Gjmingham

Hi, Im Georgia. Im currently a 2nd year Photojournalism student studying at Swansea Met. Like many, I have things to ramble on about, opinions to express and images to share.. but like many more, I hope someone out there finds a single speck of time to view my blog. 

[gjminghamphoto]

First Day of Exhibition.

Our first day on site started a bit panicky. We were all up early to get the last few bits and pieces ready for the opening of the exhibition at 11am. This involved re-arranging the store as we weren't happy with the layout as well as getting some extra images up. Once we had done the we got our music playlist on and started preparing our roles of shop staff in time for our first set of lecturers to come over and surveyed the place. When they came I was luckily out on the street handing out promotional flyers, although perhaps not so lucky that I was in the pissing rain trying to get away from a creepy man who kept repeating that he liked me and wanted to see me again. Ew. Anyway, after that I briefly went back inside the venue to be assessed, warm my hands and dry my dog nose from the rain. 

Later on, when the rain was getting worse, we had a lovely man pop into the exhibition. He was a comedian/ex-comedian and was a fucking delight to speak to. I honestly haven't got a clue what his name was, but shout out to him because he made my day so much better. He had no money to buy one of prints but wrote a poem for us in exchange. It's people like him who help keep society happy, one small kind gesture really does make a difference to someone else's day. Thank you Mr Comedian man! However, no shout out goes to the old lady who came into the shop explaining that she just got back from a painting holiday in Tuscany, and what we are displaying is not art. I appreciate people have their own opinions but I bet she loves a bit of Warhol every now and then, and we went with the same idea as his but displaying slightly differently.

Either way, I think we managed to make about £3-4, and considering we weren't planning on getting anything and just giving the prints away for free I think we did pretty damn good. I hope all the lecturers enjoyed coming round and seeing what our group had put together, because it took a shit ton of effort! :)

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Prop Design

In order to make this exhibition feel genuine and real we have needed a few props. After brainstorming some ideas of essential items that members of staff use in a real shop we created a short list of things we’d need to included in ours. Name badges being one. We decided the stereotypical “Hello, my name is..” badge. It is red and white and therefore sticks to our exhibitions selected colours of red, white and green. The next item we realised was missing from our shop was a till. I don't know how the fuck we managed to forget one.. it kind of is an obvious object seen in every single shop going but hey ho, we forgot one. So i made one, after hours of stress and kicking boxes across the room until they finally managed to resemble the shape of a till. I used an A3 photo of a standard till and glued it on, painted the whole thing black, as well as most of myself, cut a hole in it for a money slot and although it looks similar to what primary school children make, it was finally finished. 

There are definitely more props and designs to create but for now these are just a few that I have managed to do.

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Research - Andy Warhol

"Warhol's Campbell's soup can paintings are key works of the 1960's pop art movement, a time when many artists made work divided from popular culture. Warhol's soup cans raise the simply popular or everyday to the status of art.."

For our exhibition we have taken this idea and concept of Warhol bringing art work to everyday life to create our own prints of food and household objects and sell them as if they were no different to the physical version. We've decided as a group to open our exhibition as a shop for people to buy our products just like they would any other normal supermarket.

I personally believe that this idea of taking a soup can and making art work out of it works really well visually, however I believe to do this you have to do it really well, just as Warhol has done.. and this takes time. The group I am in seem to have no sense of timing, myself included, and unfortunately have to rush a little more than I expect Warhol did. Therefore we have ended up with simple screen prints and scanned rubbish of well known brands. With our deadline being tomorrow to be ready to open I wish we had spent more time to experiment with our actual art work and images rather than on poster designs and layouts.

 http://www.warhol.org/education/resourceslessons/Campbell%E2%80%99s-Soup--Ode-to-Food/

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Work in Progress

Here is a link to my fellow grouper's (Ethan Beswick) blog. He writes a little about the exhibition we are currently working on with some images that will be used in the final opening show. His work is sick as fuck so keep up to date with him and check his shit out.

