695: Why 2011 was nice.

I don't know what happens to people when they say that they had a bad year. Really? Your WHOLE YEAR was bad, literally nothing good happened, at all? I'm talking about people I know and not people who are in disadvantaged situations, but maybe these people do generally have shitty years and I'm just fortunate.
2011 has been quite good really, there have been boring bits and frustrating bits and scary bits, but I've achieved a lot and I'm really quite happy about that.

Obviously, come Sunday everything will be new and fresh and there will be a whole year that's ready for tackling. But, I'll talk about that another time and I'll share with you, in no particular order, eleven things that were nice for me in 2011.

1. Getting to go on a few holidays and get away from home, and England in some cases.
I practically started the year in Disneyland with my sister, which made for a magical wintery getaway as well as a test to my organisational skills.
I also took my second trip to Glastonbury and now know, that even with mud, it's still the best place to be in the last weekend of June and that we need to get the postcode for the other carpark when we go in 2013.
I've basically been to the other side of the world, with my first trip to Hong Kong in 4 years, it was hot and busy but there's so much to do and despite the tormenting guilt of the inability to speak Chinese despite my heritage, it was one of the best holidays I've been on in my life.
I've been to Cornwall more times this year than I have in my whole life, which is twice by the way, which incidentally (just to round off this paragraph nicely) is the same amount of times I've been to France with my second trip being to Brittany at the end of the Summer. Here's hoping that my eyes are opened further and that I can not only see a bit more of the world in 2012, but also some more of what's in the garden of England.






2. Learning to drive.
I'm not there yet but I've finally made the first steps to another one of those things that you just have to do before you're really a grown up. I'm so excited that by this time next year I could even have my own car, weird.

3. Graduating.
This is probably high on every 2011 graduate's list this year. I'm so pleased, I did it, I got a decent grade and, best of all, I didn't fall over in front of the world and Sheila Hancock.

4. Getting really pretentious and fangirly over films.
Discovering new films and new-to-me films this year has been one of my favourites. I've found a new favourite film magazine and would love to think that I knew my stuff.

I also watched 'The Notebook' for the first time this year, annoyed that I understood what all the fuss was about, was hoping that it would be bad and that I wouldn't cry for the last half an hour.

5. Making the most of social networking.
This is the year I found my feet and started using social networking 'as a tool' rather than just to dip in and out of stalking people I know through other people. I've actually networked, I've managed to somehow gain some kind of readership to this blog and I think it's all helped me find a style, both in terms of my writing and how I take photographs now. I sort of cringe at the difference between now and when I started this blog, who even was that person?

6. Unemployment.
Sometimes I feel as though all I go on about is how shitty it is and how demotivated I feel, and that all still stands for most of the time, but without being unemployed I wouldn't have had the time to do some of the great things that I've achieved this year. I'm lucky and I definitely still want a job, obviously, but I've gained a lot of practical knowledge of how to behave virtually and in person and I hope that at some point I can put everything I've learnt into practice and someone will take a chance on me; because you know, I'm great.

7. Using my camera more.
Nowadays it feels as though my camera never leaves me, or at least I always have some kind of camera to take a photo of something. Before, when I was studying Photography this was the furthest thing I wanted to have, taking photographs was for work and nights out, I never felt like I did anything in between. Now I'm realising that I can make things interesting and talk about things like I never did before and it makes me quite happy. I know my way around my camera now, and what settings to use and which lenses, something I probably should have spent more time doing while studying...


8. Stopping biting my nails.
I never wanted to be one of those middle-aged women who still bit their nails and couldn't wear red nail varnish. Now, thanks to sheer willpower, I hopefully won't be. Not only did I stop biting, I've also become pretty nifty in the nail art department, creating awkward yet flattering talking points with passers by.

9. Five years with Andrew Moon.
That's got to be some kind of big deal, right?

10. Work experience.
2011 was the year of Ruth Johnston's work experience, with a great opportunity with the NUJ at their delegate meeting, at which I met some smashing-great people who have made it onto my Facebook friends list. I also continued working with The Village Voice and Malden Fortnight as well as completing a two day work experience period with the organisers of the London Street Photography Festival and winding up the working year with a sweet internship on the picture desk of travel/in-flight magazine publishers, Ink Global, so that was pretty awesome. In between that I also shot my first wedding and a set of headshots, as a real photographer. I would hope that when all of this is taken into account, along with my bucket-load of interviewee experience, I'll be able to be employed at some point in 2012.

11. Managing to not have to make the same New Year's Resolutions for next year as this year.
And that's a pretty great feeling.

Inky rewards.

When I left Ink Global last Wednesday, they were kind enough to give me a copy of December's Metropolitan Magazine for Eurostar which I had helped work on. I think I will have contributed a bit more to the following issue as this one was just finishing up when I started, but it gives a balanced look at what I did all the same, with the images on the Radius London article being ones that I sourced from a couple of the companies mentioned and the inset Benibar images being from Rex Features and Getty.





