Reading List - Justine Kurland

-Fine art photographer based in New York.
-She went to Yale University where she studied along side Gregory Crewsdon and Philip-Lorca diCorcia.

The first thing I thought from her images were how eery they are, they're almost disturbing to look at because in many, the subjects are lying down, looking lifeless. It's the fact that some of the models in these images look dead when in reality I think they're not but this is the look Kurland wanted to capture. I particularly like the second image I've chosen to show in my blog because it captures a sense of personality and boredom, the child looks bored with the world yet interested in him toy train. I like the mystery and strangeness to these images but I don't enjoy the disturbed feeling from looking at people that are deeming lifeless. 

Giving Myself A Brand And An Identity

I'm not experienced in the field of creating brands and identities but I do have contacts with graphic design students that might be able to help me. I've emailed Adam Reeves, the graphic design student that I've previously been in contact with, he had previously agreed to helping me out with this part of my PDP but since the last module hand in we had lost touch. The email I've just sent now to re cap out relationship and plans is as follows: I will take what Adam said into consideration and answer the questions he's prompted for me to know in order to create the perfect brand for me.

Hi Adam, I'm creating my own brand and identity to promote myself and my photography work and I was just wondering whether you could give me some tips as to where I'm supposed to start? And what things do I need to consider?

His reply is:

Hi Toni, as somebody in this field who has self-branded myself too, you've asked the right person! The first thing to consider is yourself, what you're about, what kind of person you are, and making sure this is portrayed in your brand's visual identity, it wants to reflect your personality and speak in your voice. Consider colour psychology too, different colours say different things, red is loud and confident, blue is calm and innocent, while black is bold and secure, white is pure and friendly. Typography plays a massive part, certain type styles speak in different ways, slab-serifs are confident and fun and sans-serifs are modern, while script typefaces are soft and feminine and serifs are mature.

I will take what Adam said into consideration and answer the questions he's prompted for me to know in order to create the perfect brand for me.

What am I about?

I'm a young, fun loving individual who lives life to the full every single day. Happiness is the most important thing to me so I always make sure I have it. I know how to have fun but when I need to knuckle down and do work then I'm dedicated and motivated to do the best I can. I follow 2 motto's in life, "If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well." and the simple idiom "You only live once." I like quirky things that make me laugh or smile, I like simple things like seeing a rainbow after the sky has stopped raining on me, I enjoy meeting new people and talking to strangers, I'm interested in putting myself into the shoes of others to see how they see and experience the world. I like researching the lives that are rapidly different to mine and sharing their stories for them. I like to think I'm very head strong and decisive when I need to be. I'm a perfectionist who needs to make sure my work portrays the best of my ability.

I sent that paragraph to Adam to see what he thought of it and whether or not it would help me in visually branding myself. This is what he said:

Judging by your cheerful, happy, positive outlook on life, this could be put across in your brand by bright colours such as yellow, lime green, orange. And light-hearted and more creative typography could be more appropriate than a serious and stern font.

I then mentioned the idea of using the hop part in my name Hopley as a way to focus my brand. My idea is to use rabbits in my logo and on my business card and highlight the 'hop' in Hopley, Adam said this was a really good idea and that when they're told to create a brand for themselves then the first thing they should do is look to see if they can use their name in any way because it's a really good way to be remembered. I told him I'd start designing logos to them send to him so he can help me convert them to an online visual then potentially use it as a final logo.

Tips On How To Present Myself To People

During one of the uni sessions about further education after uni I picked up some good tips on how to present myself to possible clients, businesses and basically anyone in the professional world and tips for general life after uni. 

-Show your face, make yourself known so potential future meetings will feel more comfortable and familiar. 

-Go to other people's end of year shows and ask questions to make it look like you're interested in them and to show your face and get yourself known by people in the business or who might be in the business in the future. 

-Take a couple of years out of doing photography because when it comes to the time when you pick it up again you'll put that little bit more effort into it and enjoy it more. 

-Keep updating your reading list.

-Keep going to exhibitions.

Elevator Pitches

Elevator pitches are a short summary describing who, what, why and how a certain thing does what it does. In terms of the elevator pitches I've been practicing, they've been about me and my work. I attended an elevator pitch session in uni where we all sat face to face on another with a table separating us, we had goes and turns to say our pitch to each other whilst being timed 1 minute for the first time and 3 minutes for the second time. We swapped seats each time to give us chance to speak to a range of people as opposed to getting comfortable talking to the same person over and over.

I found that when I began talking I'd get straight to the point of what I wanted to say and miss out a lot of details, sometimes the details would have been useful to share but most of the time they could have been skipped. I spoke really quick and kind of messed up my words a little at first, this was due to the pressure of the timer going off, I felt like it was going to cut my speech short at any second. I did however feel a lot more comfortable doing my pitch the second time because we had more time so I could relax and not rush it however I did find myself finished the pitch extremely early and I'd ran out of stuff to say so I would say that my desired elevator pitch time would be 1 minute because after a quick practice I was able to deliver a clear, understandable, quick pitch to carry out the information about me and my work to the opposing peer.

