Printing

Today I am mostly ... printing.

I am making up some products ready to take to a meeting next week where I am hoping I can start to sell them in quanities.

The printer is whirling away and I am limbering up my scalpelling hand. Any excuse to do creative things I say.

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Latest Canvas

Picked up my latest canvas the other day from Jessops. I am really liking it - a blue print, a blue print for life. An image created without using a camera:

It is already on the back of my new buisiness cards - think I have a thing about blue!

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Instagram

I am sure I am the very last person in the world to discover and use Instagram but I thought I would say things about it. You can follow me and see what I'm up to on there - my account is PhotoJoanne.

After downloading the application I created these delightful images.

Had a play with the tilt/shift part of the application - I can see me using that regularly

Tried something pretty

My host had all sorts of Mexican items - they worked really well

Think this filter is called Kelvin - I like this, I like the messiness

I cannot work out what is going on here - baffling

A pun on returning home :-)

Well I really like the choice of filter/finish on Instagram. I like that you have to think in a square - which I was getting used to when using the Medium Format camera. These images will be no good for anything above the thumbnails you see here - but they are great fun and a good aid to creativity.

I'm liking the Instagram.

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Road Trip

Found my way to Manchester no problem. Discovered a neat thing on the iPhone which was really useful in helping me find my way to my destination. Had a great day before I left - developing relationship with new client; making plans for future; getting some great leads; dealing with customer queries; taking advice of my mentor and putting it into action; and getting to grips with new phone - I'm going to need lessons on a couple of things soon!

All good - now all I need to know is where I'm working tomorrow and I'll be fine, if I hear nothing then I'm off to Manchester's art galleries for the day.

I made it to Media City

I made it to Meida City OK and waited for the call to tell me where I needed to be - unfortunantely this call never came. So I spent my time teaching myself how to use my new iPhone. I was also intreguied by Instagram and so had a play with that.

Instagram turned this ...

...into this

Such fun I am going to have with this.

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Home Studio

This afternoon I have been playing with the ingredients that Lindz left me on Thursday. These are the ingredients she uses to create her mulled wines. The whole house smells of cloves, star anise, cinnamon and nutmeg. Delightful.

I tried many different set ups to capture all of the ingredients in a variety of poses. This is the final tableau I set up showing them all together. As you can see I have been using my new lighting kit, my new soft box for my flash and my new tripod - all in the home studio - commonly known as the dining room/gallery.

Made-with-love-by-Lindz ingredients get the star treatment 

The images will, ultimately, be used by Lindz to create her website in preparation for capturing the Christmas market. I love being in at the beginning of a new business - so much fun, excitement and hard work.

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Burton Town Hall Exhibition

My degree show exhibition opening night was last night and thought I would quickly share with you some of the evening.

My images went up after being carefully delivered by a team of helpful, strong friends.

The floating frame look tremendous and they are jolly heavy

The large A1 image in the middle is jolly heavy and as you can see it has 4 mirror plates holding it to the boards (and one at the bottom for extra stability). They look wonderful and my thanks go to Hayman Graphics for producing such excellent products for me once again.

My images, my products and my banner - but not my disabled loo

Decided that, along with my images for the opening night, I should also show off the products I have created that compliment this project - postcards, notelet packs and greetings cards. To get across that I am serious about my photography business I displayed my banner highlighting my services and some of my work.

I also need to share the excellent work produced by my fellow graduates:

Awesome piece of work produced by Stephanie Gilbert about St George's Park. It is 3m wide

Steph Butt's instagram project about train journey's

Kerry Baxter's beautiful portraits of the excellent staff at Burton NHS

Graham Silcock's subtle Eden Project work

Kelly Freeman's very amusing study looking at the past and the present gets the finishing touches

It has been a pleasure and a privilege to work with these people and I hope that we remain in touch. To this end we have organised to exhibit at the Melbourne Arts Trail 15th and 16th September and last night we were offered space at Sharpe's Pottery in 2013. I will keep you all informed and invites will be winging your way.

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My Photograph in the Times

... the Ashby Times.

This does not detract from the immense pleasure it gives me to see my images in print. And on top of that to receive a credit for the image.

Ashby Times - 15th June 2012

For once my love of using the AV setting whilst using flash worked out for the best possible shot. It meant that the people who were sitting still (mostly) were captured good and sharp; and the flags, which I asked to be waved vigorously, were blurry - capturing perfectly the movement, excitement and jubilation.

