To sit on my own with the Fresh Prints.....

"It's the final countdown". My time at university is soon to end, all that is left to do is hand in my portfolio, visual diaries and external folders. I collated it all into a big black brief case my father gave me in the first year. He told me it was his old portfolio case, and always got a job using it when meeting clients. he said it would bring me luck. It's brought me luck for every hand in over the past three years of study. I always excite the tutors with the appearance of the Brief case, each time i go in for an assessment the tutors seem more interested in the case than my work. It's a nice topic of conversation during the assessment, the tutors always ask for one of their own.


The assessment went well, with a few laughs here and there, i think they liked the work that i submitted. I felt confident that i had worked hard over the year and produced a great portfolio. all that was left to do now was to put up the work for the final third year Exhibition.

London's Calling.....

It has been a while since i last blogged, apologies to all followers. The work load has been hectic with lots of things added each day. It is coming to the end of a very fast few years of University. I am currently tying  up loose ends of my research and the odds and sods that need to be handed in for my final assessment. The main preparation for this final major project, is the end of year shows in Swansea and in London.  Brick Lane is the location of the london show. Free Range is an arts expo that happens every year in Brick Lane, with Universities participating from all over the place exhibiting all faculties of art. I have just sent off for some of my work to be made in Cardiff, this is one of many pieces of work that needs to be made. I am to have a 40"x40" mounted print, two Light boxes and a television installation.

So far the 40"x40" print is the first thing that i have sent off to be made. This week i need to send some image files to Brighton to make Duratrans prints on perspex sheets, for my light boxes. The Television installation i already have to hand. I need to find a plinth from University to use to hold the tele, I will make a CD of images to put into a DVD player to display the work. A book has been made and awaiting arrival, this will also go on display at both Shows. In a sense i will be using a variety of mediums to present my work. Yesterday i signed into the Free Range Portfolio profile. This profile displays my ethos and a few sample images, this 'portfolio' will remain on the site for ever and can be looked at by employers or interested parties.

Dev,Stop,Fix,Wash.....

Today was the start to the unending production of photographs. My Portfolio is to begin to grow, as of this week. I spent most of the beginning of this week preparing for printing. I'm using 12"x16" Fiber based paper for my Black and White work. i've developed (ruined) a few colour films to start on my colour prints as well. Tomorrow is the last day over the holidays to use the colour darkrooms so i will be spending the day mostly in the Colenta room.I will have a look at my Fiber prints and if there is time tomorrow i may re print one as the exposure was a little off centre of the paper. This new work will have more meaning and interact more with the viewer as i am now starting to piece together what it is i want this work to do and relate to when seen by the viewer. 

Marketing and Self Help.....

Its coming close to the end, visual diaries need filling, portfolio's need building and now a presentation and promotion package is under way. I did one last year which included a portfolio, visual C.V, postcards and business cards. This year i wanted to make my DVD look really cool.

I want my final portfolio look like a collection of medical examinations and so i wanted to make the cover look like a nice Sciencey Journal. I started by finding a nice book in the university library, preferably a book with a blank cover. This one i spotted and felt the colour was nice to use. I had found in my Fathers filing cabinet a pouch of stickers with the words,

PHOTOGRAPHS PLEASE DO NOT BEND. I felt that this sticker had a quirkiness about it and wanted to use it somewhere in my final major work. I want to make numerous covers of different colour's making in the process a mini collection of the Book/DVD's. I may even get a little bookshelf to set up the collection of portfolio's.

Inspiration....

Went to an interview organized by the Uni, the interview was with a Photographer's Gallery Curator from London. She was pleased with my enthusiasm for wet film, especially in this digital age. she found my work very exciting and loved the playful and experimental appearance of my work. the Curator name dropped an photographic artist hadn't heard of before and thankfully remembered his name. 


The photographic artist is called Walead Beshty, a London born american photographic artist,

     

Many consider his artwork or photography to be abstract, but he objects, “insisting instead on their material inscription of the structural conditions and possibilities of the medium.”^] Beshty’s artwork makes the viewer question the possibilities of photography and its relationship with the current world we live in.( < blurb taken from the one and only Wiki.)I looked him up and found the artist that i was looking for all other artists i had found were either abstract expressionist painters or camera-less process artists. Beshty works with film and creates beuatiful pieces.

It's All There In Black And White...

Now that my thoughts and motivation has been dragged from the dissertation to higher and happier climates,  i am now trying to experiment with a range of things; doo daa's, watcha ma call its. don't really know what word is best used instead of 'things' but any way i am coming to the end of a very long and winding road. I now need to work out how i want to present my new work at the London Free Range Show in Brick Lane. 


I was over at my Father's retreat to acquire wise wisdom and experience, after rooting around in the dusty dead fly grave yard of an attic we came across the ol' black and white moving picture box that my Father bought years ago. Half an hour later after many attempts to plug a dubbed video dub (DVD Player) device into the picture box we appeared to be defeated in our efforts to produce an image on the screen of the box. 

with a crash bang and a wallop all of a sudden (this didn't really happen just trying to create an intense atmosphere). A flicker of an image appeared before our very eyes. Turned out we hadn't been tuning the ruddy thing, "Silly us aye"


with a few turns of the leaver thing we got as best a picture as we could get, my Father wanted to improve the quality of the tunedge. I hope he wasn't expecting HD quality. While my Father found the quality of image terrible and scrabbly i was quite excited by the shapes and abstractions made by the Picture Box. We placed a CD of images from Boots or some photo print place like that and loaded the DVD Player and viewed the photographs on a slide show mode of the Player. Due to the poor quality of the Television you couldn't really make out what you were seeing. i felt this had a fitting element to my practice and end of year portfolio of work.

Lost & Found

I am currently collating discarded end trails of film left behind in the processing bay. This is part of a sister project of my Final Major. The Series will be called 'Lost and Found', I feel this is a fitting title as the image documented on the film has been lost and the Neg thrown, i have found a beauty within the destroyed,


"One man's trash is another man's practice of work"....