Complete!!!!

College work is complete... I can now relax!!!

And Another...!

A girl at work is getting married next year, and she’s taken a disc home to have a look at the last wedding I did to see if she likes the style of them... this might be another wedding!! Can’t believe how everything is moving slightly better once you do your first wedding, because I didn’t think anything would come out of it, I was just happy for the experience.

Another Wedding...!

Might have another wedding!!!! The woman who did the brides hair at my first wedding is recommended me and she’s showing of my images, and some are really interested. Can’t believe it!!

How am I getting on?

Things are looking good on the college work side of things. Everything seems to be coming together quite quickly now. I really need to sort out my time managing skills for next year because I really can’t do this again, rushing and hoping it will all be complete. I’ve been so stressed the past couple of weeks, but the wedding and the teaching really hasn’t helped this though. I just hope that all this effort is worth it.

My Logo!!!

It was abit short notice but I got my logo today. The person who produced it for me is also a student at Burton College studying the graphics course. I was really surprised at the speed he managed to come up with the design. I gave him a few ideas, but when he sent me the examples, I didn’t like my idea and preferred one he has created for me. I love it, it’s perfect, it’s exactly how I wanted my logo to look. I would definitely recommend him!!!

2nd Teaching...

I wasn’t sure who to expect to turn up. I was slightly anxious in case nobody turned up. I still feel like they think I’m not going to teach them anything. Thankfully all but one turned up, I was surprised when they kept walking through the door. Hopefully they will see the difference in the next few weeks. I have a few workshops planned for them because I think this is the easiest way to learn something that you don’t fully understand. I’m just glad they are giving me the chance to teach them what I know.

Wedding Stress

Becca and Mark, the newlyweds, loved the images I took, I showed them last Thursday, 30^th April, I was so relieved to know that they liked the images, because I was really dreading them seeing them. But it seems like I had nothing to worry about… the stress starts here, the albums are turning out to be soo stressful to try and organize and price up.

Someone from Leek college is making the album handmade and it’s just taking forever to organize. They originally wanted 15-20 photos for the family albums, but some have gone up to as many as 58 photos and they want 8 albums making in total. This is turning out to be more stressful than the wedding day. I don’t know where to begin, to print the photos myself, to approach a printer, will they be good enough, prices, sizes there’s just so much to consider and I really didn’t think about any of this before the wedding, I was just nervous and stressed about the big day, I really should have been dreading the aftermath.

I can’t believe the time everything is taking to do, and along with having to do this wedding, I have my college work to complete by the 15^th May and I have lessons to plan. Everything has been happening all at once and I don’t know how to plan my time correctly between the three. I’m finding myself having no time to myself, and whenever I’m at home, I’m finding myself doing some kind of work relating to either of these three. In a way I feel like I’m neglecting my college work the most, which I really know I shouldn’t. But I don’t know which I should put first, the wedding, the teaching or my college work. I’ll be so happy when all this is over….!!!!

The last big pressure to do

After today I feel I can relax slightly because all the big challenges will be out the way then, the wedding, the first teaching lesson and now the presentation. The presentation looking good, Izzie and Dave did a fantastic presentation. I was chief ‘clicker’ and I feel I did a good job too J. I must say after everyone’s presentation I felt ours was delivered the best and I could actually tell they knew what they were on about, when sometimes they probably didn’t. I’m glad that’s over!!

The next big step...Teaching

I still wasn’t fully prepared when I was eventually there. I felt the 5 students thought ‘she’s only 20, what can she teach me’ but I brushed that aside and carried on with the night. I felt that I did quite well actually I could tell they knew nothing about photography so this put me at ease. After tonight I know teaching isn’t for me, but I’ll carry on these lessons for the experience. I think I was more nervous about the teaching than I was doing the wedding and I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad. I know which I enjoyed more.

Saying all that though I felt abit like a teacher, I spoke the right language, I responded well in the situations that occurred, and I taught them about the basics… I just need to be slightly more prepared for next week.. At least I know what to expect.. Handouts, need to do handouts!!

The big day has arrived...

Today’s come round way to quickly but surprising the day has gone so much better than I imagined. I’ve actually enjoyed it and I can see myself doing this for a living. I’m so happy that they gave me the chance and actually put their trust in me! I thought last night I wouldn’t be able to sleep because of the nerves, but I feel asleep straightaway, also I thought I’d be really nervous while I was there.. I wasn’t. I felt I put on a very professional attitude and for that day I felt like a professional photographer and I also felt I was being treated as a professional photograph as well.

