Reflection

 This term I created a new website and new project 'Still Mortality'. On the website, I quite enjoyed recreating this and choosing a different image for my homepage.  The homepage image came from 'The Army of Dolls' project and I thought this was appropriate as the images were created entirely digitally and the doll in the lake I do think really works with a good rule of thirds and colour scheme that suits my site and my work. 

I chose Playfair Display font and used this throughout - I chose this as, although it may look a little formal and 'old-fashioned' I perhaps and both of those things so this was a good decision and it does work well on the site and is sans serif and easily readable. 

On the portfolio page with my book, it is embedded from Blurb and you can flip through the pages however it still does not expand in the correct manner on the page.  With that in mind, I added a button to Blurb and here you reach the sale page where you can preview at full page and buy the book.  I was not completely happy with this and I could make it into a flipbook in a different form in the future as I would like this to be more responsive and user-friendly.  I also like doing this on Blurb as I like to get the hard copy and have a real book, also I like it that it is out in the world as it should be.  It is for sale and can be easily found.

The project itself Still Mortality was actually more fraught with issues. I intended to use the Polaroid however I soon realised I could not get the images I wanted using this method with the text that I intended. I then chose to use an older Olympus and took a set of images however the card corrupted and the camera itself (a poor Olympus E-3) was stuttering towards death with a red blinking eye that would go off so after declaring the camera officially dead and being unable to uncorrupt the card I decided to shoot them again on the Olympus Mark II - I do think these were not quite what I wanted still but time was ticking and decisions needed to be made!

Finally, I decided to use images from my university time as it was about time and other images from different times interspersed with the new images.   The text was all new and I thought the text was actually stronger than the images in places. This certainly is not my favourite piece of work and I do think I would have not necessarily published if it was not for this deadline.  I am hoping next term I going to create some far more interesting pieces as part of my work here.  However, as much as I am critical of 'Still Mortality' it did meet the goals I set out and was completed in a timely manner and published so that it was successful.

Final Website Updates with Still Mortality

 I finalised my project book on Blurb adding the original images.  On Blurb I added this for sale and bought a hardcopy version of the book.  

This is how the final page looked on my website

On the button you can go to Blurb see the full page book and buy the book. I also added back to the portfolio button.

In addition, I added some other pages of past work to my site

I added another book 'The Quietus' and a film 'Uncertain Times' plus links to previous paid writing on line about photography.

I then checked the mobile view most the issues here seemed to be text size and alignment so I decreased the text size on each portfolio page, I realigned centrally the buttons and title and also I decreased text size on buttons.  I saved and then republished all changes.

I will test my website again on my mobile and on different devices just to check there are no further issues.  For the moment I do think that this is up-to-date and completed for this term at least!

Project Production: Process Two

 The additional images were from other Olympus cameras across much time I will go through some of the production of these images here.

The image above I found and I believe I took it at the time of covid, I found the original date of 15th February 2021.  This was taken on an Olympus SH-2, wide aperture using natural light from my bedroom windows means a low ISO was needed.  I can see I am wearing a mask, plastic gloves which represented the time alone not touching anyone, trying not to get infected.  This was a sad and terrible time, it was an 'absurd reality'.

This image was taken when I was a student (1997-2000), I was doing an elective in fine art and I created a book with these prints.  I don't know the original settings now, but it was using an Olympus SLR that my father had given to me for university - I took all my images on this throughout. This was processed in the darkroom.

This image was taken on 18th April 2022 on an urban landscape shoot with students - it was near my flat in town - I just quite liked it.  This was taken with my Mark II fast shutter, F6.3 fairly wide aperture.  

The front cover image is a layered image I found that I had made from my student card image and the student card image I used on the About Me.  I chose to do this as this was me when I was you, a young student.  I enjoyed these past and present images and the book and I felt this was a fitting end, at the beginning

I uploaded the final book to Blurb from Bookwright and I paid for this so now it is embedded into my site and is for sale on Blurb.  I will update my gallery pages with this as well.

Project Production Process One: Things Images

 In this post I will just go through the production of the images of things - these will be the images I will use in my photo/text book.  In the end, I used my Olympus EM-10, Mark II.  I used a combination of techniques and settings which I will go through here. I began by making a contact sheet which I completed on Photoshop just by going to 'File' in the top menu then 'Automate' and 'Contact Sheet'.  When the dialog box opened I chose my file from my desktop and clicked 'OK'.

The 'things ' here are not usually how I work as they are more random than I would like however these are domestic items that I live with everyday and so they made sense in conjunction with the text I produced.  I was creating my book on Blurb so I have bookwright software on my computer and I had already created the mock up so I just needed to replace the images with my own.

Here is the first one I used the camera and camera settings are above as can be seen I used a wide aperture and fairly slow shutter, I was also shooting using a film grain filter to create a more moody look. I like the silent words and deafened ears and you imagine this with the headless women.

The second image I used from this set again with the same camera a wide aperture again but not as wide as the previous image and a slightly faster shutter as there was more distance here and I needed this to be sharp - I used the same film grain look.  The little creatures here have various items around the use these make me smile they sit above my desk, I bought them in a small shop in Angouleme, France- the big head was the top of a bubble bath.

The one above is pinned to my pinboard and contains instructions not to be revived or kept alive by machines signed off by a doctor.  Similar settings as above and I also added a slight vignette effect to draw attention to the centre. 

I used a couple more images from this set but these are good example and the technical details that are quite similar for the additional images used.

I believe these images work quite well and enhance the text that has been produced.