INSPIRED: Aliza Hoover

So you may remember Zev Hoover of FiddleOak whom I posted about a while ago, but while doing research for my own miniature project I stumbled across the work of his sister, and my oh my it is wonderful.

Her absolutely stunning fine art photography has a range of processes, but completely flows as one entire portfolio of work, and it is just beautiful.

Highland companion

It was this series that first caught my attention, photographs mixed with these ghostly hand drawn figures, always linked with the subject of the photograph, I just absolutely adored it, the idea of an imaginary friend, or a protector of some kind always being with you, whether you know it or not. I just found the whole series so peaceful and calm, I absolutely adored it. The rest of the Companion images can be found here.

Moments in Between - true colors

When delving deeper into her extensive collection of work, I found a set of images that again combine art and photography, and I'm just so drawn to them, I find them so different to anything I've seen before, the colours are beautiful and the watercolour blends so nicely with the photograph. I urge you to check out this series to by clicking here.

damselfly

I don't think there's an image of Aliza's that I dislike, every single one of them intrigues me and draws my attention, but I thought I'd include this one because it completely draws me in, I love anything fairytale and magical, and the insect wings on this figure is so beautiful it completely has my imagination going wild. I also thought this was such a lovely image to show the similarities between Mr Fiddleoak himself and his fanastically talented sister, you can see their styles are very similar, but the way they develop their ideas pull them apart. I can imagine them being a very powerful duo when thinking together.

You can find all of Aliza Hoovers work at https://www.flickr.com/photos/ummatiddle/ and I completely recommend looking through all of her work, it is magnificent.

Assisting Georgia's shoot

Today I assisted Georgia Bloy with her shoot. She was taking actors headshots, and I gave her a hand with lighting and for a lighting test while she waited for the model.

Oh the fun we had, Capture One was being a little bit of a nuisance, refusing to rotate the images, which we later found out (with help from 3 staff members who were all just as confused as we were) that it was a setting on the camera. Yay for learning new things right?

We also worked out a great feature of Capture One which is Live View mode. Now I have a canon software which is pretty similar to capture one in that it lets you control the camera through a laptop or computer and allows you to see more clearly what you're shooting as you shoot it, and also tweak the images a little bit. It is no way even close to the level that Capture One is at, however I know how helpful live view mode can be for me when doing self portraits, trying new techniques without a model, so when I spotted the little video camera button on Capture One I had a feeling it would do the same thing.

This was incredibly helpful for Georgia because she worked out how to zoom in on the live view screen and make sure she had the eyes of the model completely in focus as she was using a very shallow depth of field with a 50mm lens, and it was so helpful to know you were definitely in focus every single time. So we did good teaching ourselves new tricks and all in all it was a very successful shoot. I have since contacted a couple of young actors about their headshots as a way for use to practice together and use in our portfolio!

INSPIRED: Ryan Edy

Yesterday, our year received a talk from Photographer Ryan Edy. Now before I start talking about this we get quite a few photographers come to deliver talks to the college, and I'm never usually all that interested. The majority are fashion/ beauty based, in a huge studio set up, have been in the business for years and years and the message they seem to give us is that it is too hard to get into the industry, which is a little demoralising. It should be said I'm also far from a beauty and fashion photographer, I'm not sure what kind of photography I want to get into at all to be honest but those just aren't my thing.

Now, what a breath of fresh air Ryan Edy was, he is the most honest guest speaker we've had into college, and I am taken away by his work.

Ryan Edy

Ryan Edy

I love the tones that are continuous through all of his images, and the beautiful light and compositions he uses.

His talk was specific to the module we have just received which is to create a portfolio of work, however we did get off topic when questions were asked and discussed other things like how he works and his journey into the industry, and like I said earlier, he came across very genuine, nothing was sugar coated, he was very clear about his work and his thoughts, and that was very encouraging.

I'd highly recommend you pop on over to his website to look through his work because every single image is beautiful. Definitely right up my street, and I'm very glad he came in to talk to our class.

http://www.ryanedy.com/