Characteristics of my brain!

An individual’s dominant brain type has a very significant affect on the way they study, homework habits, and grades. Some students may struggle with specific assignment types or test questions, based on their specific brain types.

By understanding my dominant brain type, it will enable me to adjust my study methods and help to schedule my work to suit my own specific learning style.

I took a test online and found that I am slightly left brain dominated. It says that “You probably like some order in your life and in the classroom. You are comfortable listening to lectures and taking most test types, but you might be uncomfortable with open-ended essay assignments that require you to imagine scenarios. You want class directions to be clear. A disorganized teacher or unclear assignments will drive you crazy! You are good at analyzing problems to find the right answer. You may have considered pursuing a degree in science or math. You don't like mushy love movies. You might be a Jeopardy champ one day, not because you're smarter than right brain students, but because you are able to answer questions quickly. However, you also possess some right brain qualities therefore giving you a more middle brain orientated outlook.

You probably like some order in your life and in the classroom. You are comfortable listening to lectures and taking most test types, but you might be uncomfortable with open-ended essay assignments that require you to imagine scenarios. You want class directions to be clear. A disorganized teacher or unclear assignments will drive you crazy! You are good at analyzing problems to find the right answer. You may have considered pursuing a degree in science or math. You don't like mushy love movies. You might be a Jeopardy champ one day, not because you're smarter than right brain students, but because you are able to answer questions quickly.

Characteristics of a left brain student

Work with a to do list
Like to be the critic in the class
Good at maths or science
Rational and logical
research is precise and well-documented
Set goals for yourself
Interpret information well
Room is orderly
Answer questions spontaneously
Follow diresctions and do read directions (unlike some people)
Prescise

After doin this test and looking back at my personal preferred learning style which is visual I can see that there are some similarities for example both suggest that I like to make to do lists which is very true. Furthermore, it also sugggest that when researching I am very precise and document things to a high level. This was seen as a strenght when I tool the 1st questionnaire to find out where my strenghts and weaknesses lie.

When looking at this information and comparing it with the visual style of leaning, there are some clear similatrites such as good organisation and writing to do lists.

Irritated with blogger and encryption codes

After trying for several hours to upload text onto blogger and paragraph it properly and still have not succeeded. As my learning style suggests I am very meticulous and things like this stress me out. This again relates back to one of my targets and after persisting for a while it is official that I have given up trying to understand why when I type it will not format it properly.

Self reflection

I have never been the type of person who has masses of confidence, but find that I can express myself by using photography. After starting at Fisheye, I was very nervous about how premature my photographic skills were and felt that I had a heap of things to learn. Over a period of nine months, on the job training and some confidence building boosts from the head of photography I finally felt ready to study photography.

For the first five months of my on the job training I spent most of this time practising and perfecting shooting perfect pack shots of everything from fairy washing up liquid to jam and toilet rolls. Then one Monday morning, my boss told me that he was going to set me a creative brief and I had the scope to do what I wanted and be creative.

One of the hardest things I have battled with is allowing others to look at my work. Working within a team of 4 photographers it has helped me enormously with this. At first I was very shy as criticism can be cruel, but after several months you get used to the idea that everyone looks at pictures in different ways. What one person finds amazing, striking and eye catching another person may not even bat an eye lid at.

After overcoming this barrier, I have been able to discuss my work and therefore gain tips and ideas of how to improve and create different effects to create the perfect shot.

This I think has worked to my advantage as with being on this course I can apply them. Simple things such as adding reflectors with holes cut out and baffling light off can create some great effects and make images look more realistic and life like, rather than appearing as though they have been shot in a studio.

For the second week of my course, we were asked to bring in 5 of our favourite images and explain why they had been chosen. I decided to show two of my own pieces, for a couple of reasons. I feel that I have moved on enormously with my own confidence and can to show my work to a group of people and feel self assured that I have tried the best that I can. It also allowed me to receive feedback from fourteen people that I did not know very well and therefore gave me real criticism. I find that when people know you well, they tend to soften how they express if they do not like something so not to hurt feelings.

With this new found confidence in my creative ability I feel like I have accomplished a lot and come a long way from when I first started in this industry.

I hope that within the next few months this new found confidence will continue to generate and I will feel more at ease when doing things like presentations in front of the class.

