Today I Joined PhotoVogue

Today I Joined PhotoVogue at http://www.vogue.it/en/photovogue

This is a place which enables you to upload your images to build up an online portfolio to their site for editorial staff to assess and approve. They show the best images daily and the best three images will be published in their magazine. 

I've so far uploaded a total of four images to my vogue profile, and I have fortunately managed to get one out of the four approved by their editorial staff to appear on my online portfolio.

This was the image that got approved:

Katie Minchin Photography © All Rights Reserved

Here's a link on my PhotoVogue profile and portfolio:

http://www.vogue.it/en/photovogue/Profilo/0059a128-16eb-47c7-95fc-1b666660c030/User

I will continue to shoot and upload as many images to my profile and hopefully get as many as approved as possible. I love how PhotoVogue allows you the opportunity to get your creative thoughts and work out there and most importantly get noticed.

Aspirations: Where I hope to see myself in 3 years?

Brief outline of Aspirations: Where I hope to see myself in 3 years?

In 2013 - I will still be studying Photography at Plymouth College of Art, half way through my second year, still gaining knowledge and new skills and I will be starting to plan where I want to continue my education (I hope to top up at the end of the second year to do the BA course) whether it means journeying on to another location or continuing in Plymouth, I want to make a decision on where will I be able to get the most opportunities and experience. I will also be aiming to achieve at least 2:1 on each of my projects throughout the second year, I know if I put my head down and really dedicate myself with hard work I can achieve good outcomes.

In 2014 - I will hopefully be half way through my top up year to a BA degree, the location I will be doing this is still very much unknown to me yet as I haven't really researched or thought about leaving Plymouth to be educated further elsewhere, I suppose this suggests that right now I would prefer to stay in Plymouth and continue on as I would like to challenge myself to do as many opportunities here before I feel safe to say I have conquered what I can in this city.

In 2015 - I will have began to plan where I want to progress onto and in this year I would have finished my degree and graduated. I hope to graduate with good overall grades. I'm very much interested in documentary photography, photography that tells a story, narrative, makes you think, I want my images to be able to communicate properly in the full purpose of the way I present them.

A brief outline of some of the Aims and Objectives of the next coming months and years:

- Practice more with lighting and technical aspects of Photography
- Explore and approach more businesses/people in Plymouth in the area of 
- Finished my degree and graduate with decent grades.
-Assist other practitioners on future shoots, to gain experience of the industry - competitive, the standards expected and so forth.

Working within the Community - Barbican Reach Guest House

Client Assignment - Working within the Community: Dorian House and Barbican Reach

During the 3 week easter period of this project, I went back home to Bath and this is where I started planning what I was going to do - I work at a Guest House when I'm not living in Plymouth so I decided to start shooting there, however it was really casual, as I know the managers really well, I wasn't really getting the full experience of working within a community, using my communication skills to actual clients - people I've never met. After spending 3 weeks at the guest house in Bath, I travelled back to Plymouth and decided to find a Guest House to work with that was more relative to the brief - actually working with Clients. Fortunately I found a small Guest House down on the Barbican, called Barbican Reach, I approached the clients and found that they needed updated photographs for their website, as they had recently had the house redecorated. They allowed me to go around each room and take the time to photograph them in different positions/angles. Their requirements were very minimal, they simply want updated images, so it was easy to understand what they were expecting from my work.

During my few days working with the Clients at the Guest House I found confidence in the communication between me and the clients which I thought I would have difficulty in as I'm quite shy - this outcome will help me go on to gain more confidence in my ability to communicate which in the long run will help me turn into a much more confident person and better yet challenge me to get out there and explore the opportunities that await me.

Here are 7 selected images, one image from each subfolder of each room I photographed during this project, as an example of what the final outcomes I produced look like.

Hallway

Dining Room

Room One

Room Two

Room Three

Room Four

Room 5

Katie Minchin © All Rights Reserved

Interview with a Practitioner: Lauren Reed

Interview with a Practitioner: 
Lauren Reed

Why Photography?
I always had an interest in Photography. For my work experience at school I managed to get a place at a local wedding photography studio. On my work experience I was taught some basic skills in Photography and loved it. They then offered me a job at the studio and this is where I first started shooting weddings.

What aspects of Photography are you most interested in and why?
Wedding photography, I love to capture emotions as they happen and it is such an honor to be such a big part of someone's special day.

Are there any other aspects of Photography you would like to experiment with in? If so why?
I would love to do a bit in Fashion, it can be a very controlled environment with a lot of artificial light, which is an complete contrast to the way I work. I use natural light wherever I can.

What area do you find most interesting when doing a shoot: Planning, post-production or the final outcome?
Planning - for all weddings I shoot I go to the locations before to find little spots where I would love to shoot the bride and groom. This usually gets me excited about the potential shots I can capture. I look out for interesting textures to use for different backdrops.

What photography format do you prefer working with, film or digital and why?
Digital - purely because I love what you can do in post-production. It does allow so much more possibilities and by making a couple of minor adjustments to an image can completely change the final outcome.

Finally, what advice would you give to someone looking to take a career in Photography?
To work with as many photographers in as many different fields as possible to widen your knowledge and to listen to everyone's opinions. 

Thank you for taking  the time to answer these questions.

Images:

 Lauren Juliette Wedding Photography © All Rights Reserved.

Lauren Reed Blog :

http://www.laurenjulietteblog.com/talk-to-me.html

Photographer: Sophie Calle

I recently looked at the works of Sophie Calle, as a starting point for my Client Brief (Working within the Community) as I was going to work within Guest Houses. She traveled to venice where she got a temporary job as a chambermaid, this is where her project 'The Hotel' came about, which consisted of her ideas to photograph the hotel's guests' belongings she explored the boundaries of space, this work seems very personal and intimate. Initially I began to be influenced by this and began pondering ideas and I thought I could recreate or portray my own twist of this idea. However I thought this would be a lot more difficult to do as I would have to gain permission from many guests to photograph their belongings, and chances are they wouldn't feel comfortable having their personal and valuable belongings arranged, or ''show cased''
I do find her piece of work on personal belongings extremely interesting, how she documents a person's live, through their belongings giving them a purpose they each present someone's personality, they are definitely an insight into what a particular person is like.

Images:

Sophie Calle © All Rights Reserved

Property Release Form

This was the template I used during the Client Assignment (Property Form the client signed I've placed and stapled into my sketchbook - which for future reference I will keep important files documented within a separate material such as a folder) whereas with the model release form I redesigned the layout and added my contact details onto the form to make it my own. I will however go on to redesign a layout for a property release form and do the same as I have for the model release form. 
Here's the link to the Property Release Form template:


http://www.alamy.com/contributors/alamy-stock-photography-property-release-form.pdf



Template owned by Alarmy © All Rights Reserved.
No copy right infringement intended.

Client Assignment: Guest House #1

Client Assignment: Photographs from a Guest House in Bath (Dorian House) 
This is one of the guest house's I've decided to work with to complete this assignment.
Initially, my idea was to photograph the rooms/spaces for the client and then I started thinking that I could photograph the features/or the little details that give the house character, a personality and appeal to visitors, the client also agreed with this idea.

Here are what I think were the strongest outcomes of the past few shoots at the Guest House:

Katie Minchin © All Rights Reserved