Gis a job - Sharon

For this project we are in a pretend scenario, showing how we would go about getting a job. We had to find a company which we would pretend to apply for a job to. In my case I have chosen Urban Makeovers which is a company based in Leeds who is looking for a freelance photographer/s.

The initial contact I would have with them would filling out the form to apply to them. I would prefer to have made the initial contact by phone but they don't seem to have a phone number other than bookings for a 'makeover'. . If there was a meeting I would make sure that I take my portfolio with photographs that represent only what they are looking for, a business/contact card for them to have. I would present myself in the best possibly way I could, by dressing my best and making sure I forward myself to them in the best light. I would make sure to explain in detail my photography capabilities, my expertise and what I can and can not offer them. I would leave behind my business/contact card for them ; that way they have my phone number, website and email address. If over the period of a while they haven't had contact with me I would most definitely email, more preferably ring them to ask what the situation was.

The budget need for this is no more than prints for the portfolio, which I should do apart from the interview anyway, same with business cards. Travel would come into the cost for the potential meeting, but that wouldn't matter to me personally.

My logo.

Fake email.

Hello

I am Luke Thorne and have recently applied for your current open slot of freelance photographer. I have been studying photography in form of college for the past two years and looking for some more experience out in the field and found your listing for a slot. I have done photo shoots in the past where I have personally organised and directed, you can find some examples of the final outcomes of them attached to this email. I have a wide interest in what I like to do in photo shoots, ranging from fully designed propped shoot to just head shots. I also find it easy to organise the lighting and backdrops. I would be more than happy to work to the times you listed in your advertisement and look forward to hearing back from you.

Thanks.
Luke

Material I would take to the interview would be my portfolio which is printed images in a book to show them. I feel its much better impression to have on hand printed images as it gives them a better look at the work you do. I would have to make sure that my business card is also handed to them so they can get in touch with me should they needs me to do jobs or help the out. So its essential to take a business card along to the meeting.

My business card

My portfolio 

Following up with the person you want a job from is very important for you to pursed them to take you on. For instance, many people would take personalised objects with them to meetings such as giving the employer a free cup or pencil which has your logo or name on it. Just something along those lines which would make the employer remember you that bit more. I have drawn some ideas which would work for someone wanting to take this approach

I think the calendars is a better idea if you established on the internet and people like your work as you can have a number of images to display as opposed to just a logo and or one image.

Evaluation

Personally, Im not sure on the whole hand material out approach. I think it can come off as desperate and I have a feeling that you are risking the employer thinking that too. All the designs of the cups and pens would work in theory. You have your logo which tells the user all the time of your company and alway keeps you in their mind. I cannot really say what the effectiveness of the material would be in securing a job as there are differing views of handing out materials such as these.

Intervention - Tom

Digital and physical intervention

My own















A good photographer to look at for digital intervention is someone called Noemie Goudal. She creates work and place the large scale prints into different location
to create a photograph.

Physical

My own















Rune Guneriussen

He was a photographer which we was shown, and one that I think fits a similar idea of what I wanted to produce. He, however, does it on a much larger scale that what I wish to do.

These two photographs of his are my favourite as you can see each lamps characteristics. I like the tones the images have and also the way he has used the environment to add to the photograph. For instance, the swerve of the lake and the layers of rock that goes up the hill. I think a good thing to take from him is the idea of working with your environment.






Another photographer whom I have his book is called the street art of slinkachu. This is where they use miniature figure to create a scene but in an environment. Such as a man holding a drooping flower on the corner of a street.

Heres some more examples of the work and of ones in the book

I think this kind of work is interesting as a photographer to look at as it shows how they have used their environment to come up with scenes.

A couple images that may influence my project.

This is inspired by alice in wonderland. Its a nice set and I think the long trees behind it work well too.

I like the style of this image and the misty look about the background. I like the look of the padding on the chair also with the long corn like grass in the background. 

I like when photographers do full sets outside such as living rooms and kitchens. Not the most interesting thing to do, not like Runes work, but holds a little appeal to me.

