Update #13: Powerpoint

Here is my powerpoint which I have made in order to display my final photostory.

Powerpoint link: http://www.slideshare.net/EmmaHull1/a-day-at-the-animal-shelter

Update #12: Evaluation

At first, I had quite a few ideas on what I wanted to do. My first option was the wedding idea, as I found a few photostories online from weddings, which gave me inspiration, as previously talked about in my blog. I knew this would be hard to get into as most photographers I assumed wouldn't allow me to go. After contacting several wedding photographers around Cheltenham, nobody replied, so obviously meaning they didn't want me to follow them. Therefore, I had to think of my next proposal. In my head, I wanted to do something around the community, so when I was researching careers and places to visit around Cheltenham, there were only a few options. Cotsworld Wildlife Park, the Animal Shelter and a few more. I have an interest in animals and appreciate any work that goes on with them, which is why I liked both of these ideas. After doing a quick search on the Wildlife Park, I realised it was too far out for me to go as I do not have a car in Cheltenham, so I messaged the Animal Shelter via both email and the social networking site, Twitter. They took a while to respond but they eventually emailed back allowing me to visit. As previously mentioned on my blog, I had planned what types of photos I was going to take. This made it easier for me once I had arrived as I had clearly thought about the structure to the narrative I was going to take.

Overall, I found this project extremely fun once I had got into it as I enjoy editing photos and enjoy evaluating my work as I go along. Making the InDesign magazine spread I found fairly difficult as it was a completely new software for me. Thankfully my lecturer had helped me out with InDesign by giving me basic printouts on how to do the simple things in the software such as adding text and inserting images. My final InDesign was planned out on paper before I actually started to do it, so it would save time and I could organise the layout knowing exactly what I was going to do. If I was going to make a magazine spread again, I would consider using InDesign as it looks professional and it wasn't hard to use. Before InDesign, I would have just used Publisher which is also simple, but I find now that I know how to use InDesign, I would use it over Publisher as I found it easier to use. However, in order to use it an more complexity, I would need to have a basic tutorial in order to develop my skills. I chose a middle aged audience for my magazine design as they tend to be the age range most interested in the community. I went for a light colour scheme as it would make the photos stand out more and make them bolder.

As for the powerpoint, I have used it before and understand exactly how to use it, so found making this simple as it was just to display my photos. I used a basic effect on my power-point so that it was simple and wouldn't be too much for the audience. The most difficult thing for me while making my powerpoint was changing my mind a lot about which order the photos should be in. Although there was a clear narrative to my photos, some photos clashed with the next ones and it didn't look right. After checking over it a few times, I eventually put the ones on my power-point and re-changed my blog post to match it.

I am extremely happy with the photos I took during my day at the animal shelter and am very grateful to them for letting me go there to spend some time doing my project. I enjoyed this project however, if I were to do it again I would try and do more research before starting, and look at other photo-stories more in depth so I know exactly what types of shots to get and what kind of angles to use in mine. I think my biggest weakness throughout this photostory was thinking of captions for the final 18 photos that I used. Although the captions state exactly what is happening in the photo, I feel as though they weren't flowing enough and didn't make a very strong impact. Next time I make a photo story, I would think more about the captions before posting them for definite.

Update #11: Final Photostory

Welcome sign outside the shelter to greet the guests

Animal food and treat shop in reception.

Display on staff terriers in reception.

A member of staff prepping the dog's food.

A staff member handing the dogs their breakfast.

Milo enjoying his breakfast.

One of the dogs after his food

A member of staff opening the cage inside for the dog to play outside.

The dog being obedient to a member of staff.

A member of staff getting the dog's water.

Staff cleaning out the kennels

Staff making the kennels clean for the dogs

One of the dogs enjoying his clean kennel.

A member of staff bonding with a dog

One of 23 staff terriers in the shelter

Muriel to explain the shelter's main job

A dog smiling for the camera

Update #10: More Edits

Here are a few more edits of my photos which I have continued to do. The first photos of each pair are the non-edited versions, whereas the second photos are the improvements.

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Update #9: Editing

Today I have started to edit my photos. I am doing this in order to boost the quality and colour of my images from my visit to the shelter a few days ago. This is the first edit I have done. As you can see, I have made the text on the sign the focal point and also cropped it so that the sign is more centered. I have also slightly straightened the sign so that it isn't at an angle, and that it is perfectly vertical.

