Steve Howdle

Our second day back to Wakefield College to start our second year of the course ended up with a change of plan. During the morning lesson Amanda came in and offered us and our teacher Tony the chance to go to Dewsbury Kirklees college to see a talk and demonstration on lighting techniques in a studio environment. This was being presented by practicing professional photographer Steve Howdle. He had presented a talk in the morning so as we only arrived there at 1pm he just spent 5-10 mins giving us our own introduction to who he was and a catch up of what he had been on about in the morning.
We learned that he was mainly a hair photographer and after just 5 shoots - not even hair shoots! - he had landed a contract with Babyliss. He has also dabbled in some fashion photography also. He showed us some of his work, which to be honest wasn't to my taste but for others in the class they found it interesting.
For me his work was very dated looking, almost looking like it came from the 80s with very soft edges, a cloudiness which looked like a smoke machine had been used and strange hairstyles nobody would normally have. I found them very dated also considering Steve told us he had only started photography in 1999 and had worked through the start of this decade. I have never been a fan of hair photography in general really. For me the genre and style of every picture turns out the same and no matter what the hairstyle or model is to me it looks dated and cheesy. He also told us that he does hardly any editing to his pictures but as you can see from the first image above this is clearly not the case.
However I thought I would get use of the studio session as up until now although I am comfortable with studio lighting I tend to use the same set up for most things so I therefore thought I could gain some knowledge from the demo.
There was a model waiting in the studio, with her hair and make up done. A girl from Dewsbury college volunteered herself to take photos as nobody else in our class wanted to. Steve showed us some different pieces of equipment, such as the beauty dish, and how he goes step by step though and how each addition of a light will change different aspects of the picture. I found some things he said useful such as when he was talking about a lightmeter - although at the end of it we thought he was trying to sell us them!. It was interesting to see how he sets up one light at a time where as we tend to dive in and throw all the lights on.
To be honest at the end of it all he had 5 lights on the set and the model but the end picture looked just like he had one big softbox at the front. It didn't look anything like his pictures lighting set up and I was a bit dissapointed that he didnt take any photos himself of the situation for us to see how his would turn out.
As research before writing this post I also had a look for his webpage. For someone who has won a few photography awards and is apparently well known in the industry his website is frankly dissapointing. It looks like an amateur photographers website and wouldnt intice me to use him as a photographer.

This is the website here : http://www.thorntonhowdle.com/

Personal and Proffesional Development

As an add on to our blog module our teacher set us the task to design business cards, A5 Postcards and an A3 Poster to promote our work and provide contact details to viewers of our end of year show. I made a little book and drew sketches of the pictures I wanted to take for the business card fronts as I think some of my work to date hasn't shown my style. At first I overthought this project and was thinking of colour schemes because I wanted the font on the back to be colours from the image on the front so they matched and looked more thought out. I then researched Moo as I will use them to get mine printed and realised that you can have up to 50 different images on the front but the back has to be the same so unfortunately I will just have to have black and white as a neutral ground. I have designed some A5 postcards and posters which I think show my style well, they are clear and straight to the point.
These are two of the posters I designed. I think my strong point to date has been portraiture and food photography and so I chose to display them. I think I prefer the top image as it has more contrast between the font and the image which draws more attention to it and the fact that it is advertising the exhibition which is the point.



This is one of the images I have used as a frontplate to my business cards. I think it shows my style and came out as I intended when I shot the picture that I am pleased enough with it to put it on my business card.

Creating an Experimental Portfolio

This semester we have had the opportunity to look at genres of photography. First we researched the different genres of photography and for mine I compared images of photographers from the past with photographers from the present. We then had to pick a genre, preferably one that is out of our comfort zone) and then experiment with them. I chose portraiture. Although portraiture isn't out of my comfort zone I chose to do it as I haven't done much of it and most has been studio based to date. I decided to do mine all outside with a shallow depth of field. I looked at a photographer who's work I have followed for about a year, Benoit Paille, and a new photographer to me, Tommy Ga Ken Wan. They both have a unique documentary style to their portraits. Benoit Paille stops strangers in the street and Tommy Ga Ken Wan has a more candid observation style of portraiture. I chose to try Benoit Paille's style as I hope to be a cinematographer and so documentary style portraiture would be closer related to that.

