New gallery pages and online shop

I’ve set up a few new photographic spaces on the internet.  I have had a few enquiries about purchasing my images, so have decided to see what is out there to enable people to purchase my work.

I’ve set up:

a gallery at www.ImageKind.com :

this one is kinda nice - it allows you to select images from your Flickr photostream and grabs the images over the Flickr API for your gallery, saving on tiresome uploading/organising time.

An account with RedBubble :

And a new BubbleSite gallery from RedBubble:

http://kajo.redbubble.com/

I particularly like the clean layout offered on the BubbleSites, and the fact that it integrates beautifully with the RedBubble shop for purchasing prints.

A Panel for the L…

I’ve bitten the bullet and booked myself a place as a ‘participant’ on the RPS Distinctions Advisory Day in September.   I’m quite sure that I’m nowhere near ready for this, but after some wonderfully supportive advice from several other RPS members and staff, I’ve bitten the bullet and booked the place (with the option of changing to a ’spectator’ nearer the time if i’m really not ready!). I’ve been through my portfolio to see what i’ve got that I could perhaps use in an L-panel, and narrowed it down to about 25 shots.  This includes the 10 from my OU T189 ECA Panel (having gained 100% with that from the OU, they recommended that I consider trying for the L, so I hope it’s a wise choice to use some of these images again).  And from those 25, i’ve just taken 10 of them (and random ‘grab’ at this stage) and tried to order them into something like a coherent panel.  I’m not there yet, by a long stretch, and this is a first pass only, but here goes.

Two rows of five images

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ROW 1 : http://www.flickr.com/photos/kate-and-andrew/sets/72157606589841797/detail/

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ROW 2 : http://www.flickr.com/photos/kate-and-andrew/sets/72157606589878467/detail/

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What i do like:

• these are all, i think, representativeof my general style (in so far as I have any style)
• colours and light being big features
• they demonstrate a reasonable range of techniques and (i hope) technical competences

What i don’t like:

• the ‘bobbing up and down’ of the bottom row in particular
• combination of portrait and landscape format feels ‘uncomfortable’ to me.   I wonder if i can rotate the lighthouse steps (image 3, row 2) to be landscape?
• i’m not sure about image 1 on row 2
• I scored highly with this image on the OU ECA panel, but to me, it just feels like a lucky snapshot, nothing else. I’m unsure whether to include it.
• the dandelion isn’t technically great, i don’t think, the detail in the fluffy bits could be better, and i’m not sure this’ll blow up to A3 size particularly well.
• is the purple flower macro (row 1, image 2) too abstract?

So, i’d appreciate comments, all and any comments, any feedback or suggestions. Be as harsh as you want. I’m quite sure that this panel is nowhere near the standard of an L panel for the RPS yet, but i hope that i’m heading in the right direction. All and any comments, suggestions and constructive criticisms welcome!

Joining the RPS

Well, what a surprise! I got home on Friday to discover that my wonderful parents had bought me a gift membership of the Royal Photographic Society, and waiting for me on the doorstep was a lovely glossy introductory pack from the RPS. Wow!

I’ve had a little time to peruse it, and had a look at what I get for my membership. I was excited to find that I can choose one of the ’special interest groups’ to join for the year (I’ll be going for the Nature group), and I’ll automatically become a member of my local Regional Group - and that my Regional Group seems pretty active, with plenty of events organised fairly locally.

I’m hoping it’ll be a great opportunity to really push on and improve my photograpy, keep me inspired and motivated, and broaden my photographic horizons. And of course, there are the distinctions.

On the OU T189 course, it said that those who do well in T189 may want to consider submitting a panel for the RPS Licentiate (LRPS) distinction. I’d already looked at many of the successful LRPS panels on the rps website and was in awe of them - they seem to far above where I am at the moment. But, having looked again, and looked at the support and encouragement offered by other RPS members, as well as the opportunity to attend local assessment days, I’m starting to think that this could be my major challenge of the year: To put together a panel for the ‘L’ distinction, attend an assessment day/workshop, and finally submit the panel to see if I can achieve the Licentiate distinction. I wonder….? What do you think?