I’ve been there from 9 this morning to 10.30 at night, it’s been a very long day but it didn’t feel that long from 9 to about 7, after this time it felt like it dragged on so much.

There are a few problems I encountered and these were the lighting in the ceremony and the reception during the speeches. The only thing I felt I could do without using the flash was to increase the ISO.. I know all about the grain problems but I had no other choice, and through the speeches it had got that dark that the more I increased the ISO it still didn’t help, and I didn’t want to use the flash because it flicked a few times before it takes the photo, I obviously didn’t want to interrupt with a constantly flashing light. I think these are things that you will learn through time, but I was so disappointed that I didn’t get the shots.

The biggest problem were the batteries from the 5D, they were awful… they lasted at the most for about 45mins. My canon 400d could have lasted all day. If I was to do a wedding again I would definitely buy one of those battery grips.

Overall I think the day went brilliantly, the images are looking good but I think this is partly to having a good looking bride and groom, but all together a very tiring, long day. But I’d definitely do it again!!!

Teaching

Had a phone call today from my mentor.. The teaching is this Tuesday? I have a week to plan a lesson and I haven’t a clue what I’m going to do. It was meant to be in September?! OMG! It’s going to be an interesting day when Tuesday comes around. I’m not prepared at all, worse still I’m not prepared mentally. There’s 5 people who have applied for the course, so this has made it slightly better for me but still I have less than a week to prepare?!

Presentation...

When I found out we all didn’t have to stand up and present these presentations I was absolutely relieved, because standing up in front of that many people talking about something I probably don’t have a clue about is my kind of hell. I shutter, I mix up my words and nobody can understand a word I’m saying. This is something that I need to work on because they might be times later on in life in a job where I need to stand up and make a presentation. I need to get a bit of confidence to be able to do this, generally its only in front of a huge crowd.

My groups Me, Dave, Amy and Izzie and we somehow decided on the Orphan Works. I know roughly what it’s about but not that much. I’ll done abit of research on the internet and it still is sticking in.

Ian Shipley's back again

Hmmm… we were meant to have written a business plan.. I completely forgot.. I’ve been that busy that the business plan went straight out of my head until this morning when everyone was talking about it. Listening to everyone else’s was a massive help though because I heard the kind of details which should be put in to one, so in a way I’m relieved I hadn’t made a start on one because it would probably have been wrong.

Need to start this ASAP!!!

Wales, Wales, Wales.. where does it end?

The past two weeks have been hectic, and I thought I’d have a relaxing half term concentrating on my college work, but that didn‘t happen!! The first week I found myself at work nearly every day, I probably had two days of in the week, and one of them days, Easter Sunday I found myself driving to Wales. The second week hasn’t been as bad but finding time to go Wales again has been difficult. I’m finding myself worrying more about finding the time to Wales instead of getting any work done for my research file.

I’ve had to compromise another day to Wales to make sure I come home with the images. This was my last chance to go to Wales so I had to make a good job. The only problem with this day was that I had to be back for about 7 a clock as I have commitments on Thursday night that I can’t really get out off. So I had to plan my day around knowing I had to be home.

I found myself sticking to the plan well throughout the day and in some cases I found I was early in places so it gave me extra time to take photos, which I felt was needed in the second location.

Again I felt I could have researched a bit better in the locations and walking distances to the lighthouses, but I suppose you don’t think they would be too far out.

The one thing that let me down today was the weather, it wasn’t the nicest of days, foggy and wet in places but I knew I had to get some decent shots before I returned home and I feel I have achieved this, which I’m really happy about considering the weather.

This assignment has really taught me to consider the assignment more if we get to choose our own again. I found myself enjoying the 3^rd trip to Wales even though I went alone, I found I could take as long as I liked without the fear of annoying the person who came along. I think this is the main thing I’m happy to learn out of this assignment because usually I always prefer the company but going to Wales alone and actually enjoying was a massive surprise.

Wales... Easter Sunday

I probably didn’t choose the best days to go on, with it being a lovely day and everyone being about, but I still managed to get some shots without people walking in front of my camera. My first location was Penmon Point in Anglesey, the main thing that attracted me here was the lighthouse, and my god I got a shock, the lighthouse had some kind of affect of me almost like I had to respect it. The size of the lighthouse is overwhelming and the location that it’s in is beautiful especially on a nice day like it was.

If I hadn’t had to move on to the next location I could have easily sat there all day.

Barmouth was an utter waste of time.. Why did I pick Barmouth? It took what seemed like forever to get from Anglesey to Barmouth and for what? It’s like a mini run down Blackpool. What makes this mistake worse is the fact that I’ve been there about 3 years ago so I should have known what the place was like. On the way home I had no heating and a sleeping boyfriend next to me… what a great way to drive back from Wales.

