5 development points

So the five different things that i have focused on in this PDP are learning how to use Adobe Premiere, reading more books, updating my portfolio, keeping up to date with blogging and better organisation.

Software - Adobe Premiere.

This was the first point on my PDP and also the first development that i completed. I managed to achieve this development point quite early on as I had to use this software to produce a video for another module that was running at the time Like i have said within the posts previous that discuss the software use I now feel confident in using the software to put together, but obviously there is always new stuff to get to grips with on software. The main reason for including that point was because i don't really know how to use any software accept to Photoshop and I want to expand on my existing skills by learning how to use different software which will definitely come in handy in the future!

Reading more book.

I wanted to include this point because even though i read, i don't tend to read enough. This is something that I have realised since starting back in September, I guess i'm not as clued up on everything as I should be for a third year photography student. The reading of books and research is something that I will be doing forever within the field, there is always room to gain new knowledge and understanding and this is why i have left the point as a continuous one, one that I will be expanding on in the future. Through the period of this module I have managed to learn more about different photographers and learn to put names to photographs - this is something that I tend to struggle with purely for the fact i find it hard to take in information sometimes, so reading books is definitely a good point to be in my PDP and one to carry on with!

Updating my portfolio.

Again this is a point that I am going to continue to work on as I am not at a point where i am happy with my current portfolio. I currently have a physical one but i am most probably going to turn it into a digital one that is easily accessible via the Internet. To do this i need to decide on the space that i want to use to host my portfolio, one that will work the best and one that i can make my own and have it exactly how i want it. Again this is a point that i am going to continue working on until i finish university next year, hopefully i will have it completed within the next few months!

Keeping up to date with blogging.

This is one development point that i have found very good, it has prompted me to keep up to date with posting all of the work and things that I have done, i have definitely been updating my blog more often because of this point being on my PDP, and it is now something that i have started doing regularly so i will find it easier to keep on top of posting for future assignments. I think i started to get a little bit lazy with blogging and now it is something that i will do when it needs to be done rather than letting things bulk up and accumulate over time.

Organisation.

Putting this as one of my development points in my PDP has been rather useful, at the start of uni i tended to be quite organised and good with everything but i kind of stopped and didn't have the best organisation for quite some time. It's safe to say that now i am back to being organised with everything, i know exactly what needs to be done and when, i'm more aware of the time frames that I have to complete certain things and I have started forward planning a lot more and setting my self times to do certain things and days to focus on certain assignments so that i can get everything done for when it is needed.


Final PDP!

What are my development objectives? [what skills, knowledge or experience am I missing?]	What activities do I need to undertake to achieve my objectives?	What support/resources do I need to achieve my objectives? [what can the course offer?]	Target date for achieving my objectives	Actual date of achieving my  objectives
Developing skills on different software - Adobe Premiere	Learning how to use the software and the way it works. Experimenting with the different features it has and learning how to develop my own videos.	Basic training on how to use the software and then the time to experiment with its features.	1st November 2013	30th October 2013
Reading more books.	Read different books with different subject matters to gain more knowledge.	Access to books from the library, lots of books with different subject matters.	Ongoing(In progress)	(In progress)
Update photography portfolio.	Go through all of my photographs, get them printed to see what will work to showcase my work.	Good quality prints to go within a decent portfolio.	July 2014 (graduation)	July 2014 (graduation)
Keeping up to date with blogging.	Regularly update my blog's keeping them up to date with  the work that I am doing.	Getting online more often and updating my blog' frequently adding the different things that I have learnt.	December 2013	2nd December 2013
Better organisation with work	Writing myself notes and to do lists on what I need to do work wise.	Checking these to do lists and completing the things that need doing to keep on top of my work load and to make sure that I complete it to its best standard.	12th December 2013	5th December 2013

digital portfolio...

I started thinking a little about the best way / place to put together an online portfolio. I want to find an online space which i am able to persionalise and make my own. I'm not sure at this point whether the best way to do this is to actually buy a domain name and create my own website from scratch, or to use a website that will host a page for me.

I came across a website called Portfolio box (http://www.portfoliobox.net/) which is a site that you sign up to and they host your site, there is also a few different sites that i could use, I could use something like word press - but ideally i want something more professional.

I still have  a lot to think about to do with my portfolio, this is why I am going to take the next few months to put together and create the best portfolio that i can before i leave university.

