My final day at Rankin and my final photographs of the London Transport System. 9th/10th November.

Firstly, sorry this blog is up a day late! Didn't get home till pretty late last night, so I decided to give you a quality blog post today.. instead of a very sleepy blog post last night!!

Yesterday was my final day in London, so it was my final chance to photograph the London transport system.. something which I did throughout the whole of my time in the city.. mainly because some days it was the only subject I could really photograph!

Apart from London transport, yesterday was my last day at Rankin! We had an editorial shoot today with a really lovely actress, the set was very simple and we filled the studio with lights to create some very softly lit images... this included using the biggest Octagon softbox I have ever worked with! The shoot was a lot of fun, it was my last opportunity to work as a member of Rankin's tight team... and it was such a pleasure, now that I have got my head round all the equipment, systems and jobs.. I really felt like I could give the assisting role my all! 

After the shoot we had to create a small set for a video interview, this was also another opportunity for me to realise that I have started to understand the whole system at Rankin. I have always been interested in video/film, and I have been able to learn a lot about it whilst I was at Rankin, this has been great as I have gained some new skills that I can apply whenever I do shoot video!

(test shoot)

The day ended by everyone setting down the studio and getting ready for a small shoot that is happening today.

So I left the studio for the last time, clutching a bag filled with some fantastic photobooks by Rankin and I headed to the beautiful Kings Cross Station.. which I have to Instagram every time I'm there, as I love the architecture so much!! 

Many people may think assisting Rankin is going to be quite glamourous and fashionable, I can tell you most definitely that it isn't... you will get covered in paint, your arms will ache, and the days are long.... but you do get to work in a team of the most amazingly talented and motivated people, you get the pleasure of watching an amazing photographer at work, you get to learn brilliant photographic techniques, you get to work with and learn about equipment which is way beyond your budget, and it is an experience any emerging photographer should long for!  

The past two weeks went so quickly, they were packed with photography... from assisting to working on my own projects in central London.

www.ruthjones.org

www.facebook.com/ruthjonesphotography

www.twitter.com/theruthjones

Tube Journeys and Southbank Skate Park. 4th November.

Today was pretty cold and windy, so I probably spent more time on the tube than actually outside in London. After going to church at HTB Onslow Square I originally planned to spend some more time in central London doing some street photography, but I was not suitably dressed and I don't want to be ill for what will be a very busy week at Rankin!

Instead I headed back to Beckton and spent the afternoon working on my photos from Southbank Skate Park, I now have a final edit which I have uploaded to my facebook page: www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152228119335046.928287.407058550045&type=1 

they'll soon be up on my website as well, so keep a look out. 

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!!

The Organist. 19th September.

Today I spent time in a wonderful little church in Gresham, Norfolk, as it was the Memorial for my Grandma. It was a lovely day and I know that she would have loved it. As I walked into the church this man was tinkling away on the organ and I decided that it was such a lovely thing I had to whip my iPhone out and capture the moment. 

Guitar Girl. 17th September.

I currently feel that my need to take portraits is not satisfied, so I took a little self portrait today to satisfy it for a tiny little bit of time! Tomorrow I shall try and find some time to hunt down some interesting people to photograph portraits of...

View from a Bus. 15th September.

I rode on the bus today, it is quite a rare thing for me to do now I drive.. but it gave me time to think about a little test shoot I did last year. The test shoot was for a possible project where I would document city life from my view on the bus... for various reasons I didn't carry it on and left the idea to gather dust. Recently I saw a couple of projects similar to this featuring London life in an exhibition, that experience and my time on the bus today made me think about starting this project... I need something to get stuck into, maybe this is the thing I am looking for!

The Flower People and Lumen Magazine. 12th September.

I am slowly stepping into the world of freelance photography now that I have finished my studies! I was out and about with a regional newspaper company today and ended up taking a few photographs of this trio today who were responsible for a prize-winning flower display... They were quite enjoyable to meet and I know that there are plenty of people out there who I will enjoy meeting in the future, so I'm quite excited to see how my freelance career develops!

Also, I have a front page on the Analogue Photography Journal; Lumen, there is also a selection of my work featured in the journal alongside a number of pieces by other great photographers, you should check it out: http://www.lumenmagazine.com/

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

Seaside Day. 8th September.

Today was the most perfect day for a trip to the seaside, the weather was lovely and warm, it was a weekend, and I had no other jobs to be doing... So we drove down to Sunny Hunny (also known as Hunstanton) to enjoy the day. The beach was beautiful, full of lovely scenes and typically British people! On the next beautiful seaside day I'll have to grab my Mamiya and go shooting some Martin Parr inspired shots.

Welsh fashion shoots and Coke Cans. 7th September.

I'm back... now I am in the land of internet so I can get back into the swing of things by regularly updating my blog! 

For those of you who don't know, I've been in Wales for the past week (and I have been camping for the week before that)... I was not able to post a blog every day as my links to the internet were not that great during my time away. Wales was great, I ended my week by taking photos for a fashion shoot, it was great and I am still processing the photos from the shoot... but I have uploaded a sneak peak:

Watch my facebook page to see more photographs from this shoot and other shoots:

https://www.facebook.com/RuthJonesPhotography

People. 1st September.

