Break

As I'm sure the majority of you know by now, I've given up social media for some time so I'm going to try to keep this brief. And I just wanted to clarify some things because I think some people might be confused. I haven't done this to be "cool" or "edgy", or for attention or even because of Essena O'Neill. I did this because I didn't see the point in telling people what had for breakfast or why I love that TV show, showing them what I bought the other week or where I went on holiday. I didn't see the point in sending a picture of myself to my friends or uploading videos, updating my profile picture or following someone online. I feel as though I had become absorbed into a world that made no sense. When I listen to conversations around me I hear, "I wonder how my post is doing" or "did you see that latest vine", and don't get me wrong - I think that social media is a great way of connecting to other people all over the globe and making new friends, but sometimes, it gets too much.

I mentioned earlier the name Essena O'Neill and I think it would be unfair to suggest that she hasn't opened my eyes to the world around us. She is a brave person who has done something incredible for our generation and I think she will go on to do amazing things. However I didn't wake up one day, saw what she did and thought I would do the same. Essena's case is very different from mine as she has a huge influence on how people perceived her through social media and used social media as a form of income. For me it was just a space to express myself and my thoughts but over time it genuinely became a small obsession. I am not as addicted to these platforms as it might appear considering I decided to take a break from them all, but I would check my phone several times an hour simply to see what was going on and when you step back and think, it seems excessive and ridiculous. Essena has said she feels like she missed out on so much through her teen years because of her high volume of time spent social networking, whereas luckily I couldn't say I agree with that. I was lucky because I had other interests that didn't require me to want to post about them, such as visiting exhibitions in London, or taking photos and writing blog posts which meant that I have been able to explore different things that I love to do and enjoy. So why quit then? I think because soon, it would become a problem where I will miss out on what's going on around me. I have a huge passion for living life how you want and looking after our planet and one day I'll be gone. So I'm going to try and make a difference with the time I have left (this is a long term plan - I haven't planned to solve world peace by the end of next week).

It may seem naive that I have given up social media at a time when it is the most current and growing industry with jobs constantly forming. However, for me, life is not all about getting the job and making money - which I think is clear considering I am pursuing my interest in Photography which is basically going to make me unemployable - because it's about living life and not trying to present yourself in the best and most "interesting" way to everyone around you.

If you've made it this far then well done! Thank you for taking time out of your day to read my reasoning behind why I decided to take this break. But also want you to also think about your time spent on social media and the contributions you are making to the world around you. I think it's sad when we look out our post and say that was shit because it only got 60 likes, I think its actually kind of shallow. And I'm not trying to direct this at anyone, because I was definitely a part of this, and I am in no way trying to emphasise that giving up social media is a big deal because frankly, it's not. There is no achievement in deciding not to post on Instagram or tweet how my day went because truthfully that's just fucking normal.

I'm not trying to shut myself off from the world, I'm just trying to live in it. And as my slogan seems to be recently: if you need me, text me.

Take a look at what Essena plans to do here: LetsBeGameChangers.com

KEEP THE BAN

   After the general election, I posted a blog post sharing my discomfort about the Tory win and mentioned two things in the Conservative manifesto that I was not looking forward to. These being the repeal of the Hunting Act and the development of Trident and war machinery. Never could I have imagined that two months later, my friends and I would be outside Downing Street campaigning to stop Parliament repealing the Act. We attended on Wednesday 15th July, the day the Act was going to be voted in Parliament, however due to the success of the campaign the day before, David Cameron had called off the vote. This humiliation for Cameron was caused by the fact that SNP MP’s vowed they would vote against them to keep the ban in place despite it not affecting Scottish laws. Almost immediately after, the Tories tried to update their English Votes for English Laws plan in the hope that when the Act is next pushed through for a vote, the SNP won’t be there to defeat the Tories. What a weak move by Cameron.