New targets

After looking at my preferred learning style and assessing my strengths and weaknesses, I decided to sit down and set myself some targets on how to improve and therefore better myself.

With having 2 jobs and also being on a full time degree I do not have much free time to sit and relax, therefore I have a tendency to dismiss stress levels rather than dealing with them.

Within the next few months before the end of the academic year is over I want to try to combat this and take some time out of my day where I can sit and reflect and relax myself.

To do this I will take at least and hour out of everyday to visit a friend, pamper myself, watch television or just generally relax.
I have also been told that exercise is a good way to relieve underlying stress and so have decided that I am going to try and go swimming at least 2-3 times a week. I love water and find it very relaxing and so this should be a great activity for me. It will also help me sleep better as at the moment I find that I am up late at night working because I find it hard to sleep.

With having a very busy schedule outside of university, I to try to plan some time everyday to work on my modules outside of the lectures and seminars. This I feel is a good start, but I sometimes feel I am not making as much progress as I would like. In order to get the best use of time management, I need to try and plan this section of time a little better. By making more to lists of the things that are important and give myself an allotted time within that space in the day to try and complete certain tasks.

I also know that when studying for my first degree in Marketing and Pr I am not very good at coping with stress in exams, however still pass them. This is not something that I will have to face on this course, however we do have several individual presentations in front of the group which I am also not overly comfortable with. Although I am an outgoing person, when it comes to standing up in front of peers I do get nervous. Hopefully by setting time aside to sit and prepare and rehearse my presentation at an earlier date, I will be more assured of the content and be able to relax a little more on the day.

Assessing my strengths and weaknesses

Now that I know I do not have a specific learning style, but am aware that I favour the visual style, I can start to access and address my strengths and weaknesses. I did this using another self assessment questionnaire.

According to the analysis I am "Confident about the transition to higher study and are well prepared for the different kind of work and ways of dealing with it ahead of you."

The questionnaire had 10 main topics areas:

Understanding the challenge that lies ahead
Guiding you own learning
Writing and analysis
Presenting your ideas
Research and information processing
Coursework and longer projects
Using ICT effectively
Managing your time
Assertiveness
Coping with stress

All of these sections had a total score of 25. For all of the categories except coping with stress, I scored 21-25 which suggests that I am confident in the area and have most of the key skills.

Something which I am aware that I have am not good at is coping with stress and the test highlighted this. I gained a total of 18 marks in this category and this is something that I therefore need to try and improve on. In order to address this, I will need to set myself some targets.

My preferred learning style... I don't have one!!!

Eyes, ears and sense of touch play an important role in the way people communicate, see reality and relate to others. A person learns best and communicates best with people who have a similar learning style to that individual. Because of this, I thought that it was important to look at my learning style.

Today I sat down and tested myself to see if I was better at learning in a visual, auditory or kinaesthetic style. These modalities (sensory channels) all have different characteristics.

I answered a series of questions from a learning styles checklist rating a number of sentences with a number from 1-5. 5 was almost always and 1 was almost never. After completing the three sections the total was out of 250 points of which I scored 229.

After looking back at the three sections I found that I had no preferred learning style as all of the sections has a difference in range of 5 points. This would therefore suggest that I have many of the qualities for all three learning styles and can learn effectively bu using my different sensory channels.

This i feel is my strongest and preferred learning style as when I do find that I do favour looking at graphics and pictures. I also find it easier to learn from bullet points rather than a whole block of text. It makes it easier for me to keep my interest focused and when making notes I use this technique.

Some other points that I have noticed when looking at how visual people learn is that they have advanced planning, good spelling, note detail and are meticulous. These are all qualities that I feel I have, however I am not quiet by nature and do not enjoy reading in my spare time.

During my time in education I have found that I find it easier to use 'cue' words, colour codes, charts, maps and illustrations to aid my learning. I also have a tendency to use mnemonics, acronyms, visual chains an mind maps. Again these are all strong and suggested aids for how a visual learner best learns.

I also have some auditory qualities as I like to memorise by using steps in a sequence, which is why I find bullet points easy to read. I also remember faces and can be distracted sometimes. This is something that I need to work on, and find that listening to music when in a room full of people channels my focus better and I am able to gt my head down to the task in hand.
Auditory learners also make up rhymes and poems to aid there learning, and when trying to focus on very academic work I too do this.

