a conscious blur.

This morning I took on the challenge set by my photo prof. and shot an entire roll of film 'from the hip' and intentionally blurred and skewed each image.

The results are definitely different from my first 3 rolls of documentary photographs. But raises that question,

Do all photographs need to be in focus all the time?

Within the style of documentary photography movement and motion can be crucial aspects of the whole process. The intentional blur within the photographs illuminates the sense of motion within each situation. These situations also become visually appealing through the way the photographs are abstracted with interesting textures and graphic elements.

After taking the roll and before processing the film I have to admit that I didn't think I got anything that would be interesting or pleasing. It wasn't until the contact sheet was made and I actually found images that were quite appealing.

Looking at these photographs together I can definitely see how they relate to my concept and idea of documentary photography, and the decisive moment. These photographs are documents of fractions of a second in reality, and if you were to ask me to illustrate or describe these moments I wouldn't be able to with any detail or at all. They are such diminutive moments that, if anything, are blurred without any detail in my memory.

While definitely giving a different feel than the photographs from my last three documentary roles; where majority of the images where in focus and straight on. I think finding a balance between the two approaches will result in an interesting collection of documentary photographs.

a few more documents of halifax.

This morning I was able to shoot my third role of shots 'from the hip' for my documentary photography assignment. I'm really enjoying the whole element of surprise and not knowing what exactly you captured on your film during the whole 'shooting' stage.

Here are a few favorites from this mornings roll.

I have been challenged by my prof. to take an entire roll from the hip where I deliberately shoot every image out of focussed and hold my camera at various angles.

Sounds fun!

a documentary side of photography.

The Decisive Moment, a phrase coined by french photographer and photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson. It describes how a photographer can use intuition, camera skill and aesthetic judgement to capture essential and ironic moments of reality.

Observe the real, trust the intuitive.

The task for our photo assignment is to go out in the city and work quickly and carefully with our camera. Basically become a stalker, well at least that's how I felt shooting my first two roles.

Shoot at the hip.

The idea is to let the reigns of control slip just enough for accidents to happen. For at least one role we are to break the rules and try shooting a full roll of 36 shots from the hip. Questions asked:

Where is it stated that you have to look through the viewfinder when releasing the shutter?

Do all photographs need to be in focus all the time?

Obviously a large margin for error is needed for this task, so we are to shoot at least three roles. Even though it may be a bit of risk, as we need to have 5 prints made for next Thrusday, I have decided to take all my roles from the hip. The element of surprise and the happy accidents that occur within photography I believe relate closely to notion of the decisive moment.

After shooting and processing my first two rolls of film, I feel that I have been lucky to have caught quirky moments and interesting situations. I think there are some special gems.

When I was going through my contact sheets, I really felt my photographs needed to be printed on small scale. The images that managed to capture are just 'small' documents of city and the individuals who go about their day to day routines within it. The photographed accidents and quirky moments are only small fragments of time; a slice of a day, a week, a month, a year.

I have at least one more roll to shoot for this assignment. Although I felt fairly uncomfortable with this way of photographing, the results are definitely pleasing. I think this could be the start of an ongoing series.

colour block.

For this weeks fashion drawing assignment our focus was on drawing a fashion figure through the use of colour blocking. There are different ways of approaching this method, but there was one that I found worked best for me. One way is an observational approach, the blocks of colour are laid on the page influenced by the observation of the figure. Another approach, and one I gravitated towards, is to lay blocks of colour down on the page and then using those organic and flawed blocks of colour as a influence to pull out a figure.

Since I'm still trying to edit and loosen up my renderings, and push drawing from imagination, the approach of unconsciously laying down shapes of colour encouraged a more loose way of drawing and beneficial. I found it a lot easier to to develop and emerge a figure through the loose blocks of colour, rather than trying to render a figure from a stark white sheet of paper.

The objective of the assignment was to create a composition of four to five fashion figures using the method of colour blocking. Before creating the final composition, I did many 'warm-ups' in my sketch book to loosen me up and become familiar with the technique of colour blocking.

After doing many trials before-hand, I felt using one colour to develop my figures was the most successful and appropriate. Using only one colour encouraged me to really focus and spend time on the figure (something that I needed to work on). So for the final composition I worked with two colours of guasch paint, magenta and cyan. Although I didn't get the greatest feedback on the colour selection, I felt the colours had a nice contrast between each other and while being very saturated they still allowed the black rendering lines to come through. The guasch paint was a perfect medium for this excerise, it was easy to get a range of washes and dried quickly.

So far out of all our weekly assignments we have had to date, I felt the colour blocking has personally been the most beneficial. It was a lot easier and I felt more confident constructing these fashion characters when allowing the raw blocks of colour to guide and feed my imagination.

sample book.

At the end of the term of my Fashion: Construction class, we compiled all our weekly assignments to create a sample book. The class was a very technical with learning how to do basic stitches, seam finishes, darts, pleats, gathering, bias binding, buttons and button wholes and zippers.

I documented the final sample book for my exchange portfolio; although I'm still not positive if I'm going to include it in the final portfolio I send off. I think it is a good way to show a foundation of my construction knowledge and is appropriate to be presented here.