For this project im planning to go to old alley ways and back streets of leeds and stick antler on the wall to produce a series of photographs. In planning, I am looking for alleys ways which could have a distinctive feature about them. One of which, is an alley way that has old fashioned lights which at night I hope with give a nice effect to the antlers on the brick wall.

The way I'm wanting it to look is dark and eerie, with the help of light like above to add an extra effect to it. I may use flash however, I'm wanting to try to use natural light, from shops street lights etc. To stick the antlers to the wall, I'm going to use double sided velcro to stick around the wire hook and stick the to a surface which i hope will work.

Problems encountered

The main problem I had was the fact that I couldn't stick the antlers to the wall because the velvet couldn't keep the antlers up under the weight of them. However, this did work on wood and some other surfaces but it didn't with brick which was needed.
I also, the second time trying to complete this, the antler got dropped and broke. Its a shame because I thought this would work well. So Ive had to come up with another idea for my project.

Other idea

Be it a project focused mainly on juxtaposition, I thought it would be an idea to get something that someone would associate with a household and photograph it in the woods. I decided to use a pedestal table which would be accompanied by a vase of flowers on the top of it.
I knew of a nice location in which has a nice viaduct and a stream which I would like to incorporate in the images.

This photograph was not as good as I had anticipated. This is i feel due to the overcast conditions. I feel like this photograph would've come out better if it had been brighter when I took them. With editing I wanted to try and display the ray of light from between the tress. However the tress looked weird on the image so I decided to crop its a bit and pull back on the highlight to stop the trees being so light in the gap. I thought it would be better cropped as opposed to all the neutral space in the foreground.

With this one I aligned the table more so it straight on and the path is centre of the frame. I decreased the highlights for the sky and pushed up the greens in the side foliage and adding to it by decreasing the blacks and the shadows slightly. I like this image as I think it looks nice dead centre with the surrounding foliage and woodland.

This image is potentially my favourite out of all the images. In editing, I decreased the exposure slightly while adding contrast to make the colours stand out. I pulled back the shadows and blacks so that in between the bushes and foliage it looks darker, I also made the greens in the photograph darker as I felt the original green lacked a bit of character. I like the scene in the background of the fields and the sheep.

This image was a little harder to edit. I decreased the exposure slightly and increased the contrast making the image much more colourful. I cropped the image as I thought that the table was a little far away and that it wasn't very visible. I also brightened the red up in the floor as its was blending in with the background a little too much. I removed a set of leaves that I thought was in the way. I think this image is nice and capture the bridge and viaduct well.

I decreased the highlights in order to get the clouds in the sky more visible, i decreased the exposure and increased the contrast. I made the blacks darker and that was about all the editing. I like this image as it shows a nice field and brick wall along with showing of the flower and table nicely.

Evaluation

Even though this project didn't turn out as easy and smoothly as I thought it would, I still think the images that I gave produced are nice enough to be used as final images. They are at a level which I feel i am happy with. I still wished I could've re done the antler photographs however my luck wouldn't let me. I still feel that the table and flowers look nice as a piece to use for this style of photography. 

Experimental Photography Continuation

With the continuation of experimental photography I choose to move onto film as I intended to on the first project and scanography.

Scanography

I also chose to try scanography as well but not go down the traditional route of having the scanner laying flat and decided to try scanning with the lid of and having it on its side in order for me to create a little scene, and be able to try out depth of field better than i would have with it being flat. In order to do this, i built a stand for the scanner and also a platform for the items of choice to go on.

The next few images is when i was trying out my method before I had my own scanner at home to do this with,

They were mainly taken to see if it was something I wanted to do for my project. I like the way the third pictured came out mainly for the bottles and the rose and I think they work well together and match in a way. The problem with these as they are is that the background is visible and even so that it may work well with certain things, I prefer a plain black background for the scans I am wishing to produce. As with the edging of the scanner, you can see by the examples that the bottoms of the items are below the visible line therefore Im planning on building a kind of frame work that would eliminate that problem and would also provide support for the scanner itself so its no longer propped up on something.

This is the scanner frame I built for the scanner to sit in sideways. Its merely made out of wood, the only thing not shown in the photographs is the backing board.

