Tom Varney (BA) Graphic Design EDRG2009
Independent Practice
Colombia’s Finest I was appro ache d to help design a sign and supp or ting lo go for new fo o d comp any sp e cialising in C olombian cuisine. The star t-up company is looking to take a piece of the festival-food market and is planning to be up and running next ye ar. This comp any will have vans at a majority of the major festival and was looking to a student to help pro duce a large sign to go onto their vehicle as well as a neat logo which will be present on all uniforms and suppor ting material. Here is a collection of initial ideas and experimentation which has been sent to the client for feedback; taking the bits he like and doesn’ t like to then press on to the stage of finalising on one idea.
Studio Photography A day in the photography studies. Keen to better my understanding of photo graphy within a studio environment I sp ent some time taking various shots of a model under various lighting condidtions. The main exp erience had here was le arning how to use all the equipment and appreciating various camera settings under these light conditions. It was in fact whilst e diting these photo graphs that I learnt an editing technique which lead to the inspiration of my “Shooting Stars” film. It was through my independent curiousity which help e d build up on what I pro duce for my studio practice work. What I learnt during this time has directly effected the ways in which i consider process when thinking about possible ideas for projects now and lead me to achieve new outcomes and techniques to my “ tool box’ of creativity.
As you can se e from the photo graph on the lef t, I wante d to le ave only the re d of her lips as colour, and the rest in grayscale. The pro cess of doing so was lo oking at the ide a of communication and the connotations of p ar ticular visual signs. By only le aving the re ad of the lips it allows them to stand out from the rest of the visual imager y. The lips become prononced and thus the main focus of the piece, due it being the only coloured element.
Dark Room E xp erimentation of photo graphy p ap er exp osers and me dium format black and white film. Using a Lomo graphy Diana+ camera I use d me dium format film to delib erately overlap exp osures ke en to se e the unpre dictable nature of the outcome. I wante d to ‘ fail’ or in other words not pro duce the p er fe ct, realistic photograph. I felt through spontaneous and unexp e cte d results, rather interesting p atterns and abtractions could o ccur. Fur ther black and white photography is to follow into next semester, keen on carr ying on with what I have achieved here.
Rather pleased with the printed aesthetic s of these two pieces. The unclear nature of these photographs and the unsmooth jaggered edges add character them and almost carries with them mysterious connotations
C ompletely undesigne d and unpre dictable through pro cess, yet the outcomes pro duce d textures and patterns so organic, they couldn’ t be reproduced.
Green Screen Again some time in the studio. My believe is to use the most of what the university has to offer outside of studio time which is something I do regularly with the media store. Knowing they had a green sheet available I set out to just experiment with the techniques behind key-light photograph and just generally have a bit of fun with the results. Although the outcomes are not fantastic, I was mostly interested in the process, the steps taken to achieve p ossible outcomes. Through understanding you have a better ability to visualise ideas and the techniques available to you to carr y out these ideas. This was an exercise for myself not for the final outcome produced. Trial and error perhaps.
An photo graph inspire d by the pro cess of key light photo graphy. Having sele cte d the gre en pixels and remove d the inverse, i.e. the figures, I was lef t with a silloeutte effect. I set out to see if I could reproduced this for real using a 60D DSLR camera at dusk.
Itchy Teeth Having visite d Ronnie S cott ’s Jaz z Club in S oho, London I met a b and calle d Itchy Te eth who are currently writing their first album and playing many gigs across london. My elder brother recently joined the band as the bassist and I was ask if I was keen on becoming the band’s video/photography when ever I could attend there gigs. B eing a fresh and talented new band promotion is key to them and it provides me with some more event photography, something that I often do for people. As I ’ve stated before, I believe p ersonnal exp erience in a re al environment is the best way to learn and approve. Event photography, par ticularly at night, in darkly lit rooms, full of action and people can often be a photograph challenge. I like to get these jobs as much as possible because not only does it get me into places for free, it allows me to become so much more confident with my camera and photography stills. You have to be quick and correct with your settings in order to capture the shot as it happens.
