This was a project about displaying work in a public space. My idea came from an old project of mine, having an old photograph within a new one. To get this effect I first had to conduct my research which involved me looking through history records on the internet net of the area Bootle, I chose three locations, a church overlooking a road, a fire station and finally a war monument.

To get the photographs I first had to go out and take them, using the photographs of the old locations I spent a total of an hour taking shots of the same locations in the modern time, I found this to be fairly simple and straight forward, no issues came up that I couldn't handle with ease. I had a car drive me to each location so it cut down on the travel time in general, getting the shots I liked was quite easy.


This first one of is of the old fire station in bootle, the idea came when I saw this photograph of a fire engine coming out the station, likely going out on a job. I figured it would be strong to have it coming back out of the station, I got this look by using photoshop.

Second one, is of the old war monument and the an old photograph of three girls in white standing in front of it. I liked the idea of doing this because I knew I would be able to match up the two images. I have on complaints about this one.

The final one I find is the weakest out of the three, the main problem is that the image doesn't match with the old photograph as well as I want to. However I do like how it looked when laid on top of my own image, you can see the matching areas but due to the different lens and angle it won't look the same without further reshoots and editing which the time limits won't allow.







All this work will be presented in the Bootle New Strand, in the window of the lower level of T.J Hughes, I will show it along side another student who will be showing a similar subject matter. Overall I am pleased with the work I put out for this and I was quite impressed with the speed in which I did all this. If I could do this again i'd like to spend a lot more time in shooting and getting more old photographs, I want to get more out of this and I feel like I can in the future.

Self reflection

During the past year I have partaken in many hours of research, most for projects or blog posts. However in this I will be focusing on talking about the research, those projects are the Photo Book and the second black and white film project.

I experienced many things while I undertook my research, mainly photographers that I had never heard of prior to this, mainly Hamish Futlon and Robert Adams. I found their work to be highly influential in my projects, taking many elements of their work and applying to my own, I found myself focusing more on roads and movement rather than a grand scope of things. I feel like i have improved some just from viewing their work. The research came in the form of reading the books "The Walking Artist" and  "Summer Nights Walking' both very enjoyable and having an effect on me.

The projects that have been influenced by them include, the book one which was entirely focused on Hamish Fulton's work, I took his idea of gathering photographs from just one single walk and then edited them together to create a map that when folded out, shows all my photographs. Another project that was influenced was my previous film project. Robert Adam's book had a major impact how I shot it all, I have took pictures of an area which had a very urban and nature mixed look, very similar to the book however it was in broad daylight so I could look to Fulton's work to help find the correct way to frame it in daylight, all in all their work together has had major impact on me and has definitely effected the way I photograph things.

My views and thoughts on recent events i have been to.


3Am at the Blue Coat - Themed show.

General thoughts: Well, it was interesting to say the least. What I thought on that Photographs on display ranged from fascinated to confused beyond belief, some pictures of women urinating to display that even the classy woman can still act like your average male, so it helped rend the gender barrier somewhat, I quite enjoyed it it. There was also the series of photographs of a man sitting alone with streams of light from home made rockets, from what I can remember this man was very much alone, he hand made the rockets himself and then fired them off during a war, rebellion or riot, I honestly can't remember which. There was a few other sets but I would highly recommend looking into it for yourself.

The theme: To quote the introduction to it. "3 am wonder paranoia and the restless night, The exhibition demonstrate how this particular nocturnal hour has captured the imagination of artists to explore themes - Psychological, Sociological, Natural and Astronomical - To capture something of the strangeness of the night and the extraordinary range of emotions, states and experiences it witnesses"

So as you might think it is meant to capture that golden hour of when dark thoughts creep in, the paranoia of the dark and the creepy and twisted images are more prominent. I thought it was quite a unique concept as it goes against the average night photography where it shows a beautiful night sky or vivid colours from fireworks.

What I took from it: From this I learned about perspective and how a single difference in an image can change a whole mind set of something, such as classy ladies and midnight sky's. I think I have gained on this, and hopefully some of the work on display will reflect in my work.

I highly recommend this to anyone should they put it back up for display, it's a very interesting case study of the night and should not be overlooked.

http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/events/view/events/1730



Tim Hetherington - War Photographer.

General thoughts: This one was quite an eye opener I found, showing shots i've not seen before. Normally war photography will show heroic soldiers in glory and victory, however this one has shown that everything has a more frail and unprotected side, some of the pictures on display shown soldiers sleeping, in that peaceful bliss of rest, their faces show total innocences and you see fragments of personality that would not normally show up when they where awake. There was also a video on display his film called "Restrepo" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DjqR6OucBc - (A link to the trailer) I watched the whole thing, I felt uneasy during the whole thing, it gave me a tense feeling all the way through.

