Finding The Right Blogging Site

I'm experienced with Blogger ad would feel most comfortable using this site to create my personal blog on but I want to see what else is out there to see if it would show my work and myself better than blogger can. I've created a Tumblr account and began messing around with it to see what it can do, so far I'm impressed and its looking like this might be a winner! I will still carry on and create accounts with other blogging sites to keep my opportunities open.

Being Confident In My Own Work

I'm going to pick out some of my work that I'm not too sure about and ask people what they think, I will begin by asking my housemates, family and friends and see if their opinions are too biased, if they are I'll think about putting my work online onto forums for group discussion.

Photography Around The World - Income

I have first thought of the places that I might want to start a photography career in, the places that I'm interested in are the US, Spain, and France but since I don't know what area of photography I'd like to work in I've researched a variety of them.

There are some interesting revelations in the data. First, the average American photographer makes an annual wage of $36,330 (median $28,490). There are 56,140 Americans employed, either part- or full-time, as photographers. However, there are only 3,860 photographers employed by Newspaper, Periodical, Book, and Directory Publishers, making an average wage of $41,150. You can also see maps that breakdown wages and employment by state and other geographical areas. The three highest paying metropolitan areas for photographers are San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Hartford, Conn. The three nonmetropolitan areas with highest employment of photographers are an area of Ohio called “Other Ohio nonmetropolitan area” (not where OU is), “Western Central North Carolina nonmetropolitan area,” and “Northeast Mississippi nonmetropolitan area.”

The image below is a table showing the average salaries for jobs in Spain. 

Photography Equipment

Depending on what I want to do when I leave uni and how much money I'm earning I might want to buy my own photography equipment as the only thing I have now is an SLR. I've found out that I can use the uni's facilities and resources for up to 3 years after I leave so this includes the library and the studios which will be very helpful in aiding my knowledge and experience in the studio and building my contextual studies for the subject, hanging around uni after I leave will also open the opportunity to meet new people and different generations of photographers, graphic designers, scientists, fashion designers and musicians. After my 3 years is up and I can no longer use university I might need my own equipment so hopefully by then I'll know exactly what I want to do and know what equipment and resources I'll need to do them!

Reading List - Dominic Rouse

-Contemporary digital photographer from England.
-He creates digital monochrome compositions.
-His images deconstruct and reconstruct the human form.

I'm a huge fan of magical, fairytale style photography because it allows us to feel like we're entering a new world, well it makes me feel that way anyway. I've always had an interest in this genre, I grew up watching films like The 10th Kingdom, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and Labrynth, these are my favourite films. As soon as I saw Rouse's work it reminded me of the film Labrynth because of the strange looking characters and detailed backgrounds in the images. The monotone element of these images add to the fairytale vibe because the detail plays a big part in reminding me of fairytales and the monotones allow focus to be held on that detail. I like this work and will be experimenting with digtial monotone compositions myself in the future.

Updated PDP

I've added to my original PDP by thinking of more goals I want to achieve and updating the ones I've already achieved or are int he process of achieving.

I've added 6 more goals and have left room for 1 more. Firstly I'm going to get a part time job in any field, well that's the ideal goal, I could settle for a short term full time job. As I've previously mentioned this job would be there to gain experience in the working environment as well as allow me to earn enough money to pursue a photography career. Being a photography doesn't start off easy, equipment, resources and printing are expensive and the pay from a photography job at the beginning can be very little so having extra money behind me would help a lot. 

Another added goal is for me to be more confident in myself and the work I produce. I've been called a perfectionist many times and this isn't always a good thing, yes it means my work will be as good as what it can be but it also means I take a long time to complete it and this isn't ideal when I've got deadlines. It's very rare that I would sit back and think 'wow this work is really good' when looking at my own work, I often have a very negative opinion on my work and am always short on thinking it's good enough for other people to see. When I do show my work to other people they reassure me that it's good and this makes me feel a little bit better and more confident. A few months ago me and some fellow peers put together an exhibition in the corn exchange, this built my confidence massively in terms of enjoying my own work because a lot of peers and members of the public praised the work For my confidence to build in my own work I'll have to believe people when they say it's good so I'll frequently ask for opinions and enter competitions to see if I win. I entered a competition in Media City along with all of my peers and other students and I won 2 categories in the competition, this gave me a massive confidence boost as I entered thinking I would have no chance. There is always a chance for disappointment when asking for opinions and entering competitions but if I get into the swing of just asking and just doing it all the time then the opinions and results will come back positive more than negative so when it's at that point then I will know my work is good. 

For each module we've been given in uni we've had to create a blog to show our research and development and I've really enjoyed the process, it's helped to improve how I analyse my work and the work of others because I've had to do it so many times, it's given my typing skills speed and precision and it's opened my eyes to a new way of displaying work and making myself known to the web. I want to create a personal blog for my work outside of uni and any inspirations that I might come across. I'm going to experiment working with different free blog sites such and Tumblr and Wordpress to see how they compare to Blogger and see which I would prefer to use.

Upon reflection of my uni life I've not taken up as many opportunities as I'd like to have. My CV doesn't represent that of an experienced opportunist and that is what employers want from people so I will need to add relevant things to my CV before leaving university. As uni is full of opportunities I can use this last week or so to get myself involved, even if it's just with small daily things like attending meetings, debates and clubs. 

Sometimes it's not about what you know it's about who you know and uni holds a variety of people that will grow up to become someone that can benefit my career later on in life so I will build my contacts around uni focusing on graphic design, photography, fashion, science and music because these are the fields that I'll more than likely enter into when I leave uni due to my interest I have for them. 

University gives me motivation, structure and drive to complete work but once I've left I need to make sure I keep those 3 elements so I carry on producing work to put in my portfolio. I'm going to research different photography groups and photography related groups that I cold potentially join after leaving uni and hopefully that will supply my with weekly meetings and deadlines to produce certain types of work. 

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.