Friday

Last night was the Private View!

The FMP has come to an end, it all mounted up to one moment which was last night. The night went really well, there were loads of people visiting, I was actually quite surprised about the number of people there! My work is on the wall and I will have trouble pulling it off thanks to the industrial strength velcro I used to fix it.

All in all, a superb night and it was amazing to see everybody's work being up on the walls

Wednesday

I am having increasingly little time to update my blog since it's so busy getting all of the last minute work done and turning the college into a gallery space. Right now I haven't got my prints made up and mounted yet, they need to go in the exhibition as quick as possible. I will have to put them up tomorrow morning first thing, sorry tutors!

Friday

I have decided on the 4 panoramas I will use in the exhibition. They are the 4 that worked best out of all of them, the best colours, tones, brightness, composition, focus. I just need to get them printed up and mounted now

Monday

I have finally got some new photographs to aid my project. Last night I went out and spent a few hours taking new photos for the work, and I have a load of stills right now and tonight I will turn them into panoramas, and maybe use some of them in the final exhibition

Friday

In my moleskine today I have been thinking about the actual presentation of my work in the exhibition. I will have 4 Panorama's, all 2 metres wide by 21cm height. This is going to be a very large series of works. But i think if I manage to pull it off it will look awsome

Thrusday

This is just an update on my work really, my photobook is coming along well, and so is my little book of illustration.

I have been thinking about some places to visit so I can get some fresh new Panorama's for my project, so far I think I may visit:

• Oxford Products Industrial Estate, Witney
• Industrial Estate, Eynsham
• Multi Story car park, Banbury

Wednesday

Today I had a mini critique with Amelia Feeley from my college course. A fellow student. We are both applying in Photography and so are both doing Photography based projects, and it was nice just to catch up on each other's work, make sure each other understands where exactly we are going with our projects and also give some valuable feedback on each other's work.

Tuesday

Last night on BBC4 there was an amazing documentary on all about the history of Britain's mental asylums, I stayed up quite late to watch this. it doesn't relate to my project now as much as it would have done if I was still looking at Urbex, but it still relates somewhat to what I was talking about before when it comes to urban exploration and mental asylums being a really attractive place to go for the normal Urbexer.

Check out my moleskine for notes on the documentary, some bits actually made me feel sick.

Monday

Today has been pretty slow, just been a day of mounting up my work, catching up on a few worksheets and thinking about what to do next in the project.

I have decided I shall do more:

• Blind drawings
• Do some Idris Khan inspired images
• Keep filling the mini moleskine!
• De construct a panorama picture with words

Thursday

Just backing up what I had said in my Moleskine really, just saying that my little Book of Illustrations is growing quickly by the day and I am getting rather fond of it.

Tuesday

A SLIGHT CHANGE...

I have chosen to stop looking at urbex as a whole and narrow it down to car parks at night, the reason for doing this is because they are really gritty, they lend themselves so well to the title of my project which if you remember is called 'Human Intervention Devoid of Human Life'

Car Parks are busy during the day when the shops are open and people are going about their day to day business, but at night this all changes and suddenly the space is stripped away of its uses, and becomes cold, solemn, lonely and empty. I want to try and capture this in my panoramas for the final piece

Monday, Green Light!

Yay! I got my Green Light, the official Go Ahead for the project. This is quite comforting to know that the tutors are behind me and support my ideas.

It was a week late, I should have gotten it a week earlier but the tutors have been busy and haven't had time to see everyone straight away.

Just a quick note about what was discussed during my green light:

• Tutors were happy with the work so far
• We decided that looking at urban exploration in itself is too bigger project so we chose to narrow it down to car parks at night
• Carp parks are gritty, empty and odd

Saturday, Beautiful Weather

Going against my plans of having a day off the artwork, I have decided to fill you in about my obsession for Urbex, Urban Exploration. Check out this site as the perfect link to what I mean:

http://www.28dayslater.co.uk

This website is the best link I can give, it is an online forum where all ages of people, men and women, grown and teenage add their thoughts and images of the explorations around the UK. And you'd be surprised to find out so many places near your very own home town, I know I was, and I made sure I visited these places. Check my Moleskine for in depth discussion and some photo analysis.

Let me tell you why I love Urbex so much. It's a hobby, and it also poses a certain element of danger - getting caught by a security guard, close scrapings with the police, a little bit of trespassing, and walking through damp and dingy buildings on thin floor boards anticipating what could be around the corner. It's a hobby I've recently gotten right into, and I have been on a few trips out to places now.