Here is another edit which I have done in order to make the dog food the focal point, but also boosted the colour and quality of the image by adjusting the contrast and brightness.

I am aiming to edit majority of my images, especially the ones where they aren't of the best quality where they could have been. For example, in some photos there are some parts which do not need to be there, so I would need to crop them out.

Update #8: Visit to the Animal Shelter

So today I visited the animal shelter. It was an early start as I had to be there at 08.30. When I arrived I signed myself in and was introduced to a member of staff who was happy for me to shadow and take photos of throughout the morning.

Majority of my shots were of the dogs in their kennels, but I also took photos of the signs, posters and the staff cleaning the kennels and feeding the dogs.

Here are some of the shots from today, which I need to edit using Photoshop in order to make them better quality for my photostory.

I also need to put them in order of the day, so that the photos have a narrative structure.

Update #7: Ideas for Photos

So tomorrow is the day that I head down to the local dogs home in order to take photos for my photostory. I have written down some shots which would be a good idea to use in my photostory. Here are the ideas in which I aim to get 150 photos of.

• The sign that states that it is the dog home.
• The dogs in their kennels, getting the bars in so it shows they are locked away seperated from eachother to keep them safe.
• The staff changing the food and water in their kennels.
• The staff at reception answering phone calls and taking donations.
• The surroundings at reception - showing what awards they have won and what donations they have received.
• The surroundings inside the dogs home - taking establishing shots of the building inside so the viewers of my photostory can imagine being in the room.
• The building from the outside from an establishing shot.
• The field around where the dogs normally go for walks.
• A member of staff walking one of the dogs.

I feel like these ideas will help me successfully put together my photo story and be a good, structured narrative for my audience.

Update #6: My Idea

After researching my ideas, I have decided to scrap the street performer and travelling idea as I figure it would take a lot of time and a lot of thought., money and time.

However, my recent idea, which is the one I have made contact for and am going to pursue is going to be the local animal shelter in Cheltenham.

I have arranged to go and take photos in a week and follow the staff around in order to take photos of their daily activities. The story to my photos will be a day at the animal shelter.

I think this will be a good idea as it is a local organisation, therefore if I do not like some of the photos then I can always go back and retake them. 

I like animals and enjoy spending time with animals, which is why I have chosen this organisation, as I know I will enjoy it and it will be an interest to me. It would be a great way to reflect everything that the animal shelter do for the animals, and the owners who are no longer able to take care of their animals due to medical reasons etc. 

The website for the animal shelter which I will be visiting next week is http://gawa.org.uk/, however I have also been keeping in contact with them using the social media website, Twitter.

Update #5: Research and Ideas

So today I have been set an assigment to pick a topic of my choice and write a story about it, using photos rather than words. This sounds like quite a fun module to do, however I am already struggling with ideas on what to do.

Like I have said, the idea of the module is to produce a story using images of a certain topic, newstory, career or society. For example, I looked at three in my lecture today which included one about an arctic mountain, someone who spent the day with Gloucestershire hovercrafters which sounded interesting and one on poverty around Gloucestershire.

It is quite vague so there should be many ideas, however I am undecided as to what I am most interested in in order to start mine. My mum works for the police, and I have done work experience for them before, so I am considering applying for a day with a policeman. However, they can have their interesting days and their boring days. Some days are just sitting in police cars waiting for calls. 

Another idea I had would be to travel around certain cities with my dad, as he works around the UK, and take photos of the main tourism bits. However, I feel that would be extremely cliche and typical.

So they are the easy options as it involved me going through my parents instead of making my own connections, which I probably should do. Going back to visiting cities around the UK with my dad, I could do photos of street performers and their audiences and how they are different in different cities. This way, I will not be sticking to one place and I will also be focusing on a certain type of person.

Another option, is to find a local organisation, such as the fire, medical and police staff who would be willing to take me out and take photos of them. There are also options such as the dogs home, where I can take photos of the dogs and staff showing what they do on a daily basis or the airport, where I can photograph people going on holiday and planes leaving.

So these are my two main ideas for now, but I am sure as time goes on, more ideas will come to me as I do more research and hear more ideas.

