It's been a while....

It has been a while since my last proper post. My recent(ish) posts haven't been about anything particularly photographic anyway, hopefully this will change as from today, I am on summer break for 6 weeks. I have an enormous amount of homework, plus I am taking on a lot of extra shifts at work to get myself some money, but I will hopefully be updating fairly regularly again.
Part of my ginormous pile of homework includes taking photos and visiting exhibitions, so you can expect to see some posts about these things. I might tell you about some good exhibitions in England if I find any, I'm hoping to get up to London if I can, (might be difficult given the Olympics etc).
Another thing on my very full plate at the moment is Universities, I have to start making decisions about Uni's, but I am really stuck and this is where I need help probably more than I've ever needed it from you all! I need your opinions! University is a HUGE step and potentially life changing, at least for now, but I just dont know what to do. I have a couple of questions to ask you all. Please respond, it would really mean a lot to me, I know I ask you a lot but I can't stress enough how much this might help my decisions etc... So here are the questions, to all you photographers and artists...

Q1- Did you go to University to study art or photography?

Q2- If you did, would you say it is worth going? I can't help but feel there isn't a lot more that can be learnt about photography, apart from the history. After that is it not just practice, which I can do without paying £21,000+?
                          Q2(b)- Would I be able to learn the same things without going to University and start myself off earning money, or are there vital things I need to learn through higher education?

Q3- If you did not go to University, can I ask Why? and has it affected your career, is there anything you have been unable to do, due to not going to University? Do you regret not going?

Q4- Which university, if any, did you go to?

Q5- I want to take a gap year, should I travel and build a portfolio of images to sell, or find work experience. What is the best way into the photography business, solo or as part of a company?


If you have anything to say that I haven't mentioned I'd be so eternally grateful! Haha! It's a really scary and stressful time for me and I need all the help I can get. I don't know anyone studying photography at University or any kind of art course so I am struggling to find answers.

Please reply by commenting below or emailing me at- becky-iblog-becky@hotmail.co.uk
If you tweet a response, your answer will be limited so I'd greatly appreciate a more detailed reply or I get confused. :D


Thank you all in advance!

Bye for now

The olympic Torch

Well it is just under two weeks until the Olympics officially start! I wasn't really planning to get involved, I don't have any tickets and I'm not really a sports fan, but I did find myself getting a little bit excited at the the thought of the torch coming through my home town. As I waited in the crowded streets with hundreds of other cheerful people, I started to get even more excited. Camera at the ready, free bottle of coke from the huge coca cola van that squeezed it's way through the streets, I was prepared to get some great shots. The torch was running late which gave me an opportunity to get some candid shots of the crowds, and capture the atmosphere. I'm not sure I'm allowed to use those photos though because I don't have permission from the people in them!
Anyway, I set my camera up and also put it onto a burst mode, so that I could capture the fast movement of the runner. I lined it up perfectly, and got my finger ready to press the button and..It didn't focus! Typical hey? It kept re-adjusting and focusing on the bodyguards and security members around the torch bearer. I couldn't believe it! I desperately tried to flick it on to manual focus, but the runner was too fast and before long, all I could see was the back of her head as she ran towards the park. I wasn't too disappointed, I'd seen her, I'd witnessed history and it was really cool, but I was a bit frustrated that I'd missed a shot I'd been waiting an hour and a half for! I guess this kind of thing comes with time, I'm still learning how to capture those moments but maybe in another four years I'll catch the torch.
They are not terrible photos, just not as clear as I'd hoped! :)

And if you compare it to my brother's photo (admittedly taken on a mobile phone) it doesn't look too bad! Haha! Sorry Dave! ;D

 

My Brother's Photo.



Exhibition

Once again I've been really busy... so I appologise for my lack of updates and posts.

I decided to blog today about my exhibition, which was last night. Remember me telling you that I coudn't put my work online because they were for my exam etc etc etc.... but I assume now the exhibition is over, I can.  So I am going to Include photographs of my art exhibition and my Graphic Design exhibition too. I am not going to include photography because I don't currently have the final images saved on my laptop, they are at school. (so when I get them, I'll upload them).

