intoruth | a UK lifestyle blog: 01/02/2011

Saturday, 26 February 2011

Gabriella, 1.

So I've dived into this project, and I think I could get pretty comfortable doing this with strangers, although I have no idea what we would talk about and it did take about an hour. But the next few shoots I have are friends too so it won't be such a big deal.

This afternoon, my old housemate, Gabriella let me colour co-ordinate her wardrobe. She has quite a lot of black so I broke it up for her. I think I will change certain aspects of the colour co-ordination depending on the people, I think colour co-ordination photographed the same way each time could become a bit monotonous. Once again, I feel like I have to stress that the organisation is purely to look good visually.
So, once I'd finished photographing, we had a catch-up and then I thought I'd better ring Moon to come and pick me up, so I completely to forgot to ask her the questions I had prepared. The questions/answers kind of anchor the meaning of the project, but I emailed them to her so I reckon she'll get them back to me in a couple of days. But it's not like the work is ready to go up on a wall next week or anything.

I'm using a pretty deadpan style again, my tutor was suggesting maybe lighting the wardrobe from within or something but, 1) Gabriella doesn't have a 'closet' wardrobe, 2) that just make it some crazy, moody photos of wardrobes which is wrong on many levels but is unreasonable in terms of this project anyway.

I'm unsure whether I'm going to include the wardrobe owners in it or not, but I quite like this one, purely for the bemused look on her face.

I hope that, if I get enough people, I could still produce a book like I wanted to, but it all depends on how I pull it all of anyway. I just feel like I really need to get across the message about unnecessary clothes consumption. I think I'm going to edit these to make the clothing slightly lighter, but I do quite like the light in them anyway. I do worry that some people will have bedrooms with tiny/no windows and no one likes flash.

Thursday, 24 February 2011

The Chromatic Diet.

Revisiting Sophie Calle's Chromatic Diet piece for this wardrobe project.
I can't remember why I looked at it before, I love colours and colour co-ordination so much.

Wednesday, 23 February 2011

Flyer.

My flyer got approved, so I'm going to put a few up tomorrow, here's hoping I don't get any weirdos, here's hoping I get anyone at all.

Bookshelf

This is so endlessly satisfying. All I've wanted for the whole four years at University is a proper bookshelf, once I have my own place, this is getting done.
I cannot stress enough that while I like colour co-ordination, I'm not like this on a day-to-day basis, I actually couldn't care less. However, a tiny part of me is in a struggle with my laziness to make everything like this and keep it that way, but only a tiny part. It is pretty satisfying being organised.

Tuesday, 22 February 2011

Wardrobe.

I made this.
I'm going to say that it is unrelated to my current project other than it's aesthetic. I made it to document the process rather than for it to be shown as any part of my current project. I have an idea, but I'm struggling to elevate it from what it is.

Basically, I'm using text and image again, because I'm alright at writing. I'm colour co-ordinating all my subject's wardrobes for visuals and asking them questions about spending habits for concept. Being able to finally explain it in one sentence is something I'm struggling with and I bunked my tutorial today so I'm going to have to wrestle with it for a full day before I get shot down on Thursday...

Swap shop.

Here is a better photo of my 'colour co-ordination', I have also made a flyer which I'm having checked over at the admin office. Flyers never work though, and I already have a few volunteers through word-of-mouth anyway, it's just going to be a week and in some cases two, until I get around to photographing them, therefore I'll have hardly anything to show. The flyers are a back-up, even if they don't work.

I'm pretty surprised by how much pink I have and how bright all my clothes are, I guess I knew that but it's weird to see it in an unedited photograph.

Today I attended a clothes swapping event, not that I brought anything back as it's against my own rules but I felt pretty complimented by the people looking over my clothes and it was interesting to see so many clothes en mass. I only took a couple of photos and I thought it might have been busier but there was enough there to perhaps think about keeping the images for this project.

Monday, 21 February 2011

It's something.

Finally gaining some satisfaction from today, posting off a print to one of my subjects for my half-Chinese project. His is printed and mounted professionally, so I would offer this to all my subjects, but I just can't afford it and this one was technically printed the wrong size. Maybe when I get my exhibition over and done with I'll start sending out prints. I've been pretty good at showing everyone the work on here though.

Here is a photo from The O2 that I took on my phone, I quite like my new phone.

Latest shoot.

So I spent a couple of hours this afternoon colour co-ordinating my wardobe, I'm not sure why but I kind of think it reflects the kind of person I would really like to be at the same time. It's just a shame that I'm not and I'm still living in a student house. Things will be different when I have my own house, so I did the best I could with that idea. I think I'm going to stop shooting and thinking about shooting anything until Wednesday, so I can get some real research under my belt and I can figure out what I'm doing.
The weekend was a nice break and I thought I could come back to it a fresh but I'm more panicked and stressed out than ever. I feel like my technical ability is really letting me down and I'm back to AS Level, which is ridiculous because I haven't got to 2:1 3rd year without being fairly competent.
I'm probably just crazy-nervous about finishing and it all being over.

