And so it's come to an end...

Well after two long years it's finally over, no more assignments, or blogs to be written (not that I'm a prolific blogger).  

To finalise our second year we had to produce an FMP (Final Major Project), yes another anachronym and put on an end of year Exhibition.

We had originally had to come up with 3 ideas from which we would eventually produce our FMP.  

My main objective for this year has been to get people to think about how they see and judge people, especially people with disabilities.  

I have been working with young people with disabilities since last summer when I photographed Fox Hollies' Summer Arts Scheme.  It is a scheme where young people with and without disabilities from the local area get together for a week to put on a theatrical production.  They have a choice of activities to choose from, working behind the scenes on artwork, scenery, ICT, music, dance or acting.  It's a week where I got to see them all working together to produce an end of week production that was shown to family and friends.  

With my contacts at Fox Hollies, it wasn't long before I was in touch with them when I needed to do a research project for my HND.  My project was to look at the Freefall Dance Company who are affiliated with Birmingham Royal Ballet, and Fox Hollies School.  I wanted to show the young people from the start of rehearsal, to the end of week dance production which would be shown in an evening performance at the Birmingham Hippodrome, and then again to local special schools.  It was a great experience from which I have learned a lot about photographing in a theatre, and photographing movement.  

From working with these talented young people it spurred me on to look at disabilities through history, and this was the focus of my critical study essay.  I won't bore you with the details as it was quite wordy, but I looked at many photographers, some who photograph disabilities, photographers with disabilities, and also the people with disabilities.  

To think that this was all spurred on by an exhibition by Bryan Adams (yes the musician), at Somerset House in 2014, that I happened to missed.  He had an exhibition of injured war veterans.

I also have a very personal insight into disabilities, as my own son, Aaron was born with Down's Syndrome.  

I had all intentions of using different models for my project but it proved difficult to take the young students out of college to attend the college studio, so I had to rely on Aaron, my muse, to be my model.

My plans to produce a Hockneyesque style joiner using a Polaroid camera with Impossible Film did not come to fruition due to expense, although I did use my Polaroid S2300 Instant to produce two mini collages.  I also experimented with my Fuji Instax Mini 70, Neo, and Wide, all trying to get different effects.  These are really fun cameras to use, and I think that I will have to practice more to find out why I didn't achieve the images I wanted to.  (Close up images were blown out due to the flash, which for some reason I couldn't turn off.)  The Neo produced some fascinating double exposure mini films.  Finally, the Instax Wide which is the closest to Polaroid Impossible Film in size.  (I have since found that the close-up attachment for my camera was missing, and therefore I have now managed to purchase one for future use - maybe this would have been the little bit of kit that would have produced the images I wanted, I won't know until I try using it again in the near future.)

In the end, it was my faithful Nikon that came to my rescue.  I spent the morning in the studio with Aaron taking close-ups from different angles, different sizes etc, all in the hope that I would be able to produce a collage.  

From there, it was a matter of getting the right images that would build up to produce the collage.  Lightroom batch edited all the images so that they would all have the same tonal value, but all in all I didn't want to Photoshop Aaron, as I wanted the image that I produced to be Aaron in the raw.  I did use Photoshop to mock-up a collage to give me an idea of the final result.

This is my artist statement from the HND Exhibition at Centrala Art Loft, together with the mock-up of my collage.

I had been looking at ideas for displaying my FMP and I had been inspired by the Channel 4 logo which is usually shown in 3D at the beginning of programs.  

I didn't want to have just one piece of work for the Exhibition and looked at the idea of producing a Photo Mosaic.  I looked on the internet, and at various different software before downloading Photo Mosaic.  It was a simple interface that in the end produced a really good final image.  I used all of the images taken in the studio of Aaron to produce the final Photo Mosaic.  The image that came out was more of a sepia tone due to the skin tones in the original images but I didn't think that it had the impact that I wanted so I decided to convert the image to black and white.  (When exporting the image to be printed I didn't realise that the default export is for Web uploading, so when I gave the image to Emma, my tutor, it was too tiny to print.  I had to go back into the program and export it so that it was a reasonable size image, not too small, and not too large, just right.)  

The week of the 20th June was just crazy leading up to our FMP Exhibition at Centrala Art Loft.  All of my images were printed out to A3 size except my Photo Mosaic which was printed out to A1.  The 21st was the day that we would put all our work.  The space for me was ideal, there were gates/rails in the ceiling from which I could hang my collage.  My collage had small silver bulldog clips attached and the images were hung by fishing line/filament.  They were hung at different heights, and spaces to produce the final installation.  (A big thank you to Emma Jukes for your patience and help in hanging my work.)  My Photo Mosaic was placed opposite my collage.

