MAGNUM

For my work placement I have contacted every living Magnum photographer that lives in the UK. Except Martin Parr of course. Ian Berry is the only one to have gotten back to me. I'm not going to be able to work with him, but looking for a placement has forced me to look deep into his body of work and I've found it really interesting.

Placement Research

Even though I haven't secured a placement yet, I have enjoyed doing the research because it has introduced me to a lot of new photographers. Some favorites include Maurice Heesen, Meredith Andrews, Nurit Yarden and John Baxter.

Another week, another WI meeting.

At this weeks meetings, I listened to a two hour talk on lace and also a presentation on how to get divorced. Fun stuff.

I wasn't happy with the lighting in the portraits I had taken last week using the metz flash,

so I booked out a broncolor location lighting kit with a softbox. I set everything up at the first meeting, then realised I didn't have a hotshoe adapter so I couldn't connect the flash to my camera. I booked one out for the second meeting but the head was broken dumped every time it loaded. I didn't get to take any more portraits.

The WI

Simultaneously to my Gaia project, I have been working on one about community. I originally wanted to do a Donovan Wylie style project on travellers and gypsies, but they were against me photographing them unless I was going to live with them for a while. I would love to do that one day but I had a deadline for this project and there is no way I would be able to complete it in time. I made the decision to go in a completely different direction and photograph the Women's Institute. I was interested in whether they would live up to the stereotype of women in their late 70's and 80's drinking tea, eating cake and knitting tea cozies. I also thought they would be more cooperative and easier to photograph. I wasted quite a lot of time waiting for the Dorset Federation to get back to me about which meetings I could attend, so just decided to turn up to a few. This week I went to Throop and Highcliffe.

The Last Mud Horse Fisherman

After my disappointment with the nuclear power station, I racked my brain and exercised my research skills and found an excellent story. I knew of a man who fished with a mud horse on the mud flats near the power station and thought this would relate to Gaia well but I wasn't sure what the documentary would be about. I found an article about him and it turns out that he is the last mud horse fisherman in the world. There used to be hundreds but now he's the only one left, which is sad, but great for me because now I have a documentary story! I went to visit him and do a shoot and he told me that the power plant is planning for an extension, and if they get it he won't be able to fish shrimp anymore. At the moment they are working side by side but our need for electricity is wiping out an ancient tradition.

Gaia, druids, goddesses and nuclear power.

I've been working on a project about the Gaia theory far the last few weeks. Not wanting to take the fashion route like so many other people, I set about making a documentary. I spent some time in Glastonbury hanging out with druids and researching goddesses but that was just for fun really. I can't make a documentary about goddesses after all! After buying James Lovelock's book The Revenge of Gaia I decided to focus on nuclear power, as Lovelock says that is the future. I've spent this week trying to get access to Hinkley point nuclear power station and eventually being escorted off the premises. Because of the post 9/11 anti-terrorist movement, the security guards there aren't even allowed camera phones!

Week 15 - A New Book.

I have to admit I am a bit of a geek when it comes to photography books, and when I saw Don McCullin's Shaped by War on the shelf in the bookshop, I didn't think twice about spending a week's food money on it. Shaped by War presents the narrative of McCullin's life, a collection of photos of McCullin in the field as well as the key photographs from his career. There is an emphasis on the presentation of previously unpublished material and some rare colour work which is strange as I've only ever seen him using black and white.

I went to a Don McCullin exhibition a few months ago but it was just his new work, since he's retreated to Somerset to photograph the landscape surrounding his home. Even though landscape photography usually bores the pants off of me, the dark and dramatic skies in his high contrast images are hauntingly reminiscent of war and a saddening incite into how he has been affected by what he has seen.

Week 14 - a prize I can't prenounce.

Last weekend I went to the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize exhibition at the Photographers Gallery in London. This prize is rewarded to a living photographer, of any nationality, who has made the most significant contribution, in exhibition or public format, to the medium of photography over the past year. Shortlisted this year are - Anna Fox, Zoe Leonard, Sophie Ristelhueber and Donovan Wylie. I was already a fan of Donovan Wylie for his Losing Ground series, but The Maze which was at the exhibition looked like is was by a different photographer and I wasn't very impressed by it.

Ristelhueber's work was interesting. For the last 25 years she has been investigating the impact of human conflict on architecture and landscapes. I do wonder why she chose to photograph the effects on the landscape though, rather than the effects conflict has on people.

I've never heard of Zoe Leonard before but I was intrigued by her 'anti-digital' urban landscapes. She says "I am interested in making a record of an urban landscape as a way of looking at who we are as people, who we are as a culture, understanding the city as a social space...as an economic space."

I don't have much to say about Anna Fox, except that I found Cockroach Diary & Other Stories extremely pretentious and boring.

Week 13

Laura Pannack graduated from Brighton university in 2008 with a BA Hons in Editorial Photography. Since then she has won and been shortlisted for 15 awards, and just a couple of weeks ago won a World Press Photo Award for her image of Graham, an annorexic teenager.

Laura has been through what I will have to go through in two years - a 'grey' patch. When you've finnished uni but you haven't made it as a professional photographer yet. Her advice is to prepare financially, contact people early, stay in touch, support each other, keep shooting, look backwards, remember why you're a photographer, stay connected, help others, treat people with respect, stay open minded and stay positive. There's no way I'll be able to prepare financially, but I'll definately stay open minded and positive!

