Professional practise is a module for our photography course. The module is exceptionally important for our survival into the professional world which for some of us is not far away. I have decided to study into the third year anyway so some could argue that its not as important but I still feel obliged to commit to it. We have to produce a whole range of components for our final hand in such as these blogs to show research, a C.V, letterheads, business cards, composite cards and an updated website. We also have to produce fifteen finished photographs split into three different topics of our chosen field of photography. The photographs have to be exhibited on our website.
The Idea
The idea for me was simple. We had the choice of using photographs that had previously been taken, Over the christmas, I had the opportunity to travel to Zimbabwe for three weeks to photograph wildlife so I could include at least five photographs of wildlife. The photographs I took in Zimbabwe where some of the finest pictures I have taken and i'm sure I will have the chance to take much better ones in my life but for the time being these photographs work well for my portfolio.
I think these are some of the best photographs I took in Zimbabwe. I've only included five because this is the amount that I'll be including for my portfolio. The other ten will be of two other topics. I travelled once to South Africa when I was sixteen but because I was young and had a basic camera with little experience, I didn't manage to get the best photographs and only a few would be of good use for this project so I decided not to use them. I feel the photographs I took in Zimbabwe were of much better standard anyway.
Travel
When I was eighteen, I travelled around the globe for my gap year. I left school not knowing what to do and thought of attending university but decided to work and travel. It was one of the best experiences of my life and broadened my horizons as well as my intelligence. What made it most worth it was the love for photography that I had gained. I had always had an interest for photography but since travelling around the world to places such as Indo China, Australia and The South Pacific, my interest has become more real and professional. I decided to study photography at university because of the experiences I had with the camera and so I felt it was important to include some of the photographs I took abroad where photographical opportunities awaited every day.
Ayers Rock, Australia
Yasawa Island, Fiji
Halong Bay, Vietnam
June Lake, Canada
Angkor Wat temple, Cambodia.
These are only five photographs of the thousands I took travelling a few years ago. I don't think these are the best photographs I took travelling but these were just a random selection from all over the world. I would have to include the best photographs from my travelling experience and mixing them with wildlife would make a nice portfolio.
Documentary
The documentary photographs I have are of everyday life in England which I have taken since buying a nice camera. I was originally shooting on a basic digital camera but when I travelled I upgraded to a Canon 450D. I am now looking at buying a Canon 5D but that costs alot. There are plenty of things to photograph in England and sports, scenery and everyday life are appealing.
These are photographs taken in Somerset. Although there is a clear difference within my photos in my portfolio, I still feel that the strongest photographs I have are of Nature and the natural world. Most of the photographs I've taken have wildlife in them and alot of this was travelling. I feel that there is nothing wrong with putting picture of a similar topic if they are my strongest photographs. It is my portfolio so I want to have the best pictures I have.
Photographers
Researching photographers was important for me to understand what sort of photographs I wanted in my research book. I also wanted to see how many photographers had portfolios of considerable difference. The most inspiring photographers were the people working for National Geographic but I have researched them before in other modules.
These photographers have inspired me and the way they photographed made me a better photographer whilst out in Zimbabwe.
Although this link below is a film, it still resembles what my interests are and sums up exactly what i would like to be doing. Working with the BBC, National Geographic and most importantly, working in film aswell as photography. Although I study photography, I consider myself more of film man than a photographer. This by any means does not mean I have no interest for photography but my interest for film, moving image and filming is stronger. Unfortunately we cannot include movies in our portfolios and at this current time, I have nothing strong to include so It works out nicely after all.
Something I really want to do in life is film documentaries and especially documentaries about Wildlife. Zimbabwe really opened my eyes about filming and photographing nature so I feel its important to include images of wildlife in my portfolio. The trailer above is a documentary about a story of a young leopard cub growing into a strong adult. Although these are not images and something like this cant be put into my portfolio, it symbolises what I would like top do in life.
I have a strong passion for film and especially documentaries. This is what I would like to do.
Website Design
Website design was hard to do and I have always found it a bit of an undertaking to create websites. All the pictures from our portfolio have to be stored on our website for the viewer to see. I did research about the kind of websites that appealed to me.
Research was crucial for my website design and to create a perfect website, there was a lot I needed to do in terms of researching. There are not too many websites which always catch my eye, instead I've always been more keen on photographers and websites such as Getty Images that specialise in pictures of the same topic. There aren't too many photographers that I really worship and even less websites that appeal to me and make me want to base my website on.
Even websites such as the BBC produce some wonderful photographs and because they hire more than one photographer to take pictures of current affairs, the photographs are very varied. The top News companies like the BBC, guardian and independent all have websites with the photographs being displayed and hundreds of photo journalists working for them. Website designers also work for these companies to try and improve websites all the time.
