Ikon Gallery.

Yesterday we went to the Ikon gallery & the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery in Birmingham.

When we arrived at the Ikon gallery in brindley place I thought it looked quite big and spacious, but once getting inside the exhibitions you realised how small the space was.

The first exhibition we went into was Stuart Whipps - Why contribute to the spread of ugliness?

I liked the way this exhibition was presented in a dark white walled galley, with projectors that are on a timer for different walls to be projected on at different times with different images. I liked the first room which had a video of a man photographing a scenery because it was us watching the photographer and not the aesthetics.

The second exhibition was John Myers - Middle England.

Firstly, I did not like the layout of this exhibition at all, the prints were so small they looked like postcards, they were spaced too widely for my liking so the space looked overly bare. The images themselves were interesting, but with the shine off the glass, the small size of the images and the spacing, I could have appreciated the images better on the computer or printed in front of me/in the book.

The Gaze.

We had a talk called The Gaze today which covered both the male and female gaze. It was basically about the way that men and women look at each other, in a negative and positive way.

We also covered aspects such as narcissism and voyeurism, saying can a photo be both voyeuristic and narcissistic? How do you show narcissism? Who is watching who in a photo? All things i can research into further for the presentation I need to create in 5 weeks.

I found this talk really inspirational and it gave me a lot of ideas for projects, not just for the presentation but for personal use as well.

I liked most of the artists and pieces shown to us. i liked Merry Aleprn's dirty windows andshopping, camera club, Corrine Day's Tara and Shizuka Yokomizu doing her 10 minute window piece the most and I want to research into these more.

Ikon Gallery.

We are visiting the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham on the 17th of January 2012.

We are going to see the exhibitions Stuart Whipps: "Why contribute to the spread of ugliness?" and John Myers: "Middle England" and then at 6.30 we are going to a talk.

I think we might be visiting another show/gallery between the visit and the talk on the evening but I haven't jad confirmation on that yet.

I am going to take my Canon DSLR and my 35mm film camera with me to birmingham to get some interesting shots and to hopefully get some images for the fujifilm and other competitions.

Derbyshire Life.

Me and Holly offered to do some images for the magazine Derbyshire Life of Burton these days to match images that were published years ago of Burton.

We found it quite hard to discover where the places in Burton were but when we did it was quite easy to get the images asked of us. We needed at least 10 of them to send to the magazine.

I enjoyed doing this project although trying to get in done in one day proved harder than I originally thought.

I am happy with the images produced.

Competitions.

We have just been introduced to 4 more competitions.

The first is the Internation Postcard Show 2012.

Deadline: Sunday 15th January 2012.

"Surface Gallery invites artists from across the globe to take part in this year's International Postcard Exhibition taking place from 25th Janurary - 11th February 2012. Artists are invited to submit an original piece of artwork which will be exhibited alongside local, national, internation and established artists.

It will cost £5 per postcard entered, and up to 3 may be entered.

I am going to enter my artwork into this because it will definately be exhibited at the Surface Gallery in Nottingham and I can go to the Opening night and I can make contacts in the art and photography world.

The second is Framing The Nation.

Deadline: 28th January 2012.

This brief is to do with the Olympics 2012. I haven't decided whether I want to enter this competition as I am more interested in the others we have been given but I definately will if I have time.

The third is the Fujifilm Student Photographer of the Year 2012.

Deadline: 29th February 2012.

I am interested in this competition. I must shoot on fujifilm film, scan then submit the image online.
The theme is quite broad, it is simply "extreme". I want to find something out of the ordinary for this competition rather than a type of sport or something.

The fourth competition is set by Rankin who is starting a new magazine, "The Hunger".

Deadline: Friday 9th March 2012.

This is the type of photography I am interested in.
This competition isn't very broad when it comes to ideas. Rankin knows exactly what he is looking for and the brief is extremely strict, but Rankin is known for his fashion work which gives me the chance to explore this again as I love fashion but seem to have backed away from it a little this year at college.

Heike Lowenstein.

We had a talk from Heike Lowenstein who is the course leader of the BA Hons Degree in Derby. She talked to us about progression and I found it really helpful.

She told us what to expect if we went on to do a third year to achieve our BA Hons. She mentioned that if the university didn't feel you were ready for year 3 you could be put into year 2. This is something I would not want to do and so I feel it has pushed me to work even harder in the Foundation Degree and on personal projects to get myself to the standard for year 3 at a university if this is the path I decide to follow.

I was extremely interested in the placement year she mentioned, this would be something I would consider if it was a possibility for me to do as it would give me so much experience in the industry and Heike mentioned that it definately helps you have more chance of getting a job after university, as well as having a seperate qualification.

Mixed Media.

We have been given an assignment for Understanding The Media called Mixed Media.

For this assignment we must produce at least 3 images that have been manipulated using hand techniques, photoshop, illustrator etc. They must be self portraits.

I am really excited about this assignment as I already have lots of ideas for it, and some of the work I have researched have inspired me.

Erik Knudsen.

We had a visiting lecture from Erik Knudsen.

His videos are really inspiring and thought provoking. He showed us a couple.

Vainilla Chip was my favourite of these films.

http://www.onedayfilms.com/page/vanillachip

Although it was quite sad, it was intriging to watch this man go through his daily duties after losing his wife. The ending when he goes to bed by himself and when he cries was the most moving part of the film. I like the music used over the top of the film.

He also showed us some of his still images/photography work which I thought was quite vast and interesting.