T189 : Time to reflect

So, results have been out for a while and we’ve had time to reflect on them.

I was totally shocked by my results. I was hoping for something between 70 and 80%, and for some decent feedback on what are my next steps to improve.

my thoughts on the my results are:

• I’d have liked an explanation/definition of what the ticks, blanks or crosses meant, for each of the categories.
• I got crosses for one image that the marker didn’t feel worked for them (image 7, the colourized berries image). I wonder, given that i got crosses, how could 100% be justified? Or was it that it was technically OK, but just that the marker didn’t like it? Even so, i’m surprised at 100% given the evident dislike for that image, or what i did to it.
• I’d have liked a little more general feedback on ‘what to do next’ - how to improve my images, do i have a ‘developing personal style’ that i could work on? (i don’t think i have yet),
• I didn’t understand the blanks/ticks/crosses for “Digital Artefacts”. It perhaps would have been clearer to break this down into two categories : “Good use of digital manipulation” (ticks for good use, cross when it should have been used and wasn’t, or was used badly) and “No Evidence of Digital Artefacts” (ticks when it was digitally sound, and crosses when there was evidence of unsolicited noise, bad cloning, etc)
• I’ve had flickr comments back from a couple of members who also mark on T189 (but didn’t mark my panel) who suggested they might have marked differently… I really appreciate them having taken the time to look at my images and comment. But I do wonder how consistent the marking was?
• The detailed feedback made a comment that “this feedback doesn’t reflect upon your overall score” (or words to that effect) - I don’t understand how it can be separate from the overall score - i’d have liked a bit more of an explanation of this.

I originally took the course because i wanted to improve my photography. I wanted a motivation and purpose for taking photos, and I wanted to be able to see where I was going wrong, and how to capture those stunning images we see so often in explore.

Did the course achieve this for me? Yes, for definite. I now am much more critical of my own images, and can go some way to explaining why some photos ‘work’ for me, and others don’t. I feel i’m still lacking the artistic skill to produce really outstanding images, but I suspect much of that is down to some innate artistic talen, ‘an eye for it’, that i’m not sure i have. But i’ve definitely imrpoved my technical skills and ability to look critically at my own images, and those of others. And i’m definitely more motivated. For me, it was £165 well-spent.

The course had its problems, and there were definitely areas for improvement. But the course team are keen to hear feedback and use that to improve the course for the next lot of T189-ers. In a year or two’s time, it’ll be a fantastic course.

And…if there was to be a T289 (second level) course, i’ll be signing up for it like a shot!

T189 Results are out

The T189 results came out, and to my extreme surprise and delight, this is what i got:

Overall Examinable Score : 100%
Visual awareness: Outstanding
Technical quality: Outstanding
Written component: Outstanding

We also got some slightly more (but not very!) detailed feedback last week.  My panel is on flickr, and I’ve put all my feedback against my ECA panel (set), along with the general comments as well. www.flickr.com/photos/kate-and-andrew/sets/72157603310882…

Basically, this is what i got.
For all images except image 7, i got ticks in every box except Decisive moemnt, horizontals/verticals, and evidence of digital manipulation (which were all blanks)

For these two images, i also got ticks in ‘decisive moment’

For image 7 (below), I got crosses against light/colour/texture and colour/tonal properties (guess the marker didn’t like colorization!), and ticks for composition, background, exposure, foxus, and DoF (blansk for decisive moment, horizontals, evidence of manipulation).

The general comments on the panel were :
These are all stunning images with great visual awareness. The only image that doesn’t work for me is shot 7, about which i would ask ‘why’? However - you have a supervb visual style - very well done

And, for Technical quality
First class. Well done