Banner at the campaign - photo by me

   On the day of the event it is fair to say that the turn out was admirable, however I believe that had David had not cancelled the vote early the day before, the turn out would have been colossal. This previous success the day before, meant we were there to show continued support for the campaign and to show Cameron that it would not be easy to shake animal welfare campaigners. A range of motivational speakers, including Dominic Dyer the CEO of Badger Trust, a local MP and other activists, encouraged the support and opened my eyes to a subject I was previously unconsciously naive about. I thought I knew the majority of what the campaign was going to be about but when you are presented with facts and real life situations, it’s amazing what you can learn. This bloodsport has to stop. Foxes are shot for no reason than for sport. The fact that hunters use the excuse of ‘foxes are killing more chickens and sheep’ and that it has now been proven as untrue, with foxes being less than 1 per cent of reason of why these animals die, shows the barbaric and medieval nature of this activity. In the UK, 80 per cent of people are in support of the ban so why is this something the Tories feel the need to change. In todays day and age, why is the hunting of a wild animal considered a ‘normal’ hobby amongst considerable numbers of people? In 50 years time we will look back at this moment and be dumbfounded by the stupidity of hunting and the inhumane nature of it. I only pray that in 5 years time when it comes to the end of the Conservative term in Parliament, the Act will not have been repealed and that hunting is not something that people will think is a regular activity.

My friend and I at the campaign with our banner

   If you would like to join the half a million people who have already signed the petition and show support for continuing the ban on fox hunting then please find the link here.

   The Twitter page to the official Keep the Ban campaign can be found here.

#KEEPTHEBAN

The London Architecture Journal: Day 1

   As we are drawing to the end of another academic year, and AS exams are over, it was time to look towards our plans for A2. My subjects began by diving in at the deep end and I think it has shown me that I greatly prefer my creative choice of subjects and consequently have solely focused my spare time on them rather than the others. Hence it was no surprise when it was time to initiate my photography project for the next year, that I was incredibly excited and eager to begin. It didn't take me long to decide what my theme would be for the next year because, although I have loved photographing people and editing on Photoshop, I wanted to bring what I love outside of school into it this year. Recently, my fascination by London architecture has grown tremendously and I find myself exploring all over the city looking at all variation of building work. From the tall town houses in South Kensington and the muses that hide just behind them, the Natural History Museum to the V&A and the Shard to Canary Wharf, all mesmerise me. Therefore my chosen theme would naturally have to be architecture.

   Since setting this theme into motion, I have been to London to begin taking some initial photos to spark some ideas and I decided that I would keep an online journal of how my ideas and photography progresses over the next year. I have titled this project 'The London Architecture Journal' and there will probably be weekly or monthly updates about what camera techniques I've picked up when photographing buildings and how I plan to develop my theme and ideas. Below are a selection of the photos I took on my first day photographing for this chosen theme.

WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR at The Natural History Museum

   Celebrating its 50th anniversary, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition has never been as inspiring and powerful as this year. The talent across all age groups, from entries of children aged eleven to professionals who having been photographing wildlife for decades, has not only created a pool of stimulating photos, but intelligent resources from which we can see human impacts on the wild as well as the distance we have from our world. The scale of this exhibition is extraordinary with photographs ranging from the depths of the ocean to the northern lights of Iceland, and it ties together the growing impacts of human interference while still showing the calm and peacefulness these creatures maintain as some of their ecosystems and habitats lay untouched.

   The exhibition is split into 6 sub-categroies: interpretations, first shoots, Earth's environment, documentary, portfolio, and Earth's diversity and the room was sectioned accordingly. The dimly lit expansive room curved around, making it easy to follow from one section to another.  Beginning with interpretations photographers had to create experimental representations of the shapes, colours and patterns within nature. The intricate detail of these photos allows us to view things we have never seen before - for example, the intimacy of the lava and the camera meant that the camera was too hot to touch for several minutes after the split second it had been held over the lava but the final photo was outstanding.

The Marvel of Lava - Bryan Lowry (Natural History Museum)

Cardinal Sparks - Patrick Bartuska (Natural History Museum)

   The first shoots category called on photographers seventeen and under and the content of this category was impressive for their age. Each photo was unique and distinguished and the exploration of different camera techniques at such a young age is an encouraging message to all aspiring photographers.

