May The Forth Be With You!

Today I finished off writing up my sketch books, I also researched unique portraits from my ViewBug project which the deadline is for next week. 

So here are some inspiration images I have been looking at. I really like how I have total freedom with this, I have a maximum of two entries.  Some of these are pretty mental, like the top image on the right with the spaghetti and meat just randomly on models faces..... its a creative? yep... a little weird. Totally entertaining though. I really like the powder paint and the paint on peoples faces. I have been thinking about the possibility of putting in some things to do with consumerism, not too sure how that's going to work out, but I will be experimenting with it anyways. 

I have also been looking at some of the art supplies I have. I have a lot of ink, so I might also incorporate that into this portrait challenge.

I have also been looking for music to go with my video for my main project and been planning out what I want to do. I have things a little bit more sorted, however I'm not going to lie. I have been more thinking and planning one what to do with all my projects today. I am in that panic mode when I think of all the things I have to do, and end up sort of doing nothing..... eeeeek 

I am hoping to have more to show in the next following days.

Today has been a pretty productive day, I managed to get a lot done despite being pretty ill today. I have finally started to design banners and layouts for my main project. 

The poorly photographed image on the left was my original concept idea. I then finally put this into illustrator and created the image on the right. This has even developed  further, as I realized the pound sterling sign, the euro and the dollar sign didn't really go together. Especially as my project is aimed at universities within the UK. So I went back in and made them all sterling pound signs, I then began to play about a little with the design as, I felt everything was sort of floating in space. So I added shadows, banners and back ground colours to see how this would look 

Here are my mini experiments above, I do really like them a lot, although I have definitely decided against the green background. I was thinking a long the lines of the little piggy bank being free and running around. It doesn't look like that at all in my mind. I then began to look at the white and blue banners. I wasn't even too sure why I had three pound coins on display, so I went back in again and changed the display a little.

So as you can see my piggy bank is trying to be a horse, ready to charge into battle. Well that's what I get from it's pose, which I really like to be honest. So as you can see I have made it look as though the coins are going into the piggy bank, or flying out of it, whichever way people see it. I'm pretty happy with it, although I do realize how cartoon like it does look. I'm worried it may look even too childish. So I started to finally get started on making a website. I used Weebly as my website generator. I have to admit, when trying to make a website for a specific thing, weebly sucks. I was on here for about 3 hours playing around with themes, trying to get things to work, change menus, messing around with the HTML codes (which I know very little about). I have to admit, for the amount of work I was trying to accomplish today with the website, it really didn't happen. So now I am currently struggling with the idea of wither, just creating what I want the website to look like on paper rather than actually make the website, or go to a different website developer and try again. I am going to have a break from it for now, here is the home page however:

Currently it's very bland looking, there is a lot of restrictions within the themes which makes it difficult if you don't know HTML code. I have been trying, and I don't easy give up on things. I think I just need to shower my brain over it and think what else I can do. I also added my little protest character, he was a lot bigger but again on weebly, I found that once I got it to a way I liked it. As soon as I saved it, He was twice as big and took up all the space of the text. 
Here is all my sketch books where I also seem to brain dump all of my thoughts and feeling over my project:

So these are just the pages I have done in my sketch books today. Tomorrow, as I said I am going to be just concentrating on my Cards project to try and get the entire suit finished tomorrow, and possibly even start another suit, I would love to say Ill have the whole set done by tomorrow, but there are a lot of design issues that do come up, like I've seen today with the website, so we will see how that goes. 

I am also hoping to get some of my ViewBug projects started on Thursday, mainly if the weather is nice so I can get some underwater photography.... in fact even just to have the water to be calm, that might help me out more. 

That's all from me today.

So I have just being doing research and writing up my books today really. Today was a bank holiday in Scotland, so with uni being closed I have been working from home. I have been asking a whole bunch of different people which of my logo's they prefer. I have previously put up the different colours of my logo, a lot of people have more than one colour that they liked my logo in. I have finally managed to make it into a GIF. It looks soooo pretty. 