Here is a selection of the photographs take and one of the films shot at Ronnie Scott ’s Jaz z. The concept behind the video was to get as many different shots and perspectives of the band as possible with one camera.
Hasselblad Again curiousity got the better of me. Having heard there was a digital Hasselblad in the media store, I booked it out and popped over to the photo studios. The main reason for this exercise was mainly just to see the level of quality this camera has to offer. I was completely amazed at the results. The photographs pro duce d almost lo ok like scanne d images at high resolution
The level of detail in these photo graphs is impressive. Shot under controlled lighting conditions in the studio and edited in photoshop using.
Having pro duce d these results with the Hasselblad, fur ther exp eriements will follow next semester.
Hooga Event photography at a venue called ‘Hooga’ in Essex. B eing aske d to take photos for a p ar t y I to ok the opp or tunit y to develop on my photo graphy skills. I sometimes find if dif ficult to get my desire d results under dim lighting environments and so trie d long exposures to really draw out the shadows and colours of the venue. Having no tripod I used various objects tho place the camera on and just played around with a bit of classic trial and error.
Here are a collection of some of the photographs produced, some taken with longer shutter sp e ads than others. I am rather ple ase d with the photograph above as I feel it sets the scene rather well, The action of the piece is clearly depicted throught the movement of the snooker balls and it got me thinking about how still images can actual protray a motion of time. I found the concept of this quite fascinating and I’m keen on exploring this idea fur ther. To the lef t is another image which I think works quite well. The juxtap osition b et we en the lights and the shadows, or chiaroscuro, par ticualr helps the detail within the image and really draws out the coloutrs of the piece
Pepper Purely b ase d on the exp erience gaine d using the photo studio lighting and the results of the Hasselblad camera photographs, I was able to visualize an idea and had the knowle dge in order to carr y out the desire d result. Having b e en inspire d by the high quality nature of the Hasselblad photography, when I was asked if I could help “Itchy Teeth� put together a photo graph of a orange p epp er to b e use d to b e printe d onto a kit drum skin, I know exactly what aesthetic I wanted to achieve.
Due to the fact that the kit drum skin is over 2 2 inches across, the size and quality of the photograph was always going to have to be ver y high. Photographed using a C anon 5D mark 11, and by using three por table photography lights, two at 45 degree angles and one from above, I was able bring out the 3D nature of the pepper and also it ’s shiny sur face with the use of light reflections. The main things learnt here was the understanding of the custom white balance on the camera. All the preset white balance functions on the camera could not produced the per fect orange as you see here. I also learnt a great deal about resolution in relation to how big the end product will be, without losing the quality of the image.
Lost Souls Casual par t-time work for a record lable’s 5th bir thday p ar t y which to ok place in Public Life of the 12th of October. Using the post-production techniques I le arnt putting to gether the ‘ Sho oting Stars’ brief, I individually edited all photographs to really bring out cer tain colours and textures. Here are a few from the colle ction ( minus all the p ersonal photo graphs including interesting par ty goers). Great experience and something that I continually pursue to get more of. I find it usual to gain my experience dealing with quick on the-spot-photography. Helps my to get better accustomed to my camera, its potentials and dealing with all the photographs after wards when editing them down..
One of the things I am star ting to recognise and appreciate throughout my personnal development on this course is how ever ything you do, no matter what it is will directly effect what you may do at another time. Independant practice is on-going and a continuing process which always seems to interlock, connect and aid other ideas and briefs. I guess its all about expanding your personnal tool box. Without process you can never visualise the outcome.
Student Ambassador Another thing I decided to get involved with at university outside of the studio time, is the student amb assador scheme. My appro ach to life is that any extra-curricular exp erience is go o d exp erience. I sometimes like to push my self into doing things that I have never done or just because they are open to me. I guess it is some kind of strange curiosity that I never quite know what I am going to get out of it and know that I’ll never know unless I just do it. I guess it was the potentail oppor tunity to meet all kinds new people and to work with younger people on workshops that could be ver y inspirational for me.
