My Final PDP

I've actually enjoyed planning the future and have found that this module has helped me get started with what I needed to do, without all of this planning and thinking about the future I'd still be confused and in the dark with what I wanted to do. I will work hard and continue to reach my goals to ensure I make the most out of my abilities and resources at that time.

Networking - Business Cards Developed Idea

When creating a Behance online portfolio account it asked me for a web address name, tonihopleyphotography was too long so I was thinking of shortening it to tophopphotography instead, this brought me back to an idea I had when designing my photography website for a university module, my idea was to brand myself mentioning 'hop' and include rabbits to support the name, the connection between 'hop', rabbits and my second name Hopley fits well and comes together to form a strong memorable brand.

I've decided not to go ahead with creating this brand until I've spoke to my tutors and peers about it. But as of now I have an idea for my business cards to be in the shape of a rabbit. I will mention this new idea to Adam Reeves, my graphic designer to see what he thinks!

Networking - Twitter Account Progress

My Twitter account so far:

Once I get myself set up with online portfolios and have work to display I'll update this account to become a place thriving with inspiration, photography news and great opportunities. I've 'followed' lots of photography pages, local news and Manchester events/places so I can get information on things happening close to me!

Networking - Business Cards

I had a conversation over Facebook with Adam Reeves, a graphics student at the University of Salford, the copied and pasted conversation is as follows:

Me: Hi Adam I was wondering whether you'd be interested in helping me design some business cards to promote my photography?

Adam: Hi Toni! Yeah sure, I've got a few deadlines coming up right now though, when do you need them by?

Me: Oh no problem, there's no rush, any time you're free for a chat about it, let me know!

Adam: Sure! Send me a description of what you want and I'll see what I can do!

Me: Thanks, I would like this picture to be in the background (I sent him the chosen image) and I want this text: 'Toni Hopley Photography' to go under my chin in the image and under that I want 'tonihopley@hotmail.com'. I want the text in white and to be an average sized font. I will add more details to the card later on when I create a website and/or online portfolio.

I'd like a patterned cut out within my card as well. I'll mock up a design of the pattern I want and send it to you later on.

Does this sound ok for now? Thanks!

Adam: Yeah I'll be able to do that for you, you can come down to the mac room in Allerton building on Friday after 3 if you want? I'd have handed in then and we can go through exactly what you want and produce some mock up cards.

Me: Ahh right, I have an exhibition that actually starts at 3 that day at the Corn Exchange in Manchester and I'm not sure how long it'll last, how are you for Monday?

Adam: Monday will be fine, we can arrange time and place nearer to the time. Good luck with your exhibition!

Grabbing Opportunities - Exhibition

The Corn Exchange Exhibition has nothing to do with the University of Salford, it's a completely independent exhibition run and created by my peers and I.

I'm able to submit up to 6 images to be displayed of any size. I've thought long and hard about what I want to show and narrowed it down to these 4 images.

I'm thinking of titling this small selection of work 'Mind Matters'. The reasoning for his body of work is based around the problems the human mind might have to tackle at some point in our lives.

I don't like to base my work around the cliché topics although admittedly with this body of work It could seem I have done, purely due to the immense impact that these matters had upon my life at that time, there was no escaping them. 

