Early sunday morning!!!

This weekend I managed to organise a small photoshoot for the dance project we have been set. I was lucky enough to be able to book the studio and invited the three dancers to Doncaster.

All photoshoots are very different, and from experience know that a lot of preparation is needed in order for things to run smoothly. I ensured that all of my lighting and equipment was working the day before and sent a brief to Jemma (hair and make-up stylist) about 4 days before the shoot, so that she had an idea of what I wanted to create.

The brief set by the module teacher was to create a head shot, a full body shot and a creative shot of all of the dancers. To do this effectively I pulled in a favour from one of my friends that does hair and make-up. This was a big help as she was able to help me with getting the dancers ready and therefore made the day run easier.
I also briefed the dancers of what I wanted to try and achieve and they helped with ideas and concepts.

I felt a good vibe throughout the day and connected well with all the girls Beth, Beth Sykes and Steph. As this is the first time that they had done anything like this, at first they were intimidated, however after the first 20 minutes and a bit of gentle persuasion they gained with confidence. This is something which I have learnt to cope with, as I deal with this type of situation on a regular basis in my work environment.

I felt a real buzz for the whole day and have been pleased with the shots that I took. It also felt good that the girls were pleased with the day and their pictures, as they may well use some of my work when going to castings.

I will be posting some of them within the net couple of days.

Gallery space...

We have been assigned to run our own event at the coach houses gallery space. This project will allow all of us to showcase our work to both the general public and professionals within the industry.

This exercise is to be done as a team and I am quite looking forward to the doors of opportunity that it may bring. After a couple of hours at the coach houses I felt that we had not made much progress. A lot of my classmates have never done anything like this before or been involved with a project such as this. I started to feel like maybe this was not going to work as well as what I had hoped. Within the next few days growing concerns about what pictures to put on the walls and the time frame became a bit of a worry to the group.

It was decided that after talking this over with Malcolm, that we would move that date to after Christmas to give us all enough time to prepare. With this in mind our next session with Mike focused heavily on this, which made us feel more comfortable.

I have done events management in my business degree and come from a background of organising things such as this. Therefore I had a rough idea of what needed to be done and in what sort of timescale. The easiest way to do this was to delegate certain tasks to individuals of the group which were to be completed by an agreed specified date. This ranged from contacting newspapers to designing flyer's and creating a database of potential contacts. After doing this, I felt much better about the exercise and feel that we made real progress as a team.

Royal armouries trip... On Guarde!

Fridays are all about learning how to achieve and meet client needs. One of the projects set by our tutor Tony Speight was to go to Leeds and take pictures of the Royal Armouries.

I am quite a keen fan of architectural photography especially for new buildings much like the ones seen in places like Dubai. However, the Royal armouries is not the prettiest of concrete buildings. This therefore I found to be a bit of a challenge.

Before I went to the shoot, I did some research into architectural photography. Paul White photography is a local business in Womersley that I admire greatly. The way in which the architecture is shot really stands out as he uses dramatic angels and changes perspectives in order to create interesting images. Some of their work can be seen below.

Firstly on the day it was very overcast and therefore the sky looked grey. The sun did however show its face a little after lunchtime. I had a look around the building to see if I could find any interesting features, and also decided that i was going to shoot some in daylight and some at dusk. The Armouries has a glass tower like block on the building which lights up and therefore looked great in the pictures.

To me in order to show off a building, one of the best ways it to chose dramatic angles and I have done this in several of my pictures.

Some of my work can be seen below. As you can see, I have used some similar angles to my research and created what I think are some interesting shots. Although the building itself I do not think is that aesthetically pleasing, there are many different types of materials used in its construction. I have tried to use this as a focus, as i think different building materials work well together and make a picture look more interesting.

Have a look and let me know what you think.

Sasha

We were required to meet at 9am and stay for as long as we wanted until we achieved the shots that we wanted. This I feel was a bit of a waste of time especially in the commercial world of photography, as you may need to fit other clients into the same day.

If I had the opportunity to do this again, I would have picked a day when the lighting conditions were better by checking the weather forecast and also chosen the best time of day to visit the location to save time. I think I would also have spent more time focusing on the building in situ. I did do this on the day, but because of the bad light source they looked grey and uninspiring, which is why I focused closely on the building.

Dancers, giggles and lots of planning

On 5th November we were introduced to a new project. Students studying dance at the college are required to have a portfolio and we were assigned with dancers to provide the images for them.

The project is to run over 3 weeks and I have been given 4 dancers from 1st year and one dancer from the 2nd year group. We were invited to the dance studio to look at the way in which the dancers perform, and it helped to give me some ideas as to the type of images I wanted to try and achieve.

The people I am working with all specialise in different types of dance from contemporary, to ballet and street dance. I felt really positive about the mix of dancers I was given, as it is going to enable me to create some very varied images. The 5 ladies I am working with are very enthusiastic and had ideas of what they wanted to create and how they wanted to look. Between us, we organised the themes, styles and clothing as well as hair and make up for each of the dancers.

I am going to shoot over 2 days, the 15th and 22nd November. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed when I found out that the actual images were not going to be marked, and it was more about work flow and time constraints, howver, I am still hoping to create some fabulous shots.

I will post some of the best images hopefully this next week for anyone to comment.

Adding a little extra...

As I only had an hours studio time, I would have liked to have played around with tungsten lighting a bit more. I did however, try to add some propping to the image, something which was not in the brief. I feel that it gives the image a bit more of a lifestyle feel, rather than a standard product shot.

I also changed my depth of field, knocking a lot of the image out of focus. This is a technique I have seen used a lot, especially in food magazines.
Again, I feel it gives the image a bit more character and it is more aesthetically pleasing.

My first assignment to a client brief

Last week we were set the task of shooting a general household item using only a background to try to make it look interesting.

The brief was to shoot the item at three different angles using the same background. As you can see from the image to the left of this text, I chose to shoot some measuring spoons. This I chose for several reasons, the first being that it is hard to light and make brushed steel look attractive.

I have used a wooden chopping board because I think the two materials stand out against each other, and also they have different textures.

As you can see I have used a key light from the right hand top corner to try and generate some shadows and also burnt out part of the spoons at the top, creating a more interesting image.
This contrast in lighting i feel helps to dive depth to the image. I have also used a fill light at the left hand side at the front of the image to try and make the spoons look more appealing.

Welcome!....

Hi,

My name is Charlotte (aka Sasha)


I currently work for a photographic agency called Fisheye in Doncaster. After several months of developing my skills, I felt it was time to broaden my horizons. I recently enrolled on a foundation degree in commercial photography accredited by Leeds Metropolitan University.

I have created this blog in order to try and gain some feedback and critique about my work in order to further my personal development.

I will be commenting on new techniques and skills that I have both used and learnt on my photographic journey.
Furthermore, I will be uploading my work on a regular basis from both my personal portfolio and work taken on my degree.

I love taking pictures because I feel that it is a way in which I can express myself and my individuality. I am inspired in many ways, one of which is by looking at other artists and photographers. From time to time I will post examples of their work, and explain how they encourage me to improve and create my own style using by incorporating some of theirs.

I hope that you will leave comments/critisisms/advice, and feel free to ask any questions that you may have.

Thanks

Sasha