However, I have a feeling that the above image is not actually animated to show the different array of colours. (I'm currently viewing it as black) I have been having this problem with weebly for a while. I thought I had been just doing something silly, there is no reason for it not to work.... yet here I am, I have to admit it is really starting to bother me. I even tried to make it my banner to see if it just turned out I couldn't have it as a logo, and nothing. So yea, its annoying me, I keep getting on with other projects and working away. Although it is still in the back of my mind so every so often I suddenly find myself searching how to fix it on Google, looking through all of the Weebly help pages, trying to even re-save the logo in a different way...... notta.

So, I am now trying to discover or even just think is there a different way I could show this on my website, I am even planning to get business cards printed soon with all the different colours, so people who pick up my business card can get a colour they prefer. 

Ok, so besides my logo being a problem the rest of my projects are getting on pretty well, I have just had to kick everything up a gear. Especially with my main project and trying to get my side projects all up to the same sort of standard.  

Within my main project I am started to really gather all of the information I have and get it organized, I am actually planning on designing some info graphics once I post this blog and even a logo if this is to become a website. 

My ViewBug stuff has sort of been on a hold while I really get back to writing up all of my projects. Although I have already noted down some challenges I would really like to do before the deadlines, One of them involves getting to play with my face, with makeup and what not. So that's going to be pretty fun, I also have seen a few opportunities to again brush up on my underwater photography skills, so hopefully more things to show in the upcoming weeks.  

Card project, I am planning to take Wednesday out and just have that one day to design the Diamond cupcake suit, and who knows maybe even start getting on with the clubbs or spades suits. I am hoping to have all of the designs done by the end of the week, So i can get started on my Monster suit. I'm not too sure If I have mentioned it or not, I am planning to do this cupcake suit, then toying with the idea of merging cupcakes and monsters together. Not too sure if it'll even work but hopefully I'll have cute little twisted cupcakes. 

And of course, I have already ranted about my logo project. So, yea, that's all from me today, hopefully have more visual things to show you guys tomorrow.

So today I have been mainly focusing on my ViewBug projects . I have been looking back at my most recent underwater images:

So, these are just a few of the images I took. I have to  admit the paddling pool was a little disappointing. I  didn't really have anymore space that I had before when doing the last underwater images in the kitchen sink.  I really need something deeper,  I am going to start aiming  for doing underwater photoshoots in the summer. I think  this is more in reach of the kind of ideas I want to do. I also think it'll be more fun. Here is the final image I have chosen for the underwater portrait challenge. 

I really like ho trippy this image is, and how surreal it is. I also really like how the colours are almost dream like. I also really like how my hair has almost made a slight heart shape under the water.  

I have also finished another challenge, although my final for it was very unusual for me. It was a bit of an experiment.  I think I had mentioned it before, when I went out to photograph the stars. I got the idea from my "assistant" as he was making shadows  in the torch light on the forest. So as I hadn't really made it out to photograph this for the past few nights, I improvised. 

So here are a few of my hand shadowy shapes. I then drew out a wood scenery, but I felt it all looked a bit too illustrationy, rather than more of an illustration and photography mix. So I got an old photo I previously took at a forest a few months ago and photoshopped my animal shadow shapes into it. I then decided to make the whole image Black and white, so the shadows would fit in a little more. Below is my final image for the ViewBug challenge, playing with light: 

Thats all from me today, tomorrow, I will  hopefully get talking to a tutor about my main project and see where it is going.

Long time now speak, I have been travelling and setting back into my flat. So i did what I said and went and took some night time photography. I  did have a few technical difficulties, as I had borrowed some of the equipment  from friends. Anyways, here is my incredibly blurry star images taken on Friday night

First image was my most successful image taken, unfortunately it  is of course, blurry. My camera also started to act up and not showing images once they were taken. As well as just shutting it's self off. I plan to however go out sometime next week to take some more images, however. This will mean I will miss the deadline for this particular  challenge. Which sucks, but to be honest, I'd rather miss this challenge, practice a bit more and be prepared for the next challenge. I do however have a choice, of uploading a past image.

