H to cover printing and entertainment costs I am not sure anyone actually has contributed. We have £1,180 in the budget and Sam curling managed to secure a £200 donation brining that total up to £1,380. This should be more than adequate to cover our expenses for both exhibitions.

Free Range Cost and Preparation

Free Range Exhibition

• Cost
• Dates
• Advertising
• Space Visit (Planned)
• Considerations

Much of the information is the same for Free Range as it is for the Exhibition at University of Hertfordshire. This is due to the fact that my wallpaper will be split between the two exhibitions and my table mats can be re-mounted at the Free Range Exhibition.

Costs Incurred

• Wallpaper x 3 – £68.85
• Table Mats x 11 – £66
• Delivery £14 – £5 Discount for 2nd order – £9
• Velcro 20mm x 10m – £27.74
• Spray Mount, Business card holder & Delivery – £18.03
• Forks – £5.55
• TOTAL – £195.17 

Dates

29th June – Opening Night

30th June – 3rd July General View

Advertising

This is the leaflet/Poster created by the design team for our Free Range Exhibition. I will be emailing this out to people and I will also create an event on Facebook for family and friends.

Space/Layout

As a group we will be planning a visit to The Truman Brewery after we have put our work up for exhibition at UofH, This is so we can determine what space we will have available and the best space for each of our exhibitions.

These images are taken from the brochure that Diane brought in for us to have a look through. There are also images from past shows on the Free Range website, this will be helpful in making decisions as to where my work might go and how it might look.

Considerations

Space will be a consideration as I have a very specific exhibition and I will need to be sure I can hang my wallpaper from a size perspective but also the practicality of mounting on the walls. We are not clear on the space we have available to us all at this stage (or those not on the build/design team anyway) But we have less students choosing to exhibit at Free Range so we potentially have more space to play with.

 

I uploaded my profile and three images to the Free range Web Site.

Saal Digital Book Review

Saal Digital Book Review, £25 towards book from Sale Digital to be completed in 2 weeks and provide a review.

This was an advert I had spotted on Facebook, and one I have decided to take up. I am in the process of completing my book to compliment my exhibition.

Using Images from Final major project with a bit of background and information on the development of the project.

This is a screenshot of the started layout, I got a little stuck after I started as I was looking for a function that this company doesn’t seem to have. I would like to be able to make the image on page 3/4 more opaque so that I could add smaller images on top of this. I have used this function with another book provider and am a little disappointed there doesn’t appear to be that function. I will continue to produce the book though and provide my review, this is just another opportunity for my work to reach a wider audience. The review will be public through the companies website and social media, they have a huge number of followers.

 

References:

GmbH, S. (2017). Download. [online] Saal-digital.co.uk. Available at: https://www.saal-digital.co.uk/service/software-download/download/ [Accessed 6 May 2017].

Job Hunting

As the end of my study is in sight the realty has hit that I really need to be looking for work, even as a mature student who has spent many years working the though actually scares me a little. Thinking about weather I am actually ready to go out and work in the industry, to be responsible for creating projects with and for other people is a huge responsibility. Even though feedback over the three years has been on the positive side it is at this stage I always doubt my own skills and abilities. It would be really easy for me to slip back in to my old job roles or take on running my Therapy business to a greater degree gain but I try to remain focussed on the task at hand and so have been in search of photography or photography related jobs. I have carried out Job searches on:

• LinkedIn
• Indeed
• Reed

I have yet to upload a full CV or actually apply for a job at this stage.

Just an example of the jobs I had saved to look at fully. I will continue to look and perhaps go and register with agencies locally to me.

 

Exhibition Layout Test

Once my wallpaper had arrived I took it to a fellow students place to test my layout in a large enough space and also get feedback.

My first disappointment came when I realised I had made a mistake in ordering my wallpaper. When looking at the mock up images on the web site I had not take in to consideration they were based on more than one roll per wall, what this meant is that I have ordered the print too large, so I have lost a little of the desired kaleidoscope effect, I do still have the mirrored effect repeated does each sheet and the abstract nature is still very present.

Then on to my table mats, I am really pleased with the print quality of these, they have a lovely glossy finish and the images are still as vibrant as they would appear on my screen. I did order two more from the company after I had received them because I wasn’t completely happy with the frozen junk food images. I felt these were not as strong as perhaps just the cropped images were. Also because the kiwi wasn’t frozen it became the odd one out in the set. With the unfrozen junk food images the set becomes much stronger.

After some discussion and suggestion from Sam, we rearranged the layout into two sets of five images, Five Healthy and Five Junk, This strengthened both sets and gives the layout a more coherent flow. Before we had come to this conclusion I was feeling happy with the junk food images, in comparison to the colourful healthy images they are bland and less exciting. However as a set in their own right they become much stronger and interesting.

 

This layout is the one I am likely to use for the exhibition.

A close up of the mats on the wallpaper, I am really pleased with the vibrance and contrast of the wallpaper and mats together.

Exhibition Contingency Plan

As a back up I had explored the idea of producing various other prints, this was explored in the instance that I really didn’t like the table mat prints and felt I needed something more aesthetically/photographically pleasing. The options I explored are listed below.