Digital portfolio vs Physical portfolio

I have been thinking quite a bit about the type of portfolio that I would like to have put together by the time I leave university next year. Initially I liked the thought of having a physical portfolio that can be handled and passed around and well looked at, but maybe that is not the best way to go in considering the type of photography that I intend to produce once I have graduated and am out in the big wide world.

Even though I say this, I still want to have a physical one as well, as different types fit different situations, people prefer different things so its better to have both over just one. But with the physical portfolio the thing that I need to decide is how to show my work, things like the size's of the images and how they will be displayed.

My photographs are nature and landscape based imagery and art sometimes quite arty and abstract to i think they could possible look better in digital format rather than print. 

Feedback session...

The other day we had a feedback session on portfolios, I found this session very useful in respect to giving me a bit of information on what type of portfolio I could do with having to present my work to its best standard.

I listened to all of the feedback that was given to all of my peers and noted the different types of portfolios and ways of presenting their work i.e online blogs and websites.

I have all of my photographs on an online space which is Flickr, I pretty much use this as my online portfolio and if someone wanted to see my work this is where I would direct them too, I no know that this is not something that I should class as an online portfolio as its not very definitive and there is a variety of different things on there  - although everything is nature an landscape based which is where my interest lies within the photographic field.

Something that I noted when receiving the feedback on my portfolio was whether a digital portfolio would be better presented than a physical portfolio. I have always liked the idea of having a digital portfolio as it can be easily updates and alteres just as quickly if not quicker than having photographs developed. But for some reason I have always been drawn to a physical one, I think this is mainly because I like to get a proper feel for the photograph and see all of the little details which sometimes can't be seen as much when a photograph is just in a digital form.

As well as this I feel that different people prefer a different type of portfolio, one may prefer a physical one and someone else might prefer it in a digital form, it just depends on the persons preference.

I am definitely going to think a lot more about my portfolio and the different types that I could have whether it be digital or physical, I may end up coming to a point in which that I feel both types are necessary for different reasons.

A lot more organised!!!

One of this points stated on my PDP is that I want to be more organised when it comes to my work and getting things done, over the past few weeks this is something that i have been working on. In the past I have usually been quite organised but throughout the past few months since being back at university I have been finding it hard to get back into that routine that I normally have with my work.

One way that I have been being more organised is by writing my self to do lists every few days or weeks to see what different things I need to do and the work that needs to be done in certain time frames, I find that when I write the same to do list over and over again it prompts me to do things. These to do list have definitely helped me to keep on top of everything which is really good!

With organisation of all my work papers and things not being the best I have become more organised in that respect as well. I have done this by regularly going through all of the different papers and things that I have for all the different modules that I am doing and organising them into piles and separating them so I know what is what and where everything is.

The module that this has been most beneficial for is my dissertation, I have a huge amount of papers that I have printed out for research and they have accumulated into a massive mess of papers. But that is no longer a mess as I have organised them into different categories such as journals, articles and books so that I know what is where. This is definitely better that having everything all over the place like they were before.

Organizing my time is also one things that I have started to do more of, I have started to set myself certain times in which I need to do work so that I can keep on top of it all and not let the work load get too heavy at one time. It's been beneficial because there has been a lot of research to do for my dissertation, by setting myself times in which I need to do work/ research I have been able to get to a point where I have a nice decent amount of research so I can start getting on with my dissertation. Organizing my time has been a general thing with all modules, I feel it has been beneficial putting it on my PDP because it is something that I needed to do to ensure that my work is getting done, and by having it there on my PDP it has prompted me to do it.

Development plan..

I have updated my PDP with another point that I feel I can benefit from, this being better organisation. I used to be really good with my work and really organised with everything but I have started to become a bit lax with everything and I feel this is a good point to develop on at this moment in time and it is something that I will benefit from. My new pdp is below.

What are my development objectives? [what skills, knowledge or experience am I missing?]	What activities do I need to undertake to achieve my objectives?	What support/resources do I need to achieve my objectives? [what can the course offer?]	Target date for achieving my objectives	Actual date of achieving my  objectives
Developing skills on different software - Adobe Premiere	Learning how to use the software and the way it works. Experimenting with the different features it has and learning how to develop my own videos.	Basic training on how to use the software and then the time to experiment with its features.	1st November 2013	30th October 2013
Reading more books.	Read different books with different subject matters to gain more knowledge.	Access to books from the library, lots of books with different subject matters.	Ongoing (In progress)	(In progress)
Update photography portfolio.	Go through all of my photographs, get them printed to see what will work to showcase my work.	Good quality prints to go within a decent portfolio.	July 2014 (graduation)	(on going)
Keeping up to date with blogging.	Regularly update my blog's keeping them up to date with  the work that I am doing.	Getting online more often and updating my blog' frequently adding the different things that I have learnt.	December 2013(Also ongoing)	(In progress)
Better organisation with work	Writing myself notes and to do lists on what I need to do work wise.	Checking these to do lists and completing the things that need doing to keep on top of my work load and to make sure that I complete it to its best standard.	12th December 2013

Putting my portfolio together!

