Belfast: Ulster Museum.

I really wish that we'd had longer in Belfast and I think next time we visit Northern Ireland we'll go when we're a bit less pressed for time, it felt like it made more logistical sense, but in the end, it kind of didn't and we just felt totally rushed.

The Ulster Museum was firmly on my list of things I wanted to do when visiting Belfast as it was something I did with my Gran, cousin and sister when we were last over there and I remember it being a nice afternoon. I love any kind of natural history museum and the Ulster Museum, while it also includes a bit of everything, from fasion to ancient history, it's mainly filled with wonderfully bad taxidermic delights.

I'd definitely recommend it and go back again and again, we needed way longer than the little over an hour that we spent in there, it's perfect for a drizzly day like the one we had.



Putting the interesting things it's filled with aside, the building the museum is in is beautiful and I really liked the way it was lit, so many interesting corners of well thought-out lighting and framing. ♥



Poor old Irish Wolfhound.



Giant Deer/Irish Elk.


D:


Bison and a couple of lemmings.



Sad-looking chap.



The museum backs out onto the Belfast Botanic Gardens behind Queen's University, but more on that coming up...

The rest of Brighton.

Here are some of my favourites from the rest of mine and Moon's Brighton trip. I'm quite annoyed that we were ill on our last day, but it's not like we won't be going back so I'm not too bothered.

We visited the Booth Museum, which is up a huge hill and I definitely recommend getting the bus to if you're closer to the seafront than the town. Not because it's really far but that hill is a killer and there's not a particularly exciting walk. I think if the walk hadn't been so far then I definitely would have been more impressed with it but by the time we got there were didn't think that the wall-to-wall birds were up to much, although we did agree that their skeleton museum is pretty cool.
After a quick visit to the Toy Museum, which wasn't amazing but is never open and definitely worth a visit, we had a browse around the Lanes and due to the rain retreated to Ha!Ha! (where else?!) for their tasty nachos before going back to the hotel and napping.

In the evening we went to Ricky Gervais, which we got great seats for despite only booking them that morning. He was as great as I wanted him to be, I'm definitely buying the DVD. I'm a bit annoyed that I left the programmes in the hotel room, but I always forget something and I had already read it. I hope more than anything that he keeps the Ken Dodd joke in. OH MY GOD.

We got food poisoning from the fish & chips we bought after the gig, so cross, I was sick quite soon after but thought I'd slept it off until after breakfast. Bleugh. It was a great few days away, great weather, great food and lovely company. Nom.

© Ruth Johnston 2010.

Facebook album link.

Float your own boat.

Moon and I went to have a look at the graduate exhibitions currently showing in the Eldon Building in Portsmouth. Naturally it was all a trip mainly to look at how the Photography graduate's work turned out, it's all to such a high standard, I don't know how we're going to pull it off this time next year, but then I guess that's why they're graduating this year and we've only just finished our second year. The amount of bickering that took place for the last exhibition was unbelievable, hopefully people will be better at settling their differences next time around.
The Photography degree show is called 'Wide Eyes', like I mentioned I think a serious amount of skill went into producing these images and the exhibition really comes together despite the diverse amount of subject matter on show. I went ahead and bought the catalogue and everything. One criticism I would have would be the layout of the show as it's weirdly spread all around the building and some of the work is really far apart, but it's not really the fault of the graduates as it probably was the best that they could work with, the only reason I am mentioning it is that due to the odd layout, some of the work is quite easy to miss if you're idly walking around and not completely paying attention.

This is the inside of the catalogue, I didn't actually take any photographs of the show, not for any particular reason, I was just too busy looking to really think about it. This piece by Adam Gilbert-Anderson was probably my favourite of the show, the way it was displayed was also how I hope to display one of my major projects next year, so it was a big help. The image below also got featured as a commended image on theprintspace gallery's monthly competition, I think the whole piece was really effective, particularly the ticking clock, it actually drove Moon mad. The video piece can be found on his blog along with other work, which is also really interesting.

There really are some great storytellers among this lot, a pretty useful tool to have if you want to more than a photographer's assistant.

© Faye Wears

This is another piece that I really liked, the lines you see are light trails of planes, very interesting, also, I found the below video today and it kind of reminded me of it, two more examples of simple ideas working well.

Flight Patterns, © Charlie McCarthy via Public School

I might see if I can get to the show in London to see how it differs from the one here, the photographs are great so with a better exhibition layout they could look even better.

I also saw this suitcase of tea as part of the Collective exhibition also on at Eldon, the other pieces are really interesting, once again, I wish I'd photographed more to show, but I was concentrating, I don't even know who it's by, but it's great.

After all of that, we then went to the Portsmouth City Museum. It's not so great, but it was free, and at least I can say that I've been now, even if none of the exhibitions interested me. Well, apart from the one about 'hey day' Southsea, but that could have been done a lot better. Sorry, Portsmouth City Museum, but at least you're better than Portsmouth Natural History Museum.

1 and a bit.

Uni is starting again, I am so excited.
Highlight of most days this week was Pointless, which isn't even on until 4:30. Haha. Oh well, at least I will be able to ge tdown to it more, I'm feeling quite motivated.

The Printspace sent me my prints for my summer project, I was going to get them mounted but I didn't read that it would have taken ages so, I had to speak to them to get it cancelled and am now doing it myself. Which I guess makes it a lot cheaper anyway.
These are the images I'm using, I'm going to talk about Catcher in the Rye and how museums always stay the same which relates to dates and how they are always changing etc. I'm also going to talk about how I felt that day and how busy it was blahblahblah. Just need to conjour up some photographers to relate it to the practice and I'm ready... and mount them ofcourse, but at least they arrived today and that gives me some time.


I ordered the paper pack from Printspace too, it's so nice, I love paper and now I can pick whatever one I like for next done, the printed images looks so nice on the one I chose for this project but there are some even nicer ones ♥

I've finally got round to scanning everything in...
Here a few, the rest will be on my Facebook. Take a gander.

I love this one ♥

I made this a couple of days ago, it is an aubergine, courgette and tomato bake, it's never going to be as nice as the one I had coming home from France on the ferry. I don't think I'll make it again. Plus as nice as this photograph looks, it wasn't as nice as I wanted it to be anyway :(


Did the Derren Brown thing last night..



It was a bit of toss wasn't it?

I love my new house.
I feel pretty awesome about life right now.
Plus Lovefilm have finally sent a film that I actually want to see...and Love Albert Road Day is tomorrow.