I find appeal in looking at the history of such buildings and environments, thinking about how long they have been left standing derelict, and thinking about what they used to be used for and why they aren't used any more. It could be changes in the economy which meant they had to close, they could have just gone plain bankrupt, or technology advanced so much that their way of doing things was obsolete, or the fact that they have sucked all of the natural resources from the earth beneath them and could no longer work at the same site. All of these things I am thinking about whilst I'm walking around these oddly beautiful places, and I think that's why I like doing it so much. Plus, it's always a bit of an adrenaline rush when the unexpected happens, because you know you shouldn't be there. Even a pigeon suddenly taking off and flying through the rafters gives you a buzz. Exploring these places at night gets freaky, you just can't see everything in an environment you have never been before, you have to rely on your senses to get through safely.

Photography is the best way of recording what you see, because normally you don't have enough time to sit down and make a quick sketch, you have to be on the move and usually out of sight. With photographs you can quickly capture what it is that is interesting you with a burst of the flash, then you can move on undetected. 

Friday

And again, no news on my Green Light...

In my Moleskine today I just spoke about compiling a Photo book as a support to my project. It's going to be a compilation of stills and small panoramas from my work so far in the FMP project and I will continue to add to it right up until the last few days. I will add screenshots of any image editing I have done in Photoshop, to give you a sense of how I make the panoramic images, and also to show you how I actually edit some of the images to make them fit together nicely when I stitch them together. I will make sure I add the technical details of all photographs as little captions underneath each image, so you can see why and how I got each image as a result.

I just think it will be a strong way of adding to the project, it will give both you and me a sense of where I have come from and where I am going with my work. I'll start it off by adding photographs from a few urban exploration trips I did at the start of the project, then you will see the development from that starting point.

But today, the weather is brilliant, hottest day of the year so far, and this weekend is looking promising in terms of boiling hot weather, and I think I deserve a Saturday off work. I will be back with you again on Sunday. 

Thursday

CAMERA TOSS!

http://cameratoss.blogspot.com/

Again, today I have spent a good amount of time looking at another photographic process which isn't related to my project on first glance, but with a little bit of thought I know it was extremely relevant. It's basically light painting, which is taking a long exposure of a light source in an otherwise dark environment. These marks and swirls on the photo are usually a by-product of a wobbly tripod or a shaky hand while taking photos in dim or pitch black environments and photographers usually try their hardest to minimise these effects. But Camera Tossing is harnessing these imperfections and playing them as a strength, and I can safely say I love the results I have seen on the blog link above, so i thought I would give it a go in my own time.

I was extremely pleased with the results, they were better than I expected. I experimented by making my own images in Photoshop, then displaying them full size on my computer monitor in an otherwise totally dark room with no other light sources (I had to blu-tac all of the annoying lights all over my computer to stop them shining). All in all I made about 15 different images. The ones with one or two colours were the best, the ones which were just white shapes lacked in beauty. Saying that one of my favourite ones was just a white rectangle on the screen. Simple, but very effective. Take a look at some of my favourite images from last night's photo shoot:

[Insert 5 - 6 images of my own here, favourite ones]

Still no news on my Green Light though...

Wednesday

It's been a pretty relaxed day today, I've been taking my sweet time over a few pages in my moleskine about Tilt Shift Photography

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/11/16/beautiful-examples-of-tilt-shift-photography/

I've been doing a little bit of photo analysis: writing about the photo's and how I feel about them. I think it's a really interesting photographic technique, and I've learnt you can 'fake' tilt shift images in Photoshop, rather than using a camera which physically moves parts of it's insides to achieve the desired affect. In Photoshop it's only a really simply process, select an area, apply a little bit of lens blur to the top and the bottom, and bump up the saturation of the colours a little bit and it's all there, a really good faked tilt shift image. I've done a few myself, which I admit aren't very good - I found that it's better to get photographs of things from a high perspective, like looking down onto the street below looking at the cars and the people while hanging out the window of a tall office building. This way the tilt shift look really comes into it's own and looks really good. The tilt shift process doesn't really look too great on landscapes, but however it does look amazing on waterfalls.

