Guernsey Photomarathon 2012

Today I received an email inviting me to an event at home called the 'Photomarathon', organized as part of the Guernsey Photography Festival, which happens every year.
It is being held on Saturday the 5th of May so unfortunately I can't take part as I am still at Uni in Southampton now.  This is a huge shame as last year I entered it and managed to get second place.
So, what exactly is the photomarathon?
When I signed up for this last year, along with my family, we didn't expect the day to be as manic as it actually was, but I have to say it is definitely a competition with a difference!
You are given 6 hours to take 12 photographs on 12 different topics.  This sounds easy... but trust me, its not!
The first twist is that you are only allowed to take one image on each theme, meaning no digital cameras!  Instead, they provide you with a disposable camera with just 12 shots.  We also had the choice to use a 35mm film with only 12 exposures if we had our own camera but I picked to use the disposable point-and-shoot as felt colour could be beneficial!
To complicate things further, you aren't given all the subjects at the morning registration.. instead only the first 4 are revealed.  You then have two hours to go and shoot these (in order) and then return to get the next 4 and then finally, another 2 hours later, the last 4 can be collected.
It was a great family day out and even though we all entered it, my mum, dad and brother, we decided to participate individually.  Even though 2 hours to take 4 photographs sounds like a while, when you have 4 people wanting to visit different locations around the island we soon ran out of time!
If you want to read more about this specific competition then here is the link to the photomarathon page.
Photomarathon 2011..
Ok, so I thought I would tell you a little bit about the topics from last year and show you a few shots that I took.

Topics
1 - Identity
2 - You Can't Live Without It
3 - Freedom
4 - Larger Than Life
5 - Confused
6 - There's No Place Like Home
7 - Favourite Thing
8 - Never Judge A Book By Its Cover
9 - Missing
10 - Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder
11 - Movement
12 - Unique

#3 Freedom
Children on the beach letting go of helium balloons.

#4 Larger Than Life
Worm alongside a tape measure (My favourite image)

#5 Confused
My dad dressed as a female.

#6 There's No Place Like Home
An abandoned building.

#7 My Favourite Thing
My brother.

#8 Never Judge A Book By Its Cover
My 7 year old cousin wearing old persons mask.

#9 Missing
My mums old doll without any legs.

These are a selection of the images which I took on the day, you can also see the rest of mine and other finalists online here - photomarathon winning photographs.

After everyone's films were processed the events group exhibited each print in a small town gallery.  Also as part of winning second prize I received a free photographic workshop with Jean-Christophe Godet (professional photographer and festival director).
Obviously my photographs weren't the best quality and I found it difficult not having the luxury of changing camera settings as I am used to.  But overall it was such a fun day, seeing what ideas my family came up with and it was a great bonding session for us.  I would love to take part again one year.  Good luck to all contestants in 2012!!

Interest of Pinterest.

I've been meaning to post about my latest discovery PINTEREST now for a few weeks.  
I came across this website after seeing one of my friends post something on 'pinterest'.. I thought to myself.. 'What is pinterest?'  So, out of curiosity I searched for it and then later signed up to create my own account.
It is an online application, similar to this blog but more about visuals rather than having sections of text accompanying the images.
What I like about it is that it is so active, after creating my 'pinterest' it added a 'pin it' button to my tab bar along the top, meaning I can click it at any time, 'pinning' pretty much anything I want.

First of all I had to create what is called my 'pinboards'.  This is the individual sections of the blog, I created different themes so that I can then add my chosen image into whatever one is most appropriate.
I decided to target specific areas which I knew I would use a lot such as 'Photography' and 'Favourite Recipes'.  I thought it would also be a good idea to add some broader titles such as 'things which interest me' and 'my style', something which I can be less restricted with when it comes to content.

A bit like twitter, you can follow other friends that are using pinterest and also like and share any other 'pins' which people add.

I am getting used to the idea of using this type of blog and think it will be a great and easy way to archive anything I see which interests me.

Stars, stars and MORE stars..

Following up from a post I did last week about my star work in the style of David Spero, I have had someone contact me, who sent me a link to a very interesting article on Discover Magazine - Click to read article.
Whether it be the population of the UK, how many grains of sand are on my local beach or even the hairs on my head, I find large scales extremely hard to understand as it is but this research really puts things into perspective!!

Astronomers have produced a very detailed map of the night sky in infrared using the VISTA telescope in Chile and the UKIRT telescope in Hawaii.

I thought this picture above was incredible as it was, I never knew that there were so many stars in such a combined arrangement, that was until I continued down the page to find this..

..the first image I saw was only the tiny section shown in this picture..

..which was a smaller section of this..

..that again, was only a tiny part of this final telescopic image.  Incredible.