Furthermore, I have several kinaesthetic characteristics but feel that these relate more to me as a person rather than my preferred learning style in an academic sense. I am willing to try new things, dress for comfort and express my emotions through a physical means. With regard to academic I am not a poor speller. When I have a lot of things to do I also ind myself making a to do list, as I feel that this gives me a sense of self accomplishment when I have completed the tasks. As with the other two learning styles kinaesthetic learners too use mnemonics, which is where my learning styles overlap.

Transparency and colour film work

One of the first assignments was a first location shoot at the cathedral at Wakefield.

After arriving at the location I walked inside the cathedral noticed that the lighting was not very good and therefore long exposures were required. This was a little bit of a problem as I did not have a tripod with me, however there were several tables, chairs and surfaced that I could rest the camera on.

I was a little aprehensive about this as I have not shot on film for about 7 years and have never used transparency film. Nevertheless I made sure that I knew how to change the settings on my film camera. Unfortunately, half way through shooting my films the camera broke and I was unable to complete the task.

I have since been back this time with a tripod and shot both films and had them processed.

Reflection of my first exhibition

At the end of the academic year we have an end of year show and when looking at how unorganised the first exhibition was, I am determined that the next one will be a success. Fortunately before this, we have another chance to show some more of our work over the Easter period.

As a group I feel that everyone will be able to benefit from being a little better organised as we lacked direction and were all a bit unsure of what was required from us. I felt that we were not very cohesive and lacked drive and focus. Although this did not have an effect on my personal motivation, it did make me feel like I had failed on a personal level.

As I stated before on my blog, it was a great opportunity to show myself the work that I could produce and felt comfortable with the work that I put on the walls. I was a little disappointed that there were no professional people from the industry, as everyone was asked to try and invite at least one other photographer. I did feel that this was partially my fault, as it was the exhibition was not marketed properly, and is something that I want to try and push in the Easter show.

I have thought of several ways to do this from contacting local papers and radio stations to designing flyer's and sending out emails to local people within the industry. Hopefully this will have a better effect and it will help to generate more interest and awareness and result in a future client base.

What is reflection?

Reflection can cover a number of points and can include:

Making sense of an experience

Standing back

Repetition

Deeper honesty

"Weighing up"

Clarity

Understanding

Making adjustments

These can be achieved by following a few steps. Reflection should include:

Small regular bites

Be specific

Aim at improvement

Focus on yourself

Critical rather than descriptive writing

Have a purpose

Find the right questions

Review

Reflection has two stages the first is where an individual realises that "it is important to capture such reflections in a way that suites oir own personal style", i.e. it is in raw form. The second stage is characterised by 4 sub groups:

Time - leaving time between the initial reflection and current stage of reflection

Summary - Seeks out and sumarises key themes and salient points

Insight - Identifying what has been learnt; especially the less obvious learning

Communication - ready to consider presenting the results of your reflection to others

Spare time at the office and 50 garlic bulbs

Today I found myself working through my list of products very quickly and had an hour to spare at the end of the day. My boss is always keen to say that if you are not shooting, you are not making money. With that in mind, I decided to focus my portfolio work.

I noticed a box of garlic bulbs which had been used for a client at the back end of last week, and thought it would be a good idea to try and create a market style shot of fresh produce.

I have used very simple lighting to generate the two shots below. It is simply two softboxes at opposite corners of the set up with a difference of about a stop in power. I also placed one of the lamps a little further away from the table to gain some contrast. This helps to give the image a more tone as setting them to the same power made the image look flat.

I believe that when shooting fresh produce such as fruit and vegetables they always look so much fresher then they are wet. To do this, I have sprayed them with a water gun and think that it really adds to the image.

Huhtamaki brief

This was my first shoot in studio for the brief that Tony set last week. I decided to keep the background blue to help accentuate the product.

As can be seen from the first image the background is actually all one colour blue. I have used a softbox from overhead and attached a large piece of black card to the back to help baffle light off the background, creating the a graduation in colour.

I have then added a hard head to the front right hand side of my set to give the cups some tonal values.