The theme: The theme of the whole exhibition was to display the late Tim Hetherington's work. he was a war photographer (A link to some information about him http://www.timhetherington.com/ that should proved you any information)

So to sum it up the whole thing was a showcase of some of his best work, the sleeping the soldiers being the main focus, I really enjoyed going there for the feelings I got from the whole thing, even the set up felt right with basic wood that you would commonly see around a military base being used as walls rather than white painted.

What I took from this: From this whole thing I learned that all things have other sides that can be viewed, as with anything. I learned that waiting for perfect moments and living in the moment is critical to become a skilled photographer and just his work alone has given me some more insight how to look into human emotions in my work, to display innocences, tiredness or anger.

My condolences go out to his family, granted this is a late one on my side.


Paris Photo - World Event. http://www.parisphoto.com/

General thoughts: Well this was a big one, a very big one. Biggest event i've been to in my entire life in fact. It was busy, and I mean VERY busy. The work on display was from photographers around the world, ranging from Bryan Adams to Martin Parr, and everyone in between. It was phenomenal to see it all in one place, I highly enjoyed it. I got chance to take a walk alone and view each picture myself, gathering my thoughts on each and I must admit a lot of it I did not quite understand, but I imagine that is due to inexperience or lack of insight of the subject matter. But that did not hinder my enjoyment of it at all, from all I saw there was a set of stills, these stills where of animal skulls, I had read some about them and the photographer (Whom i can't remember, I will update this as soon as I learn) had set it so they where all the same size in the frame, they where all angled differently yet all remaining the same size. Very interesting stuff, and it has influenced me somewhat in my stills project, though I am planning to some stuff on the side that revolved around skulls and bones, if I can get a hold of them, that is.

The theme: There wasn't an over all theme to it. It was more of a collection of the best, of the best. The most modern photographs from the famous photographers and the collectives. Endless amounts of work to view and to be infatuated with.

To sum this up is simple, if you are interested in photography and want to see what all the best are doing right now you MUST go to this event, it's held in two locations, Paris and LA in america. I cannot recommend this enough, there are huge amounts of books and prints you can purchase for yourself. The trip to Paris is worth the price and I personally loved it, looking forward to attending next year.

he exhibition demonstrates how this particular nocturnal hour has captured the imagination of artists. They explore various themes – psychological, sociological, natural and astronomical – to capture something of the strangeness of the night and the extraordinary range of emotions, states and experiences it witnesses. - See more at: http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/blog/view/who-is-blogging/127#sthash.MC05toLs.dpuf

he exhibition demonstrates how this particular nocturnal hour has captured the imagination of artists. They explore various themes – psychological, sociological, natural and astronomical – to capture something of the strangeness of the night and the extraordinary range of emotions, states and experiences it witnesses. - See more at: http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/blog/view/who-is-blogging/127#sthash.MC05toLs.dpuf

he exhibition demonstrates how this particular nocturnal hour has captured the imagination of artists. They explore various themes – psychological, sociological, natural and astronomical – to capture something of the strangeness of the night and the extraordinary range of emotions, states and experiences it witnesses. - See more at: http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/blog/view/who-is-blogging/127#sthash.MC05toLs.dpuf

he exhibition demonstrates how this particular nocturnal hour has captured the imagination of artists. They explore various themes – psychological, sociological, natural and astronomical – to capture something of the strangeness of the night and the extraordinary range of emotions, states and experiences it witnesses. - See more at: http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/blog/view/who-is-blogging/127#sthash.MC05toLs.dpuf

he exhibition demonstrates how this particular nocturnal hour has captured the imagination of artists. They explore various themes – psychological, sociological, natural and astronomical – to capture something of the strangeness of the night and the extraordinary range of emotions, states and experiences it witnesses. - See more at: http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/blog/view/who-is-blogging/127#sthash.MC05toLs.dpuf

he exhibition demonstrates how this particular nocturnal hour has captured the imagination of artists. They explore various themes – psychological, sociological, natural and astronomical – to capture something of the strangeness of the night and the extraordinary range of emotions, states and experiences it witnesses. - See more at: http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/blog/view/who-is-blogging/127#sthash.MC05toLs.dpuf