We all at one point in our lives go through tough times and have to find ways to deal with them whether we tackle them in silence or with a bit of help, I for one don't like to share my feelings verbally, I find it much easier to express them through imagery as it's more comfortable in the way that I can hide behind the work.
When I was leaving college and my little brother was starting high school I noticed a lot of changes within the way the youth of that generation were acting, they seemed a lot more 'grown up' than what I did when I was their age so I started looking into the reasons why. Media is obviously a massive influence on the children of today because it's everywhere we look, models, celebrities, fashion and make-up are thrown into the vulnerable faces of these kids everyday leading towards them developing pre-mature traits such as excessive make-up wear, exposing fashion, bad language and more serious matters such as depression, anxiety and anorexia. I realized at the time I was showing signs of these problems within society, I was becoming the subject of my own work due to personal reasons so I stopped looking at how media and comparisons with other people were effecting the youth of today and looked at how it was effecting myself. The first and last images shown above express some of these problems.
The other two images are more about the 'keeping things locked away inside your mind' part of the project. When we feel stressed or down, we try to find things to help them feelings out and make us feel better, for a lot of us we cling to some form of 'escape' whether it be music, writing, sitting in your shed...Most of us have that 'special place' that only we go to. The third image expresses my 'special place', whenever I feel down, stressed or like I need to get away for a few minutes I think about the times that my granddad used to take me, my brother and my cousin to what seemed to be a 'magical place', when we were younger. It was a forest full of blue bells and other exotic flowers, there were mushrooms growing, butterflies everywhere an long grass you could hide away in. I don't know where this place is yet it's my favourite place in the world.
The second image is less of a personal expression yet still something close to my experiences so far. It's based around child abuse and not being able to speak up to get help, it's a very serious matter so I wanted to express it in less of a shocking, disturbing way and more of a comfortable yet still gripping manner. The beads play on the childlike aspect of it and the spelling of 'Shh' help in place by my mouth is often misread as 'Hi', I purposely did this to symbolize the secretive aspect based around this whole topic, most of the children going through this sort of thing hide it, hence the 'Hi' hiding the 'Shh'.

Grabbing Opportunities - Competitions

I've been looking at lots of photography competitions, ideally trying to find free entry or student ones, here are some of what I found, most have a submission charge so I won't be entering them yet they're useful to know about in case I want to submit in the future.

http://bigpicturecompetition.org/
Enter your images into the BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition by March 31 2014 for your chance to win a share of the $20000 in cash and prizes. Your $25 entry fee permits you to enter up to 10 images into the competition. Presented by the California Academy of Sciences. Our vision is to engage and inspire the global community to become stewards of the natural world through compelling conservation imagery.

http://www.onemillionphotographers.com/about/how-it-works/
onemillionphotographers is both an on-going project to create the world’s largest online photographic image gallery and a real-time photography competition. Submit your work in any of the eight image categories and have your photography showcased in its own permanent Gallery space, identifiable by unique location coordinates.  Your image can then score points in the competition and earn you money from downloads.

http://www.life-framer.com/
Life Framer is a non-profit driven photography competition designed to source and showcase outstanding photography from amateur, emerging and established photographers. Our aim is to bring exposure to talented photographers from all over the world: your talent, your vision, your life. Every month we make a call to arms to the global photographic community to respond to a theme. In it for you is the chance to be exhibited in our end-of-year exhibition, as well as some amazing prizes along the way.

http://shoottheland.com/Shoot The Land is an exciting new monthly photography contest that is designed to inspire, recognise, expose, and reward talented photographers around the globe. This contest gives all photographers a purpose to create powerful landscape photography, as well as a regular deadline to work towards.

http://www.emergingartistaward.com/This competition is open to entrants above 18. Participants are requested to submit an exhibition project which consists of a series of artwork using the media of their choice or a combination of media and support. The subject should express a contemporary issue or an original concept and should be preferably executed using innovative technique of production. The participant should explain how the work proposed is original as well as the concept behind it. It should reveal the universe of the artist, the inspiration and imagination which make the project personal and unique. This series should preferably have not been exhibited or little before to preserve its emerging characteristic.
http://natgeotraveller.co.uk/2014/competitions/photography
We’re once again on the the lookout for your vision of the world through a lens. Last year we received thousands of UK entries and were truly impressed at the incredibly high standard of submissions. This year we’re back with more great prizes, new judges and fresh categories. Tour the site, see the existing entries, and then get snapping!

Grabbing Opportunities

University presents us with lots of opportunities that we won't get so easily once we've left and are living in the 'real world' yet unfortunately  don't feel as though, so far, I've abused these chances. The third year of uni has made me realise that I need to take advantage of the time I have left so after my two years of fun and enjoying uni life, I'm now putting time into the serious academic side.

Photography competitions are a great way to get yourself known and used to the market yet my knowledge on what competitions I can enter is very low, I will change this and research what offers are available to me and be confident enough to enter my own work to some if not only for the experience.

