Personal Development • SportsFive

I was offered a live brief through the University to work with the advertisement company, SportsFive, and take photographs on match days of their digital advertisements in use when the players were on the pitch. I took the opportunity because I had never been given the experience of photographing a sport before, and thought it would be beneficial to my portfolio to show to potential employers and clients after my degree has ended.

Although it was an amazing experience, working with a client that had such a big customer base meant that when I had a problem on an assignment, they were difficult to get ahold of so they could resolve the issue. I cannot fault the staff at SportsFive, they were incredibly helpful with sorting out the transport and logistics of each match. However, football is not my cup of tea on the best of days, and I will definitely not be pursuing a career nor hobby in sport photography!

Review • Jane Bown: Exposures

I was given this book for Christmas off my friend after they realised how much I admired the work of Jane Bown and the beauty of black and white portraiture. I have looked at this book with awe for the past few months, wondering how I can use a film camera to develop my portraits using the correct lighting and the right location. The book looks at the best photographs that Bown has taken, including unpublished ones that "hit the newsroom floor" and were never seen by the public eye. 

"She works quickly, unobtrusively and decisively, often snatching great pictures in impossible circumstances, and she has an unerring instinct for capturing the telling moment, even in the midst of a media scrum or rushed in mid-interview."

The cover of the book shows on of Jane Bown's most iconic photographs, I looked at this photograph whilst I was studying a GCSE in Photography and fell in love with the lighting and contrast in the wrinkles in the mans face. I always told myself that if I took a photograph like this in my career, I would be extremely happy. Overall, the book is amazing, it looks at the life and work of Bown, as well as highlights from her career and the people she has photographed.

Just one of the photographs I admire from the book itself. The location is nothing special, nor is the model. However, the beautiful lighting and contrast in shadows is something to be admired. The lighting frames the sitters face perfectly and gives real depth to the image. It makes me feel emotions that maybe the woman is feeling herself. It looks like she is sat in a the living room of her house, perhaps looking into the distance, daydreaming about the future. The blank look on her face makes me believe that this photograph hasn't been staged, however, the position of the photographer makes it hard to believe this is a candid photograph.

I have always admired this image, due to my interest in fashion and dance photography from an early age. Although a candid shot, the dancer is posed beautifully, and looks graceful and elegant. I find that all of Bown's images ooze elegance, and make the sitter look important within the shot. Overall, I am very impressed with the book Exposures by Jane Bown, a beautiful collection of her best work over the span of her sixty year career for the Observer (at the time of the book being published in 2009).

Summer Placement • Camp Modin

I have managed to secure a summer placement through Camp America, teaching children on a Jewish camp photography, including digital and darkroom, as well as building their online portfolio and capturing the summer as it happens. I am super excited to be working with people from different countries, as well as taking my first flight abroad ever! It's going to be an amazing experience, and probably the best 10 weeks of my life. I have a weeks induction, learning the elements of child safety and how to do our jobs correctly, and then eight weeks teaching and having an amazing time. I then plan to travel for a week after camp, to Portland, Boston and then finally New York.

Personal Development Plan • GROW Model

GOALS

What are your personal goals in the short, medium & long term?

My goals in the short terms are to carry on taking photographs of things that I love: fashion and events, as well as families and creative portraits. I also want to rekindle my love of the outdoors and take more photographs of nature and landscapes. In the long term, I want to become a successful freelance photographer, who has a job they can be proud of. I always look up to successful freelance photographers as I know it takes a lot of hard work and talent to get there, but I am sure if I try and succeed and put the hours and time in, I can make a success of myself.

What area of the industry are you aiming for and why?

I would love to work within the fashion industry, taking photographs of models for magazines and companies. Although, I do realise that I will have to do “run of the mill” things, such as family studio shoots, to pay the bills and be able to photograph my passion as a hobby. I would also like to teach children the art of photography at either A Level or degree level, as inspiring people always makes me feel good about myself.

What skills will you need to achieve this?

I need to build my confidence skills, which I am currently working on. I used to be scared to do a photo shoot on my own and would always bring along an assistant, a friend or partner, because I felt safer. However, I have recently photographed some models on my own, which is a big step for me! I also need to be more organised, which is something I have always struggled with.