Bleary-eyed sleepers woken up to be photographed, prowling coyotes caught on specialist digital cameras, and a helicopter spotlight searching the night time waters for a missing person. These are just some of the highlights of a new exhibition opening at the Bluecoat in Liverpool this autumn, before touring the UK.
Independent curator Angela Kingston was invited by the Bluecoat to curate
3 am: wonder, paranoia and the restless night. The exhibition features 22 UK and international artists, including Francis Alÿs, Sophy Rickett, and Fred Tomaselli, and includes paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography and video, some made especially for the show.
The exhibition demonstrates how this particular nocturnal hour has captured the imagination of artists. They explore various themes – psychological, sociological, natural and astronomical – to capture something of the strangeness of the night and the extraordinary range of emotions, states and experiences it witnesses.
The featured artworks show teenagers running wild and free, a woman’s rapture at the cosmos, a man quite alone and afraid, the steely imaginings of a frightened child, and an emboldened fox.
- See more at: http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/blog/view/who-is-blogging/127#sthash.MC05toLs.dpuf

Bleary-eyed sleepers woken up to be photographed, prowling coyotes caught on specialist digital cameras, and a helicopter spotlight searching the night time waters for a missing person. These are just some of the highlights of a new exhibition opening at the Bluecoat in Liverpool this autumn, before touring the UK.
Independent curator Angela Kingston was invited by the Bluecoat to curate
3 am: wonder, paranoia and the restless night. The exhibition features 22 UK and international artists, including Francis Alÿs, Sophy Rickett, and Fred Tomaselli, and includes paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography and video, some made especially for the show.
The exhibition demonstrates how this particular nocturnal hour has captured the imagination of artists. They explore various themes – psychological, sociological, natural and astronomical – to capture something of the strangeness of the night and the extraordinary range of emotions, states and experiences it witnesses.
The featured artworks show teenagers running wild and free, a woman’s rapture at the cosmos, a man quite alone and afraid, the steely imaginings of a frightened child, and an emboldened fox.
- See more at: http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/blog/view/who-is-blogging/127#sthash.MC05toLs.dpuf

Bleary-eyed sleepers woken up to be photographed, prowling coyotes caught on specialist digital cameras, and a helicopter spotlight searching the night time waters for a missing person. These are just some of the highlights of a new exhibition opening at the Bluecoat in Liverpool this autumn, before touring the UK.
Independent curator Angela Kingston was invited by the Bluecoat to curate
3 am: wonder, paranoia and the restless night. The exhibition features 22 UK and international artists, including Francis Alÿs, Sophy Rickett, and Fred Tomaselli, and includes paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography and video, some made especially for the show.
The exhibition demonstrates how this particular nocturnal hour has captured the imagination of artists. They explore various themes – psychological, sociological, natural and astronomical – to capture something of the strangeness of the night and the extraordinary range of emotions, states and experiences it witnesses.
The featured artworks show teenagers running wild and free, a woman’s rapture at the cosmos, a man quite alone and afraid, the steely imaginings of a frightened child, and an emboldened fox.
- See more at: http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/blog/view/who-is-blogging/127#sthash.MC05toLs.dpuf

Bleary-eyed sleepers woken up to be photographed, prowling coyotes caught on specialist digital cameras, and a helicopter spotlight searching the night time waters for a missing person. These are just some of the highlights of a new exhibition opening at the Bluecoat in Liverpool this autumn, before touring the UK.
Independent curator Angela Kingston was invited by the Bluecoat to curate
3 am: wonder, paranoia and the restless night. The exhibition features 22 UK and international artists, including Francis Alÿs, Sophy Rickett, and Fred Tomaselli, and includes paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography and video, some made especially for the show.
The exhibition demonstrates how this particular nocturnal hour has captured the imagination of artists. They explore various themes – psychological, sociological, natural and astronomical – to capture something of the strangeness of the night and the extraordinary range of emotions, states and experiences it witnesses.
The featured artworks show teenagers running wild and free, a woman’s rapture at the cosmos, a man quite alone and afraid, the steely imaginings of a frightened child, and an emboldened fox.
- See more at: http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/blog/view/who-is-blogging/127#sthash.MC05toLs.dpuf

Bleary-eyed sleepers woken up to be photographed, prowling coyotes caught on specialist digital cameras, and a helicopter spotlight searching the night time waters for a missing person. These are just some of the highlights of a new exhibition opening at the Bluecoat in Liverpool this autumn, before touring the UK.
Independent curator Angela Kingston was invited by the Bluecoat to curate
3 am: wonder, paranoia and the restless night. The exhibition features 22 UK and international artists, including Francis Alÿs, Sophy Rickett, and Fred Tomaselli, and includes paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography and video, some made especially for the show.
The exhibition demonstrates how this particular nocturnal hour has captured the imagination of artists. They explore various themes – psychological, sociological, natural and astronomical – to capture something of the strangeness of the night and the extraordinary range of emotions, states and experiences it witnesses.
The featured artworks show teenagers running wild and free, a woman’s rapture at the cosmos, a man quite alone and afraid, the steely imaginings of a frightened child, and an emboldened fox.
- See more at: http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/blog/view/who-is-blogging/127#sthash.MC05toLs.dpuf