I've heard off of my peers that there will be a photography exhibition being held in The Corn Exchange on Friday the 13th of December, I've decided to take up the challenge and agree to have my work shown at the exhibition even though it was a risky move because I'll only have 6 days to find images to submit, prepare my space and write a short information sheet on my chosen images. I am very nervous and have no idea what to expect, it's my first time doing anything like this but I'm excited for the challenge!

Photography Wall: Sony World Photography Award Winners 2013

A good way to find new, successful photographers is to look at the winners of big contests like the Sony World Photography Award. I've researched the 12 winners of 2013 and researched into them and their work individually to widen my photographer name list. I'll be honest and say that not a single one of them images stuck out to me, made me think 'wow' or looked as though they deserved to win yet that's probably just because none of them were my style of photography. I appreciate other styles, of course, but obviously the winning photo in my eyes would be something I can relate, like the look of and understand. Despite my un-attraction to the winner's images I've briefly noted their names and put them onto my photography wall. Some of the winner's images are as follows:

Mitch Dobrowner:
Winning image:

Other work:

-Influences are Minor White and Ansel Adams.

-Creates images that help evoke how he sees our wonderful planet.

Kolyaskin Sergey:

Donald Weber:
Winning image:

Other Work:

- ''He has since devoted himself to the study of how Power deploys an all-encompassing theater for its subjects; what he records is its secret collaboration with both masters and victims.''

Palmer + Pawel:

Winning Image:

Other Work:

Expanding My Photographer Knowledge - Reading Lists

This is the reading list that our tutors have suggested we look into. The ones in bold are what I've already began to read, I chose to read these first because I've worked with them before so I understand them well and have an idea of what I'll get out of reading them.

Liz Wells : Photography : a critical introduction

Liz Wells : The photography reader

John Berger : Ways of seeing

David Bate: Photography

Graham Clarke : The photograph

Ian Jeffrey : Photography : a concise history

Susan Sontag : On Photography

Ashley la Grange : Basic critical theory for photographers

Gerry Badger : The genius of photography : how photography has changed our lives

Steve Edwards : Photography : a very short introduction

John Tagg : The burden of representation : essays on photographies and histories

Susie Linfield : The cruel radiance : photography and political violence

Abigail Solomon-Godeau : Photography at the dock : essays on photographic history, institutions and practices

[no author / Phaidon] : The Photography Book

Martin Parr / Gerry Badger : The photobook : a history

Stephen Bull : Photography

Photographer Wall: Jean-Francois Dupuis

Jean-Francois Dupuis

-Canadian artist
-Experiments with illustration and painting as well as photography
-Creates powerful photo-montages and striking imagery
-Digitally merges the skill of technology with the traditional values of fine art. This process has allowed him to push the boundaries of what photography is perceived to be and has given him a broader spectrum to express his creativity without limits/
-His own experiences of travel are a recurring theme.
-His images depict place and his vivid imagination through vibrant expressiveness. 

Guest Speakers - Layla Sailor + Anna White

Layla Sailor 

-Born in Manchester

-Works in Manchester and London
-Degree in photography
-Inspired by cinematography, literature, Russian traditional crafts, religious iconography and politics.
-She creates hyper-realistic, dreamlike work focusing on colour and styling.
-Her work includes lighting design, art direction and prop making.

Her advice:
-Stand your ground with what you're good at and don't change your style or ideas because someone had a bad opinion on it.
-Talk to the fashion students about getting contacts to the fashion or photography world because they have the contacts given to them by the university.
-Make a Twitter account

My opinion on her work and what she said:
I liked her fairy tale sort of work because it's the sort of thing that I like to do myself, I see it as 'making anything possible' so I can relate to that aspect of her work the most. I like how she often collaborates with a pattern designer, this would give her work elements of originality as well as build up her client and contact range, I always take up the opportunity to collaborate with other students and people working in different fields to me yet could use it more to my advantage by doing it more often so I will do make this one of my objectives on my PDP. Layla's work is contemporary and traditional at the same time, I find this mix very interesting, this gives her work a very unique element!