https://ethanbeswicksitespecific.wordpress.com/2015/11/16/products-for-sale/

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Site Specific - Poster Research

At the moment I am working on the exhibition (Site Specific) for uni. My group seems to be doing pretty well and getting ideas out and finally bringing them together to make an actual event which is great. We've been looking at basing our work on a supermarket and selling images of food and items instead of actual physical objects. Within my group we have set individual tasks, mine being to have a look at advertising in shops e.g. Posters, Flyers, Displays; in order to create a wonderful masterpiece of a poster for the group's exhibition. I can't say I wasn't happy with this job, I mean, what girl doesn't like having a little day trip into the local shopping centre to look around shops? Although it does suck ass that I have no money and was forced into being professional and only taking photos for research.

On my little day trip I had a look at posters in phone shops. This particular poster expressed how you could have '..Freedom with a sim only deal', this was expanded on with a cat in a space suit in space. Because really, where on earth can you actually have any freedom these days?!

I then decided I would go for a really fucking healthy lunch, where?! Burger king of course.. its completely fat free. I saw their poster out the front of their restaurant(?), it was filled with images of juicy plump burgers that read 'Euro Trip'. I couldn't resist. I bit into my burger and it was overwhelmed with disappointment, I honestly thought eating the 'Amsterdam Steakhouse' would take my mind into an Amsterdam café, smoking a fat one and munchie-ing out on a succulent meaty burger. Instead my mind was filled with my current surroundings of shitty wet Swansea and a family of pissed off parents with annoying kids.

After my long day I had a think about the  posters I had seen and realised that advertising really is a load of old bollocks. Making people believe something highly unrealistic to by their products. I get that its clever, for those who buy that bullshit, but really is anyone with a brain even buying it anymore? Looking at posters has helped me with ideas of our groups poster and that maybe we should be extreme and go over the top with what we are feeding to the public. Chuck it in their faces with literal words like 'FUCKING BUY ME', 'YOU NEED THIS POINTLESS PIECE OF CRAP THAT YOULL FORET ABOUT AFTER A MONTH IN YOUR LIFE'.. Maybe, just maybe, that might work for us.

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Second Year.

Yo, I'm back! Nothing has really changed, apart from the fact that I am now in my second year, slightly older but not a single bit more mature. Within my blog for this year of uni I am planning on posting more often and sharing a lot more of my opinions alongside my own work, as well as others.

My main project that I am currently working on is called 'Site Specific'. Basically, our class has been split into groups of four and let loose to set up our own exhibition with a specific topic of work. How it will end up? I do not know... What I do know, is that it is going to be a challenging but hopefully quite a fun experience with a chance to get our work out to the public rather than just other students with unreachable dreams. Happy fucking Friday!

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Dean Chalkley.

Dean Chalkley. Who is he? A well known photographer from the fabulous world of celebrity and pop culture. Why am I writing up about him? Because his work is energetically amazing, he's an inspiring bloke and he has a brilliant sense of humour.

Dean recently came into UWTSD to give a lecture on his work and his life. If I'm honest I didn't really know much of his stuff or anything about him. When I do work and research I tend to stick to the photographers I already know and if I look at new people I tend to make sure they have a strong documentary style or are photographing an important subject that make statements. However, Dean doesn't really do that like other photographers. He is set on having fun. Set on photographing something that he is passionate about, this being fashion, music and in a way, a certain energy of life. This makes me smile. What I really guess I'm trying to say is, if you're a person who is really into your music, wouldn't you just love to work and hang out with the people who made it?! He has worked with Amy Winehouse. Like WTF. I would've loved to have had that opportunity to stand in the same room as her, let alone photograph her. So fucking cool. He has worked with so many amazing musicians: Paul Weller, The Horrors, Liam Gallagher, Lily Allen, Kasabian, Florence and The Machine, Pete Doherty and so, so, sooo many more. Incredible.