I was home over Easter which is when I shot the above 10 images. They are all of people who are near and dear to me at a few different locations. I am pleased with the result, in particular the image of my Dad (not the close up one).

Stock Images

For our Understanding Client Briefs module we have been thinking about Stock Image Agencies. Our brief was to take 10 different stock images ( we were allowed to use 2 previous images taken for this module ) and to upload them to a few stock image agencies to try and get accepted and to get feedback on our images. We have had to research agencies such as Istock and Getty Images to find out what they are looking for and what they have too much of. Getty Images in particular are good as they post what they are looking for on a twitter page which gets updated frequently. Once I decided what I wanted to shoot after looking around my flat and finding little objects I searched for those items on the sites to see how many images they already had. Some of the images Itook there was quite a lot of similar images on the sites already but to be honest I was quite last minute with this project due to things beyond my control.

Paul Cockney, a portrait photographer turned full time stock image photographer came in to college twice to teach us. The first time he came in he set us the brief and pointed out things that the agencies would look for in our images such as noise, sensor dust, blur and chromatic abberation. He then came back in to look at the images we had taken, to offer feedback and if necessary criticism and to advise us of which ones to attempt to upload to istockphoto.

The images I took are below.

I thought I was being smart by taking a picture of this pack of cards we bought whilst in Sweden. I thought due to the Queen having a D instead of a Q and similarly a Jack is shown with a Kn that it would make it unique and there would be more chance of there not being similar pictures. However Paul pointed out that it would also limit its usage and also runs the risk of someone downloading it thinking it was an english pack of cards and then later down the line finding out it wasn't and having to start the process of whatever its been used in again with a new image. This wouldn't cause me any problems but he thought it best not to upload it.

This picture of pizza was very last minute, it was actually my tea for the night before we had to have the pictures taken for. I just took it to make up to 10. The pizza was slighty burnt round the edges which Paul pointed out, if you are going to take an image of food make it look appealing, a burnt pizza would of only looked right if it was overly burnt and had a student looking person holding it which is right.
These cupcake images were the 2 images from previous that I used for this. I felt they were clean and commercial enough to be uploaded. I have attempted to use the second image to get into istockphoto as I was told the first image is a bit plain and not as bright as the second.

I took this picture of a stuffed mushroom cap when I was home over Easter. My mum thankfully made them for me to take pictures of. I didn't intend on using it for this task, I only shot it because I wanted to try out some food photography however I realised that it is quite specific so there might not be many images like it. I also realised that I could use it as it wasn't used for any of our previous modules. I have tried to upload this one to istockphoto.This is a make up set I had at home which I've never actually used. I thought it would look cool with a shallow depth of field which it does but unfortunately due to not having a tripod at home and not thinking of making one out of boxes etc they numbers on the palette are a bit shaky so their isn't a point of focus so I can't upload it. It was also suggested if I reshoot it to have a make up brush in the background to make it more commercial and obvious what it is.
I took these three images because in a blind panic I grabbed random objects from my flat and chose just to shoot them against a white background. I like how they both turned out, the rollers turned out better than expected however with the duck im not sure if I could upload it as it has a brand print on the front of it.

This is actually curry powder. It was one of the random objects I grabbed from my flat just because I had bought the wrong curry powder once so it was going spare. I thought to do this so when I got to the studio I dumped the whole pot of curry powder on to a piece of foam board and wrote this in it. I then cleaned up the writing on photoshop. I wish there was more powder on the lower right hand side as its a bit lop-sided but I liked it enough to upload it to istockphoto.