I'll talk you through the images a bit aswell.

(©Copyright to becky-iblog-becky images)

This is my unit 1 final work for Art. This is actually about six foot tall, to give you some kind of impression of the size. It is all pencil and it took about 5 months to do ( Not constantly of course). The theme was twisted and intertwined and I clearly decided to look at hair, and the idea of plaits twisting and intertwining. I started with the head and just a couple of plaits, then decided to keep adding them so it became more and more surreal. The cracks in the face were to add to the sense of surrealness, and the impression if it being a porcelein doll.

All Images (©Copyright to becky-iblog-becky images)

The next two images are from my unit two art work.

 The theme here was facial expressions, and I was strongly advised to step outside of my comfort zone for these pieces. I normally do quite tight, controlled work- so I did these in a very expressive and experimental style. They are supposed to work together as a set of two. The images
were of friends of mine, I photocopied their faces when they were portraying an emotion, and cropped sections of them.
To achieve the effects seen, I used tissue paper and dry brushed paint over it, which worked well. For the faces I used about twenty or more different shades of green, with a few blues, purples and yellow tones. And obviously on the blue face I used 20 or so different shades of blue, building little areas of colour with a small brush.  I know a lot of people will look at these and be very unimpressed, but for me, I am proud because they took a lot of effort :L haha... and to be honest I wasn't overly thrilled with the choice in themes! :L


Well I hope you enjoyed the little insight into my artistic world! I will probably do a similar post soon with my graphics work and then with photography... but I am so tired I can't write anymore...

Bye for now

All images are (©Copyright to becky-iblog-becky images)



A short weekend in the Lake District

I’m 99% Sure that I’ve mentioned before that my brother goes to Lancaster University. That is why we always go up and visit him, and spend a few days in and around Cumbria and the lake district. It is so beautiful and every time we go we see something new because the weather has such an impact on the surroundings- nothing ever looks the same. There are fantastic hills and dales to see, but I love the lakes most. They are so calm and peaceful and so unlike anything we have where I live. It’s a real privilege to live in a country with such a vast variety in scenery.

So after I finished work on Sunday we began our 5 hour journey to Lancaster straight away. It’s always a bit of a dull journey, but it surprisingly didn’t seem to take too long. We got to Lancaster university in the evening, met my brother then spent the night in the hotel they have on campus. The next day we got up early and drove to Grasmere via lake Windermere and some other beautiful landscapes. The village was so pretty, filled with cute little tea rooms and gift shops. There was an old fashioned gingerbread bakery which smelt so good, and we got some gingerbread in there.  It’s a real tourist attracting area because William Wordsworth lived there. There is a memorial garden for him with a river and bridge running alongside.
(If you google Grasmere, one of the suggestions is the Gingerbread shop, to prove how good it was)

We grabbed a sandwich and headed out for an afternoon walk. Now in my mind, an afternoon walk is a gentle stroll round the little villages or parks, in my parent’s minds it is a hike up the biggest hill you could find, well one of the biggest anyway. My dad had his mind set on climbing Catbells.  Now you can Google Catbells in Cumbria and it probably won’t look that big but for inexperienced walkers like myself it was basically Everest and I wasn’t looking forward to it.  We briefly spoke to a passer-by at the bottom, who told us we’d be better off going up another hill as the view was more impressive from the top. She said it was a shorter walk, but I now know she was most probably lying as the highest point is apparently higher than Catbells. Well anyway, my mum and I were relieved that this new hill, seemed to be a shorter walk, so we started walking up the first path we saw. It looked as though we were heading the right way to the top of the hill, until we saw a load of hikers on the other side of the valley seemingly also heading to the peak. After bumping into some walkers we found out we were in fact on the wrong path, but we could still get to the top if, we walked a bit further. We walked for a good hour and a half (or should I say bad?) up a constant leg burning hill,  with the sun blazing and our feet slipping on the thousands of tiny rocks making up the pathway. I was far behind the rest of the family, and I’d love to say this was because I kept stopping to take photos, but even I don’t believe that.  We got almost to the top, and had near enough, vertical climb on the rocks to get to the highest point. We made it. The view was breath-taking. I don’t even think my photos can do it justice, there is no better feeling than getting to the top, all the climbing was done, it was completely silent and we could see for miles. The lakes were glistening in the sun and the clouds were casting shadows over the valleys. Amazing. If anyone is near to Rowling End you have to climb it, no question. You might want your Nordic poles though.  