Dean made me realise that if you've got a real passion for something and love that something enough, you can do it. (Obviously with hard work and a bit of blood, sweat and tears.. but still, it is completely possible.) 

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Linder Sterling.

In our lessons on a Thursday we have been looking at different important subjects that are often brought up within Photojournalism and Documentary photography. One of the subjects being Feminism. I am in dread every Wednesday thinking about the Thursday Ethics lesson, and this isn't just because i'll be hanging out my arse from the night before. This is because it causes a debate, not usually the best things for someone half asleep with a headache. This being said; debates are great. They enable people to throw their opinions out to the world and understand different meanings and sides of subjects. However, adding to my negative vibe on debates, they aren't so good when certain people don't have a clue about anything and genuinely don't know common sense history like racial segregation.

Rant over, its Thursday tomorrow and I found a lovely artist. Enjoy some of her work based on feminism..

Linder Sterling is an artist who uses different forms of media such as, Film, photography, print and performance art to express her views on the world. The main subject that Sterling concentrates on is feminism.To do this she usually takes images from Women’s Fashion magazines andPornographic magazines and combines them to make a photomontage with astatement about how we expect women to look, as well as to show the treatmentof female bodies. She makes us question whether or not it is morally right to be doing the things we do in order to meet cultural expectations.

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Guest lecturer Stuart Freedman

A couple of weeks ago now we had a guest lecturer come into uni. His name?  Stuart Freedman. This man is a wonderful creature from a far away land of coffee addicts, black cabs, cockney slang and starless skies, and its called London (or Landaaan, depending on where you're from).

Stuart has worked for many well known magazines such as Life, National Geographic and Time. Doing this has meant he has had to travel to a ton of places including Afghanistan, Haiti, Rwanda as well as other countries. 

It was incredible to have him come to Swansea and speak to us about all his travelling stories and the way he works. There was one thing I enjoyed most about his visit though; his attitude. When I was in college I fell in love with a certain part of photography and that was the way it was able to grab someone's heart and mind and take it over with emotion just by showing other peoples stories and how they live. Whether that emotion was shock and anger or calmness and a happy bliss, I find a good photo can always fill me with a feeling like no other. However, when I came to uni I think I got so caught up in life and drinking that my mind turned into what I can only describe as a whirlpool of shit, which meant I forgot why I was really here.

Stuart Freedman's talk reminded me exactly why I am in uni and what it is that I love within photojournalism. So I thank you Mr Freedman, for being inspirational as fuck and making me want to go out and explore this world more. If I was wearing a top hat right now id give you a hat tip, but instead I will just raise my glass of orange squash and send you a smile.

[gjminghamphoto]

Bleak Midwinter

So, its been a while.

I started on a project over Christmas called 'Bleak Midwinter'. The basics of it was to take photos of consumerism and basically the shit side of Christmas and this time of year in general. We was told that we should come up with one singular image that is to be exhibited at the end of January. Happy days! No, seriously, happy days :)

So, I started by taking images on my journeys around Britain to see what I could find and to also show the long, never ending shitness of the cold British winter. I shot on 35mm film using my OM10 as well as my compact Pentax camera, it went well.

When I had a look through my results I thought my chosen image was a bit depressing, which would make sense for the title of this brief, but I wanted to  spice things up a bit. Give my images that tiny sparkle of Christmas magic that only children seem to have these days; To do this I would add humour. I had a look at Trent Parkes work: 'Christmas tree bucket'. That, as well as a ton of alcohol, my crazy naked grandparents and a lifeless, hanging Santa helped me on my way.

These are my results..

[gjminghamphoto]

Paris.

Last Tuesday I got told that a lot can happen in a week. I didn't believe that until I went to Paris with the photography gang 2 days later.

We left on Thursday at a ridiculous time in the morning and still managed to run late for the Eurostar. However we all got there in the end, just about.

