My new lens

Hello,

Well it's certainly been a while, but I'm back with a couple of images I took while getting to know my new lens, the fabulous Nikon 24-85. It's true awesomeness will hopefully be shown this weekend at the wedding I'm taking photos of, so fingers crossed. Anyway, here we are -and sorry Hannah, you've taken the brunt of new lens exercises, i would have used Pete but he's just not as photogenic as you :)

Just Playing

Well I’ve been getting to know Photoshop C4 in my time stuck back in Cambridge, bored out my tiny mind.
Getting to know C4 is basically getting to know Photoshop generally as i’m not doing anything c4 specific and wouldn’t actually know what was new and wonderfully specific to c4 as yet. It will come, i’m sure.
Anyway Mark has taken the brunt of my experiments yet again, he proves invaluable fodder for practice with my new camera, my pride and joy, and experiments with the piccies after.
Anyway I present, Playing- Mark basically looking like he’s drifted slightly to near to Chernobyl

...........and if you want to see the before photo just look to the blog below.

Shave

Man portraits explored further in the everyday task of shaving.

Noise Brief continued....

Well my long weekend at home turned into a quite a work fest with me having to still take certain images for the Noise Brief, which comes to an end next week.

Attaining the images involved help mostly from my boyf Mark (thank u) but also my brothers girlfriend, Lucy and my baby, the love of my life - my car :)

So here they they are- some images to feature in our online magazine(s) Rural Pulse and Urban Pulse:

Lame or not so Lame? Word brief cont....

Well I have now finished my images for the word brief. The first two I have put on here already and I’m really pleased with how they have turned out. However, the last image concerning the word Broken is another story altogether and even though I’ve spent three days pretty much solidly shooting, re shooting, messing about in Photoshop and asking people about it, I’m still so unsure. Basically my idea is either ok or so lame it should be taken outside, shot and sent to the glue factory.

I wanted to do a still life for this last image as the other image for the word broken was figurative. When you think of ‘broken’ you most commonly think of objects, broken things, and so I’d have been off beam somewhat if I hadn’t addressed broken things for this brief. When I first went into the studio I took a whole load of broken crap with me and made an aesthetic display, which I shot up close with lots of moody shadow. When I got it into Photoshop however, I just couldn’t make it work for me and I think this is because it had no real meaning behind it. So I took the decision to reshoot and came up with the idea of a kind of Vanitas still life.

I’m still nowhere near 100 percent sure about my still life but at least there is meaning behind it and I’m happier than I was before. When you look at it you a meant to see the word broken in the broken items displayed but it is more than that. It represents a moment in time violently interrupted shattered- but the rest is up to you to decide. Is it the actual death of a child? Or more a metaphorical reading of a childhood interrupted by a violent occurrence.
Any crit welcome too. Gay or not too Gay?

First attempt

Second and current image

Broken

Today I made a conscious effort to really get going with my second image for our ‘Word’ brief. The word I chose myself for the brief is ‘Broken’ and for a while I’ve had an image in my head that I want to capture of an elderly woman grieving. Old people are often considered broken down and this along with the emotion of someone grieving is a double whammy of broken that I wanted to capture. I set off to my first old people’s home and they were very friendly. They introduced me to an elderly lady called Pat. She wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for the shoot; she was plump and had a very smooth face. However, beggar’s can’t be choosers and I told her I’d be back tomorrow with my camera.

I got on with the rest of the stuff I had to do that day, which included picking up some meds from the pharmacy, I suddenly realised the pharmacy was right next to an old people’s home, plus I also had my camera on me. Bingo. So I decided to try my luck and went inside enquiring if there were any residents there that wouldn’t mind being in my photo.

Well, it must have been my lucky day as I was introduced to Edna. Edna was a star- I mean literally! In her day she was a famous tap dancer in London’s west end and had one the most glamorous lives you can think of. She also had the most expressive face and could really act so she followed my direction perfectly. While I was shooting my images Edna told me about her husband, who died from Alzheimers. She spoke about how they were in love their whole lives and how she looked after him until he died. It was really moving to hear. She also spoke about her son who she clearly doted on and who doted on her. I nearly fell off my chair when she told me he was in his 70’s and that she was in her 90’s, 93 to be exact!

Anyway here are some of the images from my shoot, Broken:

Noise Brief; images attained under duress.......

Well onwards and onwards......the weekend was filled Valentine’s Day and my relentless need to get some images done for the Monday Noise Brief meeting that we have been working on for uni. There were three of us photographers who went out over the weekend to get some suitable shots for the two online magazines we have conceived and developed as a group.
Unfortunately my patient boyfriend suffered the brunt of this exercise and was forced to contribute to the project considerably.

Some of the images required bubbles and naturally I needed someone to blow the bubbles in various places around Liverpool and Blackpool so I could capture a decent bubble/ urban landscape image. Unfortunately I got a little Nazi like in my demands for bubble blowing and for this Mark I am sorry and I do understand it is difficult to blow bubbles into the shot when the wind is against you: These are two of the images I collected:

Another set of images required us shooting them in the sand dunes and this began with what seemed like an endless, freezing walk to the sand dunes at the south promenade, Blackpool. Alas, the freezing walk was not enough, no!... to add to my boyfriend’s misery I made him remove his coat so I could get the images I needed.

All said and done, the images have turned out ok and between us three photographers we have enough images for our first presentation. So thank you so much Mark, you are fabulous.

Mark :)

Some other images ftaken for the brief: