651: All I got was a bit of knowledge and some free pens.

Yesterday, I attended an NUJ training workshop at NUJ headquarters. It was pretty swell, I got to see a lot of the faces from the NUJ Delegate Meeting and we spent the day learning about how to go about establishing chapels within universities and the workplace, something that may come in useful on this upcoming placement.

I really need to sort out renewing my membership, I will do this as soon as my (probably) last instalment on JSA comes in - wow this post is just full of acronyms.
I found the whole day really useful, I'm now considering further workshops that the NUJ offer, particularly relating to CVs and interviews but we'll see how my life is going once this internship starts. I am hoping that I can forward on all this information to my past tutor in order to establish a chapel within Portsmouth university, I would really like her to take me up on the offer, and I can give her so many free pens.





The press card is just one of the many benefits of being a member of the National Union of Journalists, you also get to go to things like this and meet lots of really nice people. As well as sharing knowledge and making friends, you sometimes get lucky and get free USBs and a drink at the end of the day.

Text and Display.

So all I have left to do is to write about how my work is going to be displayed and the advice that I was given regarding text panels. I'm a bit gutted that I only got the final advice about text 5 days before the deadline so I can't get the 'proper' ones done in time, but I think I've printed and mounted these ones well enough that it won't matter. I wouldn't say that they're perfect for the exhibition, which is why I've sent them off to be printed and mounted at The Print Space, but they're adequate for the project hand-in.

Example display

I'm preparing my work for my Viva, which means re-printing my text panels for the Half-Chinese project and trimming them down. I don't think I'll bother re-mounting the images as I'm not showing the A3 versions anyway, which is apparently bad of me but I don't think it makes much difference and the images are of higher quality when they're smaller because I messed up the way I edited and processed them.

In other news, Topshop are allowing me to return a bag without a receipt because it broke for no reason after only a week of me owning it. They are doing this because I tweeted about how ripped off I felt, I'm quite amazed that they got back to me, something like that would never have happened five years ago, technology is great. I'm a bit sad because I liked the bag and it's out of stock online and was the last one in the shop because of this I either get my money back or an exchange for another bag up to the same price. Despite their high prices, it is nice to know that Topshop place their customer service and satisfaction in high regard.

ALSO, I am in the process of helping establish a Portsmouth Student Union Media NUJ Chapel (that's going to be a long acronym). I'm quite looking forward to getting involved, I have also managed to possibly do a fashion photoshoot for the University newspaper.

NUJ Delegate Meeting roundup.

So, I've had a little bit of time to reflect and catch up on the extreme lack of sleep I had to deal with over the weekend and I have realised what a brilliant weekend NUJDM was.
I've met some great people and if I gain nothing else from working with the NUJ Student Team, I've got that great experience. I don't know what I was so nervous about but now I know I could do it again and for some reason my confidence actually feels as though it's through the roof.
A link to all the work I did has been set up on a profile on the NUJDM 2011 website.

Eventually I'm going to get round to uploading my personal images from the weekend, but I think between editing my profile and looking at other people's articles that that is quite enough for today.

Now it's back to reality and concentrating on starting my project report for my final unit as well as finishing off my RDB, not as exciting as tweeting and photographing all day. I've got some fun things planned for the Easter break but I really do hope that I can muster up the enthusiasm to get this work out of the way, just because, apart from Viva, that's it.
I hope the weather stays nice for me, just because I've basically been underground for 5 days and it would be nice to catch some rays.

Here is a photo of me taken by fellow student delegate photographer, Dougal Wallace, it looks much better than I thought it would when he took it. The girl who thinks that she isn't in the photo is Angie, she was my roommate for the weekend, I definitely want to keep in touch with her.

National Union of Journalists Delegate Meeting.

This post is going to be structured weirdly compared to my usual style. As I am technically at the NUJ Delegate Meeting for work experience and more importantly as a Photographer, I'm going to do rolling updates, so everything will just appear as one big post.
As things go, apart from the terrible internet, everything has been quite exciting, and I've thoroughly enjoyed my first official day at the conference.

I'm currently using Lightroom to work through the conference as it auto-watermarks my image, which isn't one of my favourite things but I'm uploading straight to Flickr so (when the internet works) it makes everything a lot quicker. I think under a professional circumstances where I do have to work quickly it's great to use, but having made the huge move over to Aperture less than a year ago, I'm not sure when I'll have the time to do something that huge again, saying that I may move by the Easter holidays.

07/04/2011




I've never been to a conference before so it's exciting to see so many people so passionate about issues within their fields.

08/04/2011




09/04/2011

The NUJ's oldest delegate attending the conference, Roy Jones aged 81.

The youngest delegate attending this weekend, Josh Taylor, aged 19

10/04/2011

Scrap that.

I have a new, more interesting idea. It will more studio-based work but completely different from my last project. I guess I wasn't really getting into what I was doing so I'm glad it's changed and it's not like I can't work quickly, in Art Foundation we were doing a new project every 2 weeks. Plus the half-Chinese project was practically completed in 7 weeks if you disregard printing time. 8 weeks is doable, and it is still vaguely related to identity and consumerism so it isn't as though I'm starting completely from scratch. So watch this space.

In other news, I have been asked to cover the NUJ Delegate Meeting in Southport in April, I'm just waiting to have my travel details confirmed by them. 1 of 25 people selected, I guess there are a few more as people will pull out and they'd need back up, but I'm feeling pretty lucky right now. They're covering my travel there, which although is quite trip from Portsmouth, I don't really mind that much, and I'm staying in a hotel with my meals covered too as well as getting paid.
I wouldn't necessarily say that journalism is an ambition of mine but it is something I'm interested in and to have a chance at something that will lead on to more is great. Plus a lot of the general work is blogging and that is definitely something I enjoy, and it will mean people might actually pay attention to me.
They provide us with feedback forms at the end of the weekend, if I get another form that says I need to be more outgoing I will be sad - that was one of the criticisms from the interview I had with InDarklight last year. I am working on it though, it will be scary to me all the way up there all by myself, but I'm sure the other students chosen will be nice.