Posts Tagged ‘photography related’
Suvi challenged me to present the fourth picture of the fourth folder in my picture archives.
Since I archive my digital files by year/date, it wasn’t exactly an adventurous task for me. The archives on my HD’s start from 2004, everything before that is archived on discs. So, this is how I landed on this picture, titled ‘Love Overdose’. It was taken on 21.12.2004.
This was taken at a time when I was starting to experiment with studio flashes. The fact that I could produce high key images made me quite delirious, up to the point where most of the shots from then now look over-exposed to me. Seeing this again, the original tone seemed very blue. So this task prompted me to correct it a bit.
Tags: photography related, surveys etc.
Posted by Marianne at 1:22 pm in photography related, surveys etc.
Sorry for the silence, I’ve had a bit of a manic week and weekend. Every bit of my body aches and I could do with a complete re-boot, but still, I’m happy to be doing what I’m doing.
Today I had a pre-wedding shoot with Magali and Jeff. We spent the day traipsing around in the mud on Hampstead Heath, braving the bitter wind. At least the sun made an appearance, which was nice!
I’m still in the middle of editing those pics (and should probably sleep at some point), so I’ll show you some later on.
After the shoot we went to check out their wedding venue, Burgh
House, which is also the home to a little restaurant – and possibly the cutest place you could ever find. Warm tea and soup was just what we needed.
Now I really gotta go rest my achy bones…
Tags: my life, my life in photos, photography related
Posted by Marianne at 11:09 pm in my life in photos, my life in words, photography related
We had a lovely time yesterday. It’s fun to be a tourist in your own town, it makes you take a step back and really take notice of the hustle and bustle around you. Our hotel room was pretty fancy pants as well, it was weird having huge windows looking straight out onto Shaftesbury Avenue. We spent quite a lot of time just people watching.
And of course, Bill Bailey was so much fun, I can’t remember the last time I’ve laughed so much.
Tags: Bill Bailey, London, my life, my life in photos, photography related, theatre
Posted by Marianne at 9:13 pm in my life in photos, my life in words, photography related
I feel like I ought to let you know that MTP now has a facebook page, just in case you feel a strong urge to become a fan! :D
In other news, I’ve sent a strongly worded letter to London Underground today, as this morning I’d just had enough! I’ve had to walk from Waterloo every morning this week because of disruption on the Jubilee line. What exactly is the point of paying for a season ticket if you can never get on the train?? But yes, I expect they will jump into action any minute now, after receiving my letter. I can only wonder how many zeros there will be on my compensation cheque. :P
Tonight’s the night of the mysterious driedonpaper launch party. Sooz is coming with me, and we’ve been pulling our hair out trying to figure out what it might be for – with no success. Is exciting! I hope it’s something good after all this suspence… will let you know tomorrow.
Tags: 3, 3 network, 3mobilebuzz, 3Network, driedonpaper, facebook, INQ, INQ1, London Underground, my life, photography related, social networking, technology
Posted by Marianne at 2:11 pm in geekery, my life in words, photography related, social networking
Well, there’s a first time for everything. I’m sitting in the car on the M25 (not driving I might point out), updating my blog on my laptop. Now that is proper geekage. Or just brilliant time management! :D Yeah, it feels like ages since I’ve actually written a blog entry, I just tend to chuck a few photos this way when ever I have a minute. Life’s been a bit full on lately. Admittedly, it’s all my own doing what with effectively having two jobs, two websites and three blogs to try to keep up with.
Talking about two jobs, what’s kept me most busy is doing the groundwork in setting up a little part-time business. The website took quite a few nights to put together, but is mostly finished now (Paul, I could seriously not function without you!), and I’m moving onto a marketing phase. What I want to do this year is get some bookings for next year, and then start properly working from the start of 2009. Weekends will never be the same again I’m afraid… But something needed to be done. That is if we ever want to get out of renting in this country. It’ll take a lifetime to try to save up the deposit banks are demanding in these mad times. But yeah, hopefully I’ll get enough work to get at least a little bit closer to home ownership once again. Oh and by the way, there’s also a new blog, which will eventually be for sharing shots from client shoots mostly, but for now there’s some overlap with this blog for obvious reasons.