Artists that inspire her:
Kirsty Mitchell

-Born in 1976
-Raised in Kent which is known to many as 'Garden of England'.
-Her earliest memories are when her mother used to read her stories.
-''She instilled me in the most precious gift a mother could, her imagination and a belief in beauty...it became my root, and the place I constantly try to return to in my work, and my dreams.''
-Studied history of art, photography, fine art and costume for performance and fashion design.
-After the loss of her mother she used photography to escape when she could no longer talk about how she felt. she lost herself in street portraiture, focusing on those who reflected her own sadness and loss.
-Later, she turned the camera onto herself throughout the hardest year of her life , it became a fantasy that blocked out the real world and a place she could return to the memories of her mum.

Toilet Paper Magazine

____________________________________________________

Anna White

-Originally from Suffolk

-Studies photography and graduated with a masters.

-Her work is very personal, it explores the lives of others and documents it in a comforting way.

Her advice:
-Don't take undergraduate for granted because once we're out in the world it'll be so much harder to find the opportunities that we're always getting here.
-Make a Twitter account.
-Get yourself known at this early stage.
-Stick to what you know but always keep your mind open to learn new things.

My opinion on her work and what she said:
I see Anna White's work as relating very much to William Eggleston with slight elements to Martin Parr in the sense that her work is very domestic and personal. I don't particularly like her domestic style of work because I personally do't understand the meaning behind the images, I do however appreciate her work with people, especially when her work becomes a tool to help them out, for example, she did a project called 'Transformation', her description for the series is as follows: I have worked with Age UK group, ‘Out in the City’ to create a photo book about identity and memory in the elderly LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) community in Manchester. For the project I interviewed seven people and with poet Andrew McMillian and we created a series of images and poems illustrating some of the difficulties that people gone through concealing their true identity, some, for the majority of their lives. There are numerous preconceptions held about being LGBT but attitudes and equality laws are slowly changing. The Equality Act 2007 states that people cannot be discriminated against on the grounds of their sexuality but many are still suffering from outmoded views and prejudices. It is vitally important to remember that freely expressing your sexual identity has only recently been realised, with many who still find the task too monumental to carry out after years of secrecy. I am deeply indebted to Mike, Anna, Alan, Chris, Peter John, Peter, Andy and Ivan who opened their homes and lives to me. They are an extraordinary group of people who have educated and helped me indescribably. Anna said that this project was a comfort to many of the participants as they hadn't previously spoke to anyone about their sexuality due to the laws they grew up with. I love working with people and finding out their backgrounds and stories so I felt a connection with this sort of work that she does.

Artists that inspire her:

Simon Roberts

 

-Born in 1974
-British photographic based in Brighton.
-One commentator has described his photos as ''subtle in their discovery and representation of forms of cultural character, which upon closer inspection, reveal a richness of detail and meaning. they exhibit a disciplined compositional restraint, a richness of palette, and a wealth of narrative incident.''

Jim Goldberg

-Born in 1953.
-American photographer and writer

-His work reflects long term, in-depth collaborations with neglected, ignored, or otherwise outside-the-mainstream populations.
-Best known for his photographic books, multi-media exhibits and video installations.

Boris Mikhailov

-Born in 1938 in Ukraine.

-Lives and works in Ukraine and Berlin.

-He's a fine art photographer.

-He's described as one of the most important artists to have emerged from the former USSR.

Paul Seawright

Humphrey Spender 

-Born in 1910

-British photographer, painter and designer.

John Davies

-Contemporary documentary photographer.

-He sticks to using black and white format.

-Drawn inspiration from issues relating to his surroundings and conditioning.

Networking

In order to spread my name around withing the industry I've created a Twitter account and will also be collaborating with the Graphics course in uni to design and create some business cards. My Twitter account will be used to gain follows and clients as well as find out photography related information, gain tips, find other artists/photographers and gain information on upcoming events such as exhibitions or competitions. I'll be working with the graphics course  up until Christmas to come up with a clever, trendy, creative, memorable and useful business card that will hopefully gain the attention of potential employers.

Creating A Professional Portfolio

We had a session on Portfolio development, I will use this information to help me build and create my own professional portfolio.