Snowbird - Edwin Sahlin (Natural History Museum)

   The subsequent category of Earth's environment shows the power of natural forces that sculpt the planet and the phenomena that come with it. Within this category we are presented with the naturally occurring beauty of the Earth as it catches one moment in time that has not been touched or tampered with, but something that the Earth can create without human interference. This generates a significant thought that perhaps the most magnificent thing on Earth is nature itself, not something created by man.

Magic Mountain - David Clapp (Natural History Museum)

Delta Design - Hans Strand (Natural History Museum)

   The following section of the exhibition hosted the documentary photos that illustrated how attitudes, decisions and actions impact the natural world. The category showed the negative impact humans are having on the diminishing wild animals and plants and puts our world in a cruel, harsh light. These confrontations are necessary in the rapid way our planet is developing today because it shows the warning signs that what is going on is a dangerous enterprise and needs to be stopped. The 'Sea of Death' by Paul Hilton depicts the barbaric fishing for shark fins and the increase in sharks being killed each year. This number has risen to 100 million but this public awareness that is slowly being brought to our attention, is having a positive impact as shark conservationists are becoming more active but no where near to the scale that it needs to be. Hence why exhibitions like this are incredibly important in making change to the relentless activities all over the globe.

Sea of Death - Paul Hilton (Natural History Museum)

Hollywood Cougar - Steve Winter (Natural History Museum)

   The penultimate category was a series of entries under the title 'Portfolio' of which photographers submitted a body of work that reflected deeper and broader subjects that could not just fit into one frame. These pictures taken by Michel d'Oultremont were rather different to many of the other entires this year because of the unique composition of the photos. Rather than close-ups of animals or plants, he has instead chosen to distance the subject from the lens - almost so that it becomes an isolated silhouette and it becomes far more interesting than the, amazing, yet over-done macro photo of a tropical bird.

Dusk Transition - Michel d'Oultremont (Natural History Museum)

Feather Heavy - Michel d'Oultremont (Natural History Museum)

Reed Pastels - Michel d'Oultremont (Natural History Museum)

Forest Stag - Michel d'Oultremont (Natural History Museum)

   The final category is Earth's diversity which celebrates the familiar to the less well-known, the widespread to the endangered, and the urban to the wild. It shows diversity across all spectra of the Earth's scale and I think it was the perfect way to round off the competition showing not only a colossal range of technical skills but what is left on our planet and how we must protect it.

Beach Guardian - Mac Stone (Natural History Museum)

Glimpse of the Underworld - Christian Vizl (Natural History Museum)

Sailing By - Matthew Smith (Natural History Museum)

   Overall, the entrants from all over the world have produced phenomenal outcomes that have sparked so much interest and controversy that this world needs in order to make a difference to how we are treating the growing extinction rates of animals and the globalisation of natural habitats. With this relatable imagery presented before us, we are given the opportunity to make a difference and I hope that one day this wildlife competition will not have to be used to teach humans to care but to display how we have protected the animals that inhabit this planet too.

Exhibition: Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Host: Natural History Museum

Run time: 24th October 2014 to 30th August 2015

Price: £14 or £7 concession

Nearest tube: South Kensington

Topshop x Olympus Pen Summer School

After hearing that Topshop where hosting a series of summer schools over May/June to do with Photography, I leaped at the opportunity. Usually, the creative subjects are lacking a diverse range of courses, the sciences (medicine, veterinary) and essay based subjects (English, history) are bursting full of chances for students to spend the day at a University listening to talks and partaking in classes to do with that subject to get a "feel" for it. Sadly, I am often let down by the lack of creative push from my school - roughly every week I receive 4 or 5 emails abut a new science or law talk, yet only twice has there ever been something about the creative arts. This disappoints me but I am at an academically driven school so I am not surprised when it cannot cope with the growing demand for creative opportunities. Nevertheless, there are classes and courses being run frequently (admittedly it is hard to get onto them and they are mainly for older students so they run throughout the day) but after digging around a bit you can find something. Being on study leave meant that I was free to do what I wanted with each of my days without an exam (I assume my school would have wanted me to stay at home and revise) and I chose to attend to one of these classes.