And so it was the big night, the Exhibition of our FMP at Centrala Art Loft.  We had a private view for family, friends and colleagues from 6-8pm on the 22nd June.  It was an amazing night with a wonderful atmosphere.  I had some really great reviews of my work on the night with people asking me the back story to my work - I explained that it was all about perception, and how we look at people and judge them, especially people with disabilities.  The aim of my work was that you wouldn't get the "whole picture" until you stood back and took it all in.  The same was applied to the Photo Mosaic.  For some people they said they were fascinated by all of the little images that finally went on to make up the Photo Mosaic.  Again, it was when you stood back from the image, that you could see the full picture.  Some guests even took the time out to speak to Aaron, which was absolutely fantastic.  All in all it was a very successful night.  

Me with the Photo Mosaic courtesy of Paul Johnson Photography.

Me with my collage installation, again courtesy of Paul Johnson Photography.

The Photo Mosaic.

The Photo Mosaic close-up.

The collage.

One comment that my husband made about the collage was that "were the photographs on both sides", and in retrospect that would have been a really good idea, and would have added another dimension to the collage.  The only two images that would have needed changing would have been the two top outside images, portrait and landscape.  These could easily be changed as I had so many images to choose from.  This is obviously something that I will consider in the future if I have another exhibition, especially an installation like my collage.

As part of our Exhibition it was necessary not only to arrange the whole exhibition but also to curate it.  My turn came on the Saturday, from 11am-2pm.  We had several visitors to the exhibit, including our old tutor, Jo Gane.  She was very impressed with the exhibition, and especially she liked how my collage made use of what would have been dead space.  

At one stage I got a bit bored so I decided to play with my collage and push the the edges to move it.  I then recorded the movement on my iPhone.  It really added another dimension to my collage.  In fact, a young child, about 10 came into the exhibition and did exactly the same thing as me, although his dad did tell him to stop, which I then told him it was ok.  The dad was fascinated by both images which he stood back to admire.  

The video taken on my iPhone (shortened in order to upload to Blogger).  This may only play from PC's etc.

And then there were none!!

So the final part of my FMP and Exhibition would be to  evaluate the whole project, and that would be it for me.  HND finished.  It has been a real learning experience over the last two years, and it looks like I have found my niche in photography, not to say that I won't photograph other subjects.  I may even take in a wedding or two, try fashion (you never know I may like it, well outside the studio anyway), or even just photograph nature in all of its glory.  Whatever I photograph I know that I just want to enjoy myself, and have fun.  That's what it's all about in the end.  

Well, that's my HND blog for the time being.  You never know I may get to like blogging, and I may be annoying you with more in the future!!  Bye for now.

Morag

Live on Location

During the course of our HND journey we had a project called "Live on Location".  As the name suggests we would be shooting on location rather than in the studio.  This sort of shoot for me is ideal as I enjoy being out and about and not being constrained by the studio environment.  

One of our first location shoots took place in the seaside town of Brighton.  I had never actually been to Brighton before, and was really looking forward to the day.  My only problem was that I had put my back out, and it was going to be no fun lugging all my camera equipment around all day, but hay ho I soldiered on!  

I used two cameras during the day, my Nikon D7000, and my Fuji
XF1 compact camer.  With my Nikon I would use a ND filter on the day.
 

These images were taken with my Fuji camera.  The camera was quite a little gem that had different programs that enabled you to take photographs in the style of a SLR etc.  (This was the one time that I actually used this camera before deciding that it was just too "compact".)

 These images were taken with my Nikon D7000.  As you will notice that some of the images are watermarked with my name.  I have since decided not to add this to my images as I feel that this detracts from the actual photograph.  

The final image here was taken using a ND filter to try and show the water as misty.  This was my first attempt at this, and feel that it is ok, but I would like to try this again as I like the idea of long exposures, and the smokey effect you achieve with the movement of the water.

In May 2015 we visited Witley Court. 

The visit was in order that we would produce 20 or so images for the English Heritage so that they could relaunch their website, and also use the images for promotional purposes.  The idea was that the images would appeal to an audience of 30 years of age.  I needed to research Witley Court to see what their current branding etc. was, in order that I could produce something that was “a little different”.

The English Heritage look after and care for over 400 historic buildings, monuments and sites.  They vary from prehistoric sites, castles, and forts to Cold War bunkers.

The Heritage began from small beginnings at the end of the 19^th century.  The idea was to bring the different sites to the attention of the public instead of them being privatised, and locked away.