-Think about what images would fit along side each other in terms of content and orientation (horizontal/vertical).
-Tailor the portfolio to the person I'm showing it to at that time.
-Think about how I would present it, do I want to show it on a tablet? On a computer? Or printed out?
-If printed do I want my work to be shown in a professional, expensive portfolio folder or a small, alternative wooden box...
- I will have to think about borders, size and finishing gloss.

With these things in mind I'll look through my photography work and pick out the best pieces and update them if necessary then narrow them down to create a final portfolio.

Creating A Professional CV

My creative CV before feedback:

The feedback that I received for this CV is as follows:

You have taken an in interesting and bold approach towards developing your creative CV. However, it is important to understand the assignment brief and ensure that it is meeting the criteria specified. Your CV does this but there are limitations to your approach which lie chiefly in that presentation
and content aren't particularly targeted towards the vacancy chosen/ Development points: Use of images is particularly effective within the creative sector, after all the CV can be a tool for you to demonstrate your technical and creative skills. Consider incorporations a range of images within your CV and expanding you CV to 2 pages will enable you to do this Alternatively, using a smaller font size and different layout would enable you to restrict your CV to 1 page; Font--‐size – this is too big for a CV. Additionally, your CV is quite text heavy and this means that it isn't particularly easy for the reader to focus on the information relevant to them/the vacancy; Details regarding your degree appear to have been omitted from your CV – a significant omission given that the vacancy specifies a related degree; Look at the vacancy and address the criteria specified, e.g. there is no evidence to show that you have the required skills/experience with relevant software, i.e. Photoshop.

Summary of the feedback:
-Target my CV more specifically to particular jobs.
-Incorporate more than one image.
-Expand CV to two pages or smaller font size and different layout.
-Show evidence of required skills, e.g. Photoshop
-Too text heavy.

My opinion on the feedback:
I appreciate the feedback I'm given for each project I do yet I can't help but to disagree with some of the feedback I received for my creative CV. I do need to focus more on targeting specific jobs rather than having such a broad CV aiming range, so this is something I will try to develop although I don't see how I'd be able to make it too specific as I'll be using this same CV to apply for many different photography/creativ jobs. I don't like the idea of including more than one image unless it was to be a different photo used as a background for a second page which then brings me onto my next problem of not wanting a two page CV, I think a one page CV is more compact and easier to work with, I feel as though potential employers wouldn't want to be flicking through pages. I will make my text smaller and cut un needed parts out of it to make it less text heavy and I will include evidence of skills.

My general CV before feedback:

The feedback for this CV is as follows:

Your general CV reiterates the approach taken within photography foced CV and in this sense doesn't work well for a CV aimed at a more 'mainstream' sector. A completely different approach is required here. Development points: See above; Formatting and standard of presentation need to improve radically; Once again, focus on the requirements as stated in the job ad.

Summary of the feedback:
-Aim for more mainstream jobs.
-Focus on job specific requirements and show evidence.
-Improve formatting and standard of presentation.

My opinion on the feedback:
I agree that I need to focus on specific job requirements and aim my CV towards more mainstream jobs but I do not think my formatting or presentation needs changing. I think that although my presentation for this general CV is slightly creative and different looking then this doesn't mean it won't be attractive towards the less creative jobs. Mainstream jobs will have gone through millions of the same looking CV so I think my design will stand out more and give me a head start.

Developed PDP

5 Year Plan

We had a session in university discussing our 5 year plans with a peer group. I've always been one who doesn't know what I want to do after 1 year never mind after 5, so I found this difficult but after hearing the plans of my peers I started to get some idea of what I should be aiming to do. Most of my peers were talking about updating their websites, portfolios, blogs and CV's, I realised this is something I needed to do too.

I began looking at my current CV's which I created for as the result of a uni module. I created a regular and a creative CV, I will look at the feedback I received from my tutors and see how I can improve the CV's. I need to create both a physical and an online portfolio, I will look through and re-visit my current best images and projects and put them together to create it! A friend told me about a site called 'Behance' which is an online portfolio site, I will look into using this.The last thing I need to improve on is networking so I've decided to make a Twitter account.