Update #4: Ulcinj Podgorica

Another photographer whose work I enjoyed browsing was Ulcinj Podgorica, travel photographer who does photo stories from all the different countries, cities and continents he visits. He is from Poland but has said he doesn't spend much time there as his main aim is to travel to as many cities around the world as possible.

I was extremely impressed with the amount of countries he has visited, visiting every country in Europe. He made countries that don't seem that interesting to me, suddenly interesting, where I found myself browsing every gallery for a while.

He uses his time in order to capture the culture, the atmosphere and the surroundings of each place, which I think is important as it gives the place he is visiting a full visual description to his audience. For example, in this photostory of Switzerland, he captured different areas of Zurich at different times of the day and also from different angles in order to give the audience a sensation of being there.

Personally I think he is great because he has obviously chosen cities which would be unique. Most travel photographers when doing my research chose the obvious places such as New York, London, Paris and Tokyo. I think it's great that he gives other cities recognition and shows them in good light.

Update #3: Paulo Pellegrin

Paulo Pellegrin is an Italian photographer, born in Rome in 1964. He studied photography in Rome and has since won many awards for his work, including ten World Press Photo awards and numerous Photographer of the Year awards, a Leica Medal of Excellence, an Olivier Rebbot Award, the Hansel-Meith Preis, and the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award.

I feel as though Paulo creates photostories on events in the world in order to create more of a visual description of events other than it being shown on the news and in newspapers etc. For example, one I paid particular interest to is his photo essay on Palestine. I feel like the use of black and white effect on the photographs make them emotional and give a much stronger feeling towards the images than if they were in colour. I feel like the images were taken in order to provide a sense of emotion and pain to the audience, in order for them to get more of an understanding about the war in Palestine.

Paulo has overall created several important photostories focusing on homelessness, immigration, war and more personal projects such as the Romani people in Bosnia and Italy.

Update #2: Andy Rouse

As someone who has an interest in animals, I tried to search for animal photostories. This came to be harder than I thought it would be as not many people have decided to do photostories on animals, which could mean that if I were to pursue it, it could be unique and individual.

Although, I have found a photographer named Andy Rouse, who travels the world in order to get good photostories of the wildlife and animals, such as on safari parks. I think this is incredible as he really goes out of his way in order to get some of the best photos around the world. One of his biggest projects involves his wildlife photos being put together in order to feature on a documentary on TV in 2009. 

He has won awards for his wildlife photography including 9 awards in the past 7 years in the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition, several Nature's Best awards and a few European Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards.

Andy does a lot of film as well as photos, in order to produce what he has captured on his travels to an audience. He also produces books of his work, which include all his photos and also explanations of his wildlife experiences. He has books to focus on specific photo stories, for example, a recent book he has released is Tigers: A Celebration to Life, where he donated 25% of the profit to a tiger conservation, currently raising over £8000.

I appreciate these photos a lot as he captures just how beautiful the animals are, and the animals in their natural habitat. I also adore the fact that he travels in order to capture the images, showing that it is his true passion. 

URL: http://www.andyrouse.co.uk/index.php?page_id=2

Update #1: Martina Copadanno

When doing basic research of photostories, I found a London photographer called Martina Copadanno. She takes photos of weddings locally and puts them in a narrative sturucture. On her website, she states that she does it in order for her audience to 'feel like you were there too' which I think it what the photostory should be about, much like a film and to tell the story of the day.

I think the most amazing thing about her photostories are that she doesn't always get the couples faces in, yet you can imagine the emotion and feelings from the day by the simple way she has angled the photos and got in certain body language. In the two photos below, you can tell that the bridesmaids are having a good time and the bride at the top is excited to get married.

Not only does she capture the couple, she also captures the basic surroundings which are done in order for the couple to enjoy the day and have a beautiful atmosphere. Every wedding has a different theme which is why I have enjoyed researching this photo-stories as all her photos are completely different. I think, after looking at her work, it is important to capture every detail from the photostory that I chose, even if I don't think it is important at the time, it may fit in well with my final photostory.

Martina is a known photographer for weddings as she has been asked to do promotional shoots for wedding shows and magazines, which is obviously such a massive achievement. She has had several spreads reflecting her work and also has an online blog to reflect her images.

Blog URL: http://martinacapodanno.com/

After seeing Martina's work, I would consider contacting a wedding photographer in order to shadow around a wedding as the photos come out great and there is a clear narrative throughout the day.