Business Plans

Not the most enjoyable of subjects but something that we all need to know and do. Certain parts of the business I understand but there’s also parts which confuse me. I’m not really sure where to start, what I want to do in the future. It’s definitely given me something to think about and get my head around.

Logos

This Logo talk was actually worthwhile, unlike the last talk we got. This got me thinking about my own brand identity and the logo that I’d like to represent my business. I’ve already decided on my name for the company and it’s simply Lesley Salt Photography. I think the best way to sell your company and for people to remember it is through your own name. I just need a logo, I’m thinking of something simple, girly but abit sophisticated, and also memorable. I just need someone to design it for me… graphics students or Lance?!

Marketing Talk...?

Marketing Talk....?!!

Marketing Talk?…What marketing talk? She didn’t even tell us anything about marketing. It’s a good job we got a handout explaining it all to us.

Feel for hair shoot

Anyone was doing anything for the feel for hair. Nobody had an roles anymore, it was basically if you want to shoot some you can, if you don’t, then don’t. I thought I best get myself involved as I’d like to try and do as much of the projects that I can from this course. The more projects you do the more likely you are to get recognized.

I felt quite comfortable doing this shoot, I decided to shoot the macro shots, and I like working with macro so I really enjoyed myself. The only problem with this kind of assignment is that you don’t feel like your challenging yourself, like you would with other types of photography. The clients want clean cut-out photos and that’s obviously what they are going to get.

Me? A teacher?

My Mentor has asked me if I want to teach a recreational beginners photographers class… hmm.. Can I really do this? It starts in September so I have plenty of time to prepare and get my head around it all.. So why not? I might as well give it a go.

At first I felt a bit apprehensions about this, and I still am feeling like this. Teaching really isn’t my kind of thing especially standing in front of a load of people, but I’ve been told it will only be to about 6 people, so this has slightly made it better. I think it’s best to take these chances and get abit of experience and it’s also something to put on my C.V…. so yes I’m going to be a recreational teacher: S

The perfect mentor

I’ve found my mentor… I’ve decided I’m going to ask my old college tutor to be my mentor. I think she’d perfect for the job. The main reason I’m asking her is because she’s getting me work and she believes in me. Someone approached her about a student photographer for a wedding and she recommended me. I was slightly nervous at first about having the responsibility and the huge pressure on photographing a wedding. But it’s going to be a massive thing for me, I can’t believe I’m doing a wedding!!

This is the kind of work which will challenge you to see if you’ve got what it takes to be a photographer so it’ll be interesting to see how it all turns out… 25^th April isn’t that long away.!!!

Copyright

Ian Shipley Copyright Talk

This talk was really interesting and it also makes you think more about where you put your images. He taught me a lot about Copyright as I didn’t really know a lot about it before and it shocked me how companies such as Facebook hold all the rights to your images when you post them on your profile. I think this is unreal because people’s work could be anywhere making money for the company.

He’s definitely given us all something to think about as he provided information on different aspects of Copyright, as it’s something that we all need to learn if we going into the photography business.

I think the best thing for us all to do is right up our own terms and conditions, but we would need help knowing what to put in them.

Feel for Hair - New Assignment

 We’ve got a new assignment from Feel for Hair, and it seems like a really boring and quite tenuous assignment but it’s showing us a different approach to  photography which I thinks good because not all assignments will be to all our tastes and some will be quite simple and boring. 

The type of photos that they want are cut outs so we don’t need to think of creative ways to photograph them, we just need to get the right lighting and composition for it all to work.

I think quite a few people will back out of this assignment because it doesn’t interest them, but I don’t think that’s the right attitude to have because I think we’ve all got to try the different photography that is being given to us.

I feel like I need to make more of an effort to put myself forward because I feel at the moment I take a step back and let others take charge, but this isn’t going to help me for the future. 

Ok for the Proposals

I was quite shocked by the feedback from the proposals because I felt the exercise was quite a simple one, but the feedback didn’t back that up. Only a few people had an OK to their feedback.

We received feedback today from our proposals for Harriet’s assignment, what was said about mine was that it was Ok but I got a few negative points about me spending money and I also two of the magazines I commented on weren’t customer publishing magazines.  So overall the proposal wasn’t brilliant but after hearing the other feedback it was probably one of the better ones, I was quite shocked to hear the other feedbacks because only a few more got an Ok for them, and I expected that they would all be have an Ok without any questioning about them.