Bleary-eyed sleepers woken up to be photographed, prowling coyotes caught on specialist digital cameras, and a helicopter spotlight searching the night time waters for a missing person. These are just some of the highlights of a new exhibition opening at the Bluecoat in Liverpool this autumn, before touring the UK.
Independent curator Angela Kingston was invited by the Bluecoat to curate
3 am: wonder, paranoia and the restless night. The exhibition features 22 UK and international artists, including Francis Alÿs, Sophy Rickett, and Fred Tomaselli, and includes paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography and video, some made especially for the show.
The exhibition demonstrates how this particular nocturnal hour has captured the imagination of artists. They explore various themes – psychological, sociological, natural and astronomical – to capture something of the strangeness of the night and the extraordinary range of emotions, states and experiences it witnesses.
The featured artworks show teenagers running wild and free, a woman’s rapture at the cosmos, a man quite alone and afraid, the steely imaginings of a frightened child, and an emboldened fox.
- See more at: http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/blog/view/who-is-blogging/127#sthash.MC05toLs.dpuf

Bleary-eyed sleepers woken up to be photographed, prowling coyotes caught on specialist digital cameras, and a helicopter spotlight searching the night time waters for a missing person. These are just some of the highlights of a new exhibition opening at the Bluecoat in Liverpool this autumn, before touring the UK.
Independent curator Angela Kingston was invited by the Bluecoat to curate
3 am: wonder, paranoia and the restless night. The exhibition features 22 UK and international artists, including Francis Alÿs, Sophy Rickett, and Fred Tomaselli, and includes paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography and video, some made especially for the show.
The exhibition demonstrates how this particular nocturnal hour has captured the imagination of artists. They explore various themes – psychological, sociological, natural and astronomical – to capture something of the strangeness of the night and the extraordinary range of emotions, states and experiences it witnesses.
The featured artworks show teenagers running wild and free, a woman’s rapture at the cosmos, a man quite alone and afraid, the steely imaginings of a frightened child, and an emboldened fox.
- See more at: http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/blog/view/who-is-blogging/127#sthash.MC05toLs.dpuf

Bleary-eyed sleepers woken up to be photographed, prowling coyotes caught on specialist digital cameras, and a helicopter spotlight searching the night time waters for a missing person. These are just some of the highlights of a new exhibition opening at the Bluecoat in Liverpool this autumn, before touring the UK.
Independent curator Angela Kingston was invited by the Bluecoat to curate
3 am: wonder, paranoia and the restless night. The exhibition features 22 UK and international artists, including Francis Alÿs, Sophy Rickett, and Fred Tomaselli, and includes paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography and video, some made especially for the show.
The exhibition demonstrates how this particular nocturnal hour has captured the imagination of artists. They explore various themes – psychological, sociological, natural and astronomical – to capture something of the strangeness of the night and the extraordinary range of emotions, states and experiences it witnesses.
The featured artworks show teenagers running wild and free, a woman’s rapture at the cosmos, a man quite alone and afraid, the steely imaginings of a frightened child, and an emboldened fox.
- See more at: http://www.thebluecoat.org.uk/blog/view/who-is-blogging/127#sthash.MC05toLs.dpuf

Political Montage

For this project, the idea was to create a montage with a political theme, quite a straight forward task, the inspiration from this came from people like Peter Kennard. We had to base our images on subjects that interest or appeal to us, so I personally went for the war for oil subject, I find it to be interesting and offers a lot you can do.

A montage is a compilation of images that combined to make a large one, for the one I created I took a sunsetting over an oil field and then got silhouette of soldiers standing around and shooting and made it look like they where defending these fields or fighting for them, using phrases like "Freedom isn't free" to drive home the ideal that we are fighting a war just for oil.

Both images were made in Photoshop and are compiled of several images edited together, the first one I prefer as a piece, the setting sun in the background gives a great colour pallet, the black silhouettes of the oil rig and soldiers stand out so much more because of the colour.  The hidden message "Freedom isn't free" in the top right corner is made so it is a similar colour to the clouds, I did this because I find it drives the meaning of it, it's hidden and hard to find, almost like it is not meant to be.


