Eddie & Betsy - Street portraits. 28th December.

I met Eddie and his dog Betsy on the streets of Peterborough today, Eddie had his guitar and was strumming around some chords so that he could earn some money from people passing buy doing their sales shopping. His little dog, Betsy sat by him, just watching people walk by them..... both of them were a pleasure to photograph. 

www.ruthjones.org

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Rankin Day 3 & Skater / Stallholder portraits. 31st October.

Today started a lot slower than the previous few, I didn't have to get into the studio till the afternoon due to a shoot in the evening. I decided to utalise my spare time by going into central London. Originally my idea was to spend time at the Skate Park down SouthBank... but it was pretty empty, so I just shot a couple of portraits. I spent some time in Westminster, chatted to a couple of full-time protesters and took photos of stallholders.

I then decided to head towards Camden, it wasn't as vibrant as it can be, but I still got a few interesting shots of the market and town.

When I got into the studio I dived head-first into preparing for the evening's shoot. Out came the hoover to clear the floor, and then came the paint roller to paint the studio floor (It had become very dirty in the past 48 hours!), then we started to set up ready for the shoot. 

The Hunger sign was also completed today by Dom & Jack, two assistants who are currently very involved in the set building/hands on building things! The sign is amazing, and I feel a little bit proud of it as I helped create the sign a little bit.

The shoot in the evening was amazing, we were working with male models.. I rarely work with male models, so it was really interesting to listen to Rankin's directions towards them. I also got involved with the shoot by holding a reflector... I shall be amazing at using a reflector (and no doubt many other things) by the end of these two weeks. 

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Mario. 27th September.

I met Mario today on the streets of Peterborough so I had to get his portrait. 

I'm still sorting through my photos from London as I have had another very busy day today... I'm hoping that I get a little bit of time on Saturday.

Weather-dependant I have a test shoot tomorrow for a documentary piece I am thinking about doing on an estate near to me, so you may see a test shoot from that tomorrow if all goes well!!

GradAcad day 15: Overground, Tate Modern, Candid Portraiture and Jelly Pitching time! 13th July.

Today was quite laid back, I popped into Google Campus first thing to finalise the final few things I had to do for the Jelly Brief... and then I went on a little Tube-Trip (the London version of a Road trip!). I haven't really been on the London Overground before, but I found it quite cool.. it's a bit different to the underground because a) It's overground (doh!) so you get to see all the buildings around London, and b) it's one big train carriage... I decided to photograph all the faceless legs that filled the carriage.  

My Tube-Trip culminated in a visit to the Tate Modern, sadly I didn't find any photographic exhibits (I didn't plan my trip very well!), but I did find a great exhibit by Lamia Joregie. The exhibition was about Objects of War, Joregie created four video documentaries where people who had experienced life within a warzone talked about one or two objects which defined their experience within the war zone. Most of the objects were displayed in cabinets around the gallery. I found this exhibition great and could have easily spent hours listening to all the interviews.

http://www.lamiajoreige.com/films.php

After my visit to the Tate I was itching to get my camera out.. so I decided to to an impromptu portrait shoot... the sitters happened to be unsuspecting victims on and around the Millenium bridge. I am quite happy with the photographs I captured, they were up close and personal.. from shots which looked fashion inspired, to people pulling odd faces as they go through life.. none of my "Sitters" noticed me... but it's a shoot I really enjoyed and will have to build upon in the future!

This is a wall near where I am living at the moment... I believe, It used to be the entrance to a club called The Foundry.. and I believe the building is now occupied by squatters. The wall is interesting as it is updated daily with interesting artwork with anarchist themes... I might try and scratch the surface of the artists behind these works. I only have a week left in London though, so I shall have to see how much contact I can get with these unknown artists.

So, the big GradAcad thing of today was my pitch to Jelly London, as I have previously said the brief was to produce a concept which would promote Jelly moving to The Shard (which sadly, they aren't!). My concept was to create a photo-montage which would be seen as a statement, showing that beautiful architectural buildings do not have to be occupied by grey-suited corporate and financial businesses... but they can be filled with creative agencies.. ie. Jelly! The pitch went well and I received positive feedback for my concept.. I would like to develop it further, but I am not sure if I will be able to due to time constraints! 