The view!

 (Very steep)

I only included this because it made me laugh! I couldn't get the timer to work properly.

There was a pile of rocks made by people who made it to the highest point!

You might even befriend some sheep along the way, I clambered down to a really steep section of grass right at the top of the hill to get these sheep shots. I was on my hands and knees and couldn’t risk getting any closer because I was so near to the edge, but the sheep stood still for a while so I got a couple of shots.

The walk down seemed harder, it takes so much effort to keep a steady, slow pace as you balance your footing on the rocks and slippery grass. I slipped once and my legs were shaking the whole way down. I have never felt so glad to see the car!

We stopped at Keswick on the way home which was nice, but there wasn’t a lot to photograph there. We, then went back and had tea in a lovely three story restaurant in Windemere Village, The lighthouse. I recommend the calamari!

(Image from Google)

I know this blog post is really long already, but despite being a break of only two days, we seemed to do a lot, I haven’t even included everything….just the best bits.

The next day we got up early again and went to Carlisle. I loved the look of the University and photography course at Brampton road (the arts campus of the university of Cumbria, in Carlisle) on the website, so we went to visit to see if I really did like it. Can’t say I did.  There was nothing particularly wrong with it and it would probably appeal to a lot of people but just not me. I’m looking for a huge bustling campus with shops and cafes and loads of social places as well as a good course and so far I’ve found nothing of the sort. But I have plenty of time so I’m not worried…YET! J I did tweet to you all about Universities, and asked if you knew any good ones that did photography, so let me know if you find any!

We had a look round the main city of Carlisle, which is historic and as parts of Hadrian’s wall there I believe.  Th city was lovely, really busy and had loads of shops! There were people singing and there was a really lovely atmosphere.

Next up to  Ulswater,the viewing points and hills around there. It was all lovely, and we stopped a number of times to take photos. We then went to Morecombe beach before we had our dinner.  It was cold and bleak in Morecombe and wasn’t exactly busy but  there was a real atmosphere from the desserted beach.

Ulswater-

Sorry that this was such a long post, I tried to keep it as short as possible. I hoped you enjoyed reading and looking at the photos. I’d just like to add that it is under a week until my Race for life with my mum and it would be so great if you could sponsor us. My target is £100 and I have £50, if you could help in any way I’d be so grateful. I’d love to reach my target and raise £100 for cancer research. You can donate onlinehttps://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/beckyweale49  and even the smallest amount would help such a lot. Thank you all! The website is secure and safe and the money goes straight to cancer research. Thank you.

Bye for now

I'm Back!

I'm back! It's been a while since I did a good blog post so this one will probably be a long one.
I now have twitter on my mobile so I can tweet anywhere and anytime, but sadly I still can't blog from my mobile, it doesn't seem to work. Its been hard, therefore, to keep you all updated. I've obviously had exams, when they were done my laptop died and went into repair, then I went to stay with my Grandparents and couldn't really blog there, now I'm back, working for the next few days and then I'm going to the lake district till wednesday.  So I think after wednesday I should be blogging more regularly again.

Anway! I just want to say a quick thank you for the support I've had, even when I haven't been blogging- the tweets, followers and emails to tell me that your all still reading is really great! So thanks.

