Germany

As part of an expedition with my college I will be travelling in Germany for the next five days which I am excited about as it gives me a chance to explore a foreign culture. During this time however I will not have access to my computer or personnel access to internet so even though I will be trying to find a way to keep my blog updated I may not be able to. I will however bring my camera with me and keep a daily recording of my trip so those photos will be seen after my trip and will be labeled properly so the only difference is it will not be a live record. I am hours away from departure so I hope to come back with some fantastic photos and I hope that you will all find some personnel favourites when I upload them. 

Thank You

30th Shoot

Tonights shoot was focusing on street art and by that I mean the installation art you have aound every city but my main focus went into a few that are based on lights and illumination. You can see Birmingham has a lot of this around as it does contain an art culture that is rapidly growing each year driven by young contemporary artist looking to make a name for themselves. This was one of the reason's I came to Birmingham as there is a vast amount of artshows and movements attracting people from all around the UK to take part.

29th Shoot

todays heavy winds made it perfect for my shoot at the canals in Birmingham and it looks interesting without the snow and and ice. There is still I nice contrast between the old longboats and the Birmingham city scape that bring a modern feeling to the old longboats we have scattered around.

28th Shoot

For todays shoot I wanted to show the work of Hannah L Swingler who is an artist in my college, she works in installation but does a lot of manipulation in photography and sculpture. I like her work so far as it has a vintage sort of look to it with messages on subjects that the viewer would not understand unless they knew her personally. I know her as I am curating her work at Margaret Street art college in february which I am excited about as there will be lots of other great work like hers on display.

27th Shoot

Tonights Shoot was based on street art but instead of the previous shoot i decided to do it at night time and see whether I could get some reflections of the area around me like car light's, streetlight and lights from shop windows. The shoot went well although next time I will bring a tripod, the shutter speed was set at 0.4 seconds and I thought this would be fine but in the majority of the photos you can notice it is not very sharp. This was an error on my behalf as I thought I would have been a bit more still but I ended up with photos I am quite proud of so it did not really matter in the end.

26th Shoot

For todays shoot I was aiming for a typical snowy park type photos with the trees and the sun however I picked a bit of a shady location to do this and ended up with photo's that were not to my expectation. Although it was not my best shoot I have learned a lot on light contrast as the trees always ended up being very dark witht he background too bright, I overcame this issue by fixing the white balance and messing with the aperture.

25th Shoot

Due to the temperatures outside I decided for another indoor shoot with my theme being water simply because I just had a shower and got the idea. Getting a white background was easy as an art student I have dozens of books around in different sizes which reflected the light very well when it came to the different textures the light could expose.

24th Shoot

Todays photos were focused on the taller buildings in Birmingham as I have quite a fascination with architecture particularly when it comes to those with hight. I think the glass exterior buildings provide a darker and more colourful reflection of the sky sometimes which adds a nice contrast of the original and the reflection especially when the shape of the building can be round in areas.

23rd Shoot

For todays shoot I decided to photograph some of the construction workers around the area as there seems to be a lot of road works all around Birmingham I thought this would keep me busy for the night.    A lot of the time they brought there own lights with stands to see what they were doing and this added a great contrast of light and shadow in the photos that I did not expect to come out so well. I want to try this again as tonight I didn't really ask them to take photos and in turn did not take many in total.

22nd Shoot

As I mentioned earlier i was planning on going further down the canals in Birmingham to try and get a few more shots of the boats and the general area around them. I ended up in a nearby harbor for the canal boats and I must say I got some good shots of the boats but the community around it was just a beautiful.

21st Shoot

Todays Shoot was focused on the canals of Birmingham as i thought it would make a nice composition having the black water with the white ice. I did not get to far although tomorrow I am planning on going further down the canal to try and get more shots of the long boats that occupy the canals.

20th Shoot

I decided today that I would go to the park I was at last time and see a comparison of the place in the daylight with the a lit background instead of the night skyline. I must say I much prefer the night shots as they add a bit more of a composition between the night and the white snow.

19th Shoot

I gave myself little time today for a journey and thought it would be about time I showed you the back garden to where I live. It is still under construction but I guess that adds to the artificial theme of the area with dynamic paths and plastic trees. The lighting set up in the area was perfect for the shoot as it lit up the snow around it making the area look like and feel like a vivid dream.

18th Shoot

I woke up to a few inches of snow today and got out my camera as soon as I was done playing to photograph good ol Brum on this weather. The lighting was fine despite no sunlight and there was plenty of time to shoot so the only problem I really had was staying warm and not getting too wet. I like the photos I took in general but I think I should have taken more time although after a while I got too cold and couldn't bare it anymore. 

17th Shoot

This photo shoot  was produced entirely in my room as I had been vey busy today so i am quite tired but  that is not to say I did not try to do something special. For this shoot i had my light very close to some items of my choosing and focused on getting a nice soft shadow in the background which turned out in a nice composition.

16th shoot

Today we started off with a very frosty morning that eventually led to the same boring weather in Birmingham really. I got a bit excited hoping that it would snow today so i could get a few winter type photos to show off and maybe do a comparison on the city with and without snow. 

15th Shoot

It was a very bright sundown today and I wanted to use to my advantage and have some shots with silhouettes of people and their shadows. I had done this before at night but I knew the sunlight would give a completely different look on the subject.

14th shoot

After a rainy day I thought it would be best to take my camera at night and see if I could get some really well lit reflections on the roads. I struggled to set the camera to the setting i needed as the lighting in the area kept changing due to the climate.