The second one is a similar setting but I used an American flag instead of the silhouettes, the idea came from a postcard I got from a friend, a sun setting over a beach in California, so to replicate it I took a picture of a sunsetting over a large oil field, to add to it I put in a faded out picture of an American flag and then added the text. "Welcome to America! We believe in FREEDOM!" a personal issues that apples to me is the war for oil, a lot of the inspiration from Peter Kennard's work, using the simple images and mashing them together to make powerful messages, I'd like to do this project again because I believe I can produce better results, but I feel happy with the overall work.

The decisive moment, a phrase coined by Henri Cartier Bresson. The meaning of this word can have many views and opinions, the term itself is subjective to the individual, someone could find a moment within someone picking up a child, another could find a moment in a dog fetching a stick. For me the Decisive Moment in time is a human reaction to something, so for my take on this I did the simple subject of food, people reaction to a sour taste in their mouths. To create this I made a simple set up, basic lighting and a plain white backdrop. Once my setup was complete I acquired several lemons and sliced them up and made people eat them, recording their reaction to the sourness, some people did not react at all, saying they liked the lemons, however with thicker slices and some luck I got the reaction I was looking for.

Review on Hamish Fulton's website.

The website I am going to review is one of the photographer I have been recently working in the style of  Hamish Fulton or "The Walking Artist" as he calls himself.

To just be brief about what he does, he takes a walk somewhere, be it a forest, mountain or anywhere else and then sums up the walk in a few pictures or a single block of text, very interesting stuff if you ask me. I like his work quite a lot, I find it to be quite interesting, yet I find also to be simple which I like, overly complex things can become dull or just confuse the viewer, but his stuff is just plain and basic, which I like.

http://www.hamish-fulton.com/

The website itself is rather plain in terms of a background, just a plain white background. The main focus of the site is in the center of it where his work is being displayed along with his name, title and a list of numbers that show bits of his work, also if you have sound enabled you can hear sounds from nature, insects buzzing, birds chirping, water running, wind howling down a cave, you can also hear his footsteps and some car horns, I think this adds quite a nice little touch, the viewer instantly knows what he does and where he bases all his work in a sense, it also goes with the pictures and adds to them a little bit. Below the numbers there is a small link that leads to information about the artist, his biography, his work and publications, what I like about it's in a very streamline style of putting it, a basic block colour as a background and another black block to highlight the white text, this then has several drop boxes you can click on to view the information.

Review of the Bryan Adams book: Wounded.

"The first casualty of war is the truth."

This book titled "Wounded" by Bryan Adams is nothing short of one of the most fascinating books I have ever read, it has given me massive insight to not just photographic techniques to imply, but also personal issues of a injured solders trying to fit back into normal life, facing the challenges of normal life but with scars and wounded bodies. 

The book follows the story of Bryan Adams as he recalls the events of war and the stories of young British soldiers who where wounded and had to retire from military service, he captured them in the exact same background and lighting, the pictures inside where of wounded soldiers after they returned home from battle. The injury's within are quite grim, ranging from scars, lost limbs, mechanical body parts and burnt skin, however what I found is that hardly any of the soldiers look in pain or sad, most of them are shown either smiling, looking like they are laughing or have a strong look on their face but what I noticed is that their eyes looked somewhat drawn out, as in they where more noticeable in some photos, I believe he was going for this to show to emotions at the sometime, both strength and sorrow. In my mind the whole book truly questions the humanity in people, pointless wars, pointless death and everything in the middle of it. The stories of the soldiers in this book really puts things into perspective.

 ‘When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains, An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.’

This quote I find to be quite chilling, in a sense of how harsh war really can be.












I pulled this picture out from all the others because it is my personal favorite, it shows what I said before about showing humanity. The upper part of the male is muscular, strong looking giving the view a thought that he is a strong man, the lighting giving highlights of the muscle tone in his back and arm, even the tattoo adds to it over all, but the lower section of his body looks weak, with mechanical legs that are crosses in such a way that makes them look broken or damaged, like they have been thrown down. But I also note that the lighting is not focused to much on them but the white backdrop brings them out, almost like they are not hidden but not meant to be focused on either



 If you are into studio shots or working with human models in general, this book is fantastic for showing you how you can show strong figures of people, keeping both dignity and strength, while showing humanity. I took much inspiration in my recent fashion, taking similar shots and using the style he did, taking portrait, focus on lighting and the models composure. All in all, this book is fantastic, I take much from it, working with models, lighting and composition is critical.What I like most about this book is that it does not focus on the photographic work, but more on the personal story behind each solider. Each story tells about their injury's and how they happened, if you match what they say to the picture taken, it gives another level of depth.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bryan-Adams-Wounded-The-Legacy/dp/3869306777 - This is a link to where you can buy the book, I highly recommend it.