Photogram workshop

Today I went to the 'Noise Lab' in Manchester as a magazine group called 'One Five Eight' were holding a workshop on how to produce photograms, initially I thought I was going to be the only one who turned up as I was sat alone for a while composing my first experimental piece, but when I came out of the dark room after producing my first piece a few more people had arrived.

It was quite fun, there was a good mixture of people my age and also children getting involved and when I was talking with one of the team in the dark room she wasn't sure if there would be enough supplies to last the whole day....in other words it was quite a success.
Essentially we were all sat around a long table with all sorts of items in bowls at its center, marbles, toys, light bulbs, stationary, buttons, and more random things which we could just grab and compose our pieces with and then one-by-one we took our boards (steadily...trying not to wobble the items on top) into the dark room to develop the photogram.

I have done a little work in a dark room before, when I went to college first time around about 10 years ago we had the chance to take a short course from a given list and Photography was one of them. During my time at high school and also this college I had been refused the opportunity to study anything art related because the curriculum forbid both music and art to be studied together and I was forced to choose one....so I jumped at the chance to do some photography. It was a lot of fun taking photos and then developing our negatives into actual prints in a dark room.
Today's workshop reminded me of this.....

As we each put together our pieces we had to wait until the person currently in the dark room had finished before we could then do our own again, I had put together another wreckless piece whilst waiting for my turn again but because the wait was so long I decided to wipe the board clean and create something properly. At that moment when I was looking for things to use I spotted a toy lion and an image from a video game sprung to mind, so I decided to make a piece relative to that. I quite like how it turned out.

3D dabbling

I told myself a few months back that i'd try to get to grips with at least a few basic 3D elements over the summer, with the aim of having an extra source of creativity when I start the new academic year.

Well...i'm ever so slowly getting the hang of the it, this has been some of my dabbling today.












EDIT: Ah...I see that Blogger's "Add Video" option uploads via YouTube, hence the quality is pretty shoddy. There are stars in the latter shots.

SHIFT calendar competition

Today i've been creating some designs for the SHIFT calendar competition, it's been a few years since I last submitted any entries but this year i'm on it.

I'm just wondering though which of these to submit, i'm not sure, I asked my brother earlier on and he prefered the coloured background. Any other opinions?

Inception

Finally got around to seeing it, I had to go on my own in the end as no one wanted to and watch it with me. I knew i’d like it because i’ve always believed there is more to the mind than we understand (ie. dreams, dejavu, etc.) so the concept was right up my street. It’s a really good film, but not fantastic.

It wasn't a mind job like everyone has been saying….you just need to be able to follow what is going on. A few of Nolan's regulars were in there from his previous Batman outings, although I found it interesting that he brought in Joseph Gordon-Levitt for this film, because even though he was great in his role I somehow felt that this decision was a prerequisite for Nolan to cast him in a future movie. When you consider that Gordon-Levitt carries an almost remarkable resemblence to the late Heath Ledger, it begs the question of whether Nolan has already thought of how to replace the oscar winning portrayal of 'The Joker' in his next Batman film.




Leonardo Dicaprio was also brilliant in the film, coupled with his performance in 'The Aviator' he is well on the way to becoming one of my favourite actors. Ellen page also played her part well but I felt that her introduction into the film was rushed and it was fairly obvious that her role in the movie was written as a means to explain the main premise of the film.

I just found this poster for the film, whilst I can understand why they used the posters they did I think that this one really nails the concept. This is exactly what I had in mind when I was watching it.