Interiors

Not my usual style however our house has just been put on the market and my Mum was keen to make sure in the Estate Agents photos our house looked tip top. This meant following her round with my camera yesterday and taking lots of photos to tell her where some items needed to be hidden or just moved slightly.

Basically, what all this means is you get to see the inside of my house. It's lovely.

Our living room, complete with sleeping cat.

The kitchen which everybody always comments on being "different". Complete with lens bag.

The living room again... with two cats this time.

My flowery bedroom... complete with sock monster.

Brothers bedroom... filled with lots of tractors. Dressing gown should have been moved.

Does it make sense to you, having seen these few images why I don't want to move house? I love it here. But ah well, new beginnings I suppose. 

The Local Radio is Terrible

So I'm writing this post whilst I listen to BBC Radio Gloucestershire and I can't deny how truly terrible it is. Possibly made worse by the fact that I tuned in they were discussing sniffing sherbet.. We had none of that in Cheshire.

Anyway, last week I paid a visit to Hesters Way photographing for my project. Safe to say that was an experience I won't forget and I'm a little nervous to go back but excited too as I now have a better direction to take it.

This photo needs to be straightened up but I only had time to take this one shot as the person in the float just out of the shot wasn't happy I was taking a photo of the building he was living in.

Demonstrating where businesses are failing.

As this fellow walked past me he stunk of alcohol and this shot I find really interesting as Bargain Booze is situated right next to a help and support centre.

I can't decide whether or not I'm a fan of this shot.

Bedroom View

My view out of my window isn't dreadful but it could be a lot better. I think it's made worse by the spikes that are on all the windowsills to stop pigeons landing there. They aren't pretty. Although I much prefer them to pigeons (I hate pigeons). I just can't get used to looking out the window and seeing big metal spikes. 

This photo doesn't really show them to the full extent but it does a good enough job. 

On another note, I went to the archives at the university today looking for some books on the history of Cheltenham, or Gloucestershire as a whole. It could be a place I spend a lot of time.

I Protested Outside the Tory Party Conference

Sunday was an interesting day, a protest in Birmingham. The TUC organised for a protest to happen outside the Tory party conference to show them how angry numerous people from all sorts of backgrounds are about the cuts they are making to the public sector. I'm pretty sure to them it won't make a blind bit of difference but we gave it our best shot and it was great to see so many people coming together in unity for one thing.
Here are some snaps from the event.

I love this photo just for how clearly the woman stands out against all the other dark colours. 

These were some very angry musicians, especially the banjo player (as you can see above). They were singing on their way round the protest.

Onlookers watching from the balconies.

Another musician - Brum surprised me with how musical they are. This young lad was more than happy to pose for a photo.

And the age of the musicians varied all the way round, as did their instruments. 

Fire Bragade Union were out in force at this protest, shouting to everyone just how the cuts are affecting the vital services. 

Some more musicians on the march in the city, these two images I think show how far and wide these cuts reach.

Old and young coming together.

Onlookers again, stood in Victoria Sq. watching the march come to an end. Some of the people had been with us for the duration.

This image is just fabulous in my opinion for no reason other than the banners. Grannies against the cuts - I often forget how it must affect them as well.

All of these images to me show how the actions the Tories are taking, along with the Lib dems in this coalition is causing everybody anger and frustration. It also shows how little the Tories are doing to change this, instead only making it worse. But it also shows how people of all ages and backgrounds can come together in force when there is a point to be made. 

Let Your Hair Down in London City

Cheeky Devlin lyric right there. ^

Freshers week has been SO busy and that's without all the socials.. Wednesday we were crammed on a coach and whisked off to London for a day. There we visited three galleries and an exhibition, all very different - an interesting mix of work.

Stop one:

The Victoria and Albert (V&A)
http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/p/photography  <- I can't find the exact links (it's a huge website)

This was my first trip to the V&A which is a sin in itself, it's somewhere I've always managed to bypass somehow but I will be going back. Without doubt.
The first exhibition we saw there we stumbled upon by accident but I found it really interesting. A collection of reprints of old negatives, photographs of Architectural photography (something I don't really like unless they are really old buildings or photos).

Something about church photos I find really fascinating. I can never understand how people were able to get such intricate detail in to the brickwork without any big machinery. Yet now that we have all the machinery we still to bog standard rectangular orange bricks.

This photo doesn't strike me as being particularly interesting or unique, but what does make it unique was the fact that next to this photo was the wooden front to the building...

But it was too big to fit in my camera frame from any angle so this is the best shot that we could get. It was amazing to see this, I'm not entirely sure how big it actually is but it looked a lot bigger hung on the wall than a normal size house!

The exhibition we went too next in the V&A was very different and documented life in Britain since the 1950's, post war. I quite enjoyed seeing a range of photographers different approaches to photography.

In this exhibition, works that particularly caught my eye included those by Elsbeth Juda, Don McCullin and Maurice Bloomfield. 