Are you considering further education? If so where might you wish to study & why?

I was considering studying a Master’s degree in fashion photography, as I feel like the course I am studying at Salford does not explore commercial photography at all. Following this, I want to study a PGCE (or the other way round), but I understand this requires a lot of experience and is very hard to get placed on.

REALITY

What have you done specifically so far to achieve your goal?

I work mainly in the fashion industry, and make contacts with companies and models that I can see being very successful in the future. I am building my reputation as a photographer over social media, and people regularly see me as “Through Laura’s Lens, the photographer girl” when I am in town and at work.

What challenges have you met and overcome?

Being a female photographer has been challenging, as there is a lot of male competition in the photography world. I recently wrote my essay on this problem, and it made me more willing to challenge this thought of men being better photographers. I have worked in a variety of different situations where I have been treated differently because of my gender and it has made me more passionate to change this stereotype and become more successful than any male photographer.

What skills do you want/need to develop?

As mentioned in my personal development plan, I need to develop my studio skills by using alternative lighting and gels. I found myself stuck in the cycle of using the black background and one light to create a dark atmosphere. Recently, however, I have been using different backgrounds and lighting techniques to further my knowledge, and working with other people on studio days, to share knowledge and develop each others skills.

OPTIONS

What routes are there into the career that you want?

I can either work freelance, or be employed by a fashion brand as their in house photographer. I would prefer to work freelance, as then I could work for a number of different brands and experiment more with ideas and concepts for different styles of fashion brand. My dream would to be Vogue’s in house photographer, but they are steering more to commissioning freelance photographers for certain projects, so this would be something to aim to.

What else could you do?

I would also like to go into teaching, and inspire people to take photography more seriously and achieve their creative dreams. I would prefer to teach A Level or degree level photography, however, I would also like to run creative workshops for younger children on photography, as well as other arts based subjects. I do not think that art is studied enough in primary schools, and children need to be creative in order to succeed in other academic subjects.

How should I be promoting myself?

I currently promote myself through Facebook advertising; however, I need to sign up to creative platforms such as LinkedIn and Creative Hive to network more.

WILL/WAY

When will you take action?

I plan to take a year after I finish my degree to gain a job in the photography industry, and try and establish my name as a freelance photographer. Failing this, I plan to future my study on degree level and think about options in teaching.

What do you need to do now to move towards your goal, e.g. Work experience, volunteering, networking, skills development, academic studies?

I need to network more with models, make up artists and other photographers to build up my reputation and credibility as a photographer, as well as working with other professional and established photographers to see how they became successful. I am going to America this summer to teach photography to children on a summer camp, so I need to take this experience and learn from it, to decide whether teaching would be something I could do in the future.

Personal Branding • Website

As one of the developments I wished to take on my PDP, I decided to broaden my professional image, I needed a website. I currently operate under the name "Through Laura's Lens", which a lot of people know me by. I did not want to be under the name "Photography by…" or "… Photography" as they are all too common and widely used. However, the domain name www.throughlauraslens.com has already been taken by someone in America. Therefore, I decided to use the more professional URL of www.laurajaneparkinson.com

My website is a simple format, you scroll from side to side to view the images rather than having to click on them to make them bigger. I have my best images at the front of the cycle, and the older ones at the back. There are two different sections to my website: Portfolio and Weddings. As I currently work with my friend under "KL Wedding Photography", I tend not to promote myself individually as a wedding photographer, but it is always nice to have my wedding work on my website for people to view, especially the families of the people I photographed. The section "Portfolio" concentrates on my fashion and editorial work I have produced over the last year and a half. This gets updated once a month when I produce new work. Soon, I plan to add two more sections: "Family" and "Projects", where I plan to exhibit my family portrait work to promote the sale of such packages, as well as projects I have done recently that I am proud of, such as my rephotography project I have completed for Professional Practice.

