Revival.

It's time to get this blog up and running regularly again. 

I haven't really done much photography-wise lately. I bought a little point-and-shoot in February in the hopes of getting back into the swing of things, but that only held my interest for a little while. I did get some decent shots at Soundwave Festival with it. 

Now that I am able to drive on my own, my hopes are to get a car and then start going to shows again. Hopefully shooting more of them. Getting back into that, because it was something I was getting good at! With a car, I also hoped to start shooting some nice landscapes, but we'll see how that goes. 

Today I pulled out one of my old mag-books: The Essential Guide to Portraits. Looking through it made me want to start shooting portraits again, so. Now my head is all over the place. All I know is I want to get my camera out and shoot, shoot, shoot. 

But whether or not this feeling lasts is another thing altogether.

The Angel Of Vengeance.

Have I mentioned previously that I might have an idea for the third part of my movements assignment, involving creating a poster/cover/something to do with a story that I am writing? Yes? Well, I am going to do it. 

I usually wouldn't post about this until after everything is said and done, because I hate to think of everything failing and me still having all this work up here as if things are going great, but I think it would be a good thing to put my planning here. It might motivate me to get things done, even if the first few attempts fail. So here it is - the first planning stages of my next assignment. 

I decided that I wanted to make a book cover/movie poster type thing for my current work in progress, The Angel Of Vengeance. I'm not going to bother finding perfect models for my characters - because let's face it, nobody's going to know the difference expect me! So this weekend I have my best friend coming over, and I'm probably going to end up using my two brothers as my two main male characters. (There is the potential of a third male character coming into play, and I have a co-worker in mind should this happen.) 

I have a general idea of how I want things to look, so I put my amazing drawing skills to practice and drew a mock-up: 

Gosh, what am I doing photography for?

Obviously, this isn't perfect. But it's an easy way of reminding myself how I plan for things to look. I also searched around on Google and found some images for inspiration, ideas, and for the way that I want things to look. It doesn't cover everything at the moment (because a lot of things are still just in my head, too) but I threw it all together and created a mini mood board: 

I want the image to be more dark than light, and I don't want the background to be distracting - which is why in the background inspiration images up there, we've got brick walls and smoke. 

Here's another thing I wouldn't usually do: give away spoilers, but in the spirit of noting down all of my idea-ing here... 

I want to try to create this image using only photos - as in, not artificially creating anything in Photoshop from scratch. It will be a challenge for me I think, but I'm up for it. Given the nature of the story, it's going to be interesting - so here are some ideas for how I intend to create the...crazier-looking things.

Zoe will potentially have lightning coming from her hands. Unsurprisingly, I've never managed to obtain a great image of lightning. I considered buying a plasma ball and taking shots of that, but then as I was walking to work on Tuesday morning another idea struck me. As I looked up into the trees, I was amazed at how much their branches looked like lightning strikes. And so I intend to use tree branches. 

Paris's hands were a little more difficult at first, but then the idea was obvious when it finally came to me - coloured smoke (or maybe just white, we'll see) and a sun flare or two. Again, we'll see how things go. 

Nathaniel has a force field surrounding him. When I first attempted a practice image on my brother, I followed a tutorial online that showed you how to make a force field. I didn't really like the look of it, but I figured it would do if I needed it. (I didn't save this image, so I sadly can't post it here!) But as I want to create this image now using only photos, I came up with a simple idea: shooting the rim of a glass. 

I also want to shoot a glass with a sparkler inside of it - both because it might create another interesting lightning shot, and because it might make for an interesting force field. 

If the third male character is included, he will be behind all of the others - looking back at the scene over his shoulder. 

This is obviously going to take quite a bit of work, and I don't have all the time in the world, but I have my hopes that it will work. If it does, then I'll tackle the issue of how I'm going to print it.

Assignmenting...Eventually.

The past few weeks have not been good to me. I've fallen off a ladder, contracted ringworm from a cat we rescued, and not completed anything productive that I had intended to. I have, at least, been thinking about my assignments - so that's a start, right? 

To Do

• catch up on blog; 
• bring workbook up to speed; 
• decide on physical or digital visual diary - complete that; 
• come up with ideas for photo-essay fill-flash assignment - shoot it; 
• complete part three of movements assignment; 
• finish portfolio - work out mounting. 

I've been thinking mostly about part three of the movements assignment, trying to work out what I want to do, how I want to do it, how I'm going to print it. For the most part, I get no ideas - except for one that I've had in the back of my mind, that I'm likely just going to go for. 

It's always been an idea I've had, but I've thought about it more and more since Ben asked me about it. I'm a writer - why have I never created any images to correspond to the stories that I'm working on? Maybe it's time I do that. The digital manipulation would come in because I write fantasy, but how would such an image correspond to a movement? I've already tackled modern surrealism. 

I've been thinking I'll just ignore the movement thing and go for gold. This is the last assignment - I want to create something I can be happy with. I might not be able to find the perfect model, but I can at least try to create a stunning image. 

Likewise, I'll hopefully be getting some more shots for my portfolio. I'm shooting Xavier Rudd at Big Top Luna Park, a venue that will at the very least have better lighting than the Hi-Fi. 

I'm hoping to get something productive done before heading back to TAFE next week.

Weddings.

I've been off TAFE sick for the past two weeks and haven't yet had the time to jump into our next movement of study, so I thought I might talk a little about the wedding that I second shot on Saturday with one of my classmates. 

This was my second time shooting a wedding. My first time was a complete disaster - it was the beginning of 2011, I wasn't highly experienced with people or with my camera, and I was the only shooter there! As hard as I tried, I went in far too unprepared and made rookie mistakes that I look back and laugh on now. Back then I said I would never do another wedding again, so this one was a challenge to me. It was a way of seeing if I could do it. It was a way of seeing if I wanted to. 

I was definitely less stressed than what I had been the first time around, likely because I wasn't the one who had to worry about getting all of those important shots. And that, in itself, is what should have tipped me off straight away - if I can't handle that stress, why would I want to be a wedding photographer? 

My reasoning for it was always that I wanted to capture those moments, to take pictures that people would want to take out and look at all the time and hang on their walls. But I can do all of that without having to shoot weddings. 

So if this wedding taught me anything, it's that I don't want to shoot weddings at all - I just want to shoot portraits. Things where I can be in control and there's not a long list of shots that I must get.

I feel lighter for having made this decision.