Photographing For a Restaurant: Interior

As well as taking some pictures of the food for their website and for the Instagram page. I was also asked to take some pictures of the interior for the restaurants website. This was another first for me and depending on the time of day the lighting can be quite awkward. Thankfully I was able to take some pictures during a quite period on a Saturday afternoon and once again I was extremely pleased with how they turned out. 

Photographing For a Resturant: Food Photography

Whilst on my placement year, my boss knows I am a photographer, so asked me to take some pictures of the food from the new menu. This was my first time capturing photographs of food. It was something I really enjoyed. We all went in for a staff meeting to familiarize ourselves with some of the food and try some as well. The number of people who ask what each dish tastes like and expects us to know is shocking!

Before we began trying the food I would take each disk over to the window with the best light to take some pictures. Pretty much all of my work at the university is taken in the studio, however, when I saw the results of these images I discovered a new found love for natural lighting. And realised it is something I want to experiment more with.

My boss loved the images and some of them went up on their website. 

A New Year Means New Adventures

“Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.” 

― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

It's a new year, one that is looking to be exciting and full of new experiences and adventures, I've already been on one to Berlin, you can read about it over on my photography blog. I thought I'd catch you up on everything since the new year began. 

Firstly, let us talk about blogmas. The last term was a busy one, yet somehow whilst I was at university I managed to keep up with blogmas but the second I returned home it all fell to pieces. I think it was because at University I had created a routine whereas when I went home that routine fell apart especially since I always posted at night but when I was home I worked in the evenings so it became difficult. However, on December 30th, I decided to add the finishing touches to all the posts I had drafted so far (photos) and post them within an hour of each other so they wouldn't go to waste. And that's the last time I had posted until today. Time just seemed to get the better of me and I've been posting over on my photography blog you can give it a read here.  

I'm also coming to terms with the fact that in 3 short months I would have handed in all of my work and will only have the graduate show (exhibition) to go. Dr Rowan Bailey who teaches postgraduate study came in to discuss the master's courses they offer on Friday morning. I've thought about doing a masters but I'm unsure whether I would want it to be in photography. The University of Huddersfield offers two masters in Digital Media one is a taught MA and the other is an MA by research and each lasts for 12 months.  After hearing about both of them, I've decided that if I were to do an MA it would more than likely be a taught one. One thing the talk did do increase my interests in actually pursuing an MA so I've been doing some research over the weekend, marketing is currently looking like a strong contender. 

Whilst it is a little daunting as to how much time I have left before I've finished, I am so excited about  God's plan for the future. And I'm also really excited about my major project, I am currently looking at the expression of gestures through the use of dance and music which involves collaborating with music and dance students something I've never done before but I do love dance photography so I'm excited to give it a try. 

During blogmas I mentioned, that I wanted to take gym classes and that I had attended a Body Vive class but with it being the end of the year I didn't get the opportunity to attend many before I went home for Christmas. I can certainly say that so far this year I have tried to attend at least two Body Vive classes a week. One of them is on a Saturday morning! If you were to say to me this time last year that I would be getting out of my bed fairly earlyish for me on Saturday morning to go to a fitness class I would have laughed. Honestly! Don't get me wrong it's tiring and my legs were aching so much last Saturday when I came home, but it's enjoyable and you feel so much better about yourself afterwards. 

Collaborating with a Textiles student

Yesterday morning I was in the studio photographing for a textiles student. She wanted images of a guy in a suit in order to add her textiles fabric onto using photoshop, as it would take too long to create an idea outfit from scratch.  The shoot was a bright and colorful one and whilst the model wasn't a professional one, he was still really good and willing to do whatever, she had him striking a variety of poses from being really serious to dancing around.  Using confetti in the studio was also something different and worked really well. However, tidying it up was a nightmare!

Overall it was a fun shoot the model kept us both entertained and whilst I don't often shoot with coloured backgrounds I found it really enjoyable and look forward to doing it again the future.

Joel Meyerowitz - Why Color? | Exhibition

Whilst in Berlin I went to see Joel Meyerowitz's exhibition titled 'Why Color', this exhibition presented a variety of Meyerowitz' work that could have easily been created by a different artist. I found it interesting observing how each project by Meyerowitz was exhibited and the impact combining different print sizes had on the work. Some of his black and white images reminded me of the cinema along with a few of his colour images. It was really interesting how he took an image in colour and then one in black and white, both images are then exhibited together with the black and white image above the colour one. (as shown below) Due to the image being in black in white it gives you the impression that the photograph was taken years ago when in fact they were taken around the same time.

The image above of four of the same pictures created by Meyerowitz just printed in different coloured tones has given me the idea of doing something similar with my polaroid camera as I received several filters to go over the lens for Christmas. 

The presentation of Meyerowitz's Aftermath of the 9/11 was extremely powerful, exhibiting the work along one large wall, with a picture of the twin towers in the middle grasps the viewers attention from the second they step into the room and allows the viewer to get a true sense of how much damage the 9/11 caused and gives generations to come the chance to truly understand what happened.