Monday 28 May 2012

Summer break Monday 28th May 2012 Third Year Exhibition

This evening I attended the UCA third year photography exhibition which was spread over both of the photography floors. A really interesting mix of work of varying standards but a very odd selection of mounting techniques. Some was even just stapled to the wall, or simply hung with bulldog clips. I felt the hanging often looked cheap and nasty when poorly hung and the work that was hung well looked considerably superior. I was also not personally interested in the moving image work, or the more abstract work. The rooms were also very hot and uncomfortable to view the work in due to the lights and the ambient temperature (it was a very hot evening indeed).
I enjoyed Martin Daveys 'Going Underground' and had a good chat to him at the exhibition.

Wednesday 23 May 2012

Free day Wednesday 23rd May 2012

Over the last few days I have been assisting a fellow student with the mounting of her work for a graphic design project that was handed in today. Despite my presentations and deadlines I have been assisting by supplying; paper, film, foam-board, spray mount, and assisting in the logistical aspects of the project (trips to uni, shoot locations, and retailers to purchase materials). I also have the software she requires so I have kindly allowed her access to that. I have now mounted 15 images, text which includes an artist statement, also text relating to each set of three images (4x amounts of text to mount) and the promotional material. The work has been completed on time and and despite the lack of sleep (only fours hours sleep last night) I am pleased to see the end results of this work.

Tuesday 22 May 2012

Day 92 Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Fashion Constructed Image

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Fashion Constructed Images Presentation.
Despite this being delivered to over 45 fellow students and other people including; JS, SC (Sam Chick), SP (Steve Pocock) both tech tutors, I was far less nervous about this compared to yesterdays Pitch. It probably had something to do with this being an end of project celebration and a chance to share our learning experiences, rather than a critiqued pitch.
Being a member of 'Team/Group One' we were called up first which was excellent, and knowing we had about 30 seconds per slide to cram in any talking we set off well and gave an excellent presentation! Having a strong team we all spoke on our respective slides and I felt as if we communicated well and people got to see the team working well together during the presentation. We spoke and were then followed by three further teams before a short break. A further four teams spoke followed but a break, before the final three teams presented. We'd all been handed the dreaded self evaluation which needed to be completed and handed back in by 15:30 and of course I took this away with me as we broke for lunch to complete when we returned at 14:00.
Returning after lunch we all discovered our essay results had been published which was great since I scored an overall 67%!
Colin Jackson showed a simple stop animation (complete with music) created by taking all of the shoot images off of the HD1s and we viewed those. This was followed by the stop animations of a couple of groups. After a quick closing talk by JS we then split up and I completed the team self evaluation and returned that to JS and SC.
Then it was time to update the last couple of days blogs since I have to stay at uni (whilst I attempt support my student friend).

It's odd to think that the first year is now almost complete and all of the deliverables are handed in and only two remain unmarked. Looking at my blog it states I've had ninety two days of official scheduled teaching/uni days (today is 'Day 92'). Of course when you read the text in the 'Free Day's' that I have blogged you will note that nearly all include updates on tasks and projects. So the term 'free day' is applied in the sense that it is not a formal timetabled day, rather a day in which self initiated tasks relating to uni work are progressed or completed.


Monday 21 May 2012

Day 91 Monday 21st May 2012 The Commission Pitch delivery

Monday 21st May 2012

Today we were scheduled to deliver the powerpoint presentation that had been finalised over the weekend. Although our delivery time-slot was 11:55 we all met up at 10:00 to run through the work. A couple of team members wanted to apply some personal notes (to the notes pages on he slides), so this was done and we awaited our call into room 806. The format was a 'Dragons Den' format with those pitching standing before a panel of three, reviewing the pitch. We ran through the pitch and to be honest I've been involved in better presentations and I felt we weren't seen at our best. But we completed the pitch and answered the questions whilst showing the model and floor-plan.
The one obvious (with hindsight) omission with the pitch was a very clear visual run though of the images in the order that they would be displayed, formatted so that each photographer could discuss each body of work individually. What we had was one slide with all the images (in the order they would be displayed) what was the sole responsibility of one team member to deliver. Unfortunately this wasn't really robust and the presentation of the slide also fell somewhat short of the mark.  This left us with the model as our medium for explaining the flow of the work and thankfully the model was very detailed!
We accepted the critique of the powerpoint but felt that overall the quantity and quality of our work was noted and the questioning was far from harsh and of course very constructive.
Having never had to complete a task of this nature before it was a great learning experience and an opportunity to explore all that needs to be considered when putting on an actual exhibition.