I received to photographs that I ordered the other day so that I could put together a new photography portfolio and I really like how these images look when they are printed, i guess its not so great that I haven't had any of my most recent images printed until now!

When I was going through my photos I was aware that some of my photos are quite similar in respect to showing the same type of thing but in my eyes, each image is different and has its own individual qualities.

I lay all of the photographs out on the floor around me so I could see them all against each other and see what images would work on a double page together the best and trying to figure out the best order to put them in so that they would flow from photo to photo and not be all jumbled up and all over the place.

After looking at the images for a good 10 minutes and thinking about different orders and looking at all the colours and things like that I had managed to see what images tended to work better together and come up with a good order to put them into in my portfolio.

The portfolio folder that I have at this current moment is not a proper portfolio as they would say. One thing that I need to do is invest in a proper portfolio for the future but this is something I will focus on later on.

Development - Blogging!!

Over the past few weeks I have been slacking a little bit on keeping up to date with my blogging on both this blog and the blog for a different assignment. I have now got myself back into the routine of regularly signing into blogger and looking over the posts that I have made previously and checking what I can update and add onto the blog pages to keep all of the information and things that I am doing or learning up to date. I definitely feel that it has helped with me setting this as on of the things that I want to develop on within my personal development plan, I have been very good at keeping up to date with blogging in the past but recently I haven't been posting and updating pages as often as I should so it has helped me to keep on top of everything and keep track of all my work better.

Portfolio

One of the point mentioned on my PDP is that I want to update my photography portfolio.
 Whenever i take new photographs I tend to sort through them and put them straight onto my online portfolio which is on Flickr. ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/lauren-morris/). Yes, this is useful for people who browse the Internet or people who want a digital portfolio but not all people want to look at work digitally, physical portfolios are always wanted.

I have been meaning to update my physical portfolio for a long time but never seemed to get round to doing it and this was the perfect opportunity for me to actually do it.  I had quite a lot of photographs in my previous portfolio but I scrapped all of them as I don't feel that they are good enough and are of a high enough standard at this point, so I felt it was better to start totally from scratch and go for my most recent work's that were of better quality and show more of the area that I am interested in and want to focus on in the future.

I started by looking through all of my photographs, focusing on the most recent ones where my work is better developed through the practice that I have had. I scrolled through Flickr and also looked over all of the recent files that I have put together with my photographs in.

I selected a certain amount of photographs that I feel are better and more successful than others and send an order through to DS colour labs to get these photographs printed.

One thing that I noticed when I was looking through all of my photos is that I have always known exactly what it is that I am interested in and what I want to photograph - but one thing that has changed is the way that I am photographing things. I am paying a lot more attention to the little detail and concentrating more on the framing and contents of the images which is a good thing cause the images need to have a meaning and significance to create an impact.

booksbookbooks!

Like mentioned in a previous post reading more books is something that I wanted to focus on achieving with this personal development plan. Over the past few weeks/ months I have read a lot of different books whether it be just a couple of chapters or the whole of the book to help gain a bit more understanding of everything. The books that I have been looking at and reading are not just necessarily photographer based though, i have been looking at a lot of different subjects and just really trying to gain a better understanding of a lot of things to do with photography and the way things work.

With my dissertation being within the stage of research and beginning of being written I have been reading a lot of books for that so I have gained a good amount of knowledge from looking at the different books for that. The type of thing that I have been looking at are the culture of photography and how we are affected by it with things such as manipulation and editing. So as well as reading about photographers and reading books by the likes of Sontag and Burger I have been gaining knowledge from various books and sources.

Blogging

One of the development points that I have put on my development plan is that I want to keep up to date with my blogs but adding more information and research to them as I go along, making post more frequent rather that not posting as much as I should. At the end of the day the blogs that I produce for the different modules on this course are my way of showing my findings and my method of thinking / way of working and producing work, I need to be able to show all of these things in their best way, so blogging more frequently is a good way to do this.

I have started to post updates more often that I have done previously, although I sometimes haven't actually posted anything I have gathered information and written it up ready to be added onto my blog, whether it be saved via draft of written up elsewhere ready to be copy, pasted and published.