So, I mentioned that I had been staying with my Grandparents.  They live in Kent, a little way away from me so it was a great oppurtunity to get out and about and visit places I hadn't been to before. One of those places was wingham wildlife park. One of my favourite photographics subjects are animals, so I was really keen to visit this park.
http://www.winghamwildlifepark.co.uk/
I think it was about £11 pounds for adults (15+) which I didn't think was too bad considering the amount of animals they had there- Penguins, Lions, Tigers and an enclosure you could walk through and meet (and get your feet licked by) the lemurs :D.
It was a really lovely, sunny day and I took loads of photos, particularly of the lemurs as we could get so close to them. I'll just put in some of the best shots...

Hey everyone!

Sorry I haven't updated in a while, I've been really busy with school work, and since I got my provisional lisence I've been going out most evenings driving with my Parents. So I appologise for the lack of updates.




Anyway, due to my current school work amount, I haven't taken many photos worth blogging about. So I had a look through my photos from a while ago and found these, from lake windemere....

I love the way in this photo the sun glitters on the water's surface. I couldn't do that view justice with my camera. It was just so stunning.

This was a small section of the lake, and the sky was just reflected perfectly, there was a

slight breeze, causing the ripples.

This was a sunset from blackpool sea front. It was lovely to see, because I live in the East so we

only ever se the sun rising ovver the sea. It was lovely to see it set, on the Horizon.

Once again sorry it's a bit boring but hope you enjoy it. I will update soon. Tuesday is my last exam and thursday is my coursework deadline. So after that there will be loads more updates.

Bye for now

All images belong to © becky-iblog-becky-images


Also if you can, I'd apreciate any donations to my fundraising for Race for life. If you can donate anything please go to - https://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/beckyweale49

Sunny Days

Hi everyone. I have finished my important exams now, Photography, Art and Graphics which was yesterday. All I have to do now is finish my course work and take my general studies exam, which I cant actually revise for. So I thought I'd do a quick update as I've taken some photos today.
So, I went for a lovely walk in the sun with the dogs and the Rape seed was out so I got some nice photos of that, which I had been planning to photograph for a while. Here are a couple of my favourite shots.

I think again, these images will need to be clicked on to see them in better quality.


Bye for now

All Images In Blog Posts and on Twitter.com belong to © becky-iblog-becky-images

Bank Holiday bridge chase...

Happy bank holiday, hope you're all enjoying your day off. If you live in England you'll be enjoying the typical rainy, holiday weather. We did get a short burst of sunshine about twelve o clock this morning, and luckily this was when I was out with my family looking for bridges. For my Graphics coursework, one of the topics is to promote or celebrate bridges. So I decided to look at the bridges we have locally. We drove all along the river stopping at various points to take photos. I mainly took boring photos to get the idea of the structure and shape of the bridge, so they weren't too interesting. But the bridges were nice, so I thought I'd include a couple of photos anyway.

Now with these particular Images, you do have to click on them or they look really blurry. I just really loved the daffodils and the water with the old Mill behind.

A couple of my viewers come up as living in Suffolk, if that is you, you're probably near enough to visit this place. If you go onto Google Maps and type in Lower Street, Sproughton England, United Kingdom, have a wander around and you should see the Mill, just opposite the Church.

On Google Maps it's just the Mill you can see, but now there is a brand new bridge just next to the Mill, with a footpath that leads you on a lovely river walk. It's quite a gentle river, and I'm pretty sure a bit further up dogs were swimming in it, but if not it's still a nice walk. I don't really live very near sproughton, it took a while to get there, but some of you may be a bit nearer. Worth a visit if you can though I think.

All Images In Blog Posts and on Twitter.com belong to © becky-iblog-becky-images

Joanna's Photography Blog

Hi everyone!

I have a little favour to ask of you all. Will you Please check out Joanna's Photography blog-
http://jophotogblog.blogspot.co.uk/

She is one of my best friends at school, and studies photograhy with me. I told her today to start a photography blog like me, because her photos are great. She's already put one on for you all to see, so have a look. She hasn't blogged before so lets all help her out. Please email her and view her blog I'm sure you'll really like it, especially when she starts posting more!

