My happy song

Whenever I am having a bad day or need to be cheered up.. this song does it for me every time. Mostly it makes me happy because I like to pretend its about me. And it helps that Boyce Avenue are wonderful musicians. :)

It seems this year I still have a lot to learn about letting go of full control of my project and my images, and letting some of the natural parts of the image shine through. There are always those parts of an image that one wants to get rid of and edit out, but it seems that most people think my images are stronger without editing the images at all. I have found its really hard letting go of that control and just letting things be.
Hard to believe that term is almost over. On Thursday I'll be halfway through my final year at UVic. How did these years fly by? Not really looking forward to the day when I have to decide what to do with the rest of my life. I'll soon have to start making decisions about life, where to get a job that wont be temporary, where do I want to start my career, etc etc. Life is scary. Let's jump on that raft and see where the river of life takes me!
Enough with the cheesy metaphors and time to watch a print slowly come to life out of the lovely massive epson printer. :)

Its all about the art right now.

This song is pretty relevant to a part of my life right now, and even though its a beautiful song and really well done, it makes me kind of sad. The artfullness of the video though is just amazing and fun to watch. The lyrics make me a wee bit sad, and I think I should probably stop listening to it for a while. Just wanted to share it because its interesting to watch, so just enjoy the art.

Loch Muick

Photos from a hike around Loch Muick with my lovely Scottish lass, Fiona. Miss this country and those people so much. Its such a beautiful place, I cannot wait to go back and visit :)

Studio!

My pretty messy but fully functioning studio!! (Yes sometimes I need to stand on a chair.. the problems of being a short photographer...) Bought some tarpaper to cover one wall, which works perfectly as a black background with a bit of editing. Rented the lights and Hasselblad camera from my university to help me out with my project, and man with all the right pieces, my project is sure starting to come together. First worry was getting the outcome of the images to look like what I have pictured in my head, and so far I have been able to produce that! Next step.. figuring out what direction to take my project. I will post starting/test images for my project soon!

599!

I am amazed at how small the internet is. I started this blog in February 2011, and have already had 599 pageviews. I have also had so many people stumble over my blog from so many countries, its amazing. Of course I have given the link to my friends to check out from time to time, yet somehow others seem to find my blog via chance from the internet. I guess I better keep up the good blogging skills to get more followers and viewers!
Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving Weekend to all those from Canada! I hope your lives are filled with happiness and turkey! :) I'll be spending a lovely time with my family on a wee island going on hikes, eating turkey and drinking lots of wine!

A drop in the Ocean- Ron Pope

Listen to this over and over and over again. It'll blow your mind. Its one of those brilliant songs that you can just put on repeat and you dont get bored of it.

My dad sent me this image of my granny. My grandpa was a great photographer.. Im guessing I got the love of photography and the camera from him, and then through my dad. I have always thought nothing beats old school black and white images. This has now become one of my all time favourite images.

Mini Studio

My roommate is very lovely, and has let me turn our spare room/den into a part-time photography studio. But it also doubles as an art room, storage room and laundry room. I plan to capture a photo of it soon when it is a studio and not a chaotic mess. Its always been a dream of mine to have a space to make into a studio and its finally come true. Put some black tar paper on one wall to create a black background for my 4th year project. At the moment the idea is openended.. but basically about taking portraits of people that are not typical, as in shooting their backs. So I have set up a controlled studio and am experimenting with lighting and a Hasselblad medium format camera. Lots of fun with many trials, failures and a few successes so far.
This final year of studying photography at university is going to be an interesting one for sure. I have already learned so much, and am going to learn much much more. And I havnt even been in classes for a month!

keeps re-pe-pe-pe-peating

Everytime this song comes on the radio it keeps getting stuck in my head. Kinda like it though.. super duper catchy, and very dancy. Although the music video is a wee bit too corny and weird for me.

Silverside Farm and Winery

I worked at a farm in Cobble Hill over the summer called Silverside Farm and Winery. Below are a few shots I took around the place during August. It was such a fun place to work, and I got great experience working with customers as well as doing wine tastings. This was a new experience to me, but I had a lot of fun with it once I got over being nervous. If you are ever in the Cowichan Valley I recommend going into Silverside Farm and doing a wine tasting (as long as you are over 19). They sell berry wines and port-style wines with unique flavours, including blackberry, blueberry, tayberry and raspberry. But of course they also sell jams and syrups that are all made on the farm. The store specializes in showcasing local artists from the Cowichan Valley, a few of whom include Coco Jones, Roger Carr and Margaret Hogg. And if its a warm day don't forget to try out a custom made berry frozen yogurt or scoop of delicious island farms ice cream. And the staff is always friendly!!