Maybe I need to severely Photoshop them to make them interesting or something, I don't know, I'm not sure that I really like anything that I'm even imagining right now. Forced creativity is so balls.
As well as those photos I also experimented with some different lighting and took a few self-portraits, I quite like some of them even if my skin is a bit rough. I particularly like the yellow-red-blue one, it kind ofmakes me look like an owl.

I think reading will definitely help, and getting the hell off Tumblr every now and then. Urgh. I basically need a hell of a lot of advice, and I'm too scared to show my work in front of everyone tomorrow because I'm an idiot.
Oh and here are two Polaroids I took, I'm really trying to channel something extraordinary and struggling to come to terms with the fact that I'm pretty ordinary. Sorry for going a bit emo.

My weekend.

I have just had a great weekend back home, now I am back in Portsmouth with even less of an idea of what to do than before. Eep, I took a few more photos for it but they'll be in the next post.

So, I was back home to see Russell Howard with Moon and my sister got me tickets for Christmas and couldn't go. He was so funny and we had a great evening out, even if The O2 does get super-busy.
Here are a few photos from that sort of period, they're all a bit muddled. We also took a trip to Pollock's Toy Museum, which was a bit nostalgic, some of the stuff in there could do with a bit of a spruce up though but then that is also part of it's charm too. I found the best Paperchase in the world too, I'll have to go back there when I have some money, it has everything crafty I could ever want, and once I'm not a student any more I might have some time to feel less guilty about not doing projects and actually do them.

Things you forget about when living in Portsmouth:
- How green everything can be.
- Flowers are quite nice.
- There are many other kinds of birds other than seagulls and pigeons.

Thursday, 17 February 2011

Half a result?

So for some reason we're not getting our marks for our dissertation back until the 3rd of March, but they generously decided to hand out our 'provisional' Set Brief marks today. This annoyed me on a few levels but the main one being that on the sheet of paper with my results on it says that they assessed my work on 29th January, which is quite a while ago really. I really let myself down a bit in the end.
I did get a solid 2:1 though, which seems to be the story of my University life. Don't get me wrong, a 2:1 is great but it isn't a 1st. I know it's a fair mark but I also know that I could have done better. I'm really willing for my dissertation to at least match it now though because otherwise, what is the point of this year? I would have no friends to fall back on if I had to retake anyway.
So I could have actually pushed for a first in this project but the final presentation let me down and I only got a 2:2 in it, which paired up with the 2 1sts and 2:1 brought it down to middle ground. I hate that they show you where you went wrong, I only want praise, I still got a good mark.

So this week has been one huge slack in terms of the fact that I should at least be doing research even if my idea isn't particularly solid. I'm going home tonight to sort my head out, plus I'm seeing Russell Howard at the O2 on Saturday. I think being in London doing things will allow me to come back to my work as a fresh on Monday. I hope so anyway...

Wednesday, 16 February 2011

Uploading some photographs!

Here is a photo of the entirety of my wardrobe — still lost on my project by the way.

Yesterday my course had a fundraiser for money towards both our Portsmouth exhibition and the London one, we made £110 and I like to think that I helped with about 45% of that.

It was a cake sale and everyone made lots of cakes, I feel I was slightly outshone by these ones:

But here are the ones I made anyway, I even co-ordinated them with the box. Plus, to tell you the truth, although the icing on those other cupcakes was nice, they were pretty dry, but good value nonetheless as you'd probably pay around £2/3 for them in a shop anyway and we were only charging £1.

Also, Monday was Valentines Day, and Moon and I had a lovely evening out, we went for a meal at Chiquitos where we got a beeper because we had to wait but were really only waiting about 10 minutes rather than half an hour. We then went to see Sanctum 3D which was amazing. It was just nice to spend some time together outside of our house by ourselves really, Valentines as an excuse to do so, or not.

I've taken hardly any photographs so far this year and this deeply saddens me, not only because I should really, really be getting down to my project properly and taking photographs all the time, but also because it does kind of mean that I haven't really done anything spectacular. I'm going to start taking more photos, because then I can update this blog more and use Tumblr for my work less and my posts won't look like this one all the time.

Sunday, 13 February 2011

Immersion - Robbie Cooper.

Immersion by Robbie Cooper.
The most interesting are the gamers who begin to cry due to not blinking for an extended period of time. I've been searching for this since seeing it on an episode of Panorama, I only found it when reading about Cooper's series about Secondlife Avatars.

I love the simple lighting set-up as well as the simple idea behind it. It can be almost as hypnotising watching someone play a game as it can be playing the game yourself.

I worked pretty hard on some images yesterday but I'm not going to edit them until tomorrow, I have some pretty interesting stats to go with them too. I should really have got rid of more clothes after my clear out than I did.

Friday, 4 February 2011

502.

I think this would have worked better if I had kept still.

Burgundy.

I think I kind of like doing this. It's kind of therapeutic, at least in the sense of logging down what everything costs. I spend far too much money, whether I buy new things or not. Although I'm enjoying this, I also feel really vain...

When I start wearing shoes in these, it's going to look weird.