Eugh, starting to feel a bit sick now what with looking at the screen instead of the road.
We’re on our way to spend a night at Nikki & Ian’s, it’s been too long since the last time again! The sun is trying to shine and it’ll be nice to see Southend again, I do miss the place at times.
Have a nice weekend everyone!
Tags: my life, photography related
Posted by Marianne at 2:36 pm in geekery, my life in words, photography related
My picture got published in the Expert Critique section of November’s edition of Digital SLR Photography. The review was pretty much 50/50. I was quite stoked about what Daniel Lezano had to say though. And this is gonna make me sound like a mentalist, but I was so pleased it was on page 50… as 5 is my favourite number. Umm.
And hey, fame for Miikka (again). :P I still find this the funniest thing ever. Art is traumatising!
Right. Off to see Heather Nova now! Woo.
Tags: photography related
Posted by Marianne at 6:44 pm in photography related
I finally finished laying out Nikki’s wedding book today. It ended up being 84 pages, and looks pretty good to me. Am very pleased with it. I think the fact that I’m a designer in my day job helps me automatically think about the layout when I’m taking the shots, which makes laying out quite easy (if still laborious). I’m thinking maybe photo shoots delivered as a book could be my little ‘niche’, if I was to start taking photography a bit more seriously… Hmm.
As a side note, one thing I’ve been meaning to mention is this wonderful website called The Selby, which showcases real homes of interesting people. It’s really inspirational, not to mention addictive, snooping around in people’s homes!
Fanny Bostrom, artist and Bill Gentle, photographer, at home – Brooklyn – August 18 2008
But yeah, I’ve been quite busy today so far. I’ve done the dishes, hoovered, put summer shoes and clothes into storage… Oh yeah and sent Stu to Rayleigh to do some washing as our washing machine is broken. :( Sooz is on her way over and I think we’re gonna head out to try to make the most of the super nice weather (strange to pack summer stuff away when it’s bright sunshine and +20C, but I know it won’t last!).
Today’s productivity made up for yesterday when I didn’t get anything done, thanks to Marjut. She pointed me towards Fabchannel, which is where you can watch full concerts from many (of my favourite) artists. I even had to send Stu out to get a cable so I could hook my laptop to the telly and watch them full screen. :D What a great resource!
Tags: home, music and gigs, my life, photography related, video clips
Posted by Marianne at 12:19 pm in living etc., music and gigs, my life in words, photography related, video clips
Hey since you seem to be in the mood for voting (:P), could you pleeease go and give a Yeah! vote to my shot Catch, as it looks like it might have a chance to make it into JPG magazine. Suddenly the photo has been seeing a lot of action, and maybe with your help it would get enough Yeahs to actually be published!
Thanks for all the votes on the wedding outfits! I think I’m swinging by Monsoon after work today just to see if there was something perfect there, will let you know later on which outfit I’ll choose to go with. A lot of people commented how black the selections were, which made me think about why. I think it’s because I wear quite bright colours in my every day life, so black to me seems more ‘festive’. All my going out stuff is black, I somehow don’t feel very dressy if it’s not… Having said that, one of the black outfits here was a bit of a red herring, I don’t think I would ever wear it to a wedding. And guess which one S chose… :P
Tags: photography related
Posted by Marianne at 2:31 pm in photography related
While I was on holiday my copies of Francesca Lia Block’s book Echo, which has my picture on the cover, had arrived. It was nice seeing the finished article, even if the sight of my own fizzog makes me cringe a little bit…
Tags: photography related
Posted by Marianne at 6:53 pm in photography related
Finally a photo shoot which didn’t get cancelled! Even my tummy bug co-operated by curing itself yesterday. Ayse was stunning, and a great model, despite her lack of experience. Funnily enough I’ve been really enjoying the editing as well, it’s just sooo nice being able to go through some new shots, it’s been a while! Having said that, I can’t decide which shots to put together for the Duality pair. I’ll put the finished piece up on my website once I’ve made my mind up. There are some more of these extra shots on Flickr as well.