The Band Perry

Another band that I have recently grown to love. I love music that is nice and easy listening. Have pretty much been stuck on youtube lately just listening listening to all sorts of music. Such a great background while unpacking and editing photos. Hopefully my roommate doesn't mind the bad singing... :)

Lady Antebellum

One of my favourite bands at the moment. I love those bands who can create an album that makes you want to listen to every song. They have a new cd coming out soon and I cant wait to get it. Music is soo great when unpacking and editing photos. Well music anytime just makes my life complete. Music is my life.

This is my new roommate, Chelsea-Lyne. Check out her awesome music! :)

Few new shots

Last week I did a photoshoot with a friend from highschool. I have not seen her since graduating, and it was great to catch up. As a theatre student she was really comfortable infront of the camera and I think it was a fun, relaxed shoot for us both. She didn't mind me messing around and experimenting a bit and just kept giving me a great smile to shoot. Hopefully we will do more work together in the future and experiment with her theatricality. Check out a couple of the images I've worked at so far.

I also did another shoot with a really old friend who I have known since I was about 3. She was again brilliant to shoot and didnt stop flashing a beautiful smile the whole time.  We had a fun time at the beach and took advantage of when the sun was shining.

 

It was so nice to do a couple shoots before uni starts again and get back behind the camera and working with people. Planning to keep shooting more and more and more this year. Going to build up my portfolio to the best it can be!

I honestly cant wait to go see Boyce Avenue live in September in Vancouver. Their covers are always so amazing and love their original stuff too! Such talented guys. :)

Home.

Been home less than a week now. Already starting to look for a new job and new flat to rent. Good thing is I have someone to live with. Sadly summer is slow coming, and we have typical wet coast weather. Supposed to clear up for next week though which is good. :) Soon will have enough time to go through the thousands of pictures from my Scotland adventures. Still hard to believe that its over. Well over for now.. I'll be back one day! After today, Im starting to feel okay being back at home. Its going to take some time thats for sure to get everything back to normal.

Okay how could anyone not like this song? Its sooo catchy, and is sung by a Scotsman! Could listen to this for hours and hours!

Its so nice to be on summer holidays. And where a better place to start them out than in the UK? Popping over to Ireland for a few days as well. Just over a month left in this beautiful country, and get to see my parents when they come over to travel with me in 8 days. Then I get to go home, see my family, friends and dog, and enjoy a lovely summer in BC.

Could life seriously get any better?

A happy oops!

Accident shots are always the best! Just flippin through the album from my Lara Jade workshop and look at this beauty I stumbled upon!

Rain

Walking home yesterday from a coffee shop where I went to do some sketchbook work, it had started to rain, and I always love the smell just as it starts to rain. So fresh and earthy. Its such a nice feeling and really peaceful.
This morning it was pouring when I woke up, and I love listening to the sound of the rain. Such a peaceful and comforting sound. Just like the sound of the waves at a beach. I should probably go out side now that the rain has ceased for a little while, go to the shop and such.
Have my prints for the crit all ready, and I think they look good. I think I really found a way to complete and finalize my project. I feel its ready for the critique! :)

And heres a little tune about rain.
I cant help it I like country music okay?

Nothin like some good 'ol local music from Vancouver to keep me going while doing uni work :)

Rambling

I have just realized I am quite proud of myself. This is the first time I have consistently written in a notebook/sketchbook, and kept posting in a blog for ever really. I always start things like blogs or journals, and am quite consistent at the beginning, but eventually forget about them and stop. I know I have kept on making myself write because of the course, but I am quite glad for that actually. It has made me keep thinking, keep pushing my brain to really think about my work, and get my ideas out. They usually just sit away in my mind, and then are usually forgotten  about. But writing them out I have found is actually quite good. Im going to try my darndest to keep my blog and sketchbook writing up over the summer and throughout next term, as its such a good way for me to dump down my ideas.
When I was in London, I wrote in my sketchbook like a journal, and I never keep a journal when I travel, but this was great as I wrote down what I did each day in detail, so now I wont ever forget (unless I loose my sketchbook..) but its great to have memories written down, rather than just through photographs.
I know thats a bit of a mess and a jumble to read, but again just getting my ideas down rather than keeping them to myself in my mind. Enjoy the rambles.

The Canadian Exhibition

Andrew and I put on a small show in the PEM white space in Grays School of Art. It was quite successful, and we had a good group of people show up. It was a great opportunity to get a space to show off our work so far. It was a nice informal way to get feedback about my work, and to show it to some people who are not in my class. Heres a few pictures I got of our work up :)

Hmm...

This image showed up on a recent roll of film, and for the life of me I cant figure out what it is! Any suggestions? Its a very intriguing and puzzling image. But at the same time I really like it! It kind of reminds me of an x-ray. I think I could stare at this image for ages and yet not get anywhere with clues as to what it can be. What do you think it is?