Updating my blog more often was something that I felt I needed to be on top of when it came to the module titled 'Advanced Photographic Practice' this is due to how I needed to be very informative and post all of my findings and research as well as the progress I made throughout the assignment so that my methodology and thought process could be seen and understood quite clearly and the get my point' across in the simplest way possible. 

Again this is something that I have tried to do more often on this blog as well, I have thought about the different points that I want to make and the type of posts that I could put together, basically I have started to forward plan a lot more and think about what it is that I need to write within the posts that I publish, as well as how often I am posting these things. I have so far managed to post more frequently on this blog, even though I haven't publish loads of post I have been updating it with information more often that I usually would, trying to keep up to date with the work I have done as it progresses.

PDP

Here is my updated personal development plan, like stated in the previous post studio lighting skills is not something that I want to develop on at this moment in time as I don't really feel that I could benefit from it and there are other things that I could benefit from more at the present moment.

I have taken out that point and added in a couple of new ones that I feel I could benefit from and would help me a lot more when I come to the end of this course.

The different points that I have added at this moment in time are to update my photography portfolio as this is something that I have not done since starting this photography course a few years ago, and to keep up to date with publishing posts on the blogs that I have going for the different modules I am undertaking throughout this photography course.

The points that are on my personal development plan at the moment are all points that I feel I could benefit from and ones that I am thinking seriously about. I am already developing on the points by putting them into practise, having already achieved one of the points that are within my development plan by learning how to use a new piece of software.

I feel that I could still maybe add one or two more points onto my development plan, there is definitely one point that I am going to add that I feel I could benefit from but I am going to carry on thinking about the different things that I could benefit from at this moment in time on this course.

What are my development objectives? [what skills, knowledge or experience am I missing?]	What activities do I need to undertake to achieve my objectives?	What support/resources do I need to achieve my objectives? [what can the course offer?]	Target date for achieving my objectives	Actual date of achieving my  objectives
Developing skills on different software - Adobe Premiere	Learning how to use the software and the way it works. Experimenting with the different features it has and learning how to develop my own videos.	Basic training on how to use the software and then the time to experiment with its features.	1st November 2013	30th October 2013
Reading more books.	Read different books with different subject matters to gain more knowledge.	Access to books from the library, lots of books with different subject matters.	Ongoing (In progress)	(In progress)
Update photography portfolio.	Go through all of my photographs, get them printed to see what will work to showcase my work.	Good quality prints to go within a decent portfolio.	July 2014 (graduation)
Keeping up to date with blogging.	Regularly update my blogs keeping them up to date with  the work that I am doing.	Getting online more often and updating my blog' frequently adding the different things that I have learnt.	December 2013 (Also ongoing)	(In progress)

Development....

Over the past few days I have thought quite a bit about the different things that I want to get out of the time I have left on this course, and from looking over the points on my personal development plan that I have at the moment I have decided that there is one point that I don't really have much interest on developing on, that being the studio lighting skills. Yes it is something handy to know about but I think the only way  I can actually develop on them skills is to simply familiarize myself with different lighting set ups through research of my own and practice - however I generally dislike working in a studio so I don't really see it as a development point that could benefit me at this time on this course.

Reading more books....

Since starting back at university in September I have come to realise that I don't know as much about photographers as I should do considering my course is in its final year!

So something that I wanted to do was broaden my knowledge of photographers and photography itself and I felt that one way I could do this was by reading more and looking at different books. Seeing the different styles of photography and finding out about the different photographers that have taken these images and understanding their working style.

I have started to read different books and look at different photographers work, I have read On Photography by Susan Sontag, started to look at The Key Concepts in Photography by David Bate as well as Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes both of which I am still reading and working my way through.

I have the book Art Photography Now by Susan Bright which I have looked through to see different photographers work.

The Photo Book - From cover to cover filled with different photographers work. This is a great book for finding out about different photographers work and their style. I have had this book for a long time but never really seem to take any notice of it but it is now my go to book for finding new and inspiring photographers work as it is everything you need all in one place!


I still feel like I have a lot more to learn about different photographers and this is something that I am definitely going to work on and progress within the next few months so that I have a better understanding and better knowledge of lots of different photographers work by the time I finish this course next year.

Adobe Premiere

Now that I have finished putting together my video and I have had a little bit more time to use this software and more of a change to learn how to navigate it properly and use all it's little tools and such I feel a lot more confident using the software. If I were ever to need to put a video together in the future for certain projects I now feel a lot more confident in the fact that I know how to use this editing software where as I literally wouldn't have known where to start with it a few weeks ago.