Personal Branding • Building my Reputation

I had a think this past week about my future career path and what I would like to accomplish in the future. Before beginning University, I always was set on becoming a photographer for a company and working for someone, rather than myself. However, after building my own personal brand - Through Laura's Lens, I realised that it might be worthwhile placing my interests within my own freelance work first, to see how it goes. Previously, I have never charged for my photography, but now I have realised to make a living for myself I am going to have to. I photographed a family at the start of last week, and was astounded by how much I enjoyed it! I then set out on my Facebook page that I will be charging £30 for a family shoot, which included 1 hour shooting time in a location of their choice, as well as all the editing time and at least 20 images on a disc.

Personal Branding • Wedding Work and Business Plan

Me and my friend Kelly have set up our own online photography venture called KL Wedding Photography. We have photographed one wedding together so far, as well as a studio session with a bridal wear company. However, this summer we will be working apart. I go teaching in America whilst Kelly will be photographing weddings alone. I hope this venture can become a reasonable income in the future, as working with one of my closest friends seems like an amazing job!

Update: Personal Development Plan

I have so far managed to get a public exhibition at my local library, as well as build my website at www.laurajaneparkinson.com.

I have also shot a magazine article that should be published in the next month or two.

Personal Development • Asian Bridal Shoot

I shot for Poshaak, which is an asian bridal wear shop in my home town of Blackburn with my friend Kelly. It was such a good experience, working with people from different cultures and learning about their style and way they photograph their clothing. It was also an amazing experience to be able to see asian bridal dresses, as I have always been intrigued!

I then had my work published in Sleek Asian Bridal magazine, which was a massive success and I was then able to tick off "getting my work published" on my PDP. I managed to get a copy of the magazine, which I am going to add to my collection of published work, which I can hopefully build on in the future.

Assignment • Creative CV

Laura Parkinson

07508 191 662

Previous Job History

Cornerhouse Manchester – Digital Reporter

I took part in a 8 month internship for the alternative art gallery Cornerhouse, whereby I learnt how to record interviews using both audio and video, photographed events and people who attended art exhibitions, conducted interviews with artists and actors and learnt how to social network successfully for companies and my own social base.

Camp Modin – Photography Specialist

I have secured a placement to teach children aged 8-16 photography at a summer camp in America. I will be teaching them all aspects of photography, from digital to darkroom, as well as basic editing skills in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.

SportsFive Advertisements – Photographer

I was commissioned to produce live action photographs of players from Premier League football with the digital advertisements that the company produced for their online portfolio. This was an incredibly demanding job, as I had to capture live action football, as well as make sure all the advertisements were accounted for.

Selected Commissions

Fentonography, Retrograde Clothing, Poshaak Bridal Wear, University of Exeter, ETO Jeans, Cornerhouse Manchester, Castlefield Gallery Manchester, Cheadle Hulme School, Sam Shaw Appeal, Audrey Clark and “It’s OK” campaign, 16 Braunton Jewellery, Me vs Hero, Darwen Live.

Qualifications

GCSEs – Darwen Aldridge Community Academy

3 A’s, 5 B’s, 2 C’s including Maths and English

A Levels – Saint Mary’s College, Blackburn

Photography A, Law B, Modern History C

Bachelors – University of Salford

BA (Hons) Photography

References on request.

Personal Branding • Business Cards and Facebook Page

I have created a Facebook page called "Through Laura's Lens" which is a place where I post all my photography work for my friends and family to see, as well as connect with models and make up artists to build my portfolio and get potential business. After listening to the lecture given by Rosie about personal branding, I decided to push my Facebook page and gained a couple of hundred likes in a month or two. It was an amazing leap and got me noticed within the photographic industry on Facebook. There are a number of photographers whom I follow and admire on Facebook, and was a real compliment when they commented on my work and my progress since I began University.

Review • Maurice Heesen Critical Evaluation

For my last project, I was required to create a festival and look at an artist that inspired us. For our festival idea, we have chosen “Realms of the Unknown”, which explores alternative portraiture photography, focussing on magical and “weird” side of capturing people. Maurice Heesen likes to tell stories through his photography, developing a narrative that we can follow, no matter how dark or disturbing it may be.

