Outside Borough Market, 26th January 2008

Hyde Park

I shot these with my 35mm minolta camera using xp2 black and white film...
I then had it developed and put onto cds.
Not quite the same as developing and scanning myself, but at least I get to see what I shot.
I must say that shooting film still fills much more fitting for me then digital.
I took these four photos at Hyde Park a couple of weeks ago.

Day trip to Kew Gardens, February 10 2008

I feel like I haven't really been up to speed with posting this week besides those 3 pictures from the Thames. It's because my dad is here in London visiting and It's a bit harder to find time to photograph. What I need to do is go get some rolls of film that I shot developed and put onto a CD so that I can post them up here (I bought black and white film that can be color processed and is supposed to be quite good). I'm going to TRY and get those up within the week. I just thought that I should address the purpose of why I haven't done as much as I would like to this week so I don't look like a total slacker.

A couple more pictures from the Thames

February 13, 2008

I'm dedicating this to the expired poloroid film.... I put in lots of yellow so it would look like an expired poloroid. I kinda like it, even if its not that "kosher" to mess with a pic like that

(above) On portobello Rd. in Notting Hill

(above) Outside the gate at Kew Gardens Sunday Feb 10, 2008

even more Oxford

I went to a photography gallery today which was having a show of Andy Warhol's portraits and landscapes. To be completely honest if I had not known that the photos were created by Warhol I would've assumed them crap that any intro to photography student could have made. So I'm not sure if that makes me some sort of art snob who accepts that the work is worthwhile simply because of who it was created by. But then I thought more about it .. because I couldnt completely write myself off as being that much of a snob. I started thinking about everything I know about Andy Warhol (thank god for prof. Burn's art history class).. and I remembered how he was so into pop culture and the idea of people as machines. Soon I was able to look past poorly burned corners of pictures and see what they were actually about. There were mulptiple photos of stacks of produce taken at any random supermarket.. but they weren't like the photos of produce that I (and probably every photo student ever) had taken . They actually had meaning. They were about repetition within our world and all of the good and bad things that go along with it (poorly stated, I know, but bare with me). Then there were tons of photos of commercial signs from throughout new york, and so I thought about his obsession with celebrities and pop culture. According to an article that the gallery had on display Warhol was a genius who successfully predicted our current obsession with temporary fame due to reality tv and all the other horrible ways that anonymous people become celebrities overnight (basically he not only understood the popculture of his time, but he understand the pop culture of our time before it even happened). All of his photos ended up making me question WHAT IS ART?!? and I really think that what seperates a poorly printed photo of apples created by Warhol and one that I made.. is that there is so much meaning and thought and prediction behind it, whereas I have to admit that most of the time I just photograph what looks "cool". I also must admit that it felt pretty good to finally understand some meaning behind a piece of art and why it was created, because I rarely ever understand those sorts of things. Don't know if all this rambling has a point.. just wanted to share my thoughts as I was thinking them.

...more Oxford

Not sure if this ones better in color or blck and white

I've recently been learning about Impressionism in my Modern art class (Monet, Dega, Pissaro...). I didn't realize at the time of shooting these but now that I see them all together I can see myself being influenced by all the paintings that I've been studying. I specifically see a connection between the photos which have relections in the water and Monet's paintings.