Week 12: Content.

Looking back over my first year at university I've realised how much I actually learned from it. I met some people who have affected me so much that have changed my personality for the better. As I go into my second year, I notice that I am no longer young and no longer bound to my youth, but I am content.

Daniel.

oldwoman.jpg

This photograph was actually taken in Nottingham during my Freshers week. I had totally forgotten about it until the other day when I was looking through my archive of photographs that I have on this Macbook. She was an elderly lady who had sat down next to me in Market Square, and told me all about her son who owned lots of big companies and was passing the torch onto her grandson, but she didn't care for the riches of her offspring, she was content in what she had done in her lifetime. She came to this country from Thailand with very little money and brought her son up to be a great man, this was enough of a prize for her, she was proud and happy to live with that one thought.

Song listening to right now: Disintergration - The Cure

Week 11: Change in Relationship.

This post is going back to the other week where I focused on relationships. This week I will do the same, as my entire outlook on being linked with another human has changed, and I think one of my other photographs will suit the concept a lot better.

Dan.



In this photograph I see a much more fitting definition for the word "Relationship."

Song listening to right now: David Bowie - Young Americans

Week 10: Construction of photographs.

First I traveled up to Bristol to see the Banksy exhibition twice this week, which I must say is WELL worth the two and a half hour queue. I have been researching composition to an pretty advanced stage this week and it really does make a lot of sense but also get's a bit brain-stretching. The way we can construct and image merely by peering at the real world through a lens and cropping what we desire into a picture and ignoring what we don't want can really seem quite vain. Vanity in composition is a virtue and is key to discovering how to manipulate the view finder to project the perfect construction onto the film or sensor. So please take a look at this image and tell me your thoughts.

Thank you once again.

Daniel.




This photograph was taken in Nice, France. The view from the Hotel was a picturesque view of a construction site and thought a picture with attention to composition and construction might be a little bit of a corny double entendre, but turned out to be quite a nice little photograph, which plays a little bit with the perception section of the brain. The way we construct what we see and put together the signals made by light can sometimes either be decieving or advantageous. In this photograph I believe both of these concepts are present.

Song listening to right now: Ludivico Einaudi - The Waves (Le Onde)

Week 9: Redundant.

So over the past two weeks I have been doing a self portrait narrative about Redundancy and the depression that goes with it. This suits the economic status of Britain perfectly right now. This project has really taken it's toll on me and if I'm entirely honest, I'm exhausted.

Tah.
Dan.



Once taken out of context with the rest of the narrative, this picture does not mean as much to the audience as it would if it were with the rest of the photographs, but it is just a little taster for you lot, and I think it evokes solemn in such a way that it connects and engages with the onlooker.

Song listening to right now: Avril Lavigne - Nobody's Fool

Week 8: Relationships.

Relationships, no matter what type, effect our day to day lives and routines, and this blog is part of my day to day life. I have some great relationships with friends, and some great relationships with family members, I have met some people who have affected me in unique ways, both positive and negative. I wish to show more affection in the future, for those that are close to me I want to get to know you more. For those that are not so close, I want to do the same. This week, has made me realise how much I appreciate certain individuals and I would like to proclaim my respect for them.

Thank you.
Daniel.



This photograph is how those individual people make me feel.

Song listening to right now: Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer

Week 7: Perception.

My perception has really been blurred this week, probably because I've spent a lot of it sat in my room doing nothing. I've been outside for a little bit of it though, which is good, but my motivation has pretty much hit an all time low right now, I don't even know why.

Thanks again

Daniel.




Taken to contrast ideas on perception and also culture, this picture relates to the difference between industry and culture on the same street.


Song listening to right now: Baz Lurhmann - Everbody's free (to wear sunscreen)

Week 6: Engagement.

So these past seven days have had they're ups and downs. I don't really know where to start, so how about I just confirm for you that, it has involved a number of things relating to music in a positive and a negative sense. So most of my life I have been studying music, and pretty much all of my life I have been listening to it just like everybody else. I have a passion for it, and that will probably stay true throughout my life. By stating this, I do not single myself out from anyone, there are millions of more experienced musicians than me in this world and this is to applaud them.

In my eyes (and ears) music is a language, as is photography. A format of communication that is universal throughout, or is it? This is a tough question and is answered simply by perception and process. We are brought up by our culture and kin, we know what is right and what is wrong according to the world we have grown up in. People grow up differently and have different cultural ideals, it is this built-in code that changes the rules of engagement and may or not be perceived as universal. The languages of Music and Photography are similar in this way. For example, in this stock photograph of a Cambodian woman (http://blungerhog.typepad.com/photos/michaela_cambodia/med_112350145329.jpg) most people from Britain's mainstream culture are aware that this is a woman begging and obviously living in poverty. What the majority of viewers won't know is that the scarf she is wearing on her head is a symbolic indicator that shows she is a member of the communist regime that still controls parts of rural Cambodia, and will stop her from getting shot in most places. It is this knowledge that acts as a "code" that separates photography from the universal.

This is also similar with music. We are brought up listening to what our culture provides us and we have a mixed opinion on what seems foreign to us and vice versa. This is the main thought that goes behind the reason I entered the world of Music Photography.

D




In this photograph I have captured the Bass guitarist of one of Reading's larger local bands. I have tried my hardest to snap him with an expression and position that best communicates his personality and music style. The engagement of the eyes and the detail in clothing and the instrument are symbolic indicators of his music style and personality in much the same way the scarf was an indicator of the old Cambodian woman's survival. World's apart but still trying they're best to communicate through symbolism.

Song listening to right now: Joe Satriani - Surfing with the Alien