I found this session extremely useful as I've now learn how to control what I'm saying at a speed in which the other person can follow and I've learnt to narrow down what I'm saying so I'm just revealing the most important factors which eliminates any boredom that might come from dragging my sentences on for ages and ages talking about irrelevant things.

Where I'm Up To Now

I feel as though I have reached some of the goals from my first PDP, this however doesn't mean I'm going to stop working at them. One of the things I feel as though I've accomplished greatly is my confidence when standing and talking in front of a group. I've attended presentation sessions and have worked at getting my voice heard when surrounded by a lot of people, I've contributed to group sessions, gave my opinion and answers questions. I feel much more confident than what I did a few months ago. I will continue to build this confidence and hopefully there will be a time when I don't feel nervous about approaching a crowd, I feel excited instead.

I set out to have a wider Photoshop skill range by June 2014, this is something that I haven't worked on as much as I could have due to other commitments to do with university, I am however going to knuckle down with some Photoshop tutorials and ask people who I know have knowledge on the subject, for help because not only do I need to know these skills for later in life, I need to know them for my Final Major Project work before the deadline on the 9th of May. I haven't given up on this goal, I've just slowed down the process to achievement, I have been watching online tutorials every now and again to learn new techniques and I've been asking a friend of mine how to do certain things on the software which I have found to be a massive help when working on my FMP. I will continue to watch online tutorials and ask peers for help until I've built a confident enough list in my head of how to do a range of interesting things on Photoshop that I never knew how to do before.

One of my big goals was to become confident when working with lighting, set up and other equipment in the studio because how it stood, I was confident with nothing. I've not yet been into the studio to try out new things but I have been reading up on how to do certain things with different lights and reflectors and I've been in the studio twice to watch other people shooting. I am going to get a group together in uni and set up a date when we can all go in the studio to experiment with everything the uni can offer, hopefully this will become a regular thing once I've left university and I'll keep gaining studio knowledge. I've been slow to pick up on this because working in the studio doesn't interest me, I prefer to work elsewhere such as outdoors or upon location. I enjoy natural light as opposed to artificial for the pure fact that it's easier to work with and it usually fits better with what I'm photographing as my shoots often involve strangers or things on location, capturing them in their natural environment. Even though I don't enjoy working in the studio I would like to be in the know when it comes to it because I don't know what the future holds for me in terms of photography so I might need these skills later on and since university has the resources for me to learn them then I will take advantage of that and meet this goal.

I have looked at the general income for various photography jobs in the UK so I am now confident that I'd be able to charge amounts that are fair and understandable if I were to complete a job for someone or be asked how much I charge for a specific job. I was told by a tutor that it can be much easier and better paid to do photography jobs in different countries than the UK because here the industry is massive and hard to get in to. I've updated the goal to learn about the incomes of photography jobs to learning the incomes for photography jobs in different countries and finding out where the jobs is popular and not so popular so I know the potentially best place to start a career in photography would be.

Throughout the last PDP module and this current one I've been looking at and researching different artists and photographers and have definitely gained a wider knowledge on who's out there. To develop my goal I want to always know when the current photographers are, I want to know what's big at that time, what's trendy and 'in', to do this I will become part of social network sites and read articles weekly to find out what is new. As well as this I'm going to look at the work of relating practitioners such as graphic designers and fashion designers, scientists and musicians because these are where most of my influences come from when doing my photography work. Whilst researching all of those things I will continue to learn the names and work of photographers old and new and popular and almost unknown.

I'm happy with my current designs and layouts of the two CV's that I've currently designed but I recently saw a friend post his creative CV on Facebook and it gave me some ideas on how to improve my own so I will look back at them and edit what I think will make them better.

Before my end of year show, displaying the final outcome for my Negotiated Major Project, I intend on having a brand and identity for me and my photography work, this identity will fuel the design of my business cards, website design, twitter design and potentially a Facebook 'like' page for my work to be displayed on. I will collaborate with the graphic design students to produce my desired outcome and with their help my identity will be brought to life!

I've added 3 new goals to my PDP, one is to be more confident with my work, one is to get a part time job in any field and the other is to set up my own personal blog.

Adding to my PDP

I'm going to carry on adding to my PDP so I can keep achieving the goals that I've always wanted to reach. There are many things that I used to want and many different things that I want now so my goals are always changing. More goals that I now want to reach are to find a part time or a full time job to gain enough money to find my own home after finishing university and to raise enough money to potentially kick start a photography career. I would also like to be more confident in my own work, I am extremely passionate when completing a project or series of images but afterwards I lack in the confidence I need to 'show off' my work to others. I have a problem with accepting when I've done something good so hopefully by entering my work into competitions and asking peers and unbiased people for feedback on my work I will slowly learn that my work is good and I can make it in the industry! I know that I have many more goals that are waiting to be achieved but I don't quite know what they are so I will add those to onto my PDP and get working on them right away while I wait for the others to come in thought! I'm going to carry on trying to achieve the previous goals that I haven't yet reached as well as adding more onto my plan. My biggest objective to me is to make myself more known in the industry by networking so I will definitely be working on that and will have my name flying about in no time!