The collection of buildings etc. that are now in the care of English Heritage began to be collected1882. At that stage heritage was the responsibility of the Office of Works, the government department responsible for architecture and building. In 1913 an Act of Parliament was passed that gave the Office new powers. These were essentially to make a collection of all the greatest sites and buildings that told the story of Britain. At that stage these were regarded as being prehistoric and medieval remains, it was only later that country houses and industrial sites were thought worth preserving for the future.

By 1933 there were 273 sites in the collection including Stonehenge (probably the most well known prehistoric site), Carisbrooke Castle and Richborough Roman Fort. Preservation of these important sites was, of course, the main objective, but telling their stories was just as important.

All these places were open to the public and had guidebooks and explanatory signs. Some also sold postcards and even had teashops.

After the Second World War the Ministry of Works (as it had become)(nothing to do with the Ministry of Magic and Harry Potter!) started to be interested in buildings other than castles, and manor houses. The first industrial sites were acquired and in 1949 it acquired its first country house, Audley End in Essex.

The Ministry had set its sights on a number of other big houses, but the Treasury was a bit wary of this. The government felt it was one thing to take on old castles and abbeys, but quite another to look after, and maintain, huge roofed buildings full of works of art. After some debate it was decided that it would be financially more sustainable if the National Trust took on the country houses and that the Ministry of Works confined itself to the older monuments.

This ruling, though disappointing to the men at the Ministry, did not stop them collecting and huge numbers of historic sites, as windmills, iron works and Georgian villas were added to the collection.

By 1970 the English part of the collection alone stood at 300 sites visited by more than 5.5m people: it was by far the largest visitor attraction business in the country. Many of the sites now had museums and shops selling souvenirs.  It was possible to buy a season ticket and visit the Ministry's sites across the country for free.

In 1983 what had effectively become the English national heritage collection was transferred to a new body set up by the government. It was called the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission. Its name was not thought to be very snappy by its first Chairman, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, and so it was re-christened English Heritage. Under Lord Montagu's inspired leadership English Heritage did two jobs: it cared for the National Heritage Collection and it ran the national system of heritage protection, including listing buildings, dealing with planning issues and giving grants.

It was over a period of a decade or more, the collection became better run, better displayed and the season ticket was change to a membership scheme. More buildings were collected which included country houses such as Brodsworth Hall.

The membership for the Trust grew together with visitor numbers. By the mid-2000s, income from the collection was beginning to make a contribution to their maintenance and conservation. This was largely due to the number of visitors passing through the doors. In 2011, for the first time, the national heritage collection instead of costing money to open it to the public, it actually made a small profit.

With these successes in mind the government agreed that it would provide £80m to English Heritage if it transferred the national heritage collection to a charitable trust. This happened on 1 April 2015 when the old English Heritage separated into two parts: a charity that looks after the collections, and Historic England that champions the nation's wider heritage, running the listing system, dealing with planning matters and giving grants.

The sites operated by the English Heritage are open to many visitors, which also include schools and colleges.  It was through my college that I made my first visit to Witley Court. 

The Heritage relies upon donations, volunteers, and sponsorship, together with membership to raise the necessary funding, etc., to keep it accessible to the public.

I had never actually been to Witley Court before, and it was a pleasant surprise.

Today Witley Court is a large and very impressive ruin, but should you go back 100 years it would have been a very impressive Victorian country house.  The house showed the results of a profitable industrial era. 

William Humble Ward, the first Earl of Dudley, created the house and garden between 1854 and 1860.  By the 1890s Witley Court was at its most magnificent.   The epitome of extravagance was shown in the resulting royal shooting parties that were attended by the Prince of Wales, who was a personal friend of the second Earl.  The history of Witley is quite long going back to the 1400s.

The big parties of the 1900s came to an end when Earl’s wife drowned in Ireland.  The family fortunes were in decline and as a result the house was sold to Sir Herbert Smith, a rich industrialist.  He was only in residence for 17 years before a fire, which occurred in September 1937.  The fire destroyed part of the house.  The insurance did not cover the full cost of repairing the damage, and the house was subsequently sold at auction.

In the year following the fire the house, park and farm were sold off separately.  A salvage dealer eventually bought it in the 1950s.  The building was stripped and was very nearly demolished. 

In 1972 the Department of the Environment rescued the building when it was consolidated to prevent further collapse.  It was finally in 1984 that Witley became part of the English Heritage.

The house and gardens are approached from the Visitor Centre, which leads off from the car park. 

The Visitor Centre also has a small shop where you can purchase small items such as plants, small keepsakes, English Heritage products, and some food and beverages.  If you do become peckish there is a tearoom, but this is not part of the English Heritage. 

Once you pass through the Centre you then enter the gardens.  There are many walkways to choose from, the wildlife garden, wilderness play area, before you pass the large pool and come upon the restored forecourt that stands at the main entrance to the house. 