Having being asked to produce a presentation for my inter view of why I cho ose UCA , which was to b e aime d at p e ople age d 16 -17, I knew from the b e ginning I was never going to pro duce a p owerp oint presentation. Theres something ab out them that I can’ t stand, mayb e their b oring, overly use d or just soul-destroying, I don’ t know. Any way, I de cide d to take the oppor tunity to look into kinetic typography. I knew Adobe Effects had the ability to overlay moving typography onto moving image but had never looked into it before. I thought, rather than standing up with with some brightly coloured slides, I would film various shots all around the university of all the main areas I am pleased with and believe are the positive points of the university and have some simply heading typography over the top, whilst I give me opinion using my mouth.
Helicar & Lewis A brilliant and inspirational all-day workshop by Helicar and Lewis during the Lab we ek. Having b e en to their talk in the morning, I then went onto their workshop af ter wards where the main concept of the day was quick , low budget idea generating. We had a series of presentation exercises which helped appreciative how quickly and effectively you can get an idea across in a ver y shor t amount of time.
Ver y inspirational. Quick, low budget, p en and p ap er ide a generating workshop. Here is a vide o clip of one of our presentations, which had to rely on paper and pen to get the message across and it had to be done in under one minute.
Comic Minds A on-going project experimenting with texturizing 3D objects, using comic strips and eventually using other mediums. Having discovered this process after helping a hat designer prepare for a pop-up shop exhibition in London, I notice d how aesthetically ple asing they can b e when photo graphe d. The interested really grew from there.
After noticing the pleasant contrast created once placed against a black background, I decided to take shots 360 around the head to I could animate the head, just out of curiousity. Once I animated I found the spinning head rather hynotic and wondered how I could push this idea. I can up with this concept of a spinning head which slowly over time, takes to lagg, or overlap itself, creating this blurred sense of motion trail behind. This I found added to the hypnotic nature of the piece. I shall be continuing to play around with this project in the near future.
Evaluation As stated earlier, one of the things I am starting to recognise and appreciate throughout my personnal development on this course is how ever y thing you do, no matter what it is will dire ctly ef fe ct what you may do at another time. Independant practice is on-going and a continuing proces which always seems to interlock, connect and aid other ideas and briefs. I guess its all about expanding your personnal to ol b ox. Without pro cess you can never visualise the outcome. I b elieve that, I have carrie d out a variet y of dif ferent personal exercises, had experiences within real environments to help gain confidence in cer tain fields, tried and tested various te chniques and applie d these to other proje cts. I have attended a variety of workshops, including HTML and C SS sessions and also spent a whole day on a S aturday with Terr y King, ( a king of photo graphy pro cessing ), something which gave me such an amazing insight into the world of photography and gave me belief that it is so readily available to me, to play around, even in this everdigital world. I shall definately be explorig the techniques he showed us next year, as well as creating my own exposure. unit. I never thought you could use light sensitive chemicals and arcylic paint to process photographs, using negatives made of paper. Brilliant day out.
In terms of my overall practice, I feel that I am always working in some way or another, which I enjoy but I do think I need to improve my time management slightly. I can get ver y carried away and unfor tunately over proje cts have b e en slightly affected by this. However, I will say that I have been doing what I am interested in, things that make me curious and if I don’ t know how to do something, I find out how to. Hopefully, next year whilst being a Student Ambassador I will meet a lot of interesting people and may potentially find even more people to collaborate with.
Lab The Lab was ver y well organise d this semester. A talk ever yday. A workshop of your choice for ever yone and a well organised blog section to go with it. I joined the Helicar and Lewis workshop, which was amazingly insprirational and a great oppor tunity to get to know the people in year 1. However, I feel we still need, which I know we are in Januar y, a good student run, community centred time frame to work collaborately. I believe the exhibition last week really proved that ever yone has loads energy when they are creating in an environment in which they are allowed to be passionate