Week 12

I just remembered why I'm a photographer. Lately I've been feeling really deflated and wondering what I'm doing studying photography at all, but today I picked up my favorite book - Photo's That Changed The World and everything seems right again. There are photo's that we appreciate for their beauty. And there are photographs that shake us, disquiet, and distress us so deeply that they are etched into our memories forever. This book is about those photo's.

Week 11

I discovered Pieter Hugo's Hyena Men in an exhibition in 2008 called Street and studio: an urban history of photography in the Tate Modern. I've never researched him before but his name came up in a lecture a few days ago so I thought it was about time. He is a South African born and raised photographer who has worked all over Africa, notably in Rwanda and Nigeria. Hugo's Hyena Men series was centered around a group of 'itinerant minstrels and performers who used animals to entertain the crowd and sell traditional medicines.' Hugo spent 8 days traveling with them which, in my view, is nowhere near enough time to get under the skin of your subject. The images seem to lack any sense of emotion or empathy. His best series 'Nollywood' benefits from the extra time spent on the project, whereas his series 'Rwanda 2004: vestiges of a genocide' is shocking and an embarrassment for a professional photographer to put something like that on their website. http://www.pieterhugo.com/

Week 10

OK, I'm not really sure if this counts as a photo highlight because it hasn't happened yet. Basically I'm travelling East Africa next summer to do some photography and this week I bought my ticket! I was looking through my beloved Dan Eldon book and decided just to do it. The plan so far is London - Addis Ababa - Mombassa - Kilimanjaro - Kigali - Kampala - Jinja - Nakuru - Turkana - Nakuru - Nairobi - Dadaab - Mombassa - Zanzibar - Dar es Salaam - Addis Ababa - Rome - London. Can't wait to get back to Nakuru to see everyone again. It's going to be a good summer!

Week 9

This week I went to an amazing talk by photographer Chris Floyd. I despised him slightly because the only reason he got into photography was because he likes music and girls, and he has managed to make a great career out of it. I warmed to him very quickly though because he was clearly passionate about what he's doing and he's really funny! I used to want to be a music photographer myself, but decided against it because the music industry doesn't have any money anymore. Chris used to live the dream, being paid to tour with bands and take photo's, but this would never happen anymore. I was clearly born too late! He has done some documentary stuff in the past, like stories on the Arizona/ Mexico boarder and The 2004 American election which I found very interesting and would probably rather do than the music. Recently he has been doing mostly portraiture work, which is excellent, but I would like to see him do some more documentary in the future.

Week 8

As I'm sure everyone is aware, the African cup of Nations is again upon us. In 2006 I was lucky enough to be in Egypt for the final (which they won) and could not believe the level of support. It was a little odd being a 15 year old white girl and being crammed into a 3x3ft shop with eight Arabs to watch penalties on an 8 inch TV screen, but everyone get's so caught up in it. We're known for our hoolaganism when it comes to football support, but it's a little different in Africa, as I'm sure you'll see from the photo's.

Week 7

On Friday night I was invited to the opening of the Africa Awakes photography exhibition in Poole. Africa Awakens is a series of exhibitions that started in August 2008 by Italian photographer Manuel Scrima. It is supporting the work of two non-government organisations (NGO's): ICROSS - International community for the relief of starvation and suffering, and NWI - New world international. I was very impressed with Manuel's photography and got to talk to him for a while about what I've been trying to do in East Africa. I nearly cried at one point when I recognised some of the children in a photograph of Nakuru, where I spent 2 months last summer. Hopefully I will be meeting up with him or some of his team next summer in Kenya. There might even be room for me in their car for a trip to Turkana! It was so refreshing to meet someone who is successfully managing to do exactly what I want to do. He can't do it as a full time job, because it doesn't pay the bills, but he is saving peoples lives through photography. If you would like to read more about ICROSS or NWI or make a donation, you can check out their websites http://www.icrossinternational.org/ http://www.nwikeny.com/ or the Africa Awakes website http://www.africa-awakes.com/.

Week 6

Wedding photography. What do you think? Sell out? I'm not sure anymore. I guess because I'm doing a commercial photography degree I've always aimed a bit higher, but is it really that bad? I mean, at least £1000 for a day's work, very little pre and post production and free cake sounds pretty good to me! My sister got married a couple of weeks ago and I've just seen the photos, which I have to say, I am very impressed with. I was expecting pretty boring, traditional photo's but the photographer has been very creative and produced some interesting, contemporary images. I probably wouldn't have thought to use a fish-eye for a wedding, for example. Morally, I'm still not sure where I lie though.

Week 5

SNOW!! On Tuesday morning I woke up to see the whole town covered in a beautiful white blanket. I've spent most of the week trying to snowboard on a body board, being told off be the chiropractor, trying again and not leaving much time for work or photography. I did, however, take a short break from crippling myself to hike up to the top of the Quantocks (part of my Kilimanjaro training). The view's there were unbelievable. Unfortunately my camera was broken so I only had my dad's 6mp Olympus which I've never used before and found very tricky through gloves in -25 degree c winds. I did manage to get some nice shots of the pony's digging for food in the end, though I'm not sure if they were worth getting hypothermia for...