They were also kind enough to send me off with an advent calendar, as I finished on 30th November. It's a proper one too, one where you have to search for the doors!

Metropolitan Magazine

Dollah.

I handed over my receipts for my expenses today. What a weight, I was getting so stressed out over possibly losing them.

Today was a very good last day, I really enjoyed my time at Ink and it definitely beat stapling paper and reorganising cupboards.
They were also kind enough to give me a quick portfolio review, which I wasn't going to take advantage of because it's been ages since I've shown anyone any proper work, but I'm glad I did. I might actually try and persevere with this whole photography thing. Doing that has definitely helped towards how I'm going to lay out my online portfolio. I am so disgustingly aware of how long I've been saying that I'll do it, I just kept getting distracted with applying for jobs, now I'm going to make myself because it's just as important.

I hope that this experience and getting some new experience under my belt will help with keeping me motivated for a bit, I'm ready for the next step, and taking some time out next week.

604.

So, I've been away from my computer basically all week to take a brief trip into the world of work. Yes! I finally got a job, albeit in the form of a trial period for an unpaid position. I was working for a company called Shoot Experience, based in Hackney. They are the organisers of the London Street Photography festival, so it was a good opportunity to gain more of an insight into a creative field, somewhere much more specific to my discipline.

I only worked for two days, but due to the fact that I was down in Dorking and was up before 7AM to travel for nearly 3 hours door-to-door both days, it felt like much longer, so I was pleased to sleep-in a bit this morning. I feel that I got quite a lot out of the two days though, although there was a fair amount of admin, such as printing, stapling and laminating, I was also able to frame a couple of pieces that Shoot Experience were auctioning at their Fundraising Event (which was tonight).
I helped to frame the Vivian Maier photo, which was valued up to £1,500, not to mention beautiful, very nerve-racking! I framed Lot 19 (Polly Braden & David Campany, Burnt motorbike on the Greenway) and Lot 4 (David Gibson,Audition) unsupervised though, so it was nice to be able to put one of the practical skills that I got from my degree to use. I also packaged a lot of the prints, which is what I spent most of the first day doing. Yesterday I did some online promotion for their new event 'Capture Tower Hamlets', a photography competition/heritage project based throughout the Tower Hamlets borough. < plug > Click the link to find out more, and if you're a photographer in the Tower Hamlets area you can capture a pre-2012 Tower Hamlets to preserve images for future generations < /plug >.

Despite the success of the last couple of days, I'm not resting on my laurels and have quite a few things lined up when I come back from France, but it would be nice to continue working with Shoot Experience for a few days a week if I'm able to. I'm not sure how things will be after my next two (yes, two) recruitment sign-up interviews, hope not all the jobs that they offer me are in 'sales' though... *cringe.
I think I had a photography-related answering machine message too but was unable to contact the caller back as they didn't leave a number - bit annoyed about that because I got all of this and last week's answering machine messages all in one go yesterday (of which there were nine so that was good), then my phone ran out of battery...

Anyway, if you're quite finished reading about my life, here is a feast for your eyes. I found a lovely café down the road from Shoot Experience called The Ginger Pig, it does beaut food, I went there both days because I was too lazy to find anywhere else, I had a pancake breakfast on Monday and Eggs Benedict on Tuesday, yum. I've also included a few others, including the beautiful sky we had on Monday night (it's been weird weather recently, hasn't it?!) and some gratuitous ones of my cat and my cousin's hamster. Most of these were taken on my phone but I don't think they're too bad, it can be quite nice to have a camera on your phone sometimes.

Malden Fortnight - Take 2.

So I'm finally posting something that isn't about Glastonbury! Instead, I'm going to witter on about this job that I'm doing that is quite nice, but I do really wish I was getting some kind of money for it. Everyone is whispering in my ear and it's really annoying, how do I go about approaching this lady about even a free advertisement as payment? It's all a bit stressful, I'm happy to do it, because if I wasn't doing it, I would be doing nothing.

I was asked to return to work for the Village Voice to cover Malden Fortnight for the second year in a row, I suspect it's because I am cheap (free) The street festival, which is spread over 3 weekends, kicked off this afternoon. Despite the parade seeming slightly smaller than it was last year, the effort that went into the costumes was much greater. It has become much more apparent to me that the events surrounding Malden Fortnight are distinctly local, but naturally it adds to their charm, and like I mentioned earlier, I'm happy to be kept busy for a few days in the wind-down after finishing University for good and before I officially graduate.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some press to pick up the images, but there were so many photographers out in force today, even family members of those taking part in the parade were set up with their entry-level DSLRs.

The events that I covered today included the Grand Parade, which signals the opening of Malden Fortnight, the New Malden Horticultural Society Summer Show, Summer Breeze and a charity cream-tea event. Like most of the events last year and other events I have covered it did take a while to get into my stride, but it was good fun once I found my feet.

Here are some of my favourite shots from the day:
A full set of images can be found on my Flickr.














I think it would be quite fun to do this kind of work on a permanent basis, so I'm opening myself up to offers.

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.