This is the closest image I currently have  of stars, just the moon is very much dominating the image.  I still really like this image, it is however still not right to upload for this challenge.  I also have a really good Idea for the other ViewBug challenge , which is playing with light. When out in a forest of the outskirts of Belfast, where I took the top two images. I had my assistant holding a torch for me so I could set up. He however had other Ideas. He started to play with the torch as all of us have done as children. Making animal shadows with our hands. It was pretty creepy. Being in a forest late at night, alone and creating shadows on the forest. I really wished I had gotten a photo of it, It was creepy, but really amazing looking. So again hopefully when I go and take more starry night images, this time with fellow photographer. I will be able to do this, again though I really hope this will be possible due to the deadlines. 

Also going back to my underwater photography, I have been thinking about doing more of it, perhaps for my main project. I was looking up paddling pools and was surprised that they can be as cheap as £4. So I may get one and practice, only problem  is filling the small paddling pool up and also being able to empty it....... In student accommodation.  WHOOP!

I am unsure when I will be doing this, but I have been thinking and taking a lot more time with my main project, I previously mentioned  that I was looking up some student help guides. I wasn't very surprised to find that there are many.  This has disheartened me a good bit. As I feel my project will get lost in a sea of student self hep books. Even with some of the topics the books had within their blurbs. They had topics I had never even thought of. Such as sex, drugs, freshers week,  and exams.  I personally have no interest in touching on these subjects. I would prefer to talk on topics such as: Money, mental health, social life,  and  "life hacks". This is still all possible, but do I now aim this towards people who just go to my university or do I continue to aim with the idea in mind, of any university. I have started to think about what sort of questions I can ask people, however I have so far not written them down as of yet. I  plan to do a bit more research, and go to my student union to get some leaflets to see what they offer. Hopefully I will get more ideas on how to move forward with this project.  

I have also thought about my deck of cards project, I had originally said I would design a new set every week. So I am starting this tonight, continuing on from what I have currently done, however I feel that these may not be completely, completed. To make it easier for myself I think, I shall just have sketches, this will also help me balance my time between my side projects and my main projects. I am beginning to feel I am procrastinating too much within my other projects. I will choose which suit style is the strongest  to go forward with. I also have to still design the back of the deck of cards. This I am hoping to keep neutral so whichever design I use, the backing will suit all. That's all from me today, a little bit of an information overload.

So today I decided to try and take portrait underwater photography. As I don't currently have a bath, I used the next best thing..... the kitchen sink. We have an old Belfast sink, so I thought this will be deep enough! and be all very wonderful and magical. I started looking up some underwater portrait photography  mainly just of people's faces, and even close up.

................ Of course they make it alllll look so easy! I had this to work with:

I absolute cleaned and scrubbed this sink within an inch of it's life....... it just wasn't  getting any prettier.

Filled the sink up with lukewarm water.... or a few degrees below lukewarm was what it felt like. This image to the left was me testing the camera out,  looking slightly worried as at the last second I wasn't sure if I had put the waterproof camera locks on. And a bit of algae floated to the surface from my camera..... so there goes the theory of thinking I had rinsed and cleaned it properly. In the  beginning of actually putting my face and head into the sink, I did start to panic and thought I don't like this, I then quickly felt that the sink, really wasn't as deep as I had initially thought. So I eventually just went for it, same feeling of jumping off a diving board into a swimming pool. But just your head, and in the safety of your own home.... I got a few random results some that I prefer more to others.

Also have to admit once I finally put my face under the water and started to take photos, I was  too afraid to open my eyes and it was a lot of effort to actually keep my face semi relaxed.  There were only two images from today experiment that I really liked. I also think that one of them will end up being my final for the ViewBug challenge underwater portraits. 

Although I researched images of underwater photography, I was weirdly surprised at how the image mirrored it's self on the water.  Rather pleased with these. Tomorrow night I am hopefully going out to do some star photo's. I think I will actually cry if it's cloudy or raining. But I am going to try my best. That's all from me for today.

So today was horrendous, the weather was one word. shite. I really didn't think I was going to manage to get photos. So I opted for a slightly different option. I took photos within my parents small pond in their back garden. There is already frogs spawn in the pond, so i hoped to photograph some frogs too. 

