Southend born, Dean started out life wanting to be a fashion designer, and did a youth training scheme to gain experience in this field. However at an evening class he was told he had very good potential to become a photographer and he decided to follow this new passion.

He urged us to never put anything off. If we want to photograph something, to capture it now; “the only thing we can guarantee is that everything will change”.

He urged us to photograph whatever we want to, to photograph what we like and what we enjoy. Dean himself is not a music photographer, but he does a lot of music, because that is what he enjoys.







Recent exhibition which was a 10-week residency in the prestigious Terrace Galleries at Somerset House during the summer months of 2014 titled return of the rude boy. It embodied 60 images documenting what it is like to be a 'rude boy' in the 21st century. He highlighted that this series was not fashion but cultural, no one was styled. The met them and asked them to go somewhere on the day of shooting dressed in something which they would like to be photographed in. They were all shot in London despite several of them living overseas. Its main message concerned disaffected youth.

Today we did a peer review, I was paired with Kate and we each read through each others work and highlighted any strengths and weaknesses we could spot.

Elements which were brought to my attention by Kate:

She mentioned that it would be a good idea for me to widen my research materials, look into a book or advert, and that if  I had used these already to make sure that this is clear.
I had already used a book about Shizuka Yokomizo, however I hadn't referenced this in my work so I went back and made sure this was clear. It made me realise that I may know something, but unless Juneko is a mind reader, when she reads my work I will not be there to explain everything, and therefore it is very important to make things like that clear.

My punctuation and grammar in my blog posts were noted upon so I plan to re-read my published ones to check for any mistakes as this is unprofessional, and I will double check anything before I post it in future.

I was praised on my variety of photographers who I have researched, including both well known photographers as well as lesser known practitioners. She also said it was a real struggle to find anything really wrong with my work which is always nice to hear and gave me a bit of a confidence boost.

I found this session really helpful in improving what I have done already and also reading through someone else's work helped a lot in understanding if I was on the right track.
Also having access to the grading matrix and understanding what we are being marked on will help me improve my work and gives me a good insight into what we are required to do.

As mentioned previously, yesterdays workshop was the second week of learning how to control ambient light and flash. We worked in a studio so we could get to grips with using studio flash lighting.

This was our portrait we took with balanced light. We took an incident read of the ambient light with an aperture of f/8. Our shutter speed was set to 1/8 in occurrence to the reading the light meter gave us.
We then changed the light meter to flash and took a flash reading at f/8. The reading were were given was 1/16. To balance the flash to the ambient light they need to be at the same power so we halved the current power of the flash which was 4, down to 2. This would give us a flash reading of 1/8.

 Task One We increased shutter speed by 1 stop to reduce the ambient light. Therefore there is more shadow on the ambient light side. (right side of models face)


 This was our set up:
To the right of the model was our ambient light, reflected against a board to soften the harsh light. And to the left (the amber coloured light) is the soft box of the flash.

Today was the second part of our workshop on light; flash and ambient, and how to use and manipulate it.

The first thing I learnt today was the types of light: Key and fill, so I thought I'd have another post for this so its really etched into my brain. fab.

Key light is the light which lights your image, your main light. (this is your ambient light.)
I also discovered that ambient light is effectively any available light. Therefore this can be a lamppost, the sun, a studio light etc.

A fill light is the light which balances the subject so they are evenly lit. An example:

NUA 2010 Grad Scott gave us the fundamentals about being an assistant photographer. He showed us a couple of example emails he received from people wanting to assist him, and highlighted exactly what was wrong with them. This was incredibly helpful and gave us a really good insight on how we can contact photographers and the language we should use, also what to avoid saying. He highlighted the importatance of offering what we can do for them, not there other way round, and to make it memorable. He gave a good example of ‘the tea guy’, who sent him a graphic chart depicting types of tea. He hired ‘the tea guy.'



He emphasised the importance of being honest, knowing the team, looking busy, taking notes, being early, making tea, and most importantly, that an opinion is earned.

He has shot advertisements for KFC, Nandos, Elephant atta, Esquire.
something which stood out to me was the importance of building relationships and how these can help us progress as photographers. Scott contacted a lone burger bar in london called honest burgers.
He was a regular in there and knew the owner well. He asked to shoot some of their food for them in exchange they could keep the images for advertising purposes.
Since then Honest burgers have expanded rapidly and become a franchise. He has followed them throughout their journey as a business and still shoots for them every season. He said it has turned into a nice little earner.

Monday we were briefed by Matt about a short one week in duration brief focused around music; the task was to create two album covers which visually respond to our chosen artist/band, and to present it on Thursday to a group in a powerpoint with our influences and thought processes in 'Pechakucha' format; 6 slides shown for 20 seconds each. Followed by a 2 minute Q&A.

