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.