Lewis Stewart Photography

Today, Liam gave me feedback on my Final Major Project - I felt like I really needed this as I had done something completely new as I had experimented with using something that wasn't a mirror and therefore had changed my project slightly and progressed quite a bit. I am going to write down what Liam told me in note form, but go into detail where I feel it is necessary: The images have a surreal/poppy vibe. The newer images could be used as chapter breaks to stop the images from being too repetitive. Look at the book "People in trouble laughing pushed to the ground" by Broomberg and Chanarin. Generational. Recognition of oneself. The idea that the mirror does not equal reality. Fractured self. Notion of perception. It is genuinely unusual. The images where I have shot through card look like they could be appropriated imagery - looks as though there has been a tear in space/time, they are dynamic. The images represent the notion of deception: the angle of the ...

As Pupilsphere were having an exhibition in Leeds, a few friends and I decided we would go and take a look at what other photographers were creating. We also wanted to support Dan as a fellow University of Huddersfield graduate, as he is doing really well for himself. The exhibition was displayed in a really interesting way as I have pictured, and the bottom images were my favourite images because of the way they were displayed and I felt like they were really interesting subjects - I was really drawn to these. The exhibition was set out in coordinating colours and it was really aesthetically pleasing because of the fact images were placed with other similar ones.

I was really excited to see Rachel Brown today, because she had seen my work months prior to this day and I wanted to show her how far I had progressed with my project. I was excited because she gave me really good feedback the last time I saw her and so I knew it would be really beneficial to me showing her my project at it's current stage. I wrote down notes from speaking to her which I will then go into more detail about: Straight away, Rachel said that she remembered my project and was really impressed with how much I had developed my work. She said that my images contained performance in her opinion and that I was playing the role as director as I was asking the models in my images to pose in specific ways and 'play a part'. She also said that the way I had shot my images were really engaging and a word she used to describe my images was 'fragment', which I think represents my project really well as I am only showing small parts of the subject I am photograph...

Today I had the opportunity to help out University of Huddersfield Photography graduate Josh Wilde on a shoot that he wanted to do in the studio. Unfortunately he wanted to do a fashion shoot with a model but she cancelled the night before so he had to change his idea. The idea behind this product shot was that the fragrances were the King and Queen chess pieces, and the other pieces were levitating in the background, as if the King and Queen had made such an impact on the ground that they had been tossed away. This is the final outcome of this shoot: I would have much preferred to have done a shoot with a model with Josh because this is something that I want to do in the future, but this was a really interesting thing to shoot because it's not something that I usually do. I also think this was much more beneficial to me because of product not being something that I shoot and therefore I was able to learn how Josh shoots this.

For this shoot, my tutor gave me the idea of shooting through paper because of how the images I had taken using the broken mirror in my previous shoot looked like it was a rip in paper. I decided that, alongside shooting this new idea, I would also take images using mirrors that were similar to what I was already doing so that if shooting through paper didn't work out I still had usable images. Contact sheet from this shoot: My images: One thing that I know I would definitely improve next time is the lighting on the paper I have shot through - the lighting I have used has created a slight gradient which is not what I wanted, I wanted a block of colour. This was caused because of me not having as much time to set up the lighting as I thought I did - I had figured out how I wanted the background to look but the model came earlier than expected. When we got back to the studio, I set up the light for the paper and it seemed like it was fine when I took a test picture:...

This was the second shoot that I have done taking portraits of people that I do not know, but this time I tried something different again in terms of the mirror I have used. I decided that I wanted to test out a different shape of mirror to really challenge myself because I felt like I was beginning to be really repetitive within the images that I was creating. Contact sheet from this shoot: My images: I had yet to use an orange backdrop in my images, so I wanted to test it out because I thought that it was a really nice colour; it ended up working really well with the blue in the mirror and contrasted beautifully. I decided to use a piece of a broken mirror due to how thin it is and how different it made the portraits look - I found it quite a challenge with this piece of mirror to ensure that only the orange background was in the image with the blue backdrop in the mirror and the model. This is because the mirror is long and therefore was close to the edges of the ...

