GradAcad day 10: Spring Project, Pitching to Moving Brands... and a little bit more of the Park Study. 6th July.

Today started off with a Spring Project session with Darius, the session was focussed on Presentation skills to help us out with our pitching later on. One of the things we looked at was focussing on using a neutral body position, this is something I struggle with as my posture is quite bad... but after sitting and standing with the neutral body position for about 3 hours I finally became aware of how my posture impacts how I interact with people and how I use my body language. It was really interesting to think about. Another thing which we have experienced since day one was long silences, at first I found them very strange and awkward, but now I find that having silence in discussion is useful as I can really think about what I want to say next and make sure my words are high quality. I am really enjoying the Spring Project programme and have already learnt quite a bit from it, I know that by using the techniques they share with us I can become a better communicator and more disciplined person.

http://www.springproject.co.uk/

The rest of the afternoon was pretty much going through the last minute preparations for our pitch to Moving Brands, we had a couple of run throughs and finalised a few things... and then we were whisked off to the Moving Brands London Studio/Offices.

In a moment of spare time at Google Campus I was inspired to do a little bit of random fine-art-esq photography, we spent the day in a large event space, which has warehouse-style lighting and some really cool looking office chairs!

So we went to moving brands, and I took charge of making sure the PDF presentation went smoothly (it is a very important job!).. all the people from the group who pitched our concept did a brilliant job. After the pitch we all answered questions from the panel of Moving Brands team, the questions were interesting to answer and we all answered them accurately and from our own point of view. We were asked a question about how we used our individual skills for the brief; I explained that I was a photographer and had the choice to shy away and not really get involved, or to jump in and really push my creative limits by taking part in a brief which was hardly related to the skills of a photographer, I chose to jump in. 

Throughout this week I have found out that being a Photographer doesn't mean you have to just stay a photographer, but you can experiment and dabble in different creative media... and through the dabbling and experimentation you will be able to produce really creative photographic work.

I loved working on the Moving Brands brief with the group, we received both positive and constructive feedback from the Moving Brands team ... and I shall definitely take the feedback into consideration!

I'm now home for the weekend, preparing for next week as I am going to be working on a photographic brief for the agency Jelly, quite excited and a little bit nervous about this... gradacad week 3: bring it on!

#gradacad

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

The Park Study

I had the chance to shoot in the park this afternoon, but I have also started to shoot around the park, it is not odd to see a hoard of bikes locked to the railings of the park... I am debating using this within the project and have now started capturing the wide selection of bikes locked to the  park fence. Currently selecting images for an initial edit so I can work out what I need to shoot next week! 

GradAcad day 9: Moving Brands brief work, Daniel Blau and The Park Study. 5th July.

So today was spent working in the group to produce a final concept for the brief we were set by Moving Brands. We are pitching our ideas back tomorrow, which is quite exciting! The concept has come together well and now it feels very strong and I am quite excited about the possibilities it has. It has been great working with the group all week as we have been able to bounce our ideas off each other, and without that I don't think the idea would be anywhere near as strong. 

Someone bought a Rubik's cube into the office, so I couldn't resist having a quick break where I tried to successfully solve it. 

But after solving it I focussed back on the task in hand...

So I believe that today was quite successful, feeling calm and prepared about tomorrow's pitch and I am now feeling ready to take on working on a brief alone next week.

This evening I was going for a little bit of a walk around the area, and I happened to stumble upon the opening night of a Daniel Blau exhibition. The photographs in the exhibition were great, from portraits of the queen, to the Loch Ness monster, and then to large mushroom clouds. It was a lovely opportunity to look through some great work.

The Park Study

As promised yesterday, I shot for the Park Study... not just once, but twice! I met a fellow photographer in the park this morning, as he was working on a production project (his second job) within the park. I was naturally curious about the project and he told me that it was to do with the Olympics. I was able to return to the park later on in the day, where it was filled with people, and a number of interesting structures were erected and a large sign stating yesterday's weather was also standing in the park. 

GradAcad day 7: Moving Brands Brief Work. 3rd July.

So today has been a productive day as my group & I sat down and started working on an answer to our brief. After some spider-diagrams, paper prototypes and research we have come to an initial conclusion about our answer. We have a mentoring session tomorrow where we can run our thoughts by an industry figure, and then we will probably be back to developing our concept over the next two days! 

You have to have some little breaks of fun during a long day's work! Office chair racing is quite a good sport which will both help you refresh your brain and exercise! 

The graduate academy has been split up into four teams, so the three other teams were also working on their briefs in the same room.. so throughout the day we became each other's market research and focus groups! It was interesting comparing the working styles of all of the teams as everyone had a completely different way of working!

Pretty confident about tomorrow and developing our concept with the mentor!

#gradacad

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

The Park Study

Sadly I couldn't shoot for the park study today as I am in-between flats, so today has been pretty manic and I am quite far away from the park where I am shooting! I am hoping to get back on the project tomorrow, although I can't make any promises! 

GradAcad day 6 - Networking, Mother and Moving Brands. 2nd July.

Today started at Google Campus; we had a briefing about our following week and then we had a meet and greet session with some of the people from Campus. I met a couple of guys who had set up the website Knodium, it is a website which creates communities for educational groups, so that students can interact with each other and students from other universities and courses. It sounds like a great business and it seems to have the scope to expand greatly:

http://www.knodium.com/

After the meet and greet we had a short session with the Spring Project where we talked about our experience of networking and looked at how we connected with the people. The Spring Project is really great as it is helping me realise how I can communicate with other people more effectively and also how I can retain information effectively. 

During my lunch break I had the opportunity to see one of my favourite pieces of architecture, the Gherkin (Also known as 30 St Mary axe). It's now such an iconic piece of architecture and it is instantly recognisable as a building within the city of London.

This afternoon we went to the advertising agency Mother, where we had a session about insights and finding accurate insights. It was an interesting session with some information which would be transferable to documentary photography, as I learnt quite a bit about how to research and generate ideas relevant to a viewer and subject. 

The board room at mother was pretty great, and there was a massive boardroom table which filled the room, at the side of the room there was a small photograph on an empty wall which showed the former home of the table.

In the evening we went off in groups to receive our first agency briefing, my group went to Moving Brands, which is who our brief is based with. My group contains a wide range of disciplines; from photography (myself), to copy-writing... so it will be interesting to see how we go about working together on the brief. We have 2&1/2 days to finalise the brief at concept stage and then we will be presenting back to a group of people. Sadly I cannot tell you the brief or show any photographs relating to Moving Brands as the group and I had to sign a disclosure promising confidentiality to Moving Brands. 

Moving Brands have designed a few great brand identities and I would definitely recommend checking out their website: http://www.movingbrands.com/

#GradAcad

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

The Park Study - Update:

This evening I popped by the park to see if there were any photo opportunities for "The Park Study"... sadly it was raining and the park was empty... after waiting around for a bit I left the park and decided to try my luck another time. I don't know if I can shoot for this project tomorrow as I am moving flats, but I will try to fit it in!