31/01/2022
First post for the New Year so a 🎉 Happy New Year to the blog. Let’s get started
I had always had an interest in photographs. They capture a moment in time that ties to memories of such events. Flashbacks and trips to memory lane ensues. Or at other times a photo leaves you wondering what happened during that moment. It serves as evidence of an event occurring, whether you remember or not.
I remember the first time that I would be interested in having a camera of my own. It was years ago when I was probably 7-9 years old. I was at an uncles house and he had a Polaroid camera in his room. That was the only camera that I knew of which could instantly produce the photo you’ve taken there and then. Since I didn’t want to wait for the film to finish and then wait for prints from a shop like Superdrug, from the standard camera, I decided that I needed to get my hands on a Polaroid. I would check through the Argos catalogue to see which camera I wanted to get my hands on and how much money I could squeeze out of my mum to get it for me. I can’t remember the conclusion of that but since I didn’t have the camera I can only assume it got shut down.
Anyway…
During my college days I bought a small digital camera from Argos for about £60-£80 to use to take photos for my art course. It was a decent investment but I can’t say I reaped the rewards from it because I didn’t know about honing photography skills. Those days I was ignorant to these things.
My genesis of using a DSLR started in March/April 2016 for my animation project CT5AIGP CW2
The task was to combine live footage with animation. It had to be an animation of an iconic character. We were required to make use of a DSLR camera to take photos and videos. My thoughts were on how to make use of the environment I was in and what story to use for it. I narrowed down to crash bandicoot and rocky balboa. I ended up with rocky since he made more sense to use for my chosen environment. There was a department in the uni that housed DSLRs for students to borrow. Now I didn’t know the procedure so I left it a little short to use the DSLR camera that the technical department provided. However I managed to take enough photos to work with. Realistically I would’ve liked to take extra photos a few days later but the term ended and so the department was closed. Meaning, if I had given more time to it before the term ended I could have had more content to use. This is when the thought hit me. It would be nice if I owned a DSLR camera.
May 2016
When I bought my first DSLR
Student finance had been taking me for a ride as they do many students. They had wasted most of my year with back and forth calls concerning financial information. Well in April the full money finally came. And with that, my mind was set on getting a camera. I didn’t want nothing too expensive (looking back on it, that was a huge mistake) and I found a reasonable deal on amazon. However the package got “lost” code for stolen. I immediately got my refund and decided to order my camera from Curry’s. It was ordered to be collected, that way no games would be played with the delivery. The camera was the canon 1200D.
Summer 2016
South sea beach
One of the things that I loved from my photography during this time was seeing the depth of field in the photos I took. Close up photos was my favourite pics to take simply because of the detail applied on the subject vs the out of focus background. It was amazing to see a device replicate and also make me aware of the mechanics of the human eye. I never really paid attention to the fact that when i focus on something I hone in on it and keep it as my focal point all the while blurring the out the other things filling my vision.
Aside from my last few days at Portsmouth during the summer, there was not much use of the DSLR except once or twice for school photos. I don’t know what diminished my interest in photography at the time. I’m terms of technical uses of my camera, I could have checked tutorials online in order to make better use of it. That’s something that I regret not doing during that period. Maybe it was just ignorance and now I know better. Some of the technical uses would have been knowing how to really make use of ISO, temperature, manual focus vs auto focus, shutter speed and many more. I was just going with the flow and using head knowledge to operate my camera.
December 2016
During the Christmas holiday I linked up with the mandem to take photos at Holland garden and chill. I was rusty with the camera but was happy that it was in use. Some of those photos went to Instagram but the others were either not in use or were a little blurry to be used. Again in hindsight there should have been more practiced put towards it
Again the camera would go into hiatus but was once again resurrected around March/ April 2017. A new coalition had been formed between two other friends. It was later called Pharsyde of Neptune, not my idea. One had a camera and had been taking photos here and there. Ideas were circulated for plans to shoot more photos when we were at the uni library. The first joint photoshoot was at gunwharf quays. We were just playing around with it at the time and going with the flow.
During the last term of the year an idea was floated by one of the pharsyde members to do a photoshoot with one girl that we knew. She had a unique look. We took the photos in a friend’s house. I’ll never forget the number 68 Devonshire road. Throughout the next few weeks we went on to take other photos here and there around southsea beach and relative areas. It all ended after everyone went home for the summer holidays.
During the early part of summer 2017 I had reviewed some ideas that was trying to execute and I could only resume when I returned to Portsmouth. This would not happen however as I had to leave the university due to failing 2 units on my course and not meeting the pass criteria to continue on to the next year. Another story in itself.
2017 fall
Around the autumn period of 2017 I tried to get back into taking photos here and there but the desire had died at that point. I took photos around Greenwich at night to capture the city across the waters. It was meh. I also to photos in the winter of winter wonderland and areas in Mayfair but again my skills weren’t fully up to scratch. So a lot of the photos were wasted.
Aftermath
In order to spur things on again I’m planning out my projects ahead of time or finding themes for photos that I’ve taken in the past. The aim now is to work with more people and take photos with people in them rather than just environment/ object photography. The plan j g stages are more crucial in order to execute this effectively.
Wealth of SOE 