Focus On Imaging

On Monday we went to the show Focus On Imaging at the NEC, Birmingham. It was a 2 hour coach ride there and after an hour inside we were ready to leave. It was absolutely mobbed so the whole time walking around was a struggle. You couldn't get close to any stands and couldn't here any of the talks as they were all going off at the same time on microphones. If you were going there to buy kit at an only slightly discounted price then you would have enjoyed it but for us students who can't afford any of it there was nothing else there for us. A few exhibitions with work that didn't particularly blow us away and only about 3 college stands and we are already at college. There was also hardly any freebies apart from a few postcards and pens. The food was also a ridiculous price inside and outside of the show. We went back to the coach at 2 and it wasn't setting off til 4.

How I Learn

After doing 2 mini-tests to find out what kind of learner I am I have discovered that I am a Kinesthetic Learner. The traits of a Kinesthetic Learner are that they learn through doing themselves rather than sitting in lectures listening to how things should be done. I agree with this as I zone out during most lessons and thrive when we actually get to do something physical. I think looking back on this course so far I can't pinpoint anything I have learned in the actual classes that I didn't already know a bit about. Anything I have learnt has been in the studio. This is evidence that I am a Kinesthetic learner.

However I don't agree with some of the suggested learner aids for this type of learner. It is suggested that I would learn better if I do things such as write on surfaces with my finger, dance, role play, use poems and rhymes etc. I don't think these would necessarily help me as I would find them too much of a distraction.

By doing these tests I have learned that I need to work on my concentration whilst listening to lectures as when we get to the end of the semester I normally can't remember things we have done at the start of it so I would learn from taking more notes physically.

Sweden - Reflection

A final blog to sum up my experience in Sweden.

It was amazing. I am so grateful for being picked for the photographer's placement. Before going I was nervous as I knew it would just be myself and 4 guys for a whole 3 weeks. I also thought that the 3 weeks, as I wasn't entirely sure what my time out there would entail, may drag out a bit but it zoomed by far too quickly! Yes I had difficulties at first, the place I was staying was awful and I was missing out on what the guys were doing and really I didn't need to be based at Lugnet University but after that was sorted out I had the best time. The family we stayed with were amazing, they took me in and made me feel at home the second I sat down to the first meal on the first night. I went out there having expectations from our preperation meetings etc that we had before hand but it was nothing like what I expected. I didn't think we would be going up a ski jump, going to snowmobile jumping and having a BBQ in the snow (although that was because of our family). I didn't think I would be going underneath a pool to take pictures!

I have really learned alot of a photography as well. Alot of our college course is limited to being in the studio and as I don't really know the area I've moved to I don't venture out to find locations. This pushed me to learn my way about another new place and as we were there for 3 weeks it felt nice when I knew my way about and felt like I actually lived there as I knew it that well! It was exciting for me to be able to shoot in an all new place. I made a few technical mistakes whilst shooting and unfortunately it was so cold outside that the video camera was playing up so I only have around 2 videos from the whole time out there but it's things like this that make me learn for next time.

Before going out we also had to fill out a self-evaluation so we could measure how this experience has changed us.

The skills/interests that I felt I lacked in were:

Foreign Languages (although I only picked up around 5 words whilst out there)
Good memory

Talking to People
Confidence
Ability to organise

I have definately improved on these. I had to have a good memory and the ability to organise as I had to arrange my time with what the boys were doing and I had to remember to keep my batteries charged, empty my memory cards etc almost every night so that helped. I think I have improved a little bit on confidence and talking to people. With my placement, as I wasn't at the same place everyday I wasn't really there to meet people but I did meet a few people on the boy's placements so that increased my confidence and they would ask about me and what I was doing on my placement so that made me have to talk to people so I got more used to doing that.

Sweden was by far the best 3 weeks of my life. I learned so much, got thrown way out of my comfort zone and met some amazing people. We were well looked after and we always had a point of contact if needed. Nick, Inga and Carina were so great when they knew I was having problems and everything was dealt with quickly if we needed anything. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience and can already see myself going back in the near future.