Elsbeth Juda

http://www.elsbethjuda.com/index.html

A photographer born in Germany that moved to the UK to study Photography in London in 1933. Her husband Hans (married in 1931) became her publisher and she worked for a Magazine known as the Ambassador. The images off hers that were on display were those she was asked to take to glamorise the jobs of women during World War Two.

Just a small selection of some of her work that was on display at the V&A. Unfortunately the white balance is a little off in this image and so the photos don't look so orange in real life. 

Don McCullin

He's too cool for a website apparently.

I've seen a lot of this guys work, but they've always been war photographs and whilst they have been good, war photography isn't something I really want to do and so it's something I tend to spend minimal time looking at. However at the V&A some of his work is on show, only this time it isn't war photos. It's portraits of people working the land and I found these to be really interesting photos with a lot of emotion in, very fact based and very much a clear representation of the class system in Britain. 

(I don't have a photo of his work hung up - don't know why?! So instead I've pinched these from Google).

The differences between these two photos are very blatant despite showing different circumstances all together. The top image shows a man heading to work at a big factory whilst the image below shows two gentlemen heading home after they've been scrounging for coal. I highly doubt the man above would have ever had too scrounge for coal.

Maurice Bloomfield

Another photographer without a website! 

I wasn't as keen on his color work as much as I was with his black and white stuff, and his color work was what I saw first so when I moved along and noticed the black and white shots were also by him, it was a nice surprise. 

Is it just me that wasn't all that impressed? If I'd had to pick a favourite color image it would have been this one, but that's because the colors are more vibrant than in the other shots and the image shows more of the working environment. 

This print impressed me far more. Look at all those sparks flying about! I really like the lighting on this and how detailed the shot was with the sparks in the background and the massive pile or reel of the cable to the left hand side as well. They guy is basically a sillouette.

I'll be going back to the V&A one day (hopefully soon) to explore the rest of the place.

Stop Two: 

CHRIS BEETLES Fine Photographs. http://www.chrisbeetlesfinephotographs.com/

This was an accidental find on our way to Stop Three. But interesting all the same. There was an Elliot Erwitt exhibition on, I've seen his work before, but some of the photos in this gallery were new to me and rather humorous. 

I didn't take photos of the work in this place because what caught my attention more was the print room at the back of the gallery, I never imagined it would be there, I just expected the work to all be sent off somewhere for print before being sent to clients.

The prices at which some of Erwitts work was being sold were absolutely ridiculous in my opinion. But I suppose if you can afford to spend almost 3K on one photo, you may as well. Especially if you like it. Yeah, £2700 was the lowest price I spotted on the price sheet.

Stop Three:

The Photographers' Gallery http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/

I hadn't even herad of this place and its such a lovely little gallery, which has a lot of stairs! 

The exhibition we headed there to see was by somebody called Fiona Tan, this was an interesting collection although it wasn't till much later I realised how it had been done and now I'm not sure I feel about it. And the other floors above were more artistic photographs, fine art type. And whilst some were good, others left me feel rather confused.

This piece of work has been put together by taking photographs out of multiple peoples family photo albums and putting them together in an order. Whilst some of the photos were particularly striking and stood out to me, (like the one below) I don't understand why one person should get the credit for it? 

It surprised me that a photo this striking would be in a family photo album. My photo albums at home contain mostly the cheesy holiday or baby snaps that everybody has!

Upstairs..

An exhibition put together by multiple students from multiple universities studying a variety of photography or media based courses.

This piece was rather comical, and like the last made up of old photos from a family album, then cut to reposition a head. But again, I wonder who should get the credits? The orginal photo taker, the person who chopped it in half? Or both?

It wasn't until Antony explained this picture to us that I understood it. Information has been taken out of the photograph and replaces with names and other personal information so the computer can no longer read the photographs digital information. Clever, and effective in my opinion.

Studio images can be too clean sometimes and so this image (and the other it was paired with) were great for me as it shows all the nitty gritty as well that goes with a studio shot and how much work is put in, just in trying to hang something the right way. The stepladders either side balance out the photo nicely and don't look like they've been blatently left there - though they probably were.

Stop Four:

The National Portrait Gallery. http://www.npg.org.uk/

Road to 2012 was my favourite exhibition in here, I followed the olypics closely. Although, I preffered the shots by Jillian Eddstein to those by Anderson and Low for no reason other than who they were off. Anderson and Low photographed the athletes whilst Eddstein photographed those that played a key part behind the scenes.

Neil Libbert also had some strong pieces in the gallery of stars such as Dame Helen Mirren in her younger days, and Mick Jagger. 

Unfortunately I have no photos of this because you aren't allowed to take photos in the National Portrait Gallery. Perfectly understandable, especially as technology develops and cameras get more and more detailed images.

But that is all that I have for now. Bye!