Unfortunately for this I am doing I cannot say I looked at anyone that does this, because there is not anyone that does this what I do. They do scanography with the scanner laying down opposed to sideways like myself. I did have a look on the internet and elsewhere but frankly my efforts came up crumbs. So, Im basically just building or using objects as I see fit to make a scene up to use.

In sessions I have been coming up with ideas for scans, and also working on the other side of the project, of what I could use to make scenes up. I think what works well for scanography is that even the cheapest of materials can make something nice and in turn has made me look out for non expensive things to use.

For my final Images with the scanner, I made double figures of all the final images I produced. This was due to my nitpicking and wanting the slightest leaf in the right place as things bug me like that. So while between scans there may be minimal difference I still wanted to change it. And also for me it is very time consuming to even do one scan alone, because its a finicky procedure.

My first idea, was with a taxidermy rabbits head I have. I had wished to create a magician theme, but due to the way the rabbit I had was it was not possible to do inside of a top hat so I decided to use flowers instead to surround the rabbit so it looked like it was peaking out of bushes. What I liked about this particular scan is the way the rabbit looked in it and also the colour of the fake flowers and leaves. My final one of this will be used in the final images.

The second idea I had, which developed into its own little series, was with a prosthetic hand and glove that i have, I began by putting flower into the middle of the hand and thought that a could produce a variety of these with different objects. So I scoured around to see what I had and I think some more so than other came out really nice and Im more than pleased with them.

I used some of the images for another project too in which I made a book out of them (scans - Tony). But heres a few more that I didn't include in that one.

Example from what I did include in the other project

 

I tired to do something with antlers that I own but it didn't work out like I wanted it to, so I didn't end up using them. I original intended to have the skull and antler half of the scanner with something on the other side, but because of the shape and angle of the antler also the skull I couldn't, this wont be featuring in my final images.

                                       


















Next set of images was created with the intentions of having a chess board half off of the visible line with a wine glass, but with trial and error I found that the chess pieces were out of focus and looked terrible, so I moved it more but it didn't look right. I ended up using a different chess board and having the wine half on. Its ok, but I didn't particularly like this one and it definitely didn't look like I wanted it to.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the final chess scan which  I did but I dont think it looks right it the slightest.

Following is an art themed one with art palette, paints, paintbrushes etc. I liked the way this one came out but Im not sure if I will use it as a final one as of yet. The look of the palette and the paints looked nice though.

The next will definitely go in my final images as I like it. The idea come from a set of photograms I did, where i did them all separately and put them together to form one image and wanted to do that same idea with scans. So I choose to do an african looking mask. Its is very long so I selected the main face of it and did it in three separate scan and am planning to fit them together to form one whole picture.

 

With the mask I wanted to create a 3 part picture so I can put the all together to form one large picture of the mask.

This is the general idea of it however I still need to do the chin and the top of the head then proceed to trim it accordingly.

Whitening of people

As in a previous project I did, Im whiting out peoples bodies so that you only get an outline of them in the street.

A photographer I have recently discovered who does a similar thing to what I do is Amirali Ghasemi. Instead of whiting out the who body including clothes like I do, he whites out visible parts of the person actual body such as hands and face. I think this is another good way of doing it. Heres some examples of his work.

Heres examples of my own work.

I like the way the man is positioned walking down the stench of shops with no one around. He is almost walking hunched over and I caught him just as he was going to put his foot down to stride. 

I like this image with the sun beaming down on him. The outline I thought was an interesting one due to the way he was holding his phone. I like his stance and the angle which I took the image.

This one I thought was a good busy street view with the shot of over his shoulder looking to where he is heading. I liked the outline of him as he was wearing a wooly hat at the time, which you wouldn't notice with it being white but there we go.

I like the inclusion of objects and think this pram one was good. It kind of reminds me of the example artist where he leaves objects free. But i like that the handle of the pram just disappears into the woman.

Evaluation

I believe that both of my projects for this project went well. Im enjoyed doing the scans very much and will be doing that in the future. I hope to build more scenes for the scans as I have many ideas of what I want to do with that.
The whiting out of the people went ok, the problem is that I dont have too many too show for it as I had most on my card when the camera got stolen. But what I do have here is fine, particularly the sun beaming down on the man.