Getty Images
Although not a photographers website, Getty images.co.uk is a website purely for photos and open to all. Photographers who work for the company take pictures every day to keep the website updated including random photographers who are paid for their photos to be uploaded to the website. Photographers who work for the BBC can sell their photographs to Getty Images. With hundreds of thousands of photos, Getty images is a perfect website to research as it allows you to find any photograph on there and is simple and easy to use. The website also allows one to buy photographs which can be turned into posters which is a useful quality to have. Getty Images allows one to view anything that has anything to do with pictures.
Something I also like about Getty Images is the logo placed bang in the centre of the photograph. Although this may annoy the viewer, it also prevents copyright and makes the viewer have to buy the photograph or live with the logo being in the photograph. Being such a big multi-millionaire company, every precaution has to be taken.
Although I feel the website works well, I feel it is too complicated. Here we have the exact same image as above but before I have saved just the photograph. There are a great bunch of buttons to click including “add to basket”, “view pricing” and a “print preview” button.
I do however like the layout of the website and would like to base my website on something similar to this. If I could just make it more simple, because my website will not have as many viewers and doesn't need half the links that a website like Getty images has.
A little to complicated for a website in my opinion. However Getty Images is a multi millionaire company that have millions of people around the world using it. Because of this reason, the website has too have a lot of links including accounts and a login page.
You can also search for photographers as well as just pictures. For example, If I typed into the search bar “leopard” then the search would give me hundreds or even thousands of photographs of leopards. If I typed in a photographer like Simon Norfolk who is one of my favourite photographers then I would receive pictures of his work.
My guess is that a website like Getty images and National Geographic would have taken a while to design and create. Websites like this are constantly under construction and updating every day for the public. Most freelance photographers who have websites don't update on a regular basis unless they have new images to display.
National Geographic:
A similar website to Getty images that I also like is National Geographic. The reason why I say its similar is because they both specialise in photography that's similar.
However National Geographic is very fixed on wildlife photography and travel, culture and adventure, where as Getty Images have photographs of everything you could search for. I prefer the way Getty images lets one search for something, national geographic is a little more complicated as I have demonstrated here.
I like the photographers who work for National Geographic and so I thought these photographers websites could be good research. All of these photographers work for National Geographic.
All of these photographers of whom work for national geographic are good photographers and all of their websites inspire me to create mine of a similar level. I created a website last year for specialisation but this year we have to create a new one.
C.V's
I have a C.V, but not anything of photographic importance. The C.V I have printed off for job interviews has been for basic part time jobs on the weekend such as the cinema, retail and bar jobs. I would like a C.V for photographic professional purposes and the module enables us to make one of our own. A C.V is vital for professional purposes so the earlier I start making one, the better.
These are a few C.V's I researched so I could get a basic idea of what I'd like my C.V to look like.
C.V's
I have a C.V, but not anything of photographic importance. The C.V I have printed off for job interviews has been for basic part time jobs on the weekend such as the cinema, retail and bar jobs. I would like a C.V for photographic professional purposes and the module enables us to make one of our own. A C.V is vital for professional purposes so the earlier I start making one, the better.
These are a few C.V's I researched so I could get a basic idea of what I'd like my C.V to look like.
A C.V by simon Lewis, a photographer of whom I don't know much about by I liked the layout of the webpage. He also has his own letterhead and logo at the top of the C.V just to make sure the viewer is clear there viewing the right photographer. It clearly states where he's exhibited his work and the awards he's won. The left of the page tells us who the photographer is and a little bit about his background, what kind of photographer this man is. The right of the page hi lighted in grey tells us what he has done and who he has worked for. Nice and simple and the contact number clearly coloured in white at the bottom stands out.
Tim Laman
This is a photographer I have an obsession for anyway. His work inspired me to take pictures in Zimbabwe so its only natural I research C.V's by wildlife photographers.
This C.V proves a little more complicated than Simon Lewis's C.V as the C.V takes up more space. Instead of cramming the text into one page, he spaces out over a few. The C.V is not necessarily bigger than Lewis's but Laman has decided to expand it, mabye to make it look more impressive. I'm not a huge fan and prefer Simon Lewis's because the C.V only takes up one page. I believe Simplicity is perfection.
Rowan Butler
Simon Norfolk C.V
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Two of the best C.V's i've researched. I love the fact that Rowan Butlers's is small and has the basics, nice and simple. I also like the fact that Simon Norfolk's is packed and tells us everything he has done and achieved in his life. In my opinion this is the best C.V I've researched and found online. It's simple and says everything I or anybody else needs to know.