As you can see the water was really murky and rather creepy looking. I also experimented a little bit  with the flash on. It didn't really do much and I ended up preferring the images without the flash. I then decided to run the garden hose into the pond, in hope that it may make the water clearer to see through and even just healthier for the frogs.  My parents also own two dogs, so the garden was filled with "land mines" So taking photos of the pond was a little bit like an obstacle course.

This really worked! YAY!, I also saw I frog, however it was too quick for me to photograph, it's head bobbing above the water looking at me.....  made me jump to be honest.  Also  algae  got absolutely everywhere, so many images taken where the algae  had stuck to my camera lens.  As  you can see the image of my boots has algae firmly stuck to the lens.  I plan to take more images of the pond tomorrow, as I have spent the rest of today cleaning dead leaves, little toy boats  and even pipes that have fallen in to the pond over the years. Really got my work cut out for me I think. 

I have also been thinking about my main project, however, because I am home this week I haven't  been able to do the research I want. As I would like to see what is available at my university for students and then start to really develop an angle to what I will start to create, also not going to lie, the project has started to bore me a bit. So I really feel I need to find a way to make it more interesting to me

I also got an email today about the Belfast Photo Festival. They want a range of images from  the same body of work. The deadline is the 17th of March, which is just short of next week. I am also hoping tomorrow to go through all of my images and possibly even re-edit old photos. I am currently thinking of uploading the paint images I took roughly five years ago. I am still not too happy with how I have edited them since. So I am hoping to go back and re-visit them. If I had of known about the festival a little earlier I would have started a new body of work for it. As I have recently gotten a new shipment in of powder paints. So I am starting to plan what I want to do with them. 

This is my main image from the paint photoshoot. "Model Envy" there are other images from this series. 

"The theme has been left open to remove any restrictions; submissions must be photographic or lens-based but can include incorporations of other art forms with the photographic medium (i.e. performance, painting, sculpture, music, literature etc).
Individuals and collectives are welcome to apply; individuals should select and enter between two and six photographs from a particular series or body of work AND/OR submit their Photo-book for exhibition by uploading a single PDF (no image limit).

(Note: You can submit both a photo-book and photographs of the same project, but a fee will need to be paid for both. If submitting only a Photo-book and not photographs, it will be your photo-book that will be selected for presentation and not photographic prints for exhibition)

Collectives are also welcome to apply; as a collective, you can submit up to 10 photographs (a £15 submission fee will apply for every 10 images submitted)"




This is just a little  snippet from the rules and requirements of the festival.  I have to admit I am not happy about having to pay the fee of £15, again I would have loved to have photographed something specially for this festival. Although there is always next year. Just excited that this is festival is coming from home.
That's all from me today, here's hoping I will have something more interesting show tomorrow.

So, I have been doing a fair wee bit the past 4 days. I have now returned back to Uni for my final semester, then back home to face the big scary world. At the moment I have been mainly trying to catch up on uni work, which I have definitely been lacking in over the Christmas period. As well as getting settled back into my flat.

So, for the house of illustration book competition. I have been working my ass off. I now have three of the four pieces that I am to submit started, one of them is done. I am quiet proud of it if I'm honest. However, the second piece I have been working on. I have kept running into difficulties. With the image looking a bit too cartoon like, more than I would like. I have just started on the third image, in hope that time away from the second piece I will be able to go back with a clearer mind and fix it.

These are little snips from each of the three images. The first image on the left is the image I am having the most problems with. The middle image is, in my eyes finished. The third Image I have literally just started. These three images are also in order of the stories. The Treasure Of Abbot Thomas, The Upper Berth, and finally A Tale Of An Empty House.

I have also been looking around the ViewBug website and have noticed a "Challenge" tab. The challenge tab is more what I have been looking for within ViewBug. It is very much as literal as it sounds. Other photographers, giving challenges. I have decided to do the challenges than the competitions. As I feel this will improve my photography skills and I feel I will learn  a lot faster. 

I am also meeting up with my tutor tomorrow, pretty certain I will be getting my ass handed to me. My first two weeks or so with being back at uni I know will be hectic. But I believe that I will be if not fully up to date I will at least be a hell of a lot more organized. Will let you know how tomorrow goes.... eek!