We Are Norwich

A couple of months ago it was announced that the EDL (English Defense League) were planning on setting up a protest in Norwich town centre. The aim of their demo was to protest against the city council's decision to ban Pastor Alan Clifford of Norwich Reformed Church for promoting and distributing anti-Islam leaflets. At around 1pm on the 10th November the anti-protest, made up of a group that called themselves We Are Norwich, and which consisted of over double the amount of people than the visiting EDL, arrived at City Hall and congregated around the barrier that had been erected 20m away from the area the EDL were planning on marching to. I went along as a part of the Norwich University College of the Arts group, and was right at the front for most of the demonstration. Amid the chants of 'black and white, unite and fight, fuck the EDL' and 'whose streets? our streets' (mostly led by an inspiring little girl in the middle of the crowd), I was by the barrier taking photographs and keeping the people around me updated with the events transpiring on Twitter. Despite it being a peaceful protest on the We Are Norwich side of things, the EDL apparently started fights on their march down to city hall, with around 4 people being arrested and 2 people injured.

Here are my photographs from the day:

Edits, zines, and work experience.

I finally handed in the first half of my project for the year on Friday. I was fortunate enough to have finished everything the night before, so didn't have the panic of the last-minute rush like a lot of my class mates; that doesn't relieve the stress, however, and even now I am panicking at the mere thought of getting my results in a couple of week's time. Luckily, I finished the first edition of my zine completely on time:

Woohoo! Now, I still have a few things I wanna do to it, so think of this as a draft version - I have an illustrator on board who is gonna fill in the blank pages, and a couple more outfits I wanna shoot with to turn it from a 4-outfit look book into a 30-page zine. I also want to play around with the photos a little bit more, maybe take some photographs to work as busy, patterned backgrounds in the photos where the fabric is quite plain. I experimented a little with my favourite photo of Jude, and am totally smitten with the result. Fingers crossed I can make more photos that look just as awesome!

There are a few things going on at the moment that I can't wait to blog about - next week I have a work experience placement for Bentlys Records where I'll be photographing two of their bands as they perform around the city and then at a gig in the evening. I also have some work experience with the Evening News coming up at a later date! As well as this, I have a job interview tomorrow, after being unexpectedly fired, which I'm pretty nervous about - and on top of that I'm in talks with an up-and-coming clothing brand, to photograph their collection for display in the next edition of Femme Sole! I really can't wait to be able to share all of these photos on here, and I hope whoever is reading this is excited to see some new work too.

Manifesto

First edition is all drafted up, just waiting to see if I can an illustrator involved and figure out how small to trim these bad boys! 

On Friday I was lucky enough to have a shoot with local up-and-coming model Jude Wright, who I've been dying to set up a shoot with as soon as I spotted her a few months ago in a friend's images. We re-shot a few of the images I took a couple of a weeks ago, re-working them and playing with the lighting as well as working with several new dresses.

The first dress we shot with was the same Georgie Gilbert dress as the previous shoot. We revamped the photos by upping the brightness and creating a much more pastel background, whilst keeping Jude bright and sharp. I then used the texture of the dress to add a border to the photos, which works beautifully and really highlights the busy pattern of the dress.

The next dress we photographed was designed by NUCA fashion design student Lizzie Grant. Lizzie's dress was inspired by Japanese kimonos, visible through the beautiful drape of the fabric and loose-fitting, free-flowing arms. Lizzie's dress has taken the traditional perception of a kimono, however, and adapted it to a modern market - tight-fitting and skin-baring, the dress is both comfortable to wear as well as casting a gorgeous, feminine silhouette. We shot with lilac and pink gels on the lights, and again bordered the image using a texture from within the garment itself; this enhances the elegance of the garment, and adds an overall mood to the photograph - whilst the previous dress was busy with pattern, this dress is simple and dainty. 

The final dress we photographed was a 60's prom dress I managed to pick up from my local charity shop for £6. I've been wanting to photograph with it since I bought it, and finally had the opportunity in my shoot on Friday. On Halloween it acted as my 'zombie prom queen' outfit, so we decided to bring out the pouting moodiness once again and make a couple of quite melancholy - though beautiful - images.

Big thanks to Jude for this shoot, and to Becca Mitton for helping with (aka being in charge of) the lighting. I now have a series of works by around 4 fashion students, and so for the end of this short term I'm going to be working on a very small NUCA Fashion Design A/W 2012 Lookbook zine to display this work. Keep your eyes peeled! 

For my latest project I have decided to look at fashion photography, and using it as a tool to showcase the work of the designer specifically as opposed to an over-the-top set or the celebrity of the model. First up in this series is the work of 3 NUCA Fashion Design students, and their end-of-year work from their first year at university. After talking, discussing ideas and sharing inspiration over the summer we had very specific ideas for what we wanted to get out of the photoshoots, and from circus themes to a tie-dye background we spent the entire afternoon arranging lighting, posing models and battling 6-foot-tall pieces of polystyrene wrapped in reflective material. This is only the first of many photoshoots, however, and the images will become more refined as I practice my technique. 