I was a little daunted by the fact I had to use a software that I had never used before a few weeks ago, but once I got to grips with it everything was fine. I now know the main important things you need to know to use the software and put a video together. Things like opening a sequence (suitable to the type of video size you want), how to import videos and images into the sequence. Also with videos you can either use both the moving image and sound or just import the sound and vice versa with the moving image. I now know how to piece a video together using both moving image and stills, fading in and fading out, adding in different layers of sounds and adjusting the different volume levels to suit the situation with the image/ moving image.

Studio based skills - Lighting

The other day I spent a little bit of time in the studio experimenting with the lighting set up' with Shannon, Becky and Laura. None of us have ever really had that much experience with studio lighting so we wanted to set ourselves the challenge of experimenting with it and seeing what we could come out with. I must admit I am not a fan of working in the studio, therefore its not really something that I have focused much attention on throughout the past few years.

To start with we had a little bit of trouble with the light trigger which ate away at quite a bit of the time slot we had booked in the studio therefore we didn't get as much time as we would have like to experiment with the different types of lighting effects.

For some reason the equipment we had was also very temperamental, one minute it was working fine, the next it wasn't, this was something that we couldn't quite figure out and it was a little bit frustrating.

In this studio session we experimented a little bit with side lighting and here are some of the images that were taken:

During this studio session we only really experimented with one type of lighting, that being side lighting, we were looking at how the position of the light - being at the side of the subject would cause shadow on one side of the face as the light could only get to the side of the subject that was nearest to the source of light. The photos above are all taken using side lighting and were just an experiment using the studio lights.

Software - Adobe Premiere.

In my personal development plan I have stated that I would like to learn how to use new and different software to what I have been used to in the past few years. This was a good point to state as we have started to use Adobe Premiere for another brief that we have. I have never used this software before and it is something that is totally new to me, I can't really say that I have an interest, nor will i have an interest again to produce a time based piece using video - therefore im not sure that I will ever use this software again but it is good that I have this time to learn how to use it, getting advice from my tutors on how to navigate the software as well as simply learning my own way around it but messing around with it to see what different things can be done.

To start with we had a tutorial in which I was taught some of the basics of the software -

 

Things like how to open a new sequence where you create your video, a little bit about the video sizes and such, how to import image and video files into premiere to work with, how to select the video and audio files and adding them to the time piece, using the video or the sound only. The little markers that help you to define the areas of a video to select and a bit about the different audio and video effects that are available on the programme itself. 

Having been shown in the simplest way possible how to use the software i must admit that I was still pretty mind boggled and confused with the software. However as I have been messing around with the software over the past few days i have gained a better understanding of how to use it, obviously i'm not extremely confident with using the software cause there is still things that i don't know but i could manage to piece a video together now and know what i was doing whereas a few weeks ago i would not of had one clue where to start.

Mini assignment.

We were set a mini assignment to produce stock type photographs to go along with the points that I have stated I wanted to develop on within my personal development plan. I did a very quick presentation stating the different points to my peers and along with my images.


Developing skills on different software - such as Adobe Premiere;

Develop studio lighting skills;

Reading more / more knowledge about photographers;

 

This was a quick and easy mini assignment that I quite enjoyed, at first I wondered what types of photographs I could take that would look like stock images but to be honest stock images are pretty much anything so I just went with what I felt looked and worked best. 

PDP

I have started to fill out my personal development plan outlining the different areas that I want to further my experience in, at the moment there are three different point within my PDP, they are pretty simple and easily completed objectives (shown below). I am going to post the different staged of how i completed these objectives on this blog as and when I complete them.

What are my development objectives? [what skills, knowledge or experience am I missing?]	What activities do I need to undertake to achieve my objectives?	What support/resources do I need to achieve my objectives? [what can the course offer?]	Target date for achieving my objectives	Actual date of achieving my  objectives
Developing skills on different software.	Learning how to use the software and the way it works. Experimenting with the different features it has and learning how to develop my own videos.	Basic training on how to use the software and then the time to experiment with its features.
Developing studio based skills -  lighting / studio set up.	Learning about the different types of lighting and what they can be used for, spending time experimenting with the lighting in the studio.	Information on how to set up the studio, the different types of lighting and their uses, how to get the best out of the studio resources.
Reading more books.	Read different books with different subject matters to gain more knowledge.	Access to books from the library, lots of books with different subject matters.