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.

My actual birthday.

So my turning 21 was a pretty big deal. I got some great presents and had a really nice relaxing day in Brighton finished off with a posh, delicious meal. I think I've hit the point where being sophisticated is a bit more appealing than sprawling out on the floor, but I'm not going to speak to soon as home is obviously quieter than Uni and has a lot less opportunity to be a lout anyway. Not too sure how rowdy I fancy being in our perfect house though.

© Ruth Johnston 2010.

I was so pleased with the view from our hotel room, even if the room itself had a bit of a weird layout. It was so hot and sunny, so it was perfect birthday weather, although I just love Brighton anyway so I was even alright the following day when it rained.
The whole Brighton set can be found on Facebook.

Rhinos.

I found this; it's from over a year ago when Moon and I went to Marwell Zoo, I was looking back that far to see what I looked like a year ago, what a tubz, anyway, it made me smile. The whole 'looking back' thing is something I'm going to write about at a later date when I get a decent recent photograph of myself, stay tuned.

Did I mention, I'm a bit less fat.

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.

Blabber.

I had a pretty interesting afternoon yesterday, I think my exam-widowdom is once again coming to a close, 25 hours from now it will all be over and Moon will hopefully start to relax.



Yesterday was quite relaxing in any case, I sat on Southsea Common with him while he revised and I read horrible trashy magazines. I got sunburnt because I wasn't completely prepared to actually go down there. Then we had a walk along the seafront and home. I even had a paddle in the sea, which was my first time doing so since being in Portsmouth, quite stupid when you consider how long I've been here.


I'm looking forward to asking to do stuff and not being turned down in favour of revision.

All images © Ruth Johnston, 2010. Aside from the ones I obviously didn't take.

I think I work best taking photographs in the sunshine.
I'm so pleased that I have had a few responses for my Half-Chinese project via a Facebook group, there seem to be a couple of members that are interested, so it could shape up to be really good. It would probably be more helpful to use people that I know or that are closer to Portsmouth - due to where the studio is. But I could probably negotiate paying for their travel expenses or something once everything gets off the ground - meaning this project could get expensive, especially seeing as I'm hoping to shoot less on digital for it...

Looks like I'll be temping this summer, I've applied for a few 'photography' jobs but have yet to get a response but I'd like some way of keeping myself busy anyway, paid or otherwise. I'm going to try and keep up the blogging and more of a 'finger on the pulse' of things as well as be a better reviewer, it will undoubtedly help when I come back to doing projects again if I've kept active. Hopefully it will mean that by the end of summer I'll have a bit of a research portfolio to dip in and out of, therefore meaning I may have done most of my work for me when the time comes.

Valentines and Chinese New Year.

As I mentioned before, Chinese New Year is a holiday that is much more important to me than Valentines Day, which isn't even a holiday and the only reason people like it is because they get to put lovehearts everywhere. I had a nice day embracing the two together nonetheless.
I'd imagine this is due to the large Chinese population within Portsmouth but regardless, Gunwharf had their own Chinese New Year celebrations this year, featuring three Chinese lions. Chinese lions really scared me as a kid and I could definitely see why from seeing them yesterday, a creature that actually looked like that is unimaginable, yet there they were, it's all their terrifying blinking glory.






After seeing the display, for which we luckily had a good spot, we headed over to Giraffe for lunch, I'd never been to one but had heard good things. Being in Portsmouth, from experience of chains round here, I thought it would be a bit sub-par, but it was delicious and the service was good, I will definitely be going there again. I had nachos, ebi-katsu and ribs, nom nom nom.





We finished in time to see the tail-end of the second lion display, which went around the whole of Gunwharf with a trail of people behind it, unlike the first show, I feel kind of lucky.
My Valentines gift to Moon was half a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts that I got on the way home.

© Ruth Johnston 2010

Today has been a bit disappointing really, I could have had a long lie-in, but instead walked into University to get there for half 9 only to be told that the timetable was wrong and we were not to come back until 2. Not only is it really annoying generally due to the fact that I got up early anyway, but it's also annoying because my sister is coming down today and I was supposed to meet her and my Gran for lunch after the lesson, instead it is now just a quick visit and my Gran has to drive home again straight away so I can get to my lesson at 2. Any other week this would have been fine because it's a lie-in every other week, but I'd made plans. I mean I sorted the situation straight away, but the fact that the whole timetable stated we were to be in at the wrong time is kind of borderline unacceptable, especially when considering the fact that had we been in at half 9 anyway but turned up 10 minutes late, we would be shouted at like children. Huff.