I'll include some of the images I've done from my own photos in this blog post, even if they aren't brilliant it still gives you proof that I've given it a go and I do plan on revisiting it even though it isn't amazingly applicable to my project as it stands. Here you go:

[Insert my own tilt shift images here]

Tuesday

Today is another day of just hanging around really, I will hopefully get a Green Light for my project, that's if the tutors have time to see me today, hopefully this will happen because I really want to know whether they think it's a good, well structured idea or not. I'm writing this in the morning before I start my proper day of working, I'm getting this done and out of the way so I can focus on some worksheets. Today I shall be banging out the A1 worksheets! 

Monday, Green Light Day

Now, this was a frustrating day. It was a day of waiting around, casually doing a little bit of light work, but mostly waiting for the tutors to come around and see my work. Since my surname begins with 'P', I had a really long wait, so long that the tutors did not get to see me today, so I'll be hoping they manage to get to me tomorrow at some point.

I had all my work with me, everything I have done on the project to date, I'm quite pleased with it all really, especially my moleskine. I have a special folder dedicated to this blog with every post printed out and put into plastic sheets and presented perfectly. Hopefully the tutors can see that I have been putting so much work into it! I'll post tomorrow to let you know how my Green Light assessment went, if it ever happens!

Saturday

I'm really pleased with the way the Tiny Book of Illustration is going, I've got about 9 drawings now, they're really coming out well. Immensly pleased with them and hopefully this little book will be a great addition to my project.

I would have done all of the drawings in my moleskine, but I fancied doing both, some drawings in my moleskine, some in this fresh new book.

I've spent ages doing it today, time for a break. No work tomorrow, I really need a day off just to relax. Time off well earnt i think!

Friday, Final Lecture

We had our last lecture with Paul today, and that means from now on we have a whole friday free to spend on our FMP every week! Brilliant! Today is just an update really, I'm preparing for my Green Light Day on Monday, today I have been printing out images to tile together a few panoramas on A1 worksheets to show the tutors on Monday. Over the weekend I'll be getting together my Artist Research folder which is looking a little thin on the ground right now. This is something I just need to update and annotate...the dull part I hate doing. But it's got to be done!

Thursday

I've bought a tiny moleskine, just a bit smaller than A5 size, and it's for some illustrations for this project. I'm calling it:

"The Tiny Book of Illustration"

I'm going to fill it with drawings from different locations I have visited for this project, and I will draw from photographs I have taken on my travels to desolate urban environments and from my 'Urbex' days.

Urbex is still something I haven't mentioned yet in my work...and there's a good reason for that - I'm saving it! So far I've only concentrated on town centres, I want to explore the move out to abandoned places which have been left as they are for decades at a time. Even if i don't use it for my final piece, it's still an integral part to my project, as outlined in my Statement of Intent. I need to explore it, and it just so happens to be my hobby, that really does go hand in hand. Brilliant!

Wednesday

Today I have been giving a little bit of thought about the presentation of my large panorama at the exhibition. I'd rather start thinking about it now than let it get to the putting up of the exhibition and panicking and rushing it. My tutorial with Paul today got me thinking, a panorama always looks better larger rather than smaller. My print outs at A3 size just are way too small to be able to really appreciate what is going on in the image. So Paul suggested that at the exhibition, it should be large, as large as I can afford. And a seamless print. it is possible to do this at home since my father owns a large format printer for his line of work. But doing one long image down the middle of the vinyl (rather than paper), would cause so much wasted material and would really not be cost effective to his business...and these current economic climates and all that really don't allow for comfortable waste of expensive material. There are other options I need to research, there are other places I can get a large format print from but it would cost me money, a fair bit of money. But back to the matter in hand, the print should be big enough to fill the viewers immediate line of sight, so they dont have to tilt their head sideways to see it all, they should be far enough back so that this happens. Then can see the whole image without moving their head. I think this is how I want it to be displayed in the exhibition.

Tuesday

Back at college! And working hard, getting notes down in my journal, printing out inidividual posts from this blog and putting them into their own folder, and I've even written out a process diagram which you'll find in my journal just letting you know exactly where I am in terms of ideas. I know I have A LOT of work to do this week, just basically catching up a little bit and getting ahead of myself again, I have a lot of research to be done but it's definitely achievable. I'm currently waiting really for Wednesday when I have my next tutorial with Paul, I know this will give me a real big sense of direction and it will define how I will work for the following week.


I'm excited by my tilt panoramas, granted they did come out a little different to what i had imagined, but you only know once you try it out. They look really good, and I can imagine them on a larger scale and looking quite stunning. Definitely an unintentional David Hockney influence in my work. I'll make sure I delve into his work, research it all, analyse it all and see how close my work is to his huge 'paintings' of photographs overlaid to produce a huge image.