I felt like the actually proposal was quite straight forward if you followed the points which were provided. I think if I was to do a proposal again I would be more definite in my techniques and the equipment I will use.  

Silent Spring...

I realised that the bird silhouettes were better than I first imagined, so this is the attempt that I decided to submit in the silent spring competition.

I would like to see other people’s attempts at the competition to see their work and their ideas just to be able to see different approaches to the brief. It’ll be interesting to see how they’re interoperated the book and the brief through their images. Looking at other people’s work when we’re working on the same brief definitely helps me with my own work, I also think that it helps me improve for the next assignment, as it tells me to be more experimental with my own work.

This is the first competition that I’ve ever entered with my work, and I would like to carry on entering more but it’s just trying to fit them around everything else. If it came down to choosing between college work and competitions, then I’d obviously go with college work, I think that I’d have to look around at the different competitions that can be entered and decide whether any of my images fit in with the categories.       

Graeme Lucas Timmins

I found the talk that Graeme Lucas Timmins gave was really fascinating.  It was interesting to hear his experiences within the industry and also how he’s made a name for himself when he’s only 24.  I think out of all the guest speakers we’ve had in, he is the most valid and the one I can relate to most because he was in a similar position to us only a few years ago.

 Even though his images wasn’t to my taste I fully respect him because he’s doing what he wants at such a young age, and not a lot of people can say that in the photography business.

I think everyone who listened to his talk can learn a lot from him.

Wales Weekend

Back home after a weekend in Wales I uploaded my images that I took, and I’m quite surprised with the results. I felt that I wasn’t capable of producing images like I have, but I still feel like they could be improved. I was using filters on my lens, using a Neutral Density, a Circular Polarising Filter and also a graduated filter. But I found that after looking at my images that the graduated filter wasn’t just on the sky but coming slightly on the land aswell, making some of the land in the images darker than the rest which is abit disappointing.
I decided to shoot the images in RAW in case some of the images were worth using and I think a few of them are, but I have improved some of them using Photoshop. Next time I go and take the images for this project, there’s a few things I’ve learnt that I will do differently.

Portraits or Landscapes?

I started thinking of ideas to do for portraits, and I thought of basing my photographing around the saying ‘Beauty comes from within’ and with this I was thinking of photographing women without make up, but having them dressed up for a night out, and looking quite glamorous just without the make up. I liked this idea but I just thought it would be quite difficult finding people who would want to be photographed without make up. I feel that this is a completely different approach to go with portraits and completely different to what everyone else does.

But I wasn’t sure where this would fit in well enough in any advertorial magazine so I started thinking of different ideas and I came up with the idea of photographing the coast and beaches, I’ve come up with this idea because I’m going away for this weekend in Wales so I thought that I could start photographing for it then and get ahead of the project. I know that I’m going to have to go a few more times but I’m going to get an idea of how the images will turn out. I feel that I’m going to enjoy doing this a lot more than doing the portraits, so I’ve decided that I will do some portraits in my own time for my portfolio.

Had my film developed, and I’m disappointed with the results. All the images look quite grainy, and it was only a 400 ISO film, so I’m quite surprised by that.
The cement works and full moon photos turned out to be blurry like I thought, but even if they weren’t blurry the images wasn’t very good anyway. The whole composition isn’t working for them, and I over exposed them, because the full moon is just a bodge of light instead of a circle. The only images I think I can work with are the silhouetted birds, and I’m still not that impressed with these.

I was thinking of developing another film but after scanning the bird images into the computer and onto the silent spring template they look quite good, so I think I’m going to work abit more on these images to produce a final image out of one of them.

I could have been a lot more organised on this assignment, and I feel out of all the assignment this is the one I’ve least concentrated on, and I wish I hadn’t now. I could have worked on a few more of my ideas, and I wished that I’d tried the close up on the hand dropping litter because I could see that working well and being quite effective. Its going to be interesting to see what everyone else has done for this project.

Last chance for the full moon.

Tonight was essentially the last night for me to produce some images with the full moon, and it still wasn’t in the right position but I took some images in spite of this. I thought this idea would work really well, and I was hoping it was going to be quite easy for me to get the moon in the right position but it just hasn’t gone my way at all. I’m quite gutted really because this idea would be perfect for the front cover for silent spring. I took a few photos just to show that I tried, but the composition is completely wrong, and I have a feeling that they will all be blurry because it was dark and I found it difficult to see to focus it manually, and it wouldn’t auto focus either. So I won’t be surprised if none of them are in focus.

Adding to the disaster of the night… the battery decided to die in my boyfriends van…typical…luckily I wasn’t far from home.