Simulacra Studio Placement Report By Rachel Johnson
2628422
Contents 3 4 5 8 28 40 48
0- Intro: My placement- context is half of the work and placement outline I- Career tools: Curriculum Vitae cover letter online portfolio II- Project Outline with images (screenshots of blogspot) My images of Simulacra Studio III- Use of social media (screenshots of twitter)
page2 Placement Report
0- Intro: My placement- context is half of the work Simulacra Studio is based in Brixton and founded and run by Chris Charalambous and Francois Boutemy; two young, innotive photographers. I was initially impressed by their Flash website and photgraphic content. I was also encouraged by the location of their studio as i am currently based in Brixton and hoped this would allow for increased involvement in my placement. After contacting Chris Charalambous and Francois Boutemy of Simulacra Studio via email on 31st Jamuary 2009, i was excited to receive a positive reply in mid February offering me the chance to meet them and look around their studio. After meeting, we confirmed at least a 4 week placement, this commenced on 13th March. I was given the task to help finalise Simulcra’s press release and individually email it out to everyone on their mailing list. Once i completed this i was given the tast to create and maintain an online blog of Simulacra’s past and current activities: http://www.simulacrastudio.blogspot.com i worked from the Simulcra office and my position involved selecting images, retouching and formatting for web, uploading to blogspot with relavant titles, captions and dates, and finding and adding links to relevant sites; acknowledging eveyone’s involvement. Unfortunately because i was given a fixed task to complete i had no scope to create a personal project and i wasn’t given the oppertunity to get involved with any of the photography. Therefore the context of my work was to create a blogspot that had continuity with Simulcra’s style of photography design aesthetic of their website. I achieved this through the visual appearance of the blog spot, using a similiar colour pallette to their website, with a professional but fresh, modern result. Furthermore, Simulacra’s decision to take on two more student placements in the beginning of March meant that the maintanance of the blogspot was shared between the three of us ( i have only included screen shots of what i added to the blogspot in this report) as well as the office space, which only really accomodates for one placement at a time. This meant the oppertunity to work at Simulcra decreased vastly and i had to become much more flexible with my hours (to the extent of missing seminars/lectures at University to ensure i was able to get involved with Simulacra at least once in two weeks). I found this a rather negative factor of my placement.
1- career tools
Address
Curriculum Vitae Rachel O. Johnson
60 Gresham Road Brixton SE9 7NN
Tel Mobile: 07816 115 928 Email johnsor5@lsbu.ac.uk Date of birth 14 February 1988 WORK EXPERIENCE Dixon International, Pampisford - Photographer for website, January 2009 Mike’s Tennis Academy, Cambridgeshire - Photographer for website, Summer 2008 Piya Piya, London - Waitress - January-May 2008 Retrofit Architecture, London – Photographer for website, Autumn 2007 The Video Emporium, Cambridge – Sales assistant – University holidays 2007-2009 Blue Arrow, Cambridge – temped at DC10 for Cambridge examining boards – June/July 2007 Genesis Telecommunications, Huntingdon – photography at corporate entertainment day at Duxford Airshow – Sept 2006 Back on Track, Cambridge– Sports photography/advertising project – Summer 2006 H. Domestics, Cambridge – Cleaner - 2005-2006 Pembroke College, Cambridge – Silver Service Waitress 2004-05 EDUCATION 1993 – 98 1998 – 2001 2001 – 04 2004 – 06 2006 2007 -
RAB Junior School, Saffron Walden St. Faith’s School, Cambridge The Leys, Cambridge Hills Road Sixth Form College, Cambridge One year at Roehampton University, studying Photography and English Language & Linguistics Digital Photography at London South Bank University – 3yr BA (HONS)
QUALIFICATIONS 1 Certificate of Higher Education: English Language and Linguistics 2 A Levels: English Language and Literature, Photography 2 AS Levels: Maths, Film Studies 1 CLAIT Certificate - Computer literacy and information technology 11 GCSEs: English language, literature, Maths, Double award science, French, History, Geography, Drama, Physical Education, Divinity EMPLOYMENT SKILLS I am an organised fast learner with a great work ethic. I bring energy and enthusiasm to everything I undertake, whether I am working individually or part of a team. I have good social and communicative skills and plenty of initiative. I am computer literate and have specialist knowledge of photo-editing, graphics and web-design software, including Adobe’s photoshop, indesign, rapid-weaver, flash and final cut pro. Online Portfolio: www.racheljohnson.clickgarden.net References available on request. page4 Placement Report
31st January 2009
260 Hardess St Loughborough Junction Brixton London SE24
Dear Mr Boutemy, I am writing to apply for a placement at Simulacra Studio. I was referred to you by my lecturer at London South Bank University, Paula Roush. She has introduced a new module to our course named Photographic Art, with the solo aim to find a relevant placement and undergo whatever is expected of the position. As you can see by my Curriculum Vitae, I am a second year under-graduate studying Digital Photography. Within my course, I am currently working with Indesign to complete a second edition of a Lulu self-published photo-book, Rapid-Weaver to create an online portfolio and a Flash built website with a set brief. On top of my studies, since 2006 i have photographed and designed for several businesses and companies, freelancing mainly to create websites as well as an advertising campaign for Back on Track in Cambridge. I have gained much technical knowledge, mainly surrounding my own personal photographic practice as well as editing software such as Adobe Photoshop, Bridge and Lightroom. In addition, the experience of meeting with clients to present visual idea’s and ongoing updates of design progression, while continually working within the constraints of a brief and to a deadline has been crucial to my personal growth and knowledge within the industry. I am therefore interested in pursuing a position within your team at Simulacra Studio and feel that completing this placement would be very valuable to me, not only to gain a firmer grasp of the everyday challenges within this environment but also as an inspiration for my creative ideas as yourself and Chris Charalambous produce work of a high technical standard but further more capture intriguing content through visual twists. ‘Contact Sheet’ especially excited me and i feel that i have similar styles in my own work and hope that i could bring creative ideas to the table. I am eager to learn more about Simulacra and anything else this opportunity may bring. I look forward to discussing this opportunity with you. Please reply directly to this email or alternatively, contact me on 07816115928. As i live locally it would be no trouble to pop in for a face-to-face. Yours sincerely, Rachel Johnson
Here is a screen shot of my Website homepage and a selection from my Portfolio,to see more please visit my website:
www.racheljohnson.clickgarden.net
Alternatively you may wish to view my Interactive Photomontage which can be found at:
www.racheljohnson.clickgarden.net/flash
page6 Placement Report
page8 Placement Report
page10 Placement Report
page12 Placement Report
page14 Placement Report
page16 Placement Report
page18 Placement Report
page20 Placement Report
page22 Placement Report
Self Portrait
page24 Placement Report
‘Liquid Light’
page26 Placement Report
II- Project outline with images: I was given the task to create and maintain a blogspot for Simulacra Studio, formatting images using Photoshop and then inserting images text and links:
http://www.simulacrastudio.blogspot.com/
page28 Placement Report
page30 Placement Report
page32 NT Placement Report
page34 Placement Report
page36 Placement Report
page38 Placement Report
page40 Placement Report
My images taken of Simulcra Studio
page42 Placement Report
page44 Placement Report
Unfortunately i only got to see the studio set up once for a photgraphic shoot, here it is set up for a film screening.
page46 Placement Report
III- Use of social media
page48 Placement Report