For the first-year's end of year work they were given the brief of creating a collaboration between the work of a design house and that of a high-street brand, and to create a garment representing this. I began with the work of Jess Long, who had chosen to combine the work of 'quirky chic' designer label Miu Miu with the on-trend high street store River Island. Taking inspiration from clowns and the circus, Jess's dress takes elements of many of the recent summer trends; from bold polka-dots to heavily-contrasting colours, to a wide, ruffled collar, the dress is almost surreal in its nature. The material used to create the garment adds a softness to the photograph as a whole, despite the harsh blacks of the polkadots or the conflicting green and purple tones, and we chose to use soft lighting in the image both from the front and behind to add to this. 

Next was the work of Georgie Gilbert. Georgie's collaboration was between Mary katrantzou, who uses household objects as inspiration for her vibrant print designs, and Whistles, a high street store that caters for women seeking a feminine silhouette and classic cuts. Georgie took inspiration from the concept of afternoon tea and the structure of a teacup, and used these elements to create a soft and feminine floral dress that really compliments the wearer. For this photograph we used the soft, pastel colours in the dress and projected them onto the background to create a gradient that adds a dream-like nature to the image as a whole. 

Finally, we shot a simple test shot for designer Kristen Loveday. Kristen's project was based on a collaboration between a designer called Sybilla and the high street brand Coast, and she took inspiration from the work of painter Jack Vettriano. The work of Vettriano is filled with elegance, just as Kristen's dress is, but also contains an element of seduction. The deep v of the back reflects this seduction, as does the romantic and feminine drape of the material used. Kristen and I are currently in the process of setting up a location shoot to show off the retro vibe of the dress, and as such I should have more work to share on this blog very soon.

Yesterday, after staying up all night and then getting on a 4am coach, I was given the brilliant opportunity to take photographs at London Fashion Weekend, the aftermath of London Fashion Week that gives the general public the opportunity to watch catwalk shows and shop for designer goodies, as part of the Canon team. I've never attended London Fashion Weekend before and so, with team members from Canon guiding me, I was rushed through the compact bazaar around the showroom and into the photographer's pit alongside 20 or so others, with barely any time to take in my surroundings. When I photographed at Graduate Fashion Week I had the freedom to sit in the crowd and take photographs at my own will; here, I had to quickly secure my 50cm x 50cm spot and make sure that I didn't get in anybody's way (or suffer a deadly elbow in the back if I did).

My brief was to take 5 beautiful photographs from each catwalk show I attended, to send to Canon for juding in a competition that could win me a Canon 650D and a chance to photograph at London Fashion Week next year. The first catwalk I photographed was the 'Trends' show, a 30-45 minute display of the upcoming A/W trends. Catwalk presenter Zoe Hardman talked the audience through each style - Kitchen Chic, Sergeant Indigo and Lady Brocade, all put together by resident stylist Miss Molly - before the models came walking down the aisle, at which point I had to rapidly arrange my aim, zoom and focus before snapping away. These are the 5 photographs from the 'Trends' show that I put forward to Canon.

The second show I attended was a designer highlights show by Issa, a London dress company with many celebrity fans. Put together by Issa's creative director Daniella Helayel, the collection featured bold prints inspired by Moscow and, more specifically, Red Square. Bold colour combinations and a sophisticated, feminine silhouette were noticeable in each design, and the Russian-style motifs really made the collection stand out. I spent this show in a different position to the last, stood up in the middle of the pit as opposed to crouched uncomfortably at the front. Using both a 70-300mm and a 24-70mm lens I managed to capture close-ups of the models as well as an overall sweeping gaze of the room. These are the images I chose to send to Canon from the Issa show.

After the Issa show, I had the time to look around London Fashion Weekend as a whole. What I found was 35 or more designer label pop-up shops, each crammed into a small room within Somerset House. In one wing of the building I found myself with a free can of coke and the opportunity to pose with a Jean Paul Gaultier coke bottle for a photo that would be immortalised on a postcard I could take away, whilst further down the hall discounted off-season designer clothes were being sold to the crowds of well-dressed fashionistas; meanwhile, in the small area surrounding the show space, the Vodafone Lounge was hosting a Q&A on what goes on behind the scenes at a cover shoot for the team behind Elle Magazine. It was a great atmosphere and was filled with a myriad of gorgeous, intricately-designed clothes (way out of my price range, of course), and I really hope to go back next year. Or, fingers crossed, maybe I'll have the chance to experience the real fashion week...

I'll leave you with some of my other photos, which didn't quite make it to Canon but are still favourites nevertheless.