Open Gardens

Today at the college there was open day at the college for the animal department, this was to make some money and bring interest to the animal department at the college. me and another member of my class who like taking images of peoples pets got together in the studio to open up pet photo shoots for the animals.

 It rained all day and i don;t think there was many people attending as they would have liked as it was just a horrible wet day and was hard to do anything out side. we only got one client with his dog in the studio because with the bad weather no one else brought there pet.  it was a shame but on the bright side i thought it was a good experience and re-jogged my memory at setting up the lights in the studio.

The Animal Man (Birmingham)

Today I went to Wolverhampton. After ringing and asking Roger (The Animal Man) if i could come visit his wildlife sanctuary. He had many animals like foxes, racoons, owls, snakes, eagles etc... when i got there it started to rain and became it was quite a dull day i didn't end up taking many images so he showed me around the sanctuary anyway for ideas and to see what was there for next time.  i took a few images of the foxes while i was there but still the lighting was poor so was hard to get some good images as i only came out with a few strong images .I am going to go again when its a really nice day but at least I know what is there and can think of some ideas for next time I go.

Presentaion

Today i gave a presentation on my work. i thought it went ok, i had some nice feedback from my class mates which gave me allot more confidents. my tutor explained that i just need to make sure i'm positive about my own work and be confident when talking about it.

  The class thought that my idea of printing some of my final work on mirror was a really good idea.

Stratford Butterfly farm

Wednesday, 4^th 2011

I went to Stratford butterfly farm to take some images of the butterflies. It was a really hot and sunny day which was good as it was the right climate for the butterflies in there enclosure and the lighting was really good for me and my camera. The overall images where great and I narrowed down the images to the strongest few.

Sue Flood

I looked into a photographer called Sue Flood.  Sue's work is really amazing, she works along side her husband who photographs allot the underwater photography. Sues work is truly inspiring.  Her work is  based in more colder surroundings such as north pole, south pole which she takes pictures of whales, polar bears, penguins etc.

Dog photoshoot

The following friday i took some more images of dogs in the studio, but also i tried some images outside as well of the dogs running around and playing. I was happy with the final outcome of the images.
 Photographing more regular in the studio has gave me more confidence with technical side like light set ups. Also it is building up contacts with people with animals to start me out making some money, one of the ladies with the great danes has asked me and another student to take some photographs with there open day at the college as there will be loads of owners and they pets arriving. Below is a image i took of connie the border colly (this image was taken outside)

Friday studio dog shoot

Friday 25th march

Today we had organised dog photo shoots through the day. one the class mates angela brought in her wolf dog, this was a great dog to take images as her breed is very unique. the other dogs we photographed were a Staffordshire terrier and a terrier cross the shoots went well and i found i was more confident and more Comfortable taking the images.

Also that day i have made a poster to put around the college advertising me and Aimee being available to take on some more studio sessions with there furry friend.

West Midlands Safari

I went to west midlands safari today, I have been checking the weather out for some time making sure that it was going to be a nice day, sadly was not as great as it was made out to be on the BBC weather. It was good enough though when I got there as I waited for more around midday so I could get the best of the weather. I had a really good day and I’m very pleased with the images I have collected and now I’m going to have a good look through each image and edit.

Andy Rouse

i met Andy Rouse at focus (2011), he was doing a talk on his new book 'gorillas' i wanted to get his old book tigers though as i been wanted to get it for a while and it was a great opertunity to speak to the man himself and have the book signed :D

Libary Research

I always think it's hard to find some wildlife books where ever i go. i found a few books from the college libary which look like they will be a good help to me;

• Exposing nature (natural history museum)
• wildlife photographer of the year portfolio 12 (bbc)
• The art of wildlife photography - Fritz Polking

some photographers work that will be good to research in;

• Steve smithson
• Martin harvey
• Theo Allofs (german)
  

Fancy Printer

Today at college we used the epilog printer i brought in a mirror to use as i wanted to use the portrait of the bird, it engraved the image onto the back of the mirror so the image came out on both sides i found when looking at the image is looked better on the back side so i have a great new idea for some more mirrors which i would like to use in both materials and techniques assignment and specialist practice!

Bad news

Had a hard week this week a lot of things have been going wrong the money i saved for the volunteer trip to africa (which was going to get some work experience out in the wild!) has come to a hold as my fiat punto (may he rest in peace) has died and now i'm on the prowl for a new car, and as i was half way there (£600) to being able to book the trip i now have to start from scratch! so another few months with some long hours working!

The Zoo

January 18th

I took a trip to Dudley zoo it was a dull and wet day so i new it was going to be a difficult day to get some decent light into my images. but i new the zoo as cheap entrance and it was a good opportunity to take some test shots of the animals.

   when i got there i was a bit disappointed as there wasn't many animals around but the plus side was that there was hardly any one at the zoo so i had more room and time to take images of the animals which where there.

   Taking the photos was hard as the poor light conditions and the glass screens in front the animals were dirty so i got allot of glare from the screen, but i still came home with some good images that i can use for my course work.

Martin Middlebrook

Martin Middlebrook

Martin is a british photographer who photographed a series of animals at west midlands safari. His images caught my attention when i had an idea to photograph wildlife animal portraits as i thought this is more exciting then the usual dog, cat and horse theme.

Here are some strong examples of this;

(college macs are RUBBISH)

photographers

Photographers to look at;


Jonathan Scott
John Daniels
Robert Hooper
Edward Thompson
Martin Middlebrook

Mike Lane
Andy Rouse
Tim Flach
Brian Phipps
Edward Thompson