Old posts
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10.22.08Do photographers need to punctuate?
So, life has been pretty busy these past few weeks for me what with my new course and all in the mean time however the site has been getting quite a lot of hits particularly this this post. I’m glad of this and I’m even more happy to hear that my little recommendation has encouraged some people to take up watching the show, for some of them it will even be their first anime!
However there was a complaint or two about my spelling/punctuation/the way I write which is fine, but I am not a review blog and I have never claimed to be, I don’t want to write for a magazine and I don’t want to win any writing awards I was pretty much done with all of that years ago. I just write as it comes to me hopefully people can put up with that and keep coming back.What I’ve been up to however is trying my hardest not to do the research I’m supposed to be doing for my course, and as usual putting it off until the last minute. I’ve spent most of my time bathing if i’m honest Lush gave me a whole bunch of free stuff at staff training so now I spend most days doing nothing and smelling yummy.
I’ve been contacting local agencies and looking for models for projects however, so that is one useful thing I’ve done, I’ve been getting quite good responses too and have models for at least 7 shoots lined up so it’s all good. I shot Frankie again on my sx-70 a few weeks back at a park near here (mickey mouse ears and all) and I’m pretty in love with the Polaroids. I have 60 shots of Polaroid left and when that is gone it is pretty much gone, which sort of makes me sad. I wish I had the money to buy all the bulk 600 film people are selling on Ebay but sadly I’ll have to make do with what I have.
Hopefully there will be more updates next week.
06.15.08They just keep getting younger and youngerI
don’t think I should watch programs like ‘Class of 2008′ again, for those of you that are unaware of what that is it’s a BBC program as part of ‘BBC Switch’ which is pretty much aimed at 17-20 year olds, and this particular program is about a group of friends in london trying to make it big. A few of them are models, one of them is Daisy Lowe actually who I fail to see the fascination with, one of them wants to be an actor, one of them is a fashion designer, some are in band and the narator is a dj trying to oraganise his own clubnight.
‘Why should you stop watching programs like that’
Is what you’re probably thinking seems as it doesn’t sound like a bad premise. The reason however why I should stop is that I just sit through the entire episode and seethe to myself. Most of the people I know are like these people, in one way or another trying to make something of themselves. Artists, photographers, designers the whole spectrum they haven’t been approached by the BBC. Maybe it’s because they’re not attractive enough, or don’t go to enough clubs - club kids come out on top it would seem these days. Snort as much coke as you can and you’ll be famous in no time.
I think a part of me gets annoyed at the constant message that to make anything of yourself in the creative industry you have to be in London, it is something constantly pumped into us and anyone on an arts based course. I’m not foolish enough to think it isn’t the hub for the creative arts, but I also know its not as easy as just moving there. People flock there thinking they’ll be there a week and will be the next big thing, and obviously that turns out not to be the case. But even me, who knows this completely sitting watching this program thinks to himself:
‘Damn I need to go to london immediatly, I need to make friends with some ‘hip’ model types, show up to some big events, whore myself out on myspace and then I’ll be world known photographer supreme, and magazines will be queing up for me to shoot for them’
In reality though, it’s hard work and it’s tough. These programs though don’t seem to show this, they show a bunch of teens having a great time - getting all expenses paid trips to Milan to sit and look pretty and if I am deeply honest they make me completely green with envy. I’m not saying that these kids haven’t worked hard to be where they are now, I’m positively sure that they have it’s just programs like this don’t seem to show that at all.
And if I’m brutally honest there will always be a small part of me that wants to be a part of that, a part of this ‘fabulous’ young london life that it would seem constantly gets thrown in my face, even though I know that actually it’s not like that at all most of student life in london involves hard work and being incredibly poor. My getting into LCF was a precursor to that ‘fabulous/incredibly poor’ london life that I seemed to long for before all the shit with government funding hit the fan. I thought I was over all that, but I’m really not I guess a part of me is still bitter and on days like today when I sit incredibly bored with only my thoughts for company I really shouldn’t watch programs that show me what I could be doing with my life ‘if only I lived in london’ which is quite clearly the programs message.
And to top it all off, half of the people in it seem like complete tossers and half of them have been on the front cover of i-D!
05.25.08busy busy boy
T
his is Katie, she is another of my favorite models I shot during my work shooting new faces at a local agency here, however she was only fifteen, and is probably the youngest person I’ve pointed a camera at in a fair few years.
In other news, I had my interview for the final year of my course last week and I thought it went really well but a good deal of people from my class had been getting rejected from progressing onto the BA year but after days of sleepless nights and worry every time I heard my ‘new mail’ message I finally got the message telling me I’d been accepted. So that is one less thing for me to worry about, I’m such a worrier all of the time it’s ridiculous.
I am pretty much finished all of my work for this year, I handed it all in on tuesday and then got a phone call from my lecturer telling me I’d missed out some things which is typical to be honest. It was for a project we didn’t get a brief for, so she must think I’m psychic or something and knew what I was missing. Anyway, I got all of the rest of that done and handed in on friday and have pretty much been relaxing for the rest of the weekend.
Next week though is going to be pretty busy, I have to get the film for my final exhibition processed, scanned and edited. Then I have to somehow find enough money for 2 A1 prints and frames, and then a bunch of postcards of the images and get all of that sorted. I’m sure it will be worth it in the end, and I actually rather enjoy having things to do but life can be a bit of a stress sometimes when I have to cram too many things into such a short space of time.
Over and out
