Lights, camera, action......

I thought I would put a couple of my pictures up that I am proud of....

The first is from a fashion shoot for a friends fashion project at University.... 

I call this picture Floral Denim.

I had many shots from this shoot but decided to show this one as I am a great fan of landscape photography too (I love the sky in this photo!) and feel that the clothing really fits with the outdoor feel of the picture.  I also get the feeling that the picture may not have been taken in the present as the fashion of clothing that the model is wearing looks like it from the 60's. 



Second and third pictures are from a set of photo's that I took on a camping trip to Wales.

For both of these pictures I had to use a tripod as they were long exposure shots.

        

For my final picture.....

I was the official photographer at the Wooden Spoon Great Lakeland Challenge in August 2010 and was extremely pleased when I found out that my picture had made a regional newspaper.  I had a brilliant time taking photos at this event and was pleased when I saw the reactions that my work got and that people bought the pictures and one even making the paper was a massive achievement for me personally....

Statement of Intent - Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter......

Spring

Summer



Autumn



Winter

I have decided on People and Portraits as one of my themes and its going to be called 'ALL THE SEASONS.....' 

I am hoping to get a set of images together involving Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.  I plan to use models and props to show the seasons and have some ideas to try and make things a little bit different....  I want to show in my selection of images the fashion for each season. Props and lighting will help achieve this along with using different camera settings. The pictures here are from a fashion magazine and the photographer is not named here but this is often the case in magazines. I am unsure of the studio techniques I will be using as yet as I have never been in a studio before however I will ensure I follow all of the health safety guidelines that were pointed out in the briefing such as not leaving bags around, being careful of wires and props around me.  Regarding my camera I will be using various depth of field, varying my ISO, aperture and shutter speed to try and capture and influence the shots according to the season.  Obviously with Summer and Spring I will be looking to use a large amount of light to show the season effectively and with Autumn and Winter using shadows and maybe even darkness to show the mood of the more darker seasons.... I will also be using a tripod to capture my frames and using different angles to influence my work in different ways. I will be taking in some fashion magazines for inspiration and also maybe printing out some model poses off the internet to get us started.


I have looked in to other fashion photographers for influences and gained a lot of ideas for what sort of photographs I want to produce....  I have entered my research of my influences separately.....


I am very excited about getting in to a studio environment for the first time..... And hope I get some decent frames!

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter - My magazine influences....

I love love love fashion magazines! Vogue, Elle and anything that has got nice clothes/make up/interesting people in.


I have never been to a live catwalk fashion show and it's definitely on my list of things to do before I die!






Black and white photography especially with people I think can be very powerful.  The models are very beautiful and have amazing clothes on (Most of which I cannot afford.....)  At the moment as we are coming into the Winter, the fashion that is in the magazines is all cover up winter clothes.  I have picked out some images that I think are pretty cool.....

These pictures have obviously been taken in a studio.  The plain white walls and all over black I love....  I also like the fact that the girl has blonde hair as shows different contrast in the photo.  She has very natural make up on and messy look hair to show the 'comfy' wearability of these clothes.

Even though I probably wouldn't actually wear something like this I think she looks pretty amazing.  I have never done a selection of black and white images so I think I will definitely be influenced to change that by some of this impressive photography.

Elle Magazine images (Possible Winter looks....)

Influence - The day I met Dennis Morris....

Wednesday 13th October 2010


Location - Burton Library
Photographer- Dennis Morris


After finding out that an international photographer was going to do an exhibition at Burton Library I was very excited to see what he did to become what he is today.


I did some research on him and was pretty impressed with his eye for photography and intrigued what kind of life that this man had led.  With pictures of Bob Marley, The Sex Pistols and some pretty amazing black and white photography was all very exciting to me....


His exhibition was a two hour slot of him going through some of his favourite images from back in the day and going on to what photography he is moving on to.


Bob Marley

Dennis spoke quite a lot about Bob Marley as this is where his career began....  He also went into detail about this picture, it was taken at a gig where Dennis was in the pit with his press pass on with his hood up (as you get spit on quite a lot apparently) and he talked about being at an advantage as he knew how Marley moved....  I do like Bob Marley's music and I think this picture captures the song that he was singing very well.  I like the mood of the photograph and get a feeling of what it would of been like to of actually been there.


SID

I'm sure Mr Morris had many more interesting stories about Sid and co but probably best keeping them to him self which is probably what I would have done.  But he did talk about Sid's character and the life/world of Rock and Roll and the fact that this high profile man was quite a genuine man who had an unfortunate demise from a drug overdose.  I can imagine the time that he spent with Sid taking his pictures was definitely an experience he wont forget.....

Growing Up Black

There was a set of pictures which he has named growing up black and this is one of them.  He talked of 'Mr Patterson' who lent him cameras and equipment because he saw the talent and passion that Dennis had.  This photograph is quite real of today's times, as children are involved in a lot of gun/street crime and Mr Morris did go on to speak about the significance of this picture but didn't mean what it does now as to what it did then....

Current Work- China Doll

This is some of Dennis's more recent work and the use of photoshop.  He talked of how he manipulated her eyes and skin and you can't quite tell if she is actually a real girl or not?

Overall I am now a fan of Dennis Morris! I was very interested in listening to him talking about his life and pictures and would definitely like to hear about some of the stories he wouldn't tell at an exhibition!

The beginning.....

Bonjour! My name is Laura Jayne Hayes!


The very beginning....


I love looking at pictures.... I am generally interested in all sorts of photography, but the more creative photos always gets my attention, that's why I love looking through Vogue or other high fashion magazines.


My love of taking pictures comes from travelling the world. I have travelled North America, South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong, Kenya and many other places.  On my travels I saw many amazing things which I have been able to catch on camera so I can take myself back to that place and relive to a certain extent.  This is where I decided on trying to pursue learning more about the world of photography.


I signed up to do a NCFE Level 1 qualification which I started last September and finished in June this year.  I learned an enormous amount and did assignments on all of the key factors of photography, ISO, aperture, shutter speed etc.


After learning so much just in my first year, I now want to continue to further my skills in all areas and learn techniques and subjects on what I may not have touched on my NCFE.


That's why I have decided to do Specialist Photography and Presentation in Studio Photography which is Unit 211 and 207.  I believe I will benefit a lot from doing this Certificate and look forward to getting involved in the studio with the lighting equipment and trying to get as creative as possible.  As well as doing fashion and portrait photography I would also like to touch on some still life photography using the studio lighting and all of the other equipment involved.


I also work in the events management industry and have on occasions been the photographer on an event and managed to get a whole load of decent images where they are used for various things such as marketing material, photo disk's for purchase and my latest achievement was a picture in a local newspaper..... (No byline though....)


So after all of that.... I'm looking forward to hopefully getting some nice images and learning lots more from the course, my tutor and my class mates!