Today, I met my new (morning) photography teacher, Louise. She's really nice. Somehow, she seems better than Dave, my former photography teacher in the fact that she seems just a little more down to earth than Dave was. He was always hyper basically.
She was discussing what we have to do as the photography side of our brief, which is to design packaging for a product. The photography side is taking pictures of the box using the studio and then importing them into Photoshop and editing them from there.
She asked who'd brought their folder in. No show of hands or responses, except for my folder on the table in front of me which she saw. She asked if she could have a look at my work so far and as she flicked through it, she said that the work I'd done was excellent and that if I kept it up I'd be well on my way to a distinction. That surprised me a lot. It's not like I've done any work other than what Dave have been telling us to write down. I've not done anything that would count as me thinking for myself when doing projects. I don't see how I've managed to convince her that i'm heading towards a distinction.
She seemed pretty damn amazed at the stuff I'd done, and the pictures I'd taken. "These are excellent", she said, and it wasn't in the kind of patronising tone someone like Brian uses either. I could tell she actually meant it.
Regardless, however, she does indeed think my work is amazing. Naturally, this rocks.
She told us what the plan was for today. She said that she wanted us to go to an art exhibition in town and pick up a leaflet and make a few small notes on the pictures in the gallery. I was quite disappointed really, because I wanted to stay in college and do stuff. Of course, the rest of the class were more than happy to leave 30 minutes after coming to college.
She said that for the afternoon, the darkroom would be open and if any of us had stuff to do in there we could. She asked me if I had anything to do prints with, but I didn't. She asked me if I had any negatives I could use, but I didn't. I told her I had a film in my camera and that I wanted to use it up, but it was colour. She said that even though it was colour, you could still print them out onto black and white paper, but I questioned her, and said that I would of thought they'd not turn out too good because if you're not shooting a picture for black and white, it won't look good as black and white, as it would in colour. She looked astonished at me. "My god, he's good!", she said out loud, to no one in particular. I felt rather complimented, and I certainly don't get many of them.
She agreed that I didn't need to go to the darkroom in the afternoon and that those who didn't need to could go home after they'd been the gallery. Fine by me.
I explained to her that the only problem with taking photos using my camera is that the processing fee is so expensive, when i'm going to be developing films regularly. Then she said that if my films are for my course then the college would pay for my processing fees! How cool is that? That's �5 I don't have to spend each time! I was very happy about that.
As the class left to go to the gallery, I stayed behind for a moment to talk to her. She was still complimenting me on my work. She seemed incredibly enthusiastic about me. It was strange.
As we walked down the corridoor together talking, I asked again about the processing fees and she said that she was quite sure I'd get my money back, if I took a roll of film today, paid for it myself and then showed them the receipt.
She asked if she could have another look at the contact sheet (index print) that I had in my folder, along with the other photos I had in there.
"I'm so glad you're on the course! I thought you's all wouldn't be as bothered as you are and i'm really glad I've got someone like you on the course. You're gonna do well!", she said, before shaking my hand.
She shook my hand!
It was like I'd achieved something of great proportions, yet I didn't know what. I haven't. I know I haven't. Maybe she's just as hyper as Dave. Maybe all photographers are this bouncy.
I left college feeling proud and caught up with the rest of my friends. On the way to the gallery, there's a bombed out church that I've wanted to talk pictures of for a while and I asked Dave if he'd come with me. He was fine with it, but the others weren't so keen and couldn't be arsed coming with me except for Dave, Jamie and Stan.
I've yet to get the film back and I don't have a scanner to scan pictures in so of course I can't show you any pictures I took, but i'm hoping that there are some good ones. I only took about four altogether around the church and it only took me about 15-20 minutes, but I could tell that they were getting pissed off at me for not just going to the gallery. I wasn't bothered. I told them if they wanted to go, they could. They didn't, however, and after I finished, we finally went to the gallery.
It's a gallery of 62 images by a person called Moyra somthing. I can't remember her surname. Her pictures are all to do with homelessness in London and is apparantly the biggest study of its kind. All the people in the photos are homeless and to show that they truly participate in the photos, they have to give consent and approval of the photos taken, which I think shows deserved respect, even if they're homeless.
Some of the pictures are excellent. Some are very depressing. I'm not going to describe them to you, because I can't be bothered, but, I shall tell you that they're all in black and white and all but around 5 contain either 1 or 2 homeless people.
I wrote notes for the first five minutes on a few paragraphs, introducing the photography. After I'd finished doing that, I noticed that everyone else had gotten bored already and decided to leave. Dave decided to stay though. I was happy that at least one of them had the brains to realise this is what they should be doing should they want to pass this course.
I wrote a sentence on each of the pictures. It's all that was needed really, just something I liked about each image. Dave done the same, but not with all of the pictures.
After over an hour of standing up and walking extremely slowly around the gallery and bending over so I could write on my folder on my knees, I finished and Dave was ready to go too.
I told him I wanted to use my film up so we went into town together but couldn't really find any good shots so I suggested the Albert Dock. There, I used up the majority of my shots and i'm hoping that at least half turn out well. We spent at least 90 minutes there in the cold, before returning, putting the film in for processing and finally, I went home.
A very productive day.
Tomorrow is multimedia with Brian and all of my playing cards are completed. I could of had them already printed off, but since Brian was being awkward and not sparing me two minutes of his time, I didn't print them off. Tomorrow I will. I don't know what I do after that.
Erm, what else? Oh, #12 of Little o is up. I have one more to post and then I have to write/draw more. It's too hard being funny every day. I don't know how little gamers does it and they've done over 700!
Productivity seems to be the key word today.