Email Jo at- joanna_marie_16@hotmail.co.uk

I know she'd really appreciate your (kind) comments and followers :)

Thanks everyone.

Bye for now

Canon EOS1100D

As most of you know, I have the Nikon D7000 which I absolutely love, but before I decided on this camera, I did have the Canon EOS1100D on my wish list....

When I first started photography A level in September, I knew I would need to upgrade my camera, but I didn't really know where to start. The school had just bought two new digital camera's for the photography department, as well as some film cameras. The digital cameras were both Canon 1100D's, and everybody wanted one. I was lucky enough to borrow one over one weekend to practice using a DSLR. I experimented with all the settings, but I really took advantage of the fast shutterspeeds. My dog's often get to a stage in the evening when they fight, not seriously, just play fighting. They leap around and run up and down the living room, and often I had seen dramatic shots in my head, but I'd never been able to capture the action because using a fast shutterspeed would make my images really dark, even if I used flash.

So, it was really great for me to have a go with the canon, and I was quite impressed with the results.

It was certainly an improvement from results on my previous camera, but the images still lacked a little sharpness.

I had a go at some pretty random still shots mainly of my dogs, to compare and see if the images got any sharper.

I was pretty impressed as they looked sharp on the digital display, but when I actually saw them full scale on the computer screen, they just lost a little sharpness again.

When I spoke to the people in Camera shops they did recommend Canons and Nikons, but seemed to direct me more towards a Nikon. I remember one man saying "All Canon bodies are practically the same, despite the price. So you might as well go for a Nikon."

I think the 1100D was about 500 pounds, I started to look at the 600D and the 60D (also Canon)

and really liked both, then I lookd at the 7D, and fell in Love. It wasn't until I held the 7D that I realised I couldn't have it, as it was far too heavy for me :) That is really when I started looking at the Nikons. I found the NikonD7000, and loved everything about it, so that's why I got it.

But if you are looking for a very good but not pro DSLR, I would recommend the Canon1100D. I thought it took some really good shots. I took some great photos of some friends, but I dont have permission to use them on here, so you'll have to trust me on that :)

Find out more about the Canon EOS1100D and all the other Canon Camera's here...



http://www.canon.co.uk/

For the Canon 1100D-

http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/Digital_SLR/EOS_1100D/

For Nikon Products-

http://www.nikon.com/

I also follow Nikon on twitter-

@Nikon_USA

There should be a twitter for the UK, but it doesn't seem to matter.

Bye for now.



Fay Godwin

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned Fay Godwin in a previous post, but I just wanted to write a little about her because I am currently studying her work in photography, and I think she's brilliant. She does a lot of landsape photography, mainly black and white film photography, but she did do a secret lives series, and beach series which I think are my Favourites.
I thought I'd Include some of her photos fom the Secret Lives series. I think I included one of her photos in the 'Some of my favourite photos' blog post. - http://becky-iblog-becky.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/some-of-my-favourite-photos.html




There is something really magical about her photos. They make me think of Thumblina, haha!

If you like Fay Godwin's work, and would like to know more, she has a couple of books of her photos. I borrowed the book  titled 'Landmarks' from my photography teacher in order to do some further research. The book has about 200 pages of her photos on high quality paper, which is really lovely, and it also has an essay by Roger Taylor ( I'm assuming not the one from Queen as it says he is a Photogaphic historian) and an introduction by Simon Armitage, who is a famous poet I studied at GCSE level English.

That is the book i borrowed. You can purchase this book for about £40 on amazon, or other online sites. It is a lot of money but a very nice book.
The other books I found were 'Land' which seems to be about £20. But if you search Fay Godwin Books, you should find them.

Bye for now

“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.”

Read on for a chance to be mentioned on my page, with your photos and a link to your page!

