Laurajphotography's Blog

Sweeney Todd Setbuild

laurajphotography — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:17:13 +0000

So for about two months we were working on this group project called set build. We picked a still from a film and together as a group we had to recreate that still in the studio from scratch. I worked with Kamilla, Denisa and Byron. We chose this beautiful still from sweeney todd. Here’s the original still and the final image. You can see our building process and all the preperation that went into it in our team production diary http://www.setbuild.ucreative.ac.uk/09/wordpress/?author=6

So this is the original still from the film. And here is our final image…

Some old & new news

laurajphotography — Fri, 08 May 2009 11:51:24 +0000

The departure lounge shooting has gone far better than expected. It was an interesting experience returning to the hospital and I never expected it to be so emotional. I have all the prints complete now and even though I plan to make the project even more long term, I am in the process of making a cloth hardcover book. This time the visit was far more emotional and I haven’t really felt so attatched to my own work for a while so it’s a good feeling. It’s also one of the first things on the course this year I felt proud of, other stuff is a bit hit and miss. I think there is one patient I met at the hospital that day which changed my whole perspective and outlook on the project. I sat talking to him for over an hour. He was so intreguing. At the end he held my hand and was talking about how much he hated being at the hospital yet when he leaves he is left with nothing because his wife ran off after he got ill. He told me “I don’t want to die yet. I’m a fighting spirit. I’m just not ready” and by this point I was nearly in tears. I think when I originally shot the project when I was sixteen, I was far more detatched from what I was doing where as this time I began to realize the underlying tension and sadness that hospitals have. There are many juxtapositions in the work such as how the patients try to personalize the institutional space they are in and how as caring as the nurses are, the patients are handicapped from life, they’ll never be the same, and some.. morbid as it sounds.. are just waiting to die. On another note, hopefully the book will be ready for a couple of week and I’ll scan it in and some of the final prints.

For now I just thought I’d most something I did earlier in the year. We had this project where we had to construct an ‘internal landscape’ in the studio. Basically we had to build a mini scene in the studio and could build whatever we were compelled to build. It couldn’t involve models, it had to be on a small scale still life scale. I have always been interested in film noir so I created a noir inspired scene using mini houses that I built, a figurine and a smoke machine…

A portrait of Chatham

laurajphotography — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:10:48 +0000

Living in Chatham is quite an experience as I’m sure anyone who is or has would agree with me. The town is filled with strange, kooky and generally mental characters. If there is anywhere I could spend the whole day observing people, Chatham would be the place. These are the first colour photos I ever printed in the darkroom. It was for a small colour project but I’d love to develop these into a bigger project.

Halls

laurajphotography — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:02:46 +0000

These are the first pictures I took when I arrived in Rochester. Documenting the first week of halls for the first sight project.

Tap & Tin

laurajphotography — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:45:25 +0000

For one of our assignments for our second project we went out on location with the 5×4 cameras. I chose to shoot in Tap and Tin. These are my first 5×4 colour prints. I’d never used the camera before but they didn’t come out so bad considering tap is a nightmare to shoot in.

Better than oxygen

laurajphotography — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:20:01 +0000

Hello all. I’ve decided to start blogging again because as much as I love David Bailey, anything is better than writing a 2000 word essay about him. I’ve escaped medway for a couple of weeks and have become a bit of a couch potato during the day which is actually quite nice. I’m really not enjoying the severe lack of sleep and privacy and am craving my uncomfortable matress in my shabby halls room more than ever.

I’ve been indulging in the lyrical genius that is the words of Willy Mason & Matthew Houck (Phosphorescent) to save my soul from boredem whilst the majority of my friends are hard at work.

I should be photographing in the hospital again by next week if all goes to plan. I’m so excited about revisiting this place, it really touched me being allowed access and to experience what the patients were going through. The term departure lounge was ever so appropriate and I’m going to continue this project with the old title. Here is a photograph from the first project I did at college, so two and a half years ago now, how crazy time flies. Please excuse the horrid scanning lines.