ruaridhdonald

Working with Other Professionals: Part II

Since moving to Glasgow I have reconnected with some high school friends, that makes me sound old or even like I’m trying to sounds old, all I’m saying is that I lost touch with them after high school and now we speak. With Simone I have done a couple of collaborations, helping her with the photography for her college work.

The first one was shot in the Riverside museum in Glasgow, following the style of Casablanca. I really enjoyed being in the museum taking these photographs and trying out something completely different from what I’m used to, first of all, faces and second, actually trying to direct people.

Obviously all credit for make up and costume goes to Simone, I also helped photograph another of her projects more recently I will share more information on the more recent work very soon

A photograph that didn’t make the cut: Part I

You probably wont know this, or maybe you do, I tend to take a lot of photographs when I’m doing a project. Most photographers do and I often end up with photographs that don’t quite relate into the projects properly; sometimes they can be photographs that I actually like and want to use.

What I’m doing now is using them to create a post.

0R7A3661

I took this photograph whilst taking photographs for a project this time last year, I’m really happy with the colours and the only reason it wasn’t used is… I can’t even remember, and now that I think about it it fits pretty well.

News, I’m going to be concentrating on continuing an old project about my grandmother, I now possess all on the photographs she had in her house. I’m slowly working my way through them and scanning them in. I’m going to be sharing some of the progress I’m making in that as I go. Sharing some stories about her and maybe things that I’m finding out. This might be all that the next few posts contain, apologies if thats not interesting to you but it is really just a way to keep me focussed on the blog and the project.

I might try and put in other things about what I’m doing/have done, commercial-ish work.

Until next time,

The Photography Club. Part: I

Recently I have become a member of a photography club, they have been around for a couple of years and last year they did an exhibition to raise money for charity. Since I have joined there has been 2 assignments that take roughly a month to complete. The first being ‘Colour’ and the second was ‘Nightmare’ we are a day away from the end of my assignment idea ‘Photographers’.

The first one which was ‘Colour’ was and interesting start with some really interesting outcomes, here’s one of the outcomes ‘Blue’: Azure by Andreas Eliassen: Andreas - Azure-Watermarked

And the second image here is from ‘Nightmare’: I am my own Worst Nightmare by Adam Taylor:

Adam - I'm my own worst nightmare-Watermarked

And as always at least one from myself from the most recent project ‘Photographers’: ‘William Eggleston’ by Ruaridh Cameron:

RuaridhWE

It’s great to be a part of something like this to keep me taking photographs and enjoying the editing process. I’ll talk more about the Photography Club in the future, and I think I’m gonna talk about my old fishing project next week, anyway, until next time its been lovely.

Iceland: Part II. (Huldufólk & the Landvættir)

Just before we start I had to tell my dad not to read these most recent posts because of my foul language.

A little late on this one but I came to the conclusion shortly after getting back from Iceland, months ago, that I cannot draw. With this conclusion drawn, I tried to get one of my uni friends to do it, but the last month or so of uni was a bit hectic. Long story short, I have asked one of my friends from high school who has crazy drawing skills.

Ryan is doing … aw fuck … I just text him for the exact name, it’s visual communication but we can call him an illustrator. Anyway, I have kind of abandoned the idea of Huldufólk as I’m not sure how that would work, I am however going forward with the Landvættir (the Gaurdians) and Ryan is going to do the drawing for me. He is in college though so it may be another wee while before we get to a finished result.

Quick recap of my Iceland trip?

I’m gonna screenshot some Instagram’s, two minutes… confession, I was trying to pick two or three but..

Sorry for people that have already seen that.

Any way, where was I… yes yes, Ry is helping me to bring this project forward at last. He started to do some drawings for me which I will add in below. We still have a lot to look at because this is just one of four giant animals that guard Iceland. Being in Iceland I realised how little I know about my own country, pretty much all Icelandic people are multilingual and know so much about their own history. One other thing is that their language is so unchanged they can pick up thousand year old texts and be able to have a good go at reading them. I wouldn’t even think about that.

Thats all for now,

Business Cards and Logo: Part II and a Magazine Feature.

A brief update on my business cards, the design was changed slightly so that it can show off a little more of my work. The work in the Hebrides has become an anthropological study of the place and its history, and that leaks into the way I perceive it. Some places I haven’t visited since I was a child and they are so drastically different. The work on the back of my business cards hopefully highlights the way I work. As part of the exhibition process a couple of people from the Iris team got in touch with the editor of ‘f2 freelance photographer’ a photography magazine. He kindly gave a few of the team the opportunity to feature in the magazine. This was great promotion for the exhibition and a great way to get our work out there.

Finding Out What I Want To Do: Part IV (Son of a Fisherman) and Networking: Part II.