For today's lesson, we had to print out a picture (preferably A3, with exceptions if the images work as part of a series) from our project and then stick it on the walls in the room so that everybody could see it. We were then split into small groups and each group had to analyse some people's work, using the following 5 questions: 1. What are the influences on this work? Suggest at least 2 artists that are relevant, the more info you can provide here the better. 2. How is the work being moved forward? What has changed since the previous time you saw this persons' work? Quick suggestions are helpful. 3. Where would you expect to see this work shown? E.g. - publication, gallery, portfolio? Give some indication why you have made the decision you have. 4. Who (practitioner, agency, freelancer) should the photographer show this work to? 5. Open question - any information that you think this person needs to know about their work. I placed the following picture up...

As well as a talk from Tim, we also had Rowan Bailey who came in to talk to us about the prospect of doing an Masters after finishing our degree. There are two options that she spoke about, being: -Taught MA in digital media/graphic design. -MA by research (a research degree). Taught MA: She showed us a breakdown of how the MA is set out in its modules and what is done on it: Creative methods in Art and design: Engagement in resource of creative methods to help develop ideas. Meet guest speakers, research active staff, PGR students. Develop knowledge, understanding and application. Guiding in Project Proposal development - project planning for 12 months of study. UniLearn contains resources for practice-led subjects in art and design. Facilities: New Postgraduate Suite in Creative Arts building - CAAG/07. State of the art equipment - new Macs/PCs, Wacom pen software for design work. Students also have access to photography studios and print ...

Today Tim Brown, who recently finished doing his Masters, gave a talk on what he learned from doing this and to offer his advice to the class. I found this to be really interesting to see a point of view from someone who has been in the same position as me and has also continued his education to a higher degree. I am going to write the advice he gave us in a list, as he gave short and really good advice: The exhibition is joint - help each other out and make a plan. Backup obsessively to external hard drive or Cloud storage. Don't rely on SD cards or USB storage. Copy RAW files. Create photobook dummies. Work back from deadlines. Allow for things to go wrong. Use the time wisely. Help each other out. One thing he said was that, although we don't have a lot of time and need to use it as best we can, we have enough time to create really good work that we can be happy with. He suggested to use Gantt charts to help us organise out time. A website he used is ganttpr...

Today Adrian Davies came in to talk to us about his practice, which I found to be really interesting as he is someone that is actually working within the industry. He first spoke of a project that lasted for 4 years, in which things became symbols. He shot on a 6xx9 camera. The idea was that things are not always what they seem. Something can look beautiful, but is damaged. He liked the project '9 Eyes of Google Streetview' by Jon Rafman, in which he was travelling, but not travelling: He then told us about the work that also inspired him: 'No Mans Land' by Mishka Henner, which is a project that I have seen before and think is really interesting as it is done in the same way to the above project but in a different format - they both use Street view. This is different as it is cropped medium format and the street view format cannot be seen: He said that he is fascinated by access and this is where his project was heading - images look like photogr...

We had the opportunity today to go to a talk held by Nicole Jopek, who is a recent graduate at the University of Huddersfield and shoots a lot of fashion work - this is the main reason I went to the talk she was doing as this is the career path I think I want to go into. She stated that she is mainly based in the studio within her work, but often tries to shoot on location to help develop her skills and also leave her comfort zone to create interesting images. She then went on to show us some of her shoots, explained how she shot them and gave us a little more insight into how she works. This is one of the images that she showed us, which originally looks like it is shot in the studio because of the white background. She told us that this was actually shot in her back garden on an extremely sunny and bright day, with a white backdrop placed behind the model. She also told us that this shoot was really rushed as it rained for most of the day so they had to rush outside w...

Today, me and Chloe volunteered to take some headshots for some students for a fee. This was to help towards our final year exhibition and catalogue, as we have to raise as much money as possible to help make it the best we can. This is how we set up the studio before taking the portraits - we wanted to have a clean background so had polyboards reflecting onto the white wall, and had a beauty dish in front of the subject to light their face: Here are examples of some of the portraits we took as the day progressed: Outcome of this professional headshot day:

Today we had a lesson on paper types and what to consider when we have our final images printed for exhibition. It was really helpful to look at all different paper types that we could consider - even more interesting materials like metal and foamex. Below are 2 paper types that I think would work especially well for my project: I think these paper types would work really well for my project because of the intensity of the shine - this would reflect a lot of light and therefore create obstruction of the image even more. It would also work really well because mirrors are obviously very shiny objects and therefore they reflect a lot of light - this shine would add depth within the image and would correlate the paper type to the image.