Off The Hip

Do you ever accidentally press the shutter when you are getting yourself together to go and shoot? I always always always do it. But sometimes I like the shot that I accidentally took. 

This is one of those accidental shots that I really like. I really like the hints of colour in a very black and white shot, filled with contrast.

A Quick Shot

So as I was looking out of window just I noticed the spikes of the window sill just about creeping through the darkness and tried to take a photo of them. It took me a while to figure out how to do it and eventually I managed it. However, that's not the shot I'm showing here, instead it's a self portrait.

This photo isn't great, it's overexposed and it looks out of focus because of the window being so dirty (which I will point out isn't my fault at all) but that is what makes me like it.

Noted: Must get back in to blogging habbit.

More Snow Pictures

...Only these ones were taken at night, oooh!

Yeah, I headed out at night to photograph the snow, hoping this way I could make my shots more exciting. It's so hard to make snow look different and interesting. It's just a white blanket on everything.

We headed out and first came across some bike racks with only a couple of bikes locked to. I'm really pleased with how all of these photos turned out, especially the third one featured below. 

Then I found some pretty interesting patches of trees and plants to photograph snowy close ups of. I love these because they don't feature just a blanket of snow on something.

We then bumped in to some people playing and messing about in the snow, I love the guy hiding out in the tree. 

And we ended the night building our own snowman...

But only managed the head, so meet Boris. Boris the snowman's head. I love the portrait below.

But none of the photos above do I love as much as this one:

I absolutely adore this photo, the contrast between the red and the white. Never mind the way the light only highlights the small patch to being pure white. I love it, definite favourite.

White balance was definitely an issue shooting snow at night, especially with all the floodlights and street lamps that were on but I'm happy with how all the photos shown have come out. 

Have You Ever Heard of Ragnar Axelsson?

No? Well he’s a photojournalist who works in Iceland and somebody whose work I adore. In fact, I’d love to be able to buy his book one day, sadly I’m just really poor until then.

Anyway, with all this snow that’s been lying around the past few days, I’ve been looking again at his work, it is wonderful.

 It’s the composition of his images that gets me the most. A lot of his work he features the subject in a corner, or on it’s own in the middle of the frame, meanwhile the rest of the shot is bare, pure white or so fresh and overexposed that no detail is visible. But it is never boring. The contrast is always high, so the topic does clearly stand out.

 My favourite photo of his is this one, the Husky barking. The shot makes the animal look quite vicious yet this is unlikely as husky dogs are supposed to have very friendly and protective personalities (I think).

However, if I were you, I’d check out his website. Well worth a proper look.

Back At It

Returned to university this week and started some new projects, two so far. I'm sure you can tell by the state of my desk? Just wait till I get the other two I'm due to receive.

First Protest of 2013

I've been putting off posting this blog until Politically Me posted their article because it ties in very nicely to my photos of a protest I accidentally found when in Birmingham on Saturday, 5th. I'm not going to say anymore about it, I'll let you read it from the link above.

However, one thing I will point out is that I was not protesting at this event, I followed it for a period of time in order to document it.

Outside Burtons.. just about.

Staff inside, manager with the radio calling for more security.

After the protest moved on from HSBC staff were still reluctant to open the doors while a customer tried to get in.

Two of the protesters.

A young child present at the protest.

Protesters made their way in to Armani Exchange before being forced back out again.

The Bullring shut all entrances/exits in order to keep shoppers safe.

Here security battled with a protester in order to be able to shut the door.

At the rally, balloons were released in which some of those gathered chose to jump on.

Large congregation of protesters.

Group shot.

Close up of a second group shot.

More young protesters present at the event.

These two men were debating whether or not the protest was good or bad.

The final shout out of the rally.

Unfortunately, post rally, shops such as Starbucks had to clean up bits of graffiti from their shop fronts. 

When I hit the city that day I only expected to test a few new filters I'd been given but it certainly turned out to be more eventful than I imagined. Many of those attending were armed with cameras - both for stills and video and I'm not sure whether that was to protect themselves as they recorded the event or to document it because they were proud of themselves being there. Who knows? I'm just glad I had mine on me. 

2012 Review

As it’s a fresh start in 2013 and I’ve done so much in 2012 I thought I’d write a post to review my year of work as I know I became a much more confident photographer through a series of projects. So lets look at some favourites aye?

First of all we have Rescued, this was my FMP for college where I decided to investigate how many animals are homeless, stuck in an animal rescue centre. I travelled all over the place with this project and met some wonderful people that volunteer to look after the animals and train them.

I also learned a lot about Photoshop with this project, I rarely use the programme but had no choice here.. Not just to achieve the desired layout for the image but also to correct white balance on many images as I found shooting in the centres I was often working with multiple different lighting set ups. I also fell in love with a particular cat on this project, cat 3 down 4 across – Hank. I’d still adopt him if I could.

Moving on we have my WWII project, my absolute favourite for the year. I’ve always been a great fan of History and in particular war. But I don’t want to be a war photographer. I found people in my village that had been children during World War Two in different locations around the UK and asked them to recall memories of the war whilst I photographed them in the Studio. I was surprised as how well people responded as I know for a long time the war was unspoken of, and some still refuse to recall the difficult time. I was even luckier that they were able to bring with them items that they still owned from the war.

I shot this project on medium format film using a Bronica to try and keep the history alive within the images. The stories I got were incredible and if you want to know of any of the stories please get in touch. Or the link through to the Facebook album has brief details. Above are Betty, Colin and Jim.

But as well as these two projects I have attended and photographed two Protests, most recently #demo2012…

 Attempted live Fashion Photography at Mid Cheshire College Fashion Show which raises money for charity and thoroughly enjoyed it..

Campaigned for a very good friend to try and get him the position of NUS President at NUSNC12 and photographed the entire three days of the conference, learning how terrible my telezoom lens is, more so in low light…

 Plucked up the courage to start asking people for their photographs, which I must say is not in my comfort zone at all…

Got in to university in Cheltenham and shot my first live event with a same day deadline with them at Tewkesbury Mop Fair…

And finally completed my first extended project at university handing in on time, Hesters Way. A project which will be continued yet and hopefully become my first real Documentary…

I have done even more than this but to find out about that you will just have to explore my blog more, or my Facebook page.

I have no goals for 2013 particularly, I just want to keep growing as a photographer and push myself further with work. Oh and finish (if it’s possible to finish a documentary?) Hesters Way maybe.