The site consists of Witley Court, Witley Parish Church (this is not part of the English Heritage), the winter garden, the conservatory, the south façade, the east parterre, Perseus & Andromeda Fountain, and finally the south parterre (parterre is another word for an ornamental garden).

I think the problem with the “English Heritage” is that is has a bit of a fuddy duddy image, and this is something when considering the brief I needed to get rid of.  I need to make people realise that it’s not just for the older generation, but that it can make an enjoyable day out for young and old alike. 

When visiting I was struck by the fact that the site is actually quite beautiful, and would make a beautiful backdrop for many occasions such as fashion photo shoots, weddings, birthdays.  There were plenty of nooks and crannies to take intimate photographs, together with the wide-open spaces that would be suitable for landscape/architectural shots.

The beautiful gardens that are beautifully maintained were originally the work of William Andrews Nesfield.  The main features were parterres (ornamental gardens).  The gardens were very formal and were designed to be looked down upon from the rooms of the house, and the raised balustrades.

One of the most striking features of Witley is the Perseus and Andromeda Fountain.  When visiting Witley I was able to witness the stunning firing of the fountains.  You just need to be careful not to get too close, or you may get a little wet.

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/about-us/our-values/

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/about-us/our-history/

https://www.facebook.com/witleycourt?fref=ts

As you know when working on location you have to consider quite a few things, the main thing is to consider the weather.  It was a really glorious day when we visited Witley but there may be days where you are confronted with rain, snow or sleet (yes, typical British weather).  You will also want to consider the time of day that you are shooting, as this will also affect the images that you will produce.  On the day of the visit to Witley there were glorious blue skies, with very little cloud.  If you were to be photographing a model you would need to consider where you would place your model.  You wouldn't want to place you model facing the sun, as you wouldn't want her (or him) to be squinting at the camera.  You would also need to be aware of sun glare in your image.  (When working with models on location you need to think about their comfort - are they going to be hot or cold, do they need water/a hot drink, food, blankets to keep them warm, or a fan to keep them cold.)  If you are working in extreme conditions you will  also need to keep your equipment.  The last thing you want is for your equipment to become damaged by rain or snow (cameras don't like extreme cold or heat).  Cameras also don't like dust.  For the visit to Witley I took a few different lenses so that I could have a play about and change if I wanted.  Although it was a beautiful day, that didn't mean that there weren't times when it became a bit windy.  It was during one of these unforeseen windy episodes that I happened to be changing the lense on my camera.  It was only when I was taking a photograph and reviewing an image that I noticed flecks of dust which had attached themselves to my sensor.  I did try and clean it but wasn't very successful, in fact I had to take it to Calumet to get cleaned (lucky enough there was a free sensor cleaning event otherwise it would have cost £25+).  

I really think that Witley Court is a lovely place to visit and I hope to visit it again in the future.  It is especially beautiful when the sun is shining.

As part of location shoots we had the privilege of working with the talented Talia White, and the beautiful model, Hannah Gardner.  The location for this shoot would be in the college ground, Tudor House, and the gardens around it.  Talia showed us how she approached a shoot.  We used natural light shining in from a window, and a reflector to highlight.  I took several images of Hannah on the staircase and by the window.  After we had all taken turns we then went into the garden and proceeded to photograph in the hot house.  (It is worthwhile scouting out locations beforehand so that you have all the information to hand about it.)  Whilst working in the hot house the sprinkler system went off and we had to dive for cover both ourselves and the model.  We didn't want to get our equipment wet, and we also didn't want to get the model wet.  After the hot house we retreated out to the garden areas to take a few more photographs before it was time for our model to leave.

In the early summer of 2015 I was asked at very short notice to photograph a wedding vow renewal.  I had never actually photographed anything along this line before, and was quite scared about the prospect of this.  Between the actual request for photographic work and the actual renewal was actually only 2 weeks.  I had envisaged a more relaxed, storytelling style of photography, but my client wanted the more traditional style.  This entailed photographing in the church, and afterwards taking the traditional group photographs (bride and groom, bride, groom and parents, etc).  

I have actually attended the church myself for christenings and weddings in the past so I knew the layout of the church, and what the lighting would be like.  

Being a typical British summer on the day of the renewal there was torrential rain for most of the day with the occasional dry spell.  To cope with this I had my daughter helping me, and we had quite a few umbrellas.  The umbrellas were to keep guests dry, and also to keep my camera equipment dry.  Even with the umbrellas this did prove quite difficult, but we survived and that was what mattered.  After the church ceremony and the traditional group photographs I then attended the reception where I continued to take photographs.  It was all in all a very long day, but it was also quite an experience, one I hope to do again.