Tags: my life in photos, photography related
Posted by Marianne at 7:50 pm in my life in photos, photography related
So yes, this period of job hunting has been a bit of a roller-coaster ride emotionally. Originally I was really looking forward to having some ‘time off’, but it’s a funny thing, unemployment. It certainly doesn’t feel like a holiday in any shape or form. I wasn’t really prepared for the emotional impact that not having a job has, at all. It was a bit of a shock to be honest, the feeling of absolute redundancy, quite literally. Having a job affects your self worth in ways that you can’t really appreciate until it is taken away. I certainly went through a lot of soul-searching and re-evaluating my life and trying to figure out what would make me feel most whole and happy within myself.
When I was originally given the choice between taking on a role with diminished creative freedom and redundancy, I saw it as a way out. Out and upwards. Seven and a half years is a long time when it comes to a job. I felt like I wanted something… different. At the time I thought that different meant something more, something bigger, which would consequently equal better. Throughout the process of applying for jobs and going to interviews I had to seriously re-adjust my thinking. There were opportunities that on paper got me excited about the prospect of going further, making more money, gaining more status… and yet when I went to these places I couldn’t help but feeling that it wasn’t right. Bigger and better it might have been, but also faster and more time consuming. I had thought I wanted to move on to the commercial side of design, but the reality of killing yourself over the sole goal of making more money for the company or creating only to try to sell a product just felt… wrong. In a way, during these past months, I’ve come full circle. I remembered once again that my photography is what truly gives my life fulfilment, and that a job that pays the bills but doesn’t take over my life is the only way to go in order to have enough time to devote to taking pictures.
So yes, on Wednesday I accepted a job offer for a position which is practically identical to my old job. I’ll be working as a magazine designer for a charity, in an environment that is spookily similar to my previous workplace. Even down to the people! My salary didn’t really go up, but other benefits more than make up for it. My pride tries to make me feel like I’m moving backwards, but in my heart I know that it was probably the right decision, for now.
The good thing that came out of going to interviews at big and scary places was that I gained a really good contact at a big publishing house, a creative director who loved my photography. He’s already been in touch to see if there was a possibility that I could sometimes shoot for their various magazines.
Now that all the stress is behind me, I’m going to empty my head. Then I’m going to pick up my camera and start shooting properly again. Can’t wait.
On Tuesday Susanna and I went to check out the finalists of The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2008, which was quite inspiring. The next day it was announced that Esko Männikkö was the winner. I’m very happy about that. :) Today we were supposed to go to the ARTfutures exhibition, but since we’re both suffering from TEH PAIN we’re just going to have a girly night in since Stu is in Rayleigh until tomorrow.
P.S. Up there is a picture of the gorgeous flowers Stu brought me after I’d accepted the job offer. Best. Husband. Ever. :D
Tags: my life, photography related
Posted by Marianne at 3:53 pm in my life in words, photography related
It has been a very stressful couple of weeks. The less said about it the better really. But despite the, by now all too familiar, bad start to the day, something did shift today. The scales started dipping towards the positive.
The highlight of today was by far the completely unplanned time spent with one of my photographic inspirations, Sally Mann. Johanna and I were at the gallery purely to see her exhibition (a treat in itself!) when we found out that the artist herself was in Finland at the moment and would be giving a speech/lecture later on in the day. The session was fully booked but we managed to get our names on a waiting list, in case any spaces became available. And wouldn’t you believe it, we got in! Not only that, but we got to sit in the front row, only a half a meter away from Sally. Of course, since I was completely unprepared for such a treat, I didn’t have a camera of any description with me. Not even my ‘better’ mobile phone. So these craptastic shots from my rickety old mobile are all the pictures I got of her.
