It's been a bit of a mixed bag over the past few weeks. I have been researching for my research project which I have decided to continue on with in the same veign from my 1st and 2nd year projects, but more indepth and more focused on how Pshycogeography fits into my documentary photography.
We have also been working on an exhibition as part of our late end of year show. We now have a location and to my delight is the very place I took the images that I will be showing at the exhibition. This will be my first exhibition so it is extra special to have the images that I will be using shown in the place they were taken. My exhibition pieces are part of my research which includes how the technique of psycogeography influences my photography and the images taken in Spindles Shopping Centre and Tommyfield Market are a focus on how the Spindles Shopping Centre and Tommyfields market environment directs the shopper and influences the shoppers emotions and behaviour while in the vacinity. In 1955 Situationist founder Guy Debord called for a new field of inquiry, to be known as “psychogeography,” established to study “the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals, you can read more about that here at.(MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning).
I had to put some of the past few weeks on hold to get a grip of my own emotional state after my sister passed away, so while I havn't been active at University and attended any lectures I have still been researching and quiety working at home. It seems that for the longest time I have not picked up my camera. Before I went off on my emotional rollercoaster of grief our last workshop was interesting, working with lighting and emulating images. Below is the result.
Next week will be an interesting week as besides finalising arrangements for the exhibition we will be doing a Cyanotype workshop which is amasing as by chance while at home researching I was looking at attending some cyanotype workshops amongst other photography techniques, but low and behold as if by magic our lecturere informed us that we will be doing a Cyanotype workshop this coming week, so I am super excited about that.
Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that produces a cyan-blue print. Engineers used the process well into the 20th century as a simple and low-cost process to produce copies of drawings, referred to as blueprints. The process uses two chemicals: ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide. The original recipe created John Herschel in 1842 can be found here The cyanotype process was one of the first non-silver technologies used to create photographic images. Cyanotype is an alternative photographic process where light sensitive chemicals can be applied to paper, wood, or fabric, and an image becomes exposed through UV light such as the sun or a UV lightbox. More information about the Cyanotype and it's history can be found here
So my prints are on order, my mounting boards and bits and pieces to go with it are on their way, and what should be reading week will be used to finalise the exhibition and I can make up a little bit of time that I lost through grief,I am looking forwards to the week ahead. I also have some copyright litigation to learn about
This week I have a live litigation lesson to go through as someone chose to take 3 of my images and publish them without permission and without accreditation. I have tried to work with them for the past few months but unfortunately they believe they have done nothing wrong, despite being a local newspaper who clearly know the law. All my efforts attempting to work with them alongside an NUJ representative who do not usually afford Student members such as myself with support with copyright litigation, however the NUJ deemed it serious enough to have implications for other photographers and offered to support me as far as they could. The NUJ have been invaluable thus far with their negotiation skills, unfortunately at this point, negotiations have gone as far as they can and it is now on to the next stage which is court action. For this next chapter of the copyright breach I will be working with the amazing photographer Denise Maxwell from Lensi Photography, whome I met at a workshop she was running a few months ago. Denise will be guiding me through the court process and holding my hand every step of the way. So here is looking at an interesting week, I hope you all live your best life this week and we will see you again shortly.
Shoots Photographs 