On the Friday we went to the Garry Winogrand exhibition which was really cool. There was so much of his undeveloped work from when he had died and not one single image was boring. In every image there was something to read into and enjoy. I brought a few postcards of my favourite pieces, including an image from 1968 of a woman overloaded with happiness standing with a Cornetto ice-cream. After that we headed off to Paris Photo. Considering this was the main reason why we went to Paris I wasn't very impressed. There was some great pieces of work but it was too crowded with rich people topped up to max with Botox for me to feel comfortable walking around with my OM-10 and my Matalan coat. Other than that it was an ok day, I made a tit out of myself in front of Martin Parr, farted on a posh woman and watched mice run around as I sat by the Eiffel tower.

On the Saturday a few of us went to Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson which was showing some work of William Eggleston's. When I say some, I mean probably 40 images max. The venue was really small and packed with people. I really enjoyed looking at his colour images but would of been able to appreciate it more if I didn't feel like a squished sardine in a tin. Later on we came across a Comic con, it was awesome. The atmosphere was really great, everyone was walking around in their costumes, dosed up on sugar and holding 'Free hugs' signs. I then spent the rest of the day walking around Paris' winter wonderland with mulled wine, cigarettes and a Christmas cheer.

Finally we got to Sunday.. I woke up, packed my bags, headed off to Gare du Nord, ate a pizza, drank a Panache, brought 2 bottles of Martini and headed back to a dull drizzly Swansea.

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Trip to Cardiff

On Thursday I went to Cardiff with uni to see some exhibitions at Chapter, ffotogallery and the museum which was showing Artes Mundi. It rained, a lot, which meant I couldn't sneak off for a cigarette and instead I was looking round at the work.

Chapter wasn't too exciting, they had people doing a odd performance which I assume was dancing. The museum didn't interest me that much either. There was work from Renata Lucas and Omer Fast on display, it was ok but wasn't really my taste of art.

However, at ffotogallery there was a piece by Ragner Kjartansson, it included 9 screens that filled all 4 walls of a black room. Each screen had its own speaker and one different person playing there own instrument and music. They all communicated to each other whilst setting up and then one person began playing and the rest joined in individually. They sang a song about feminine ways and it went on for 1hr, at the end they all walked into the same screen and went off down a hill still singing.

I cannot explain how intense and beautiful this piece was. The way all the musicians collaborated together was magical and there was nothing I wanted more than to lay down with my eyes closed and just embrace it all. Although this would've been great there is a big visual side of the piece too and watching it makes you feel part of it all as the music and subjects surround you.

Ragnar Kjartansson's piece 'The visitors'  is definitely worth going to see; it blew my fucking mind.

[gjminghamphoto]

Ocularcentric

So in the summer I was given my first brief for my new course. It was named 'Ocularcentric', which basically means 'The privileging of vision over other senses'.

 I cant say I was very happy with this idea for a brief. The thought of taking pictures of such a broad subject made me feel a little uneasy. I felt like it was a test for the lecturers to see if I was actually any good and worthy of a place, a second interview as such to make sure they haven't picked someone who's clearly shit.

Anyway.. Taking this thought into consideration I thought i'd give myself a question to work with, hoping that'd help me get a individual outcome that was different from others. What was the question? If I was to go completely blind tomorrow what would I want to see before I could see no more?

I found this played on my mind and I ended up writing a ton of lists of cool things like the Queen dancing or to see how Wotsits are made. I eventually decided I would ask people I knew the same question. They came up with things like the Northern lights and a sunset over the sea. This didn't really help me. I couldn't photograph any of these things within 1 week.

Then I had this idea. I remembered that my sisters, boyfriends, mum woke up completely blind within the past year. I asked her the same question and she kindly answered with the everyday things that she misses. The colour of flowers, seeing peoples faces clearly and the small things we take for granted, for example, birds.

I based my photographs on what she had said and these were my outcomes.