In this original image there are over an billion stars.  But what is even more amazing is that this survey only captures the thickest part of our Milky Way, technically only a very small section of the whole sky!
With less than 1% of the total number of stars in our galaxy I will leave you to try and get your head around exactly what is up there above us, in the entire universe!

David Spero - 'Star Series' trial.

A while ago when I was researching the work of David Spero before he came and visited us as a guest lecturer, I found a collection of work which really interested me.

His 'Star Series', taken between 1999 and 2000, combines photography with the universe and natural beauty, generating some beautiful images which managed to grab my attention at first glance.

The concept is straightforward and simply depict the sky at night.  What makes this work different is that he has captured something which the human eye wouldn't normally be able to see, stars and their movement across the night sky.  In fact it isn't the stars which are moving, technically the camera has captured the earth's rotation.

Lots of his photographs were taken in a large open space such as the desert.

''In a sense the ‘Star Series’ explores the universal need to come into contact with the spiritual, to experience a moment of epiphany.''
Quote by Rachel Taylor

More information can be read about Spero's work in a review written by Rachel Taylor, a freelance writer and assistant curator at the Tate by clicking this link.

David Spero
Photograph #1, 1999

David Spero
Photograph #3, 1999

David Spero
Photograph #5, 2000

David Spero
Photograph #8, 2000

To achieve this sense of star movement it is all down to the technical side of photography and the camera.  He does it through using a long exposure and often the shutter can be open for around 45 minutes at a time.

I was really captured by this type of work so wanted to see if I could create something similar.  I set my digital SLR onto a tripod in my garden a couple of nights ago, changed the shutter speed to bulb and then left it to expose for around 30 minutes.
Here are my results below:

Original Trial

Edit #1

Edit #2

Skydiving with fashion and a HTC

I came across this advert newly released by HTC, promoting their latest phone, the One X and its high speed uploading ability as well as the quality camera.
What is interesting about this trailer is that it shows Nick Hojola, a photography student who is working on his first fashion shoot.  But not in an everyday, studio based environment, he is falling freely at 126mph out of a plane where he uses his new One X to take shots of the models also falling alongside him.
With the phone he records a video of the shoot as well as using the 8 megamixel camera to capture photographs using the dual camera button technology.
This new state of the art technology device is presented by HTC as a credible replacement for the traditional digital compact camera as it also incorporates a f2.0 aperture setting.  The main message of this phone commercial is to promote its high speed performance levels as he must upload the images just taken to the internet before he has descended to the ground.
Here is the advert posted below:

Studium vs Punctum.

So, today I started my essay for our photographic history and theory unit and came across two words which I was first introduced to a few weeks ago when reading a section taken from Roland Barthes book 'Camera Lucida'.

'Studium' and 'Punctum', a new language which I feel I need to explore further here in order to get a better understanding.

Defining Studium:
This is the interest in a photograph.
We experience this in an opposite way as to how it was created, the photographer comes up with the idea and then goes on to generate it whereas we see the creation first and then have to interpret it's meaning.

Bathes suggests that an example of stadium is when 'I glance through them, I don't recall them; no detail (in some corner) ever interrupts my reading: I am interested in them (as I am interested in the world), I do not love them.'  - He takes the information in but there isn't a particular aspect of the image which stands out to make the attraction stronger.

Defining Punctum:
This is the element which stands out within a photograph.
It is often a smaller detail which attracts the eye and becomes more important, influential and meaningful to the viewer.
The punctum can often be made to do with personal values and individual experiences (for example. if you see a location, item or person that means something to you then this will make you more fond of the image).

In his text Bathes mentions a couple of images which he reacts to under punctum and stadium.

James Van Der Zee, Family Portrait, 1926.

''The stadium is clear: I am sympathetically interested, as a docile cultural subject, in what the photograph has to say, for it speaks (it is a ''good'' photograph): it utters respectability, family life, conformism, Sunday best, an effort of social advancement in order to assume the White Man's attributes.''
He then goes on to say ''The spectacle interests me but does not prick me.  What does, strange to say, is the belt worn low by the sister (or daughter).''  
''This particular punctum arouses great sympathy in me, almost a kind of tenderness.''
Other examples he gives later on are shown below.

William Klein, 1954 - Children of Little Italy in New York

Andre Kertesz, 1921 - Tristan Tzara, Paris

He says that he was interested in these photographs as an aesthetically composted piece of work but the things which attracted him in each (punctum) is the child's bad teeth in the first and Tzaras dirty fingernails on the hand which is resting on the door frame.

Conclusion of Studium vs Punctum
They can both be present in the same photograph but the punctum often disturbs the stadium and changes peoples interaction with the subject matter, turning their 'liking' of an image into a 'love'.
For photographers we always strive for this punctum.