(sorry)

It also taught me that when I have seen the shot in my head I should not be afraid to ask people to stand where I want and do what I ask of them. As a rule they are generally obliging. This was a great start to Sue's year as Mayor and I hope this image takes pride of place in her Mayoral scrapbook.

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New Look Website

It's all coming together just as I promised myself. But it has been hard work.

I decided that by the time my graduation degree show was going up (Show starts tomorrow) that I would have my new logo designed and incorporated into everything. The final part of this massive jigsaw is my website and today it was finally all-together and looking gorgeous.

I love that I can now showcase my time-lapse movies when I create them. I do need to learn my way around the CMS to upload them myself - but for now there are 5 on there. Please go and have a look.

How cool is this?
New logo, RSS twitter feed, Time-lapse page. 

Thanks go to Jat and the team at 3bit.

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Calke Abbey

Ladies from London came up to see us this weekend - we took them to Calke. Always a pleasant day out is Calke Abbey and good to see nothing has changed. Actually something has changed and that is that you can now take photographs inside the house. Wow. Thankfully I had taken my Fuji point-and-shoot camera with me so I decided to have some fun.

Some of the many poor creatures stuffed and mounted at Calke

Another in my series of interesting staircases

The exit from Calke is via the Beer Tunnel
This reminds me of a Joy Division album cover

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Exhibition Preparations

Images have gone to Burton in the back of Steph's car; banner in its bag ready to go; cards, notelets, postcards and business cards all being arranged on a table with a sparkly cloth. I think I'm almost ready.

Table ready for exhibition - things to sell and business cards for people interested in my work

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Wingscapes TL Cam 8.0

My new time-lapse camera arrived today. I am testing this piece of kit out so I can extend my offer for capturing time-lapse movies. I have been considering for a while how to capture some over a much longer period - like days or weeks. This little beauty should be able to do it and cope with being left outside. Fingers crossed. Will be putting it through it's paces over the weekend and will give my verdict after that.

Learning about the menus and sub-menus.

My intital reaction is - IT WORKS - phew! However there are improvements that need to be made to the final images. More buttons to explore. I will continue experimenting.

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Meetings and Sales

Well what a great start to my busy couple of weeks of meetings. Attended my first WIBN Leicester North meeting yesterday. What a great bunch of people; inspiring, talented, enthusiastic, diverse and interesting businesses. I have organised a number of 121 meetings and hope to find out some more about their business and see if we cant work together.

Also have a lot of interest in my Gift Cards as an ideal present for Father's Day and sold a couple. Think I might need to sit down with a couple of printers and get some quotes together for printing greetings cards and notelet packs there is so much interest in them.

Greeeting Cards

Gift Card - Camera appreciation and tuition

Last night I attended the WiRE network meeting where we met at Forever Forged, at Claymill Pumping Station and watched Hayley create delicate and beautiful pieces with metal, fire and a hammer. She is a passionate and gifted woman. It is so great to see this wonderful trade continued and updated. I will be placing many orders for xmas presents.

Again I sold quite a few cards and had quite a bit of interest shown in people wanting more and ideas for outlets for them. Must get onto those printers.

Today is a busy day, delivering work, collecting stock for a piece I am working on, rendering a time-lapse movie (will share at some point), approving the final amends to my website updates, processing event images taken on Monday, sending out invites to my exhibition next week and going out on a date.

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Publicity and Products

I am attending many meetings in the next few weeks so I thought I would spend the day preparing products for sale and creating some new publicity.

Finally got to use my special hole punch to create these - such fun

I wanted to create a leaflet that looked like a strip of film. I had a lot of fun creating these and getting everything just where I needed it. I am rather proud of them - they will stand out on a table of leaflets - which is their task.

Making sure I have at least one of each of my notelet packs - some missing 

I have been selling quite a few of my notelet packs recently so I though it was time for a stock check and see which ones had run out. Seems I need to create 5 more packs just so that I have one of each - they have been selling well. I also decided to created a couple of new packs in the Small World series: one called 'Sunset' and the other 'Planes and Gulls'. Let's see how these sell over the next few weeks.