CD Portfolio
I've put together a collection of photographs to view in my portfolio. The portfolio has to be placed as a hard copy, placed on our updated website and also on a CD. Importing photographs onto a Cd is simple enough but the more effort we make, the better. In todays lecture we learnt how to display our portfolio on CD and how to make it look professional. Instead of placing photographs on a C.D in a plain manner, we learnt how to make a collage of our chosen final photographs.
Portfolios are usually stored on a photographers website and if lucky enough then exhibited in a gallery for a certain amount of time. Our portfolio has to be on a C.D as well as a hard copy, the final images we choose for our portfolio has to be placed on our website. Naturally most photographers do this anyway and for our arrival into the professional world, its important we learn about these qualities.
This is Tim Laman's portfolio on his website.....
Laman has of course many portfolios and there is no option to view just one single portfolio, instead he has different topics such as "Birds of paradise" "Fiji Reefs" and "Penguins". These are all subjects that he has photographed over the years of being a photographer. I will have just one portfolio to show so the layout of my work will be very different.
One Website I am particularly fond of is the British Army website presenting photographs taken by photographers that work within the Army. Although it's not best displayed, I like the website and the way each link works. It's also very interesting photography and meaningful.
Letterheads
We have to create letterheads for this module, a hard copy of our own design must be submitted for our final hand in. It was hard to research these things because letterheads by photographers are rare and are considered more to be logo's. I have a logo for my website but to be quite frank, I've never been a huge fan of them so I'm meaning to keep mine fairly simple.
Letterheads should be an easy thing to create but it all comes down to effort. I don't have a fantastic idea for my letterhead but with a bit of research and playing around with my website, I should be able to get on with it pretty easily. I'm hoping to change my website and create a new looking logo which is very similar to a letterhead.
I've never been a huge fan of logo's but If it is necessary, It is important to have some identity to my work. The letter head can also be placed on the top of my composite cards but I might choose to leave this out as I want to keep my work as simple as possible.
I said before that letterheads are similar to logo's and some of these logos' are quite well known. The first image is of many logo's, most of them quite well known and not all of them letterheads or even more importantly, have anything to do with photography. The second image is the trademark logo of national geographic which is one of the most well known logo's amongst documentary photography. The third image is a random letterhead I found online of a photographer not famously known but works nicely. Personally letterheads and logos' have never interested me and I have very few ideas of what I would like to create. The letterhead I want to create will most likely be simple and straight to the point.
Composite Cards
Composite cards are cards used by photographers or any professional in their own businesses to promote their business. They are fairly straight forward and most of them look similar to postcards. The design and the layout of the composite cards is of a very basic look and so it shouldn't be too hard to create a good looking layout. I know what photographs to include on my composite cards and they will be of the selection I have chosen for my portfolio.
I was initially thinking of having a logo, almost like a letterhead on top of the composite cards but I think it is best to leave it simple and nice looking.
These are very simple looking composite cards but from what I have researched, most of them are. I like the way the simplicity flows in these. The first image of a composite card shows the name of the photographer quite clearly below the large photograph on the right hand side of the page and has four more images of which the photographer has taken on the left hand side. The other two composite cards have a photograph on each side of the page.
I'm not entirely sure which appeals to me more but I've always preferred simplicity and the bottom image is the one that catches my eye. I don't like the way the photographers name is stated on the picture in the second image.
Business Cards
Business cards are similar to composite cards but of a smaller size and have more text to them. A business card is what a professional gives to another person in the hope that they will contact them with a business idea. It is important to have all the necessary details on the business card such as:
1. name
2. contact number
3. e-mail address
4. letterhead
I think it is important to have a small letterhead on top of the card to show the identity of your business.
The first image is the best, I was thinking of doing something similar but instead of having four images lined up at the bottom, mabye the whole of my portfolio and have a selection of lots of little images. Of course I could do something very simple and have one or no image placed on the front with my name allowing me to place my details on the back of the card. The third image is the moot boring, My problem with not placing an image on the card means that there is already no fascination into the photographer. If a photograph is already placed on a card then it allows the buyer to look at the card and already have an insight to what this photographer takes pictures of. For example: If there were pictures of flowers or just one flower then we would assume that this photographer specialises in taking photographs of flowers or plants.
My business card will either have one image of an animal or many images of travel and wildlife. The person looking or receiving the business card will know automatically that I specialise in taking photographs of wildlife and travel photography.
Developmental Work
The photos I have taken over the years for my portfolio will be stored as contact sheets. My best photos vary from all over the world and at certain times in my life. I went travelling when I was 18 in 2008 and have lived in Somerset for most of my teenage years. I went to Zimbabwe at the beginning of this year and have been on safari's in South Africa a few times.
Contact Sheets
P.T.O