Although you could class Maurice Heesen as a known practioner, in my own personal work I have never seen nor heard of him. From his biography on his website, it doesn’t seem like he has exhibited in any exhibitions, which is why I chose him as I thought using this work as a solo exhibition would be impactful and get his name out there more as an arts based photographer rather than commercial. I, personally, prefer this work that focussed on the surreal and bizarre, rather than his commercial work. He has worked with numerous clients, such as Nike, Vodafone and McDonalds.

The set of photographs I have decided to base my research on for my own development and photographic imagery for this festival is “Muerto Feliz”. The tagline for this piece is “We only fear death because we don’t know what is there. It’s better to keep laughing in life until we meet death.” His piece concentrating on people laughing and smiling until the very end, grinning at the camera whilst they lie in a pool of their own blood with the world seemingly carrying on. My favourite image from the set of 5 images is the image showing the man at the table with the gun in his hand, with what I believe is his wife or partner washing up in the background. This give me the idea that Heesen wants to show that when we die, the world carries on and we will just end there. Quite a depressing thought, but very well executed through this series. Maurice Heesen is the standard of photograph I aspire to be if I ever decided to take the freelance, arts based, commercial route of photography.

I decided to choose Maurice Heesen for this festival because of the nature of his photographs. I have never seen some execute gore and blood in their work so professionally as Maurice Heesen has, hence why I am so intrigued and impressed by his work. If we was planning the logistic of the festival, his and my work would have to be exhibited in an age restricted room because of the nature of the imagery. Subjecting young children to these images would be wrong. I plan to develop a set of photographs looking at high fashion models, with the hair and make up, but with a twist of blood and gore. I plan to use dark lighting and shadows to manipulate the viewer and make the imagery seem dark and confusing.

CV and Cover Letter Research

We had a talk today with Fiona Christie from the careers advice service at Salford University about creating CV's and cover letters for jobs within the creative industry.

Fiona has said that there are certain qualities that we have after studying photography at a degree level, such as teamwork, being independent, being self motivated and having an extensive knowledge of IT and creative software. I never thought about including these qualities in my CV and cover letter, but I shall be doing in the future.

She also discussed the basics of different CV structures, such as chronological and skills based CVs. I usually order my CV in a chronological fashion, so it was interesting to look at different types of CV and how they can impact in an interview. I am applying for work experience for my Professional Practice module we have just begun so will need to write a new creative CV for this. 

Personal Development • 16 Braunton Shoot

I shot for a jewellery company the other week in Liverpool, photographing their summer collection. It was an enjoyable experience and although I was on my feet working and travelling for 12 hours, and spent numerous days afterwards editing the photographs, I learnt a lot from this experience.

Personal Development Plan

My first task on my PDP is to create a website for my own personal portfolio and to build my online presence. I will have to purchase a domain name and build a website using 4ormat (and a free template of theirs to spare the cost of paying a web designer to make me one), and then post my portfolio on there. At the moment, I am using a Facebook page to promote my presence online and get paid work that interest me. However, I don't having a Facebook page in the future is going to benefit my professional practice.

My second task is to develop my studio and darkroom skills. I have a summer placement this year on a camp in America building their online photographic portfolio and teaching the children who are staying there photography and film. I am so looking forward to this opportunity but feel like I need to brush up on my darkroom skills before I feel 100% confident to teach this to children on the camp. As for my studio skills, which relates onto a later task I want to complete; I want to maintain and improve my studio work and fashion interest, so that when I go away to America, I can come back and have maintained my knowledge within a studio environment.

My third task is to develop my event photography. If I do plan to go into teaching, I will still want to work as a freelance photographer on the side, shooting fashion and events for my own personal interest. Therefore, I want to carry on photographing events in my free time to build my portfolio for my website and to show clients who might be potentially interested in hiring me.

My fourth task is to get my work published in Vogue magazine. Although a high set out goal and it would have to be completed over a extended period of time, if you do not aim high you will never achieve what you truly want to. Relating back to task 2, I want to develop my studio work so in turn, my work within the fashion industry will become stronger.

My final task is to hold a public exhibition. I have already completed this goal prior to attending the meeting today, I have secured myself a solo exhibition at Darwen Library in my local town in October 2014 for a whole month. To extend this goal, I plan to organise this event to the best of my ability and have local coverage of it.