Rudimental - Feel The Love.

WATCH THIS.. 

I was shown this YouTube link by my brother a few days ago as he knew I would love it.  We both have an interest in dancing and I think this video is incredible.

The guys talents are amazing but the production also makes it successful.  It was filmed in only one take with no edits of visual effects added afterwards.  There was also no choreography planned beforehand and is simply down to how he danced there and then.  Amazing.

The guy in the video, Marquese Scott (aka Nonstop) talks about how he got into dancing at the age of 12 after going to a skating rink where he saw others dancing.  After joining a battle and copying the movements going on around him he became the laughing stock, this drove him to continue and after practising for hours he soon learnt to dance and fell in love with it.  This just shows that if you have the determination to succeed, pretty much anything is possible!

Here (below) is an interview with the man himself

He speaks about how he uploaded his first video to YouTube, hoping to attract fans and get his name known.  As soon as the video became viral, more people started seeing it and his face was spread across the internet and he became instantly recognisable.
This is the beauty of online technology and with the introduction of Web 2.0, things like this can happen.  You can go from being a nobody to an worldwide phenomenon within a matter of days.
This is often why viral advertisements are used as they are relatively cheap to produce and get seen by a wider audience,
a lot faster.

Guernsey Photography Festival 2012!!

After posting a few days ago about the Photomarathon, it got me thinking about what other events have been planned as part of this years Guernsey's Photography Festival.  

I looked online at guernseyphotographyfestival and saw that there are many things happening from the 24th of May until the 22nd of June.
This got me interested as I will soon be returning home from Uni for the summer and could possibly attend some of these.
I saw that there were 7 major photographers involved with the festival this year - Mark Power, Klavdij Sluban, Bruno Boudjelal, Ricardo Cases, Anastasia Taylor-Lind, Kiana Hayeri and Ivor Prickett.
I took a quick look at each one of their works and was most intrigued by the work of Anastasia Taylor-Lind..

''Anastasia Taylor-Lind is an English/Swedish documentary photographer who is a member of VII photo agency.  She is based in London and works for clients such as GEO Germany, The Telegraph Magazine, The Observer Magazine, The Sunday Times Magazine, Marie Claire, ELLE France, Newsweek, Time magazine and The New York Times.  Her work has been exhibited internationally, in spaces such as The Saatchi Gallery, The Frontline Club, and The National Portrait Gallery in London, Fovea Exhibitions in New York and Pikto Gallery in Toronto.  She has received a number of photography awards, from a diverse range of organisations including a FNAC grant for photojournalism, which was presented at the Visa Pour L'Image photojournalism festival in 2011, a Canon Young Photographer award in 2010 and the Royal Photographic Society Joan Wakelin Bursary in 2009.  In 2011 Anastasia was selected to participate in the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclss.  She has degrees from the university of Wales Newport and the London College of Communication.''

I discovered that she is giving a talk on the 26th of May at our local Performing Arts Centre, I will be home by this time so have booked a ticket to attend her lecture.
Her work that she is presenting is titled 'Siberian Supermodels.'
This is a series of work taken in Siberia tries to depict the 'real' people behind the models seen in fashion magazines these days, investigating the values behind the sculpted idealized body.
She travelled around this remote area, visiting hotels and gyms where her talent scouts would hold castings for wannabe models.  She came across many females as well as children who want to escape from this Siberian landscape with the intention of fulfilling their lifelong dream of becoming a worldwide supermodel.

Some of the most beautiful women have come from Siberia and this is what drove her to visit there, looking into how they bring up girls to become the perfect model.
During her time out there Taylor-Lind discovered that they run schools for children from the age of 5, teaching them how to stand, walk and pose in certain ways as well as learning to diet, dress and apply make up correctly.

More can be read about this particular project on her website www.anastasiataylorlind.com.

Fashion Photography is something which has always interested me and I really look forward to hearing from Anastasia Taylor-Lind herself in a few weeks!

Intrigued by Neal Slavin..

As I was doing some research last week for my representation unit, I came across this image below which immediately grabbed my attention..

Neal Slavin. 'Marina Women's Bowling Club,
Eastboune, Sussex, 18th July 1984.

What first attracted me to this was the fact that he is showing lawn bowlers, a sport which I have been playing competitively for about 8 years now.
It is a fairly unpopular hobby for people my age and the sport doesn't get a huge amount of coverage so I think this is something which shocked me as I never expected to see it in a photography book.
I began to examine the photograph in more depth and really liked how the whole shot has been arranged.  It is clearly staged and this works well when having all of the female subjects looking straight into the camera.
What interests me is why the photographer has chosen to take it at night time.  You never play outdoor bowls once it gets dark so what is the meaning behind this?  You can see that he has depicted the models with some sort of lighting kit as without this they would just blend into the green behind.
I have never come across this photographer before and this single image has inspired me to do some further research on him.
Neal Slavin is an American photographer and film-maker, born in 1941 in Brooklyn, New York.  He graduated from the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture (New York) with a BA in Fine Art before then receiving an exchange scholarship from Lincoln College at Oxford University (England).
From exploring his website, www.nealslavin.com, I discovered many more photographs of his which interested me.  I will include some here.

They all have a very strong sense of colour and he clearly sets up his models in relation to the camera to get the best framing, perspectives and composition possible!

What I like so much about his photographs are that they are all group portraits.  I have recently tried this but they didn't turn out as successfully.
But through the way Slavin has arranged and framed his shots he manages to depict the subjects perfectly.
His images also have a very quirky element to them, showing classes and particular groups of people which you wouldn't normally expect to see in photographs like this.  They are a bit out of the ordinary and I think this is what attracts me so much.

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