I went around the exhibition in order to have a look at the work other students have created and hopefully gain some inspiration from it. The first area I went to see on the first floor was the Photography for the BTEC Level three National Diploma second years. I saw a high level selection of work and found it interesting learning about the way other people come up with ideas. Sophie James was the first person I looked at; she portrayed strong fashion in her work whilst attempting to keep it "simplified and uncluttered". She kept it in magazine format whilst working with editorial and advertising make-up brands such as Barry M. I found her work bold and colourful and also thought it had a "punch." The second person I looked at was Gareth Dykes. His work is extremely strong and is definitely the type of work that interests me. He has a skill of creating concepts and portraying them in his work. He photographs with good composition, the correct camera techniques and a good eye. I especially enjoyed looking at his photos used with a medium format camera. I'm hoping to try out that soon! A more difficult and expensive camera to use however he created some high level work and is continuing to progress onto even higher.
Claudia Degg documented music which is another thing that interested me; I felt her work was strong and portrayed a unique style which she had created. I like that she captured it naturally and expressed the natural emotions during playing their music and walking around. She also researched into the two areas Liverpool and Manchester to gain more inspiration and also captured photographs whilst doing this.
Amy Kate Brennan created some very good photographs using studio lighting of people in uniforms. She used the concept of importance and had the idea of ordinary people taking up important jobs such as a fireman or a policeman or someone in the army. She told a story in her work which is essential in photography, I find. It must have a concept behind it rather than it being just a photograph
of something. She also wanted to portray the idea that they risk their own lives despite just like being like everyone else at the same time.
Jessica Birks ideas stood out to me and I really enjoyed her final images. The idea of documenting different cultures has always interested me and her inspiration came from her Grandfather travelling different countries and capturing how other people live their lives. I took a photograph of one of hers as I felt the composition was strong, the lighting use was great and I loved the low vibrancy of the face portraying femininity and subtle-ness whilst the blue was strong and high clarity.
I found Holly Warren's work really good - Her style of photography is unique and is something that I've always liked. The vintage sort-of style portraying femininity and isn't completely sharp. The grain and low vibrancy is what stood out to me and the model, make-up and clothing choice was lovely. I found her individual and thought her ideas were strong.
Ryan Eagles creates work which I love! With his 50mm 1.8 focusing in on one particular style, he used shallow depth of field and a external flash for fill in whilst creating a strong photograph. The eyes really stood out in his photographs especially and I found the black and white worked well with the documentary feel. His use of second hand frames linked into the marketing and stalls, too, which I thought was great. Really brilliant images.
Magdalena Bielah captured a Beatles Tribute band using black and white to create a film-like feel. I found this really interesting especially with her idea that she wanted to know how they began to think that they wanted to do this. The way she created journals, t-shirts and bags was good too, I found. Her photographs were strong and she was using strong camera techniques such as shallow depth of field creating full focus on the main subjects.
I then went to look at the Graphic Design and Illustration area and found so many people's work interesting especially with the fact they all created their own style and all do different things to other people. This would obviously help them even more with discussing and sharing various different ideas helping them to achieve success in their personal work and assignments.
Someone who stood out the most to me in there was Charlotte Lucy Pointon. Her illustration was the type of style that I'm interested in, and I loved that she created one photograph with a Biro indicating many, many lines and high detail.
Whilst in the film area on the second floor, I watched some very interesting short movies which some of the students had created. The first one I watched was Black Rabbit filmed by Daniel Hawkins which indicated a lot of low vibrancy, low lighting (Which continued to inspire me to create photographs with the idea), a mood-like atmosphere and brilliant camera angles. I thought the lighting they used was strong and the whole movie had a great concept behind it. The fade outs and camera-shake made the film really atmospheric.
The second one I watched was by James Ackerley and I really enjoyed looking at his use of shallow depth of field and was really atmospheric. His time lapses and moody, breath-taking shots made it really interesting to watch whilst he added interested quotes during the Birth, Life and Death chapters. It was a video in memory of Gemma Ray and was lovely to watch.
The third one I watched was a time lapse by Alexandra Poppy Hayhurst. It was documenting people moving through a city alongside a song called The City throughout the day. It was all in black and white which I thought was interesting, as it added to the documentary feel. At points during it, there were selections of colour after the annotation "This video has no meaning. Life has no meaning" then after a short while it mentioned "OK. Maybe it does." and the whole short movie turned into colour. Then, at the end, it said "Sometimes." I enjoyed that the movie stopped, moved and stopped for a little bit longer and it went very well to the beat of the music.
The fourth one I watched was called Ashes and Ghosts which was probably my favourite! It was by Sophie and Tammy Green and I thought, personally, it was brilliant footage. The video portrayed shallow depth of field and the filming was very gripping with good music and locations. The slow shutter speeds and moving camera shaking made it very blurred and atmospheric.
On the third floor, I saw the Textiles area and the Photography too. This area stood out to me because I've always had a strong interest in fine art. I especially enjoyed looking at the photography bit and the very good use of Photo shop and manipulation.
Olivia Rowland created a brilliant photograph of text pages coming out of her head, and linked a lot to my research of different Photo shop techniques in Photography. This inspired me even more to try it out. I loved the low vibrancy and the whole concept behind it. I portrayed uses of slow shutter speeds and layering.
Charlotte Jones and Sara Oleksik both created some wonderful photographs that indicated a very individual style. They both had made a book which portrayed their photographs and I really liked their low vibrancy and interested use of natural light. Charlotte also used a fish eye lens which created interesting angles.
Sophie Green created some really interested cards including The Jabber Wock and portrayed a style which really interested me. The style was very spooky and reminded me of the kind-of dark fairy tales I occasionally look at in art and illustration. Her work was very strong and was perhaps my favourite work to look at.
Amber Boon created some really interesting photographs portraying a China Doll. Her photography was delicate and soft. It indicated dolls and teacups and other objects hanging from the ceiling and a really lovely location. The veils and lamps were great props and worked well in the style she had created. I especially enjoyed the camera techniques she was using and her post-processing used in Photo shop to create big eyes and soft skin after lowing the clarity. I especially enjoyed looking at her photograph of the model behind the glass. I enjoy working with different media, and looking behind different materials.