Admittedly, when I first arrived at Topshop for the 'Shoot Street Style' class with Jay McLaughlin (street fashion photographer) , Yanin and Leanne (both fashion bloggers) and released that I was probably the youngest (17 years old) and least experienced (after all I am no blogger or photographer yet, I am still doing my AS Levels), I was definitely nervous. Surrounded by fashionistas, bloggers and uni students, I did feel out of place and quickly sent a text to my mum stating it might had got the wrong idea about this event. But there was no time silently slip away (one reason being the fact that there were only 11 of us and it would be incredibly obvious) as the talk began. Thankfully, it was a relaxed and easy environment, with Jay sharing some top tips that will certainly be of use at some point in my future. We then got to grab an Olympus Pen Pl-7 camera, which unfortunately might have been the most beautiful camera I have ever held and that I may have to spend £400 on one for myself, and shoot some photos of a model that Topshop had provided for us. As I'm used to shooting some of my closest friends I found it a bit awkward at first, but because we were shooting as a group at the same time on the streets of London, it started to become a lot easier. Initially I had the camera on the usual colour settings after swapping the 35mm for a 45mm lens to get a shallow depth of field by putting the camera on a shocking low f1.8, but then I began to mess around with it to increase some of the contrast in the photos (and I do mean mess as the camera was set to German meaning I had no idea what I was doing) and was really pleased with the outcomes. The camera was so easy to use and the touch screen and WiFi capabilities made it all that much better. Thrilled with the outcomes and below I have included some of my favourites from the day. Big thank you to Topshop, Olympus, Jay and the model Charlotte.

(High colour contrast setting)

THE GENERAL ELECTION 2015

Initially when planning this post, it was going to be unbiased without stating what political party I lean towards by using code words and confusing language to disguise it, but frankly it just didn't seem worth it. And also because I'm not ashamed of the party I support, and nor should anyone else be - we have the privilege of freedom of speech and the right to say what we like and yes we may come into conflict with people but isn't that a good thing? It makes our values stronger and fortifies our beliefs when we have to defend ourselves. And as women, I believe we have the responsibility to vote every time an election comes around as my mother once told me as a small girl, "women fought for us to vote. Women died to secure us this right, so you must always vote no matter if there is no one you agree with". As a turning point in my life I think it has been deeply embedded into the person I am today hence why I get upset, and frankly angry, when women all over the country take no interest in politics and refuse to vote based on outdated views such as "it makes no difference" or "there's no one worth voting for". There will never be one party that reflects everything you want to happen but as cliché as it sounds, every vote matters and truly does make a difference.

 

Polling Station - photo by The Guardian

So what was the General Election result? Conservatives have won a majority of 331 seats, Labour with 232, Liberal Democrats with a measly 8, Scottish Nationalist Party with an outstanding 56 (out of 59) and UKIP and Green Party winning 1 each. And this was just the beginning. Conservatives have increased since the previous 2010 election where they won 306 seats meaning that they had to join coalition with the Liberal Democrats. However the backlash from this formation has hit the Lib Dems the most with them now dropping from 57 seats to the shocking 8. But the biggest shock of all from this election was the fact that the predicted polls had it so wrong. Going to bed on Thursday night, we all imagined we would wake up with a hung parliament - a parliament where no single party had won a majority but as the votes were counted and the numbers flooded in, the decision of the British public was clear: Conservatives would get another 5 years in power. For me this was a shock, had people actually bought Cameron's miserable attempts at relating to the working class and pretending that he would genuinely try and make the country better for them? Because obviously tax evasion and avoidance, zero-hour contracts and non-dom status is a great thing for our country and that by putting Cameron in power we are definitely doing the right thing. But it's clearly not this easy and voting is a difficult task as we have the Lib Dems who have predominantly back tracked on everything they said they wouldn't do (University fees, VAT increases, tax cuts to the millionaires, the list goes on) and Labour who wrecked our economy in the previous term in parliament.