But that’s OK as I’ll probably remember the event for the rest of my life whether I have pictures of it or not. Even though Sally did say that since memory – be it personal or collective – is never reliable, it’s the artist’s job to document what is important.
Sally was a tiny little thing (for some reason I always thought she was very tall!) and yet her presence was undeniable. She was insightful, opinionated and inspiring, and yet somehow also very human. Through slides and stories she took us on a journey into her work and explained to us how and why it has evolved over the last 30-some years into what it is today.
The whole thing went on for about an hour and a half, with the last 20 minutes dedicated to Sally answering people’s questions. At the end of the session I got my copy of Immediate Family signed by her – I’m sure I will cherish this copy forever!
Tags: photography related
Posted by Marianne at 9:52 pm in photography related
I suppose I had to make my own meez character since everyone else seems to have one… I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of it is. Or why mine is photographing the pavement. Hmm. Oh well, at least it was much fun picking virtual clothes. Paper dolls sure weren’t quite this fancy when I was a kid! :D
The other day I sent a short message to Derek Ridgers through his website in an attempt to thank him for choosing my image for the Tate shortlist (mine was his personal choice). I never really expected for him to answer, but he did! He wrote a really sweet mail back saying that my picture ‘will bring a smile to a lot of the people who view it’. Isn’t that decent of him. You know what though, it was quite a surreal feeling to open your inbox and have a mail from Derek Ridgers sitting in there…
Tags: photography related
Posted by Marianne at 9:45 pm in photography related
My photograph is in Tate Britain. The exhibition was also featured on BBC Radio 4′s Today program this morning. Kinda cool huh. :D
Also, I now seem to have what ever sickness Stu’s been suffering from. We shall both probably die. Like Romeo & Juliet. But in the loo.
Tags: photography related
Posted by Marianne at 9:52 am in photography related
So Eurovision is finally behind us. The final went pretty smoothly. Without Father Christmas and Krisse there wouldn’t have been anything to be ashamed of, but I guess it’s compulsory to have at least something to cringe about in these sort of situations. :P
Another thing that has come to an end is my 365 days project. Yesterday was day 365. In some ways a year went by soooo fast, but sometimes it did feel like I would never see the back of this project. It did become a bit of a chore eventually, and I think the quality of the pictures dropped quite drastically towards the end of it… it felt like an effort to even produce a picture every day, never mind trying to make it good. I feel a little bit lighter now and hopefully the freedom will give me space to have some new ideas. I think I’ll start some new projects soon, but with a lot less rigid schedule.
We changed our minds about some things regarding the wedding (again!) and I should prolly update the wedding blog to reflect that when I have a minute…
I finally shot Johanna (and Olli & Aleksi) for my Duality series yesterday. We’ve been meaning to do that since Olli was born! :D Better late than never huh. Anyways, it was a lot of fun. Here are some outtakes. :)
Tags: friends and family, my life, my life in photos, photography related
Posted by Marianne at 2:07 pm in friends and family, my life in photos, my life in words, photography related
Greetings from gloriously sunny London. It was a lovely lovely day, so warm and light and springy. <3 We went to the Face of Fashion exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery with Sooz. It was cool, inspiring and intimidating all at once. I think it could have been a bit more extensive however, we sort of ran into a dead end just when we were really getting into it. Oh well. The catalogue has a lot more pictures from each photographer for some reason, don’t quite understand why all of them couldn’t have been included in the show.
Here’s some sunny shots from Trafalgar Square for you to enjoy.
Tags: my life, my life in photos, photography related
Posted by Marianne at 9:16 pm in my life in photos, my life in words, photography related