There is a lot of pressure on me, and I’m sure every other student out there, to be out of uni and into a job within 6 months. Maybe longer than this in some cases, and I know I’m going to start sounding like a broken record but, I don’t know what I want to do, and so I’ve spoken to my father, whom owns two fishing boats in the Hebrides and I am hopefully going to learn his trade.

Perhaps this doesn’t seem to follow directly with my degree but its a job and at this point in my life I’ve been in education for more than 3/4’s of my life, the freedom of a job like this would hopefully give me time to think. This blog is about looking forward into what lies beyond university for me, and so thats what I am doing, as of now, I guess, I know what I want to do.

Do you know what I would like to do? I would like to look at any existing creative networks on the West coast of Scotland, see how good they are, and see why they aren’t reaching out more if they do exist. I have some creative connections there already and the creative networks in Scotland are small, and the photography networks perhaps even smaller.

Edit: Since around June last year I have been in touch with an old art teacher of mine, she knows a lot of people on the west coast and throughout the Scottish art communities. I’m sure a good connection to have.

Book Design: Part II. (More Details)

I fear that perhaps in my last post about Iris’ exhibition catalogue I just fired through and didn’t really talk about it very much. Not that I have a lot to say, other than that I designed it?

First off I could tell you where we are getting it printed, which is Reeds in Penrith (around ten minutes on the train) they print using plates, which will hopefully make for a beautiful end product.

I was slightly worried when my image was chosen because its of sheep and we are in Cumbria. I didn’t want people to look at it and just see some Uni in the North being obsessed by rurality, but was comforted by some fellow students that its probably abstract enough that people won’t make the connection.

We also looked through last years catalogue and they had a lot of colourful dots about the place and lines and it all looked a bit busy. So, we went for a more simple plain look for the main pages which you can see in the first ‘Book Design’ post.

The Networking post I spoke of will be up maybe two of three from now.

Muinntir an Àite: Part I (Creating Longer Works).

Muinntir an Àite (Pronounced: moo-in-chir an ah-che) is Scots Gaelic for Local People or Inhabitants, and this is the working title for the body of work currently in two parts one about fishing and one about crofting, both accidentally about me. In an effort to help me come to a close on this work and create a more substantial body of work, there are also elements that need redone. Also whilst in university projects have had a top end limit on the of around four months which doesn’t allow the project a lot of time to develop. 0R7A1864

I want this body of work to be something that I enjoy showing people, I want to be happy with the work, I want the images to collectively tell the whole story of y home, so over this coming summer and perhaps into the Autumn, I want to capture a more full story of my home.

Having such a large family, most of which live in the area, I hope to capture each of them in their element, and many others of course. If all goes to plan the length of this project will help me develop as a photographer. I would say that this project started in July of last year with early dissertation research and a small project that touched on some issues about the Highland Clearances.

I will come back to this but when I am able to commit some more time to research or even to the photographs.

Finding Out What I Want To Do: Part III and Networking: Part I.

So, as you may have noticed by now I am not making any headway on what I want to do Post Uni. There appears to be a lot of pressure on us to know what we want to do and be acting upon it already, and to be big in the art photography circle (which is becoming ever more apparently small) I really should be contacting every gallery and person I possibly can.

I am still persistent in my emails to Malcolm Dickson of Street Level in Glasgow, I got very close to being able to go up and show him my work and then he was too busy to see me. In fact earlier this evening I emailed him again, I hope to get a response soon, he often replies better in the evening (a helpful tip if you’re thinking of contacting him yourself).

This still doesn’t answer the question of what I want to do with my life.

This brings me around to networking, and though I can write semi-confidently to a bunch of strangers, I don’t have a lot of confidence approaching people in groups. I’m fine with presentations everyone is obliged to listen, but if you approach someone then its very difficult for me to feel comfortable. I will make another post about networking, looking more closely at opportunities I could get myself.

Editing: Part IV (Testing)

I’m not sure that this is editing as much as it is testing, thus the dual title. Anyway, today I have been busy finalising the final images I want to use on the wall for the exhibition.

These is the test prints that I made today, and over the past few weeks, the sheep which are in the third image up, where the only ones that have really caused me any issues. On my Mac which is slightly blue lit no matter what I do, they looked okay because everything else was already a little blue. Thats sorted now, I have edited it down to 11, and also have an option for only using 9 as well.

This a very rewarding process, a few people have said that I am perhaps over testing and being too precarious but I kind of enjoy it. The printing process is something I have always enjoyed, and testing is a part that I have only recently realised the importance of. Getting my 3400 images down to 11 for the wall was a fairly stressful process but now its over I’m happy that I took this many images and if I think I will take more images again for this project.

I will talk about post uni and continuing with this project in the next post.