Bradford Visit - Impressions Gallery

We visited the Impressions gallery in Bradford and looked at the Liquid Land: Legacies of Oil and Power exhibition by Rena Effendi. The images were about the Chernobyl disaster and shows the aftermath of the nuclear disaster and the women that went back to live there where the food still contains dangerous levels of radiation. Other images show communities living amongst oil spills in Azerbaijan where Effendi was born.

I really liked the exhibition as you could see the devastation of what the radiation did and she captured the sadness in the ladies eyes. It was quite sad to look at to see the people living in those conditions. The oil spills were also very sad to look at as you see the small children living in such ruin and the pictures of the oil in the sea were very powerful. I like documentary work and this exhibition was like a report in the news of what was happening in those places.

 

Liverpool Visit - Open Eye Gallery

We went to the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool and one of the exhibitions that we saw was the Eva Stenram, Drape. The photographs were of women being covered up with curtains. Stenram had looked back and found old negatives from old magazines of pin up and centrefold girls to use which she scanned in and manipulated herself into new photographs by covering the women’s bodies up with curtains. She did this so that when the images were being looked at the viewer cannot see the naked bodies and can just see parts of the flesh and is saying that the women were being objectified.

This exhibition wasn’t something to my taste as I believe the images would have been much better to look at and appreciated if the hadn’t have been put together on a computer. I think they should she should have shot actual models and covered them up with the curtains so that it actually looked realistic. The images weren’t real enough for me and just looked like parts of photographs stuck together to make one which I didn’t really like.

Liverpool Visit - Caravan gallery

We went to the Liverpool International Photography Festival. One of the exhibitions that stood out for me was the Merseystyle: Photographs By the caravan Gallery. It wasn’t just about what the photographs actually were off but the fact that they were all displayed inside a tiny caravan made it different to anything else and made you want to go in and have a look. There were more than 40 photographs inside the caravan. The images were all about the people, places, architecture of Merseyside. The images were quite humorous and reflected the everyday life of Liverpool. It was a very real account which I liked and nothing looked like it was set up for the camera.

 

Liverpool Visit - Glam!

We went to the Glam! exhibition at the Tate in Liverpool which was great to see as it was not just photographs but memorabilia, clothing, jewellery music and videos too. There were pieces from different artists including Cindy Sherman and Andy Warhol.

It was all about the extravagant pop style in Britain during the 70s. There were glitter jackets and flared trousers hung on the wall and leather outfits in glass cases. There were different rooms to go in with different things being exhibited. In one room it was installation art with disco balls and light all over the floor and music playing. In another there were pictures on identity with drag acts being photographed. Another was about eroticism with surreal images and mannequins.

I really liked this exhibition as it was a variety of different mediums as you walked through which kept it interesting and fun.

Natural Beauty Exhibition at Leeds City Museum

Natural Beauty at Leeds City Museum

We visited the Natural Beauty exhibition at Leeds City Museum where Sara Porters photographs were on display. Her work has been exhibited in France as well as the UK and has been published in the national press. She was born in Liverpool and was originally a science teacher but then turned to photography. She used to work in black and white film but now digital.

This exhibition was photographs of what Sara had taken of the collection of animals that the museum had.

I liked the exhibition as some of the images were very good especially the fox, as they were very crisp and clear. The close up shots she took of the animals skulls were good as they showed lots of detail.

What I didn’t like about the exhibition was how in-between all of the photographs they was a random picture of birds which looked just like a print and not an actual photograph and there was no explanation why it was there. Also there were some stuffed animals in the middle of the room which looked ok from far away but when looked at closely the glue was visible and some stitching was loose and visible. This made the exhibition less appealing I thought.

 

Flash Fiction 1 day brief

We were set a 1 day brief to pick out a random a short story, then we had to go out and take pictures to try and tell that story. I chose "In the flesh".

 In the flesh

It was in a café that we eventually met. All those hastily scribbled notes between strangers and now she was here. In the flesh.

She was sipping coffee as I approached. She looked up, eyes unreadable. I told her who I was. She nodded, gesturing to the chair beside her.

 

 

I went out and decided that my setting would be in a coffee shop so I went to Starbucks. I shot all my image there some inside and some out. Then I went back to Uni to edit them and choose my final shots.  I showed my images to the group and I think they were understood well and that each image told the story.

I enjoyed the 1 day brief and would like to try doing more like this as it made me think faster without delaying my ideas and trying to come up with something else. As I think sometimes you can overthink ideas instead of going with your first thought.

 

 

Fashion Editorial group brief

Fashion Editorial group brief
 

We were set a brief to work in groups of 4 to produce a fashion editorial piece. I was with Flo Connor and Holly. My group chose at random the magazine Wallpaper and the brand All Saints. We had to go out on location and create images that could appear in Wallpaper magazine, so had to fit with the theme of the magazine and also promote the brand All Saints.

We firstly did a bit of research on the magazine and looked through past issues and found that mostly there were interior shot and that the magazine had a more interior design feel to it. Although we did find some shoots that were outside and had some kind of furniture in them. When looking at the All Saints website we found the clothes to be white, black or grey mostly, with lots of denim and leather.

We asked Flo’s housemate to be our model and she had lots of the type of clothing that we needed which worked out well as us in the group didn’t have any All Saints items. She did her own hair and makeup so we didn’t need to contact stylists or artists.

My group worked very well together and we planned everything before we went out on the shoot. We called around a few churches as we decided that the interior would go with the magazine and the clothes seemed to be quite spiritual, but didn’t hear anything back from them so in the end we decided on a graveyard.

On the morning of the shoot we all went up to Uni together to get all the kit out. We took dslrs, flash kits and reflectors with us. When we arrived at the graveyard we began walking around the grounds to get some ideas of where to set up, we found lots of different locations to get different scenes. We shared everything out between us and everyone had a chance of photographing and positioning the model. We didn’t have to use the light kits as it was a very sunny day and so we used natural sunlight with reflectors.

When we had finished the shoot we all went back to Connors to upload our images and make them into a magazine format on In Design which we would then present to the whole group.

I enjoyed this brief as it was the only one we have done in the space of 2 weeks which made it exciting to quickly have to come up with an idea to get it finished.