What will the next 5 years bring? With Conservatives stealing the majority of seats, their plans for the next years are mainly decent but can we trust a party who seems more concerned with making the rich richer and poor pay for the funding our country needs? David Cameron plans to provide £5000 of free childcare, have an income tax-free minimum wage, seven day access to GP service and give an annual £8bn boost for NHS funding. These were just some plans that stood out to me but some stood out even more such as repealing the Hunting Act and that they are committed to four-boat Trident nuclear deterrent. Honestly to me these don't seem like things the country should be trying to promote - increase the sport of hunting and the development of submarine and war machines which, as Plaid Cymru, SNP and the Greens have said, are "unusable and indefensible". And I'm obviously against the fact that Cameron has turned a blind eye to the rich avoiding tax and pursuing the elitist nature in our country. And what I find most unfair is the fact that Conservatives can get away with the fact that the banker's bonuses have risen by 64% in 1 year (while my mum is 12% worse off under Conservative leadership because her salary hasn't increased with inflation), food banks usage have risen by 700% and 1 million people are employed on zero-hour contracts and the list goes on (in fact 100 more reasons are viewable here) and to me this doesn't seem like a successful 5 years at all.

After the news this morning we have had three resignations; Ed Miliband (who's speech can be seen here), Nick Clegg (who's heartwarming speech can be seen here) and Nigel Farage (which can be seen here). It's sad to see the Labour lose so many seats after such encouraging attempts at trying to prove they are the better party but most of all, the Lib Dem catastrophe has to be the worst with Clegg loosing so much because of being the smaller party in the coalition and having to take the backlash of it. Especially as Nick Clegg's speech was heartfelt and honest, something that seemed to be genuine and truthful, which sadly we haven't seen a lot of lately.

All in all, we have dangerous yet exciting times ahead of us, what will happen with the EU question? How will the Scottish problem be solved? Who will become the new leaders of Labour, Lib Dems and UKIP? Hopefully we'll find out soon, if not see you in 5 years time...

Black and White Film

After handing over £20 to get 35 6x4 photos and CD of my black and white film, I made a silent prayer that this would not be wasted and that the photos would come out well. A week later I turned up again bracing myself for the worst, but all in all, bar the few that came out blurry, I am thrilled at my first attempts of black and while film all taken on my Canon AE-1.

Somerset House - Canon AE-1

Some of these were the first photos I took on my roll of film and as you can see the top left photo was underexposed (shutter speed was too fast) meaning it has come out rather dark at the top. Some came out rather grainy but personally, I quite like this look in the photo as it adds to the aged feel of the photograph.

Somerset House

The next set of photographs were from the Secret 7" exhibition at Somerset House that I recently went to (review about it here). However from this, I have come to the conclusion that because they were such colourful pieces of art that they would have worked best on colour film as black and white doesn't quite capture quite how bright and unique they are and that black and white is better suited to people and buildings.

Below is a photo of just some shots I took when travelling around London one night - surprisingly film is perfect for capturing night time scenes as everything looks more atmospheric. 

London at night - (from top left clockwise - Albert Bridge, Piccadilly Circus tube station, Piccadilly Square and London Victoria station platform 10)

My final photos are from a lovely day that felt like summer when myself and Anna went around the park on our bikes. It was a beautiful day and makes me excited for more days like this in the future.

I love the lack of colour in these photos, particularly this photo to the left, as it increases the contrast between the light and dark tones and for me it makes the photo more detailed as you are less distracted by colour. I love the complexity of the branches and the shadows they have created and it makes the photo look slightly surreal.

Below is a picture of Anna (I love secret photos) who only realised the photo was being taken until it was too late and then promptly asking to see it, I had to tell her that she could not because neither I nor her could as this was film. She was just going to have to wait until it got developed.

Anna - Canon AE-1

Overall, I am pleased with the black and white outcomes, but sadly this is a far too expensive hobby to keep up, so after I use up my last roll of black and white film, I may have to limit myself unless I start developing the film myself.