So, I'm in wales this week.. currently at a conference for Home Educators (as some of you may know I was home educated up until the age of 16). I've not yet had any opportunity to shoot any landscapes yet (got plenty of time to do that during the week), but I have been photographing people over the past couple of days. I've uploaded a couple of the portraits I've taken over the past two days. I also apologise in advance for the lack of blog posts over the week as my internet connection and mobile signal is very limited.

More photos of people, landscapes and general welsh things will follow!

Call Centres in March. 23rd August.

I was in the fenland town of March today for a meeting, it's an interesting little town which is divided by a canal that runs right through the town centre. There are many stories which could be told by the locals, good stories and bad stories. I may go back to March sometime in the future and delve deeper into the stories of the locals.

Cambridge Road Trip! 14th August.

Today I had a bit of a "day off" and went on a little road trip to Cambridge, I put down my pro camera and picked up my tiny little budget SLR & tacky lens.. (Nikon D3000 + 18-55mm Kit lens, nothing special!). It was a challenge to get used to using such a simple (and not too great) SLR, I found myself hitting invisible buttons and twisting non-existent dials! But I overcame my snobbishness and shot a few street photos around the city. 

Cambridge is a great city and I am quite tempted to return with the Mamiya to get some proper street shots!

I apologise for my lack of decent posts recently, I am currently working on my studio, which will hopefully be finished in September, I'm quite excited about being able to twiddle around with artificial lighting in a studio environment!

A Feather, People Watching on the Train, and week 4 of Graduate Academy Commences. 15th July.

This little feather was in my garden today.. like a typical Instagrammer I decided that it would make a sweet little subject for a pointless photograph! 

I headed back to London this evening for my final week with the D&AD Graduate Academy! The last three weeks have been really amazing, and I know that this final week will also be great, so I am looking forward to getting stuck in with it. 

I'm a bit of a people watcher, so getting the train is great... my carriage consisted of the half sleeping man with headphones, the newspaper reader, the couple who are deeply in love, two giggling teenage girls.. and the lady secretly reading 50 shades of grey on her Kindle... I guess I was the annoying person with the camera!

GradAcad day 13: Dan from Scriberia, Mentoring, and the Moving Picture Company. 11th July.

Today started with a session from Dan Porter who is a Creative Director of Scriberia, a company which creates visual illustrative minutes of meetings. After learning a bit about the background of Scriberia we had the opportunity to engage with two activities; the first activity was a little bit like Pictionary... we were given 12 words (one at a time) and we had 30 seconds to draw the work, the words varied from "Snag" to "Garage"... it was interesting to see how everyone translated each word into a drawing. The second task we had took a little bit more thinking, we had to draw the shoes of the client we are currently working on a brief for, and then we had to draw the answers to five different questions around the shoes. I quite enjoyed the session, I do not have and talent within illustration.. but I didn't find that it limited my responses to the tasks.

You should check out Scriberia, their work is amazing: 

http://www.scriberia.co.uk

After our talk from Dan we spent time meeting people from the industry and they helped mentor us with our progress in the briefs we've been set. This was incredibly helpful and now I have a final idea which I need to strengthen and prepare a pitch for.

We then all crammed onto the #55 bus and headed over to MPC - Moving Picture Company, these guys are massive! They have three strands: MPC Film, MPC Advertising and MPC Creative. MPC Film has produced the post production work for films such as Harry Potter, Narnia, and Pirates of the Caribbean.. they are also Tim Burton's post-production company of choice... I had the chance to see part of their showreel from 2011.. and it is pretty amazing. MPC Advertising have also post-produced some really great ads for clients such as Cadbury's and Channel 4. MPC Creative are the team behind the Fox's Biscuits adverts, we spent quite a bit of time looking into MPC creative and the character work which they have done. 

After the presentation we received a brief and were placed in teams to complete the brief in an hour, our brief was to create a character which would be used to represent "Souper Stars" a new soup company (the soup company doesn't exist, it was invented for the brief). So we set about brainstorming ideas of hamsters, rabbits, the "SOUPer BOWL" and other crazy characters.. but then we settled on the idea of "Brian the Soup Spoon"... Brian is a "Ladles Man" and acts very much like a 40 year old John Cleese (the Basil Faulty era)... he also used to work at the Ritz before going self employed and he now owns the successful "Souper Stars" company.  

All the groups then had to pitch back their character to a panel of people from MPC, the best team would win and there was also a runner up... sadly my team didn't win, but we were the runner up! The winners were a team who created a "Diva Bird" who performed to people by the whistling that came out of her lips as she blew over her soup, so a pretty good idea for a character!

http://www.moving-picture.com/

The office at MPC was pretty amazing, there was a screening floor in the basement and on the top floor (where we worked on the brief) there was a bar.. and the walls were large glass windows so you could look over some of the London skyline, it was pretty impressive!

#GradAcad

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