Monday, Bank Holiday

This is a late night to my standards, I stayed up until the later hours in order to get some shots for my tilted panorama idea, I havent stitched them together yet, they're all still on my camera, I will do that tomorrow though when I have the time in college. It will be my main task tomorrow to stitch them together for purely a test piece. Once I have sorted out a process and nailed it bang on, I will then go and apply this process in two weeks time to get the panoramas and still photographs for my final exhibition. I feel it's really important to get this process defined, and then get it right so I am used to working in that certain way, so when it comes to doing the final shots, I can do it efficiently with no mistakes.

Sunday

Today has just been more thinking, and not so much work. Not really feeling well at all, and taking a day out to spend time with the family and putting this project on the backburner for a day, give myself a little break and confirm where I am

Saturday

Well today has been nice, couldn't sleep last night so today I feel absolutely dead! However in my insomniatic state i did think of a new idea to extend my Panoramic Photomerge idea. Basically it involves setting up a camera and tripod, but the tripod has a short leg, so everything is on a tilt. Then do a 360 degree panoramic shot capturing the floor, some of the environment, the sky, then back down to the environment and the floor again. I've not really seen it done before, but I bet there's a thousand artists out there who will be able to prove me wrong - I need to check this out and do a bit of research into it. All research will go into my research folder and at least mentioned in my journal.

Since I had a few hours of laying in bed awake, it was a perfect opportunity to think about my FMP, well, there was nothing else to do! I scribbled a few notes down on some scrap paper, I'll add these into my journal after I've scanned them in.

Friday

Today has been a day of thinking, I've been giving a lot of thought to where I want to take this project and how I should be developing it to move from where I currently am (which I am happy with), to a bigger better project (which I will be even happier with). Not really feeling great again today, the creative side of my mind is struggling to shine through, so today all I have done is complete a line drawing of Witney town centre at night

Thursday Update

Hello there, just a bit of an update really. Today was spent by finishing off a couple of moleskine pages, one particular line drawing was quite time consuming. I did a bit of research into Tilt Shift Photography, which is a process I have only just learnt about, and it's really exciting, but since my camera can't perform the function, I'm going to have to use Photoshop to recreate the effect. Not much of a problem really, the outcome will look close enough, it's definitely something worth exploring, because it's an amazing photographic technique I'm itching to try.

I'm mentally preparing for the weekend, late nights will be on the agenda getting some more shots, furthering my idea with the panoramic shots. I'm feeling a bit ill really, I'm not really feeling myself, so this could be an interesting few days...

Further Initial Photographs

I went out at night and took some more initial photographs to mark the start of my project. I tried to capture my idea further, the idea of looking at really urban spaces with no people around. I feel I did capture this quite well, but not well enough. All of these photo's are lacking in something; a crucial element is lacking. I will eventually decide on how to correct this, not now - I plan on using my journal and worksheets to try and resolve this in the near future. Then once that's sorted I can move on to doing proper shoots in exotic places (maybe even London!)

These are just a few photos from the shoot, probably the more successful ones, and they are untouched - ie no Photoshop!

I've written small pieces on a few of the shots in my journal, you'll find them in there.

Initial Photographs

I think it's about time to show you my very first long exposures at night, I did these as an introduction to my project, to give an example of what I had in mind, so I could accurately explain my project to my tutors. I feel these came out quite well, they were exactly what I had in mind! They are just showing how I want to make my photographs look, this is my starting point - I will work from these and develop the idea. I'm pleased with them, a successful first shoot!

First Post

Well, here we go, the very first post on this brand new blog. It starts, today. Here you will find daily updates on what I have been up to in relation to my Final Major Project, but first, let me actually tell you exactly what I am going to be doing! There's no smoke without fire, you'll need to know the whole story. The easiest way of telling you what my project is about is by showing you this:

I am calling my project ‘Human Intervention Devoid of Human Life’. It’s a theme I have been itching to explore for many months; I will work towards producing a series of exquisite night photographs of desolate urban environments exploring how the location changes at night when there are no people going about their day to day business. These spaces are no longer beautiful in the regular sense, the entire mood changes and becomes solemn, and I want to capture this in my photographs. I developed a big love for Photography in the Pathway Stage, and I want to build on what I have learnt already, and push my skills of composition and lighting in order to grow and improve. 

I'll give you a minute to take it all in, look out for my next post tomorrow!