Thank you Jelly London!

http://www.jellylondon.com/

#GradAcad

http://www.dandad.org/talent/graduate-academy

The Park Study

I shot for The Park Study this morning (before it started raining!), I found myself becoming curious about the installation with yesterday's weather on... so I researched it to find it's purpose, I found out it was created by Troika and it's purpose is to help people can compare the weather today to how it was yesterday (how very british!).. the piece is updated in real time and will relate to the weather exactly 24 hours ago. 

http://www.dezeen.com/2012/07/13/the-weather-yesterday-by-troika/

On the street. 1st June.

Some of you may recognise Jac, he is quite photogenic and as we work together with a group of other photographers I always end up taking his portrait! He's one of the Awkward Noise Collective, and his blog is: http://jacrudduck.blogspot.co.uk/

Duncan. 16th March.

Today I was carrying on the portrait project which I started yesterday. A subject which I found today was a man called Duncan, he was quite interesting to photograph and he even gave us a small rendition of his favourite song to sing at Kareoke!

Ric. 15th March.

I have been rather active today! I was with fellow photographer Jac Rudduck and we were working on a portrait series. This series captures people we meet on the city streets, one person we met today was Ric, we talked to him and bought him into our studio and then took a number of portraits of him. He was one of the most interesting people and it was a pleasure to photograph him. I'm going to be out doing this tomorrow too, so I'm definitely looking forward to meeting even more people!

http://jacrudduck.blogspot.com/ 

The Wood. 25th February.

I was out with my photographer friend Joanne Cream (http://joannecreamphotography.blogspot.com/) as we have a fashion shoot coming up and we were doing some location scouting for it. We came across this wooded area and it looked great! I will definitely be using it in the shoot.

In other news here are the photos from the street studio shoot I had yesterday:

I'm going to be shooting more for this project, so keep your eyes open and keep checking my facebook or flickr to see the updates.

The Street Studio. 24th February.

I was in peterborough today with a group of other photographers. We decided to set up a studio on the streets, we used the sun as our light source, a couple of photographic flags, a reflector and a camera (of course!). We spent about an hour on the streets asking people if we could take their portraits, it's quite surprising to see how many people are wary of you when you have initial eye contact with them. Quite a few people were up for having their portraits taken, it was quite and interesting excercise, definitely one which I shall try again!

PRATS Longsword. 14th January.

Once a year, in a fenland town of Whittlesey there is a folk festival called the Straw Bear. Folk dance teams come from all over the UK and dance during the weekend in various areas of the town. One dance team at the event was PRATS Longsword and they made perfect subjects for a photograph of the festival!

The straw bear is a great opportunity to take street photographs and portraits as there are many interesting subjects!

Bagpipes. 25th November.

So today I have started forming ideas for a couple of new projects. One projects is where I am going to document the local business, I want to show typical British businesses and people who work in them through this documentary, it is quite open to me and I am just going to watch it unfold. The second project is a landscape piece where I am going to show how human constructions, such as pylons and wind turbines, are having to come acceptable as part of the landscape. Here's a piece of test work from this project:

Taken with 6x6 Bronica.

Leopard Print Girl. 21st November.

I was in Ely today, so I did a little bit of Street Photography (which can be found here) and I saw this woman and I asked for her portrait, because I thought she had a really unique style! 

I also started a little bit of Christmas shopping today too, the thing is I always find it really hard to work out what to get people for Christmas... it'll be worth it when everyone opens their presents and I can see the joyful looks on their faces! 

Noel McGlinchey - Security Guard. 16th November.

This photograph is inspired by Richard Avedon's "American West" portrait series, I took a 5x4 large format technical view camera ( sinar ) into Peterborough and photographed a couple of people who I thought looked interesting, one of them was this man, Noel McGlinchey. I had stuck some white colourama against a wall to serve as a backdrop and got him to stand against it for a portrait. I love the portrait, only shame is that scratch that is on the negative due to the tray developing process. 

I took this photograph last wednesday, but I had only got round to printing it today.. so I think it does count as my daily photo as darkroom printing is a process which finalises a photograph!

The Lincoln Busker. 19th October.

I'm cheating today... this photograph was taken on Sunday! But, I have had a busy day planning photo shoots and other things... and I really do love this photo! I'm currently working on a series of street portraits and this shall be part of that series! I'm trying to capture people on the street who are slightly out of the ordinary! 

The Indian. 07/10/11.

Today I was in the city and this man dressed in Native American clothing had a teepee up and was running a stall, I just had to get a photograph of him!