Know More Photographers/Artists

Throughout my photographic life my work will be compared to other photographers around the world so I will need to recognize the names of these photographers in order to understand what is being referred to within my work. I admittedly don't know enough about the contextual side of photography and would like to learn more. I am going to set up a 'photographer wall' in my bedroom where every now and again I'll find a photographer that I've not previously heard of and I'll research their work and stick a brief description and example of it onto my wall, I will build this wall up and can use it for referencing and building up my knowledge on a range on different photographers.

I will also take advantage of the knowledge of my peers and tutors in this field and will ask and use reading lists that they give me. throughout the duration of this module and for as long as I feel is needed, after this module, I will continue to research and post information I find about different photographers.

Income Knowledge For Different Photography Jobs

Looking on various websites I came across this one which I found helpful because it not only gives a small amount on info on the income a photography job brings but it gives tips and information on what you need to reach the goal of becoming a professional photographer.

http://creativepool.com/articles/jobdescriptions/photographer-job-description

Salary and other benefits

These figures are only a guide, as actual rates of pay may vary, depending on the employer and where people live.

• Junior assistant photographers start at about £12,000 a year.
• With experience this may rise to around £20,000.
• Some specialists earn over £50,000.

Income varies for freelancers depending on experience and workload, and they can earn between £150 and £600 a day.

As of right now I don't know what job I want when I leave university, ideally I would like a photography related job but I'll have to take up whatever opportunities are thrown my way at first then hopefully progress onto the path that I'm hoping will lead to a successful photography career. The type of photography I think I want to work in would be either freelance or editorial, I know these seem strange as they're both incredibly different yet I do have a strong interest in both. I'm assuming freelance would be harder to earn a living from so I would like to run both of these jobs side by side, at least until I'm earning enough.

http://petapixel.com/2013/07/09/the-economic-realities-of-editorial-photography/

Freelance fees in the editorial space currently range from $1,000 at the occasional high-paying national publication, down to around $65 at some regional newspapers. The average creative fee currently seems to hover between $200-$500 at the national magazines, wire services and larger newspapers. Working for these rates can lead to a decent standard of living if you’re able to shoot regularly enough so that the income is consistent.

For example, if you were to shoot three days per week — one day for the New York Times, one day for Sports Illustrated and one day for the AP — you’d make around $1,050 for that week. If you could do that every week, a 50-week income would be around $52,500 per year before taxes, retirement funding, health insurance costs, equipment acquisition and marketing expenses.

Confidently Working In The Studio

I don't like to work in the studio but this might just be due to the fact that I'm not very confident in how to use the equipment and what each piece does. I tend to like natural lighting rather than artificial but open spaces rather than a compact studio room but learning how to use the studio is something I will benefit from knowing.

I will talk to some of my peers and suggest we book out the studio for some practice sessions, we can share tips and help each other out until we're confident enough to go into the studio alone.

Increased Photoshop Skill

I see myself as a basic Photoshop user, I don't yet know how to use Photoshop to it's full potential, the skills I acquire are not enough to make the most out of what is offered to me so to increase my Photoshop skills I've been watching YouTube videos on how to do certain things and reading online tutorials, this has helped me to gain a wider knowledge of the different things that Photoshop offers.

I've always struggled to manipulate model images in a professional way, I'm used to following my own rules rather than the correct rules and it often ends up looking 'shabby' and 'unprofessional' so I looked online and found a tutorial which has taught me how to do lots of things I never knew how to do before, I'm going to try them out and see if they're beneficial skills to know for the future. http://sixrevisions.com/photoshop/26-professional-photoshop-retouching-tutorials/

The photo below is an image of my which my peer Ana Cunha took of me when doing a photo shoot on Mac make-up. I'll be using this image to manipulate using the techniques I learn from the online tutorial.

I followed some of the steps in the tutorial and realised it wasn't for me, I wasn't keep on the techniques yet I tried to follow them and I produced this:

I did learn some new things with that tutorial although I need to work on my execution! I learn a quick way to smooth out the skin as opposed to going over the whole thing in small clicks with the 'Healing Brush Tool' and I now know how to soften the colour when adding it to something such as my hair.