A lot of you will have heard of, or even tried light drawings. If you haven’t I’m about to explain what they are, they are well worth a go, really fun and you can get some really interesting and successful images. A light drawing is an image you paint using a torch or another source of light, then you get a glowing line drawing when the image is developed. Now I say developed, but I think the best way personally, is to produce the images digitally. This is for the pure reason that a perfect image sometimes takes a few trial runs, and you don’t want to waste a film, or be disappointed when your film is developed. So like I said, digital is my personal preference for this technique. The great thing about light drawing is that, you can use a really basic camera and still get good effects. All you really need is the ability to change your shutter speed. The reason I said that it can take a couple of times to get right is because you can’t see what you are drawing, so it’s all a guessing game really. So to create a light drawing you will need:

A camera

A dark room

A tripod

A light source such as a torch

When I say dark room I don’t mean it in the photographic sense, I literally mean a room with no light. Attach your camera securely onto your tripod and set the shutter speed from anywhere between about 3-30 seconds. If your light is really bright you’ll want to reduce the time. I like to use quite a dim light and draw for quite a while, so about twenty seconds, but this is something you can experiment with. Now turn off the lights in the room, and make sure the only source of light is coming from your torch. Press the shutter and draw anything you like, just paint the air in front of you. Then check out the results. If your results are too bright you’ve got the shutter speed set too high, or your light is too bright.

Tips- if you move the light very fast, you will create a thin line, move it slowly and the line will be thicker. Switch the light on and off and you will get separate lines.

Glow sticks and coloured lights make really interesting light drawings.

When I started doing light drawings, trying to paint perfect images in the air, I had many failed attempts, but I soon learnt how to make it work.

Tip- Don’t always try and draw a perfect picture, swooping your arm and spinning around in random motions can create better images sometimes.

Now if you are wondering why this blog post is titled with a quote, it’s because Picasso said that, I love that quote I think it’s wonderful, but that’s not the reason I chose it really, in fact Pablo Picasso himself did light drawings.

An Image by Picasso.

As you can see, his light is illuminating him and his background, so I am pre-warning you that your background and yourself may become visible. But sometimes that really works in your favour. Another famous light drawer was a guy named Eric staller who creates some fantastic images with light.

Here are a couple I took. Not great, but really fun to shoot. I took these with my friends and it was a real life, dancing around with torches haha, so if you fancy a laugh....

Bye for now

p.s

I hope you enjoy making light drawings. If you have any light drawing pictures you have taken, email them to me and I will feature them on my blog with a link to your webpage or twitter. More views for you!

Recommendation

In my last blog post I mentioned tweeting/emailing me your favourite photos or whatever, and I'd mention you on my blog. Well @ggwildlife tweeted me saying he like my choice of photos. Which I really aprreciated. So I thought I'd just do a quick recommendation to his twitter and page. He is an amateur photography, but no way would you guess that from the stunning wildlife photos. Well worth a look at.

Twitter-
@ggwildlife

Page
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ggwildlife/

Very hard to choose but, one of my favourite photos, taken by ggwildlife, is the photo of the red stag, if you go onto the flickr page you will find the one I mean.


Bye for now

Some of my favourite Photos...

Like I said on twitter, I'm not feeling very well, so I'll keep it simple tonight. I thought I'd just upload a few photos that I love, not taken by me, but by inspirational photographers and artists. Hope you enjoy this blog, I should update a little more interestingly tomorrow.

(1) A bit typical, but I just think this photo is so fun and interesting. Never seen any thing like it since.
Salvador Dali

(2) Simply because Annie Lebovitz made Fairytales into fashion.


These two images were shot for vogue.

(3) Taken by Tyra Banks, for America's next top model.

(4) I just think this is truly beautiful, and has a vintage theme.
Fay Godwin

(5) And it's another typical one...if I said The seven year itch, would that ring a bell?


Hopefully it'll be some of my own photos tomorrow. I'd love to hear what your favourite photos are. Why not send me an email. I'll Post your responses on my blog, with a link to your page.

Bye for now