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The moment I made a child cry

Had great fun yesterday capturing another class of 4 year olds for their year end class photograph celebrating the Jubilee. I am not quite accomplished at dealing with children - I tend to treat them as little adults and forget that innocuous things can upset them.

To get them all paying attention to me I gave them some instructions on what I wanted them to do. I asked them to look at the camera. Saying look into the lens would be meaningless so I said "look into the circle - the dark circle. Or look at my hair bobble - which resembles a spider" - whoops.

Whoops - note to self: do not mention spiders in front of children

Poor sweetheart started crying. I knew instantly I should not have said spider and saying look into the deep dark circle might have been a little scary too. Never mind I soon had her smiling again and got the final shot I was after.

The final image ready for printing

Prints are being created and I will deliver early next week. Apart from the little crying hiccup I did rather enjoy capturing these class photographs.

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Anxiety Levels

Exhibition goes up in Burton Town Hall on 18th June - I have asked for prices on the options I want to investigate for framing my 3 pieces. With a deadline of 15th June I thought asking for prices on 31st May would be a timely thing to do.

It seems that because I am asking for so many different options I have over faced the guys and am still waiting for a quote. I would like floating frames but if I cant afford that I need to see how much the other options are.

After ringing for the second time I am assured that I will get my work by the 15th but that they haven't had time to sort out a quote for me yet!

eeeeeeeeeeeek

I like things to be done and things to be in the bag - this is a great company and I totally trust them - but it does nothing to allay the anxiety that will fester until I receive the quote and send off the images to them.

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Time-Lapse Madness

Well I did it. Two cameras set up to capture the happiness and joy, fun and frivolity of the Jubilee Street Party in Market Street, Ashby.

One camera was safely locked away in an office, clicking and capturing a narrow view of about 9 tables from a first floor window; the second at street level near the pelican crossing at the Town Hall Market. The other cameras were used for various stills and mini time-lapses. I had enjoyed capturing one with the Fuji point and shoot, so I mounted it onto my new tiny tripod and got some candid shoots of peoples feet, rubbish, balloons and children having fun.

My favourite image of the day

It's hard work being a photographer!

There were occasional drizzling moments so I sent my sister off to get me a plastic bag. As long as the parts of the camera containing all the electronics were covered I didn't mind. The lens was well protected and it didn't matter if a few spots got onto the glass.

It was a lovely day. We were all putting on and taking off our coats as the sun came and went. There was a brass band, a choir, a horse and a fun fair.

Home to undertake a mammoth downloading session - approx 2800 images. The time-lapse was set to capture one image every 15 seconds and I stayed for 5 hours. Phew!

The office window view

Market Street before everyone arrived

The street level set up

The next 5 days will see me creating a movie out of these images and when I'm happy with it I'll post something here to show you.

Thanks go to Ashby Town Council who gave me permission to do this and found ways for it to work for me - Karen Edwards. Thanks to the new town mayor Geriant Jones - for his generous offers of hospitality. Thanks to Prescient Power (Karl) who let me set up a camera in his offices in amongst the Ashby Art Festival.

And of course the day would have been a lot more difficult without the help and entertainment provided by my two assistants: Marie Mayes and Bruce Crawford.

My sister trying her best to create a red, white and blue tongue!

My plan for this work is to hand it over to Ashby Town Council for their use and to the Ashby Museum. My take on a tiny piece of a lovely day.

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Day off?

I found I had a couple of days with no appointments so instead of settling down to do some admin I decided to give myself a couple of days R&R.

What to do, what to do.

I phoned a friend and invited myself round. I packed up Justin. Many of you will have met Justin - Justin Case!

Couldn't resist popping my Fuji point and shoot into my case. Living in an apartment overlooking the canal offers photographic opportunities, even on a grey overcast day. Decided to capture a mini time-lapse (inspired by Amos Poe) of the activity in the Wharf.

Sherborne Wharf with sunken narrow boat

Time-lapse with a point and shoot is a painful operation. Holding and operating the camera involves sitting perfectly still in the same position. This is why it is a mini time-lapse. Pins and needles stopped the shoot!

I will process this later today and post a link. I need a small time-lapse project to undertake to get my eye back in as I need to create three or four big movies ready for the exhibition showreel.

A year ago I had a black eye received from my iPad falling onto my face! My two days R&R has also resulted in bruises but this time for all the right reasons.

Right I need to go and do some admin!

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