The aim of the brief is to help develop our skills and ability to research, interpret and present our ideas and so that we will be required to consider the relationship between technical application and creative possibilities.

I chose to create album covers for Disclosure's 'White noise' and Kodaline's 'Coming up for air', songs which I believe gave me a lot of scope for me to experiment creatively with. 

My Process

After looking at disclosures work and wondering how I could recreate such an interesting look on a models face I came across maurizio anzeri and his editorial in Dazed and Confused where he sewed into the faces of models to create a much more dimensional surreal portrait. 

I decided that I would use mixed media in my album cover and sew into an image and scan it back in to my computer to adjust later. 

I really like the effect which sewing into the image brings to the photograph. 

Our presentations were designed to demonstrate where we got our ideas from and how we developed them into our album cover. I didn't have any writing on my slides as I plan to speak over the top explaining my thought processes and how I felt about it.

Controlling light week 1 of 2

The purpose of todays workshop was to evaluate the use of flash and ambient light.
We set up outside and set up our camera's ISO and white balance to fit with the conditions, and set up the ranger flash kits.

Task One involved using flash. We set the cameras shutter speed to 1/125; its maximum flash-sync speed, and our light meter to flash mode. We determined an aperture by taking a 'flash' incident light reading, which was f/22. This was the outcome:


The use of flash here gives the effect of darkness with only the model being lit. This is because we underexposed the ambient light; the correct shutter speed for a correctly exposed image at f/22 would be 1/4 of a second. However our shutter speed was 1/125, under exposed by 5 stops.

Task Two involved mixing both flash and ambient light. We set our aperture to f/8 and took an incident light reading and used the shutter speed given which was 1/15. This was the outcome:




The effect of aperture on a flashes power:

As your aperture gets smaller (f/5.6 to f/11) the image will become less exposed (darker)
As your aperture gets wider (f/11 to f/5.6) the image will become more exposed (lighter)

Whilst researching for inspiration for my 12" brief I came across Raphael Vicenzi; a Belgian illustrator and graphic communicator who creates collages of mixed digital images, patterns, shapes and graffiti with colour, texture and type.


Quite a large proportion of my previous work has involved mixed media is some form or another; I enjoy sewing/scratching/painting into images to create another dimension which previously was non existent, and Vicenzi's work has stood out to me as something which I would definitely like to incorporate into my future work also.
 Painting over the models face here brings a totally new feel to the image; one of anonymity and eeriness. Type is worked into the image to create a kind of story, message.
I personally love the abstract feel of his imagery and splashes of colour are always added tastefully, nothing is ever overdone or placed randomly, everything has its place and fits together in an almost narrative.

I found his work on a  platform called behance, an online portfolio and work site for creative practitioners. Link to his page: https://www.behance.net/mydeadpony
And Raphael's website: http://www.mydeadpony.com

Lottie studied philosophy at St. Andrews and has no formal training in photography. After graduating, she assisted Mark Harris ( sport/ fishing photographer) to gain experience and used the studio to develop her portfolio.
Her work was mainly flower work and she sent her book to monsoon after seeing their window campaign, with the gut feeling that she could do better. She was commissioned and did four window campaigns for the womenswear store.

She later shot for a weekend food column for the telegraph for seven years, but she knew that she didn't want to be a food photographer, but she wanted to document the less privileged and the third world and be the person who makes the stories which evoke emotion to the viewer.

She approached Survival International in 2005 and asked what their current story was on and asked if she could go shoot there. She was told they had no money to give her and that the trip would have to be funded by herself, however she was determined that this is what she wanted to do and went to shoot the indigenous botswana bushman.

She later went on another self funded trip to morroco, which helped to build her portfolio.
Due to her building her portfolio with self funded trips and images she was commissioned to travel and photograph places such as greenland and the Arctic.


She described how her camera gave her access to places she wouldn't otherwise been able to go. This particularly stood out to me as it echoed something which I had read in our Solomon Godeau text, about the camera being a passport, and it was nice that this was justified by a professional photographer talking to us in a lecture rather than something I had read.

Every time she makes money she reinvests it in her practice which is something which I found very inspiring. Any money she makes doing commercial work she spends going travelling to take images which really mean something to her; things she wants to photograph.



Her images lights in the forest were a good example of where a client would see your shot in your book and want you to recreate it for them for advertising purposes. When this happens you are an expert in what you do because you have done it before. It is a very good idea to create images and be recognised for them and be asked to replicate them. For example she enjoyed using fake snow and built a working relationship with a snow company. She later used the same company on commissions of images of 10 downing street at christmas and for Fortnum and Masons christmas 2013 campaign.







Lottie was very down to earth which was a lovely quality to see in a photographer which has come so far.