White Wall

• Aluminium Prints 15×10

 

This is still a possibility for exhibiting at Free Range, however this adds to my cost again so will only be used as a last resort. I have however previously used White Wall for Aluminium prints and I know that the quality if brilliant especially for the price.The downside is that they are based in Germany and takes between 7 to 10 days for delivery.

DS Colour Labs

• Fine Art Prints
• Acrylic Prints

Above are the costs for using DS Colour Labs for either fine art prints (Which would need framing) or to have acrylic prints produced. I have also used them before and really pleased with the quality and service.

Amazon

• A4 Clear Acrylic Frames

Acrylic frames from Amazon, I liked these because they were quite basic allowing for the image to be of more dominance. I looked at both A4 and A3 sizes as a just in case back up.

Exhibition Choices, Printing & Costs

I decided to go with the wallpaper and table mat idea, Printing the cabbage, egg and beetroot on the wallpaper, the rest of the images I got printed on table mats. I will hang three strips down the wall, the plan being to hang three table mat images on each sheet, staggered moving down the page. (Image included below of planned layout from documents sent to the design and build team)

I am considering hanging using bent fork to be the picture hangings, though this will be done with velcro from behind and the fires will be for decoration but secured within the hanging. I am not fixed on this idea, it is one that I will need to see on the day.

• Wallpaper – Fashion Formula
• Table Mats with Printed Images

My Images on Placemats from T-Shit Studio £6 each.  Total £54

Confirmation of my order from T-Shirt Studio

My Shopping Basket with order from Fashion Formula, £27 per Roll, +15% discount Total = £68.85

Confirmation email for order

Screen shot mock up of how wallpaper might look once printed.

Order for spray mount and business card holder from Caboodle.

Costs Incurred

• Wallpaper x 3 – £68.85
• Table Mats x 11 – £66
• Delivery £14 – £5 Discount for 2nd order – £9
• Velcro 20mm x 10m – £27.74
• Spray Mount, Business card holder & Delivery – £18.03
• Forks – £5.55
• TOTAL – £195.17 

Exhibition Ideas

Below are the various sketches and ideas that came up for exhibiting my work. My thinking behind these was that I wanted to produce something different, but also something that would add to the abstract nature of the project. In order to really put this message across I didn’t feel that traditional photographic exhibition methods would be suited. Obviously factors that come in to my decision making would be cost, reality of being able to complete the desired finish in the given time.

This first sketch was my fit real fixed idea, I held on to this for a while. It would have included prints in acrylic frames, warped in some way before hanging and then hung in a grid like fashion, with colour , texture and flow being the key things that helped with the flow .

When discussing this with Diane she pointed out other ides to me that she had seen previously and equally could have worked with my project.

Another Idea I had had was to print the images and wrap them inside are food jars and perhaps displayed on shelves. This led on to thinking about having clear acrylic boxes attached to the wall, with the image distorted within the box. £D printing was also a consideration and I did do a little looking in to this, however I don’t think it would be possible to achieve the finish that would suit my project. Also it is a costly exercise.

After an email Matt MacPake sent with a company offering discount for University of Hertfordshire students to print on fabric or wallpaper, I started to think about the possibility of printing on wallpaper. This would give my work a different scale that had been previously mentioned but I could now really put it in to practice. It would also give me the opportunity to repeat the image several times in one print,  like those I had been influenced by when doing my research. I would look to combine this with the hanging acrylic boxes, giving more layers of distortion and my whole exhibition an abstract feel.

To back up the acrylic box plan I saw this at the Wolfgang Tilmans Exhibition

Wolfgang Tillmans Exhibition at The Tate Modern

Another idea that came to me as I was producing my work was to print on coasters or table mats, The table mats really stuck out as an ice because they share a relevance to the food element of my project. It is also something very different but made sense to compliment the wallpaper. I considered how I would hang these and after discussions with friends and family who suggested cutlery would look good hung along side the images I figured there may be some way of using bent forks as picture hangings.

For a time I was left torn between the last two options.

Further research into exhibiting was looking up suppliers, costs and doing a mock up of how things might look .

All the images above are screenshots from Fashion Formula trying to work out what pattern would work best with my images on the wallpaper.

This is a screen shot looking in to the acrylic cases, I would need to order 3 of these. If I went for this option I would need to look at prints also so that bumps the cost up. I looked at options for printing on acrylic and then also alternative would be to hang acrylic frames and standard gloss prints.

Costings for fine art prints with DS Colour Labs whom I have used for previous prints.

Cost for Acrylic Panels with DS Colour Labs.

Prices for standard acrylic frames from Amazon.

UofH Students Project – SUZERO

A fellow student from level 5 forwarded an email request to me, for sports science students looking to collaborate on their dissertation project. They are working to produce Sugar Free, healthy snack bars. This project piqued my interest for two reasons, firstly because I am working with food in photography. Secondly because in my personal life I have been cutting out certain foods including refined sugar.

I met with Tom Sexton a marketing student responsible for the marketing of the bars, we discussed the plans for the project, what they would be looking for photographically and the long term goals for the project. I arranged to pick up some of the bars and ingredients so that I could get to work. The plan was to produce some workable images at the start and then with future shoots create a stock of images for them too use along with portraits for the marketing material and websites.

The images above are a selection of the mood board images Tom gave me to work with.

 

 

Above are the images I have produced for the project so far, we have plans to get together and produce more images after our uni deadlines have passed. I am excited about the future of this project.