The red streak

Last night I discovered something really creepy when going through my panoramic landscape images. I was adding more colour landscape shots into my collection, when I realized something about the images that all had this red streak on the film.... All these images were shot in the same area! 3 different times I have shot in this area, and everytime, this red streak imperfects my film. Now, I'm not saying that I dont like this imperfection, I rather think its interesting, and adds a neat something to the image. I just got a little freaked out when I figured out that all the images were taken in the same area!
It made me wonder.. did something happen in this image? Have I actually captured some supernatural activity on my film? Im not usually a superstitious person, or one to believe in ghosts, but this is weird. 

Also the nice thing about sitting down and scanning images for a few hours is that it makes focus and concentrate my thoughts, and I can then write in my blog and sketchbook. There are no other distractions other than mindlessly surfing the internet, so its good to focus my time doing something useful. 

man made landscapes

http://matadornetwork.com/trips/photo-essay-the-most-alien-human-made-landscapes-on-earth

I have decided for the last crit to go back to one of my original ideas, and explore the idea of man made landscapes. Doing a bit of searching on the internet, I came across this photo essay of stunning yet terrifying images. I dont think I will take my project to such extreme man made landscapes, just continue to explore the more subtle and peaceful additions man has made to this land.
These images I found, show the extreme transitions that man has made to the natural landscape through experimentation, and want to control the earth. 
A whole other part of man made landscapes is that of cities, but is not something I want to touch on this time, as that is a huge topic on its own. The city scape is such a broad topic, and I want to try and focus on the natural landscape, and mans minor and sometimes unnoticable alterations.

Working with photography can be a little over whelming sometimes. You shoot and shoot and shoot and have so many images, it becomes so hard to sort through what I want to use, and what I like best, and what works towards my project. Sometimes I feel that I become biased with my ideas, because I may shoot an image, really like it, want to use it, but it does not fit in with my project at all. And then I wonder, all these images that I like... what am I going to do with them all? Are they really decent enough to try and print and sell? Or are they going to sit around and clutter up my harddrive? I have learned to not worry about how much film costs and to just keep shooting whatever I see, and appeals to me, and try shooting it at different angles and whatnot... but then what do I do with all these left over images? And all the negatives? Just put them away in a box for safe keeping? Am I really ever going to use these images again? I guess I will just keep shooting away this film, on the off chance that I come up with something great to use for my project. It just makes it hard when you really like every image that is produced.

hurry up summer time!

I cant wait for summer time! And this song is perfect to put me in the mood :) Plus nothing wrong with a little bit of country!

found this song by chance on youtube, and have been listening to it a lot lately. Just thought I would share :)

(Yay I think I figured out how to embed videos.. third time lucky?)

a few images

Being so busy writing the CCS essay, putting together a portfolio, and working on my project, I have found little time to go through the images from my workshop with Lara Jade, but I have managed to edit a couple so far! The workshop was amazing, it was so great to meet Lara, and learn from her. There were 9 of us in the workshop in total, and we had 2 models to work with as well as a creative team consisting of a hair stylist, clothing stylist and makeup artist. We had a couple locations to shoot it, one of which was a studio setting, which was great fun to get experience working with studio lights and a terrific model at the same time.

For all images: Taken and retouched by me
Model: Sam  
Styling: KP
Make Up: LM
Hair: LL

Now there are over 600 more images to go through... Should find a lot more good ones! Hope you enjoy looking at these, I am quite happy with the outcomes. It was such an amazing day at the workshop! xx

Is finding it hard..

... to contain her excitement!! I get to meet the fabulous Lara Jade in just over a week, for a fabulous full day workshop in London. She has been one of my favourite photographers for years now. One of the reasons she is so inspiring is besides taking beautiful fashion and editorial images, she is my age, yet had been published in many magazines, worked with amazing companies and models, and has been sponsored by a few companies as well. I am really looking forward to learning from her, and learning more about the industry that I hope to get into one day, in hopefully the not-too-far future. It'll be amazing to see what it is like to shoot in a real studio, use professional lighting, and work with a great model and hair/makeup team. This will definitely be the experience of a lifetime.

New fav song and band!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX7nMCRSqJU&feature=feedlik

Been listening to this a lot lately, as well as a lot of Boyce Avenue's music. They do the best covers! Really good for a relaxing evening :-)

I am so excited! I have been having a bit of a difficult time finding photographers who photograph landscapes in unconventional and unusual ways, and I just found Sally Mann's work. I did not know before that she worked with landscape, I thought she mainly worked in portraiture with her family. I have loved her photos since first being introduced to them, and now looking forward to looking into her landscape photography.

scanning and developing

I feel like I have been doing a lot of shooting and developing lately. And I plan on spending most of the day at school scanning my negatives, so we shall see how things turn out! Have two rolls of 36 B&W to scan, and one colour roll of 24. Also have another one or two rolls of colour to get deveoped! It's quite exciting! :-)

The work thus far...