Finally I took a white piece of card and angled it into the shot on the left front side to make the labels 'pop' and look bright and colourful.

Whilst the shot was set up, I tried a few variation which can be seen below experimenting with other products, coffee and coffee beans.

Cups, cups, cups

Last week Tony introduced a new brief for a current client of his. Huhtamaki is a worldwide drinks container manufacturer based in Finland. They produce a wide range of products including hot and cold drink containers.

The aim of the brief was to produce a series of 6 images that could be used to support a promotional campaign and show how the product could be integrated into the everyday life of a consumer.

It is important to note from this that it is the brief focuses more on the client side rather than that of the consumer and this is the group that the photography should focus on.

I felt quite comfortable with this brief, with regard to the studio based part of the assignment, as in my current role at Fisheye studios it is something that we see on a regular basis.

The location took more thinking and planning as obviously it is weather dependant and therefore was not as simple.

The first thing I did was to visit their website to find out what type of photography had been done before. After scanning their and several other websites, gathering images from magazines and thinking of locations for the product, I booked some time in the studio .

Because of a shortage of materials, Tony allowed us to shoot similar types of products and so I have used some from Esquires coffee house.

Martin Parr

Born in 1952, Martin Parr is another documentary photographer that I have started to investigate. He is well known for his critical look at modern society and specifically looks at consumerism, foreign travel, tourism, families and relationships and food.

His style uses lots of saturation and macro lenses along with flash rings.

One thing that I have noticed about his work is that through the decades although times have changed the way in which he photographs is still the same, and they type of things he documents are the same. This can be seen from his recent collection called 'Playas' 2008.

Early work - He previously recorded a trip to the beach to the Liverpool suburb or New Brighton a popular destination in 1980's. He captured the English working class enjoying themselves.

Playas collection Barcelona

Between 2006-8 he spent time on the beaches of South America and produces a collection of images including the couple seen below.

He has a genuinely unique style, and after looking on his website his work is very distinctive. Playas appears to have a very 80's style and yet his work still looks cutting edge and up to date with the current trends.

I love the way in which he uses colour in his images. It makes the image really stands out on the page and I think i am going to use this as one of the techniques for my series of photographs.

Walker Evans

Walker Evans is best known for his documentation on the great depression. He spent two months on a fixed term campaign for the resettlement administration in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. During this time he stayed with three white families in Alabama and continued to document the depression.

All of his work was shot on film and has been developed in black and white. I think that this helps to enhance the tonal values of his images and also shows the fine grey scale detail within the shots.

He also combines different genres, as a lot of his work contains portraits of people suffering during this time. Some of his work can be seen below.

As you can see featured below he also documented the buildings and landscapes of the time. Again this combines another genre with the documentation of his pictures. Again he uses he same style.

I am hoping to create a series of pictures like this for a number of events hosted throughout Yorkshire over the next few weeks. I haven't yet decided if i am going to use film or digital, but I think that I am going to shoot in black and white.

A new task

One of the modules set for this course is to study a genre of photography. I have looked at several of these from fashion, glamour and till life and nature photography through to wedding and portraiture.

After visiting the Northern Soul exhibition, I decided to look further into documentary photography. I found other influential and famous names such as Martin Parr, Christopher Steel Perkins and Walker Evans.

I have decided to focus documentary photography. I am also going to produce a series of images documenting different events.

Northern Soul

Last week I went to visit the National coal mining museum where they were holding an exhibition by John Bulmer called Northern Soul Life and times in the 1960’s.

I love the simplicity of this photograph, yet it shows the very complex features of the brickwork in the house. There is nothing particularly special about the location as it is just a street of terraced houses and could have been taken in any town centre. What I think separates this from many other images of the same nature is the use of bright and highly saturated colours against the darker brickwork of the neighbouring buildings.

Again this is another piece by John Bulmer that I am very fond of which I saw at the exhibition. Again the place this picture was taken was in an everyday environment in a very normal situation like most of his work. However, it appeals to me because it is so simple. The lady is focusing directly on the camera and has suite a moving facial expression.

I like the irony of this picture. The person pictured is obviously old and hunched over and just happens to be sat outside of a fitness gymnasium for sportsmen. It also shows reflection in the top of the photograph. The block of orange colour across the frame also helps to draw the eye into the picture.