Due to the fact I am attempting to support another student and because I had agreed to meet up with the Fashion Constructed Image group I stayed on at uni after the Commission pitch. The team wanted to insert their personal notes within the (notes pages of the) presentation that we were due to deliver tomorrow, and they set about this task progressively working through all the team members. I didn't add very much but I tend to use notes as a prompt rather than something I bury my head in and read word for word. Fundamentally the presentation was already very strong and well laid out and notes were their for to support the speakers.

Sunday 20 May 2012

Sunday 20th May 2012 The Commission Pitch

Today I've improved the presentation with some subtle changes and a slight re-order of the slides. This means the running order is now;



1, Title


2, Intro MW (?)


3, Theme JB


4, Exhibition Text JB (as main Theme writer) RS (typography) SS (as poster designer)


5, Location MW


6, Model AW


7, Floor Plan AW


8, Exhibition Choices SS BH


9, Images DZ (+ all)


10, Advertising/Audience SS


11, Budget AW


12, Self evaluation/any questions





Presentation Group E Commission updated

In order to use the back lit lighting technique i require for my images my printing preference would be;


                                             http://www.digitalab.co.uk/display.html#duratrans
DISPLAY TRANSPARENCIES (DURATRANS / FUJITRANS)
Superb quality large format display transparencies, often called "duratrans", have a translucent-base suitable for back-lighting in light boxes. Available from both film and digital images. Printed on our Lightjet 5000 which produces display transparencies of superb clarity, colour saturation, good blacks and high definition. 
duratran, fujitrans, display transparencies

DISPLAY TRANS
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Quantity prices are for prints from the same image.
Prices include VAT

Our back-lit display transparencies are printed on Fujitrans material,
Fuji's equivalent to duratrans, ideal for use in shop display light boxes.






Also I have created a H&S Risk Assesment for the projectTeam E Commission Risk Assessment

Fort Amhurst

My Artist statement to accompany my work;


The Silent Witnesses of War
An Exhibition by Martin Wilby

A series of images showing abandoned WWII bunkers in the countryside. These structures slowly merge into the environment, yet they still remain as a reminder of the waste and loss created by War. They are also a national cultural and historical part of our heritage that is decaying and overlooked.
A field trip to the Grain area lead me to recall my childhood experiences of WWII bunkers in the area, and I soon decided upon them as the subject matter for my project.
The starting point for this project was a close examination of the brief, and the key words “produced in the local Medway area” I initially started to physically search the local area and the internet simultaneously for background information, not wanting to firm up an idea until I understood the area more. This led to some research on local military waste as an area of interest, we were then paired up randomly with a fellow student and I got Edvardas Poska who was tasked by me to look at “military detritus and abandoned forts and facilities”. As my research partner Edwardius research was outstanding and pointed me in the direction of the work of Paul Virilio, English photography Jonathan Andrew and Erasmus Schroter. I was also advised to look at Jane and Louise Wilsons ‘Sealender’, and Tacita Deans ‘Sound Mirrors’.

Saturday 19 May 2012

Free Day Saturday 19th May 2012 The Commission Project

Saturday 19th May 2012 The Commission Project

Today I have spent the whole day musing over and adjusting the powerpoint presentation for the pitch, the draft has been posted for the group to review the changes and highlight any issues. It still awaits information on the details of the budget and the inclusion of the floorplan. I also suspect the slide showing the images may not yet survive the final cut and I feel some further information on references need inclusion.  Thanks to a conversation with Sacha yesterday I now understand how to insert documents into the HTML of the blog and I've uploaded the draft presentation and a couple of others documents into the blog.

Friday 18 May 2012

Free day Friday 18th May 2012 Fashion Constructed Image

Friday 18th May 2012 Fashion Constructed Image.

Today started of the day by collecting a friend from Maidstone UCA (who would be colour printing) before getting into Uni for just gone 10:00. I met up with Amie and Lucie and was soon joined by Ian and Sacha and we made ourselves comfortable around a mac below the bar (knowing it would be out of the way and not noisy). Amie had already produced a power-point based on the points highlighted within the brief for the fashion project. We slowly worked our way through the presentation and completed a couple of other tasks along the way. Lucie collected the dress from the dry cleaners (sadly still with one mark on it), Sacha intends to make a further attempt and fixing this small issues and has contacted the suppliers with a view to returning it once this issue is resolved. During the course of the day Sacha decided to produce an additional publication to demonstrate how our image might be displayed, and we all contributed to the re-edit of the final image after several comments on the previous edit by JS. The changes were made by Ian (Lucie and Amie also assisting) whilst the rest of us worked on other tasks. I spent some time working on commission issues as well as attempting to add my input on the presentation etc. We completed the day by creating a final edit which was printed by Ian, and we've backed this up to several locations and also saved it to disc for JS.