First attempt at using iMovie

Shortly before the holidays I was sitting listening to a few of my records, it was early in the morning and for some odd reason I felt a creative urge hit me. I decided to film a record playing from different angles and in different lights using my iPhone. I could have used my actual camera but once I had figure out how I was going to position the phone to prevent shaky footage, I realised my iPhone would practically be easier to work with. 

I put on a record, the torch on my phone and got filming! I had no idea at first the capabilities of iMovie and it's editing software, although in my younger days I tinkered around with Windows Movie Maker creating goofy clips with my friends, so I had a rough idea of how video editing worked. I managed to get all the clips together after uploading them, then progressed to cutting them and tidying up the start and end of each one of the clips. There are a lot of options regarding filtering, colour, contrast etc. but I felt that on only my first attempt, that would be overkill. 

Once I had all of the clips together in the order that I wanted, I looked into cropping and panning. I had fun with this because it gives the impression that the camera was actually moving during filming, of which I lacked the equipment for. I may have went overboard with the cropping and speed etc. because at some points in the film I feel the panning goes a little too fast and particular clips aren't shown for enough time. But of course this is something to take on board for future experiments and projects.

The last stage was audio. Now as much I would have liked to have kept the original audio track (The Sound of Bread) on each clip, they wouldn't have flowed together and would have sounded wrong. So I took away all audio and went for one of the many, many choices iMovie gives you at this stage of the process. It might not fit in with the speed in which he film progresses but I felt it was the most appropriate. If I ever go back to editing this particular group of clips I'm going to try and record the audio of my record player separately, so it picks up the crackles and authenticity of the record, and then splice that with the film. 

Well - here's what I came up with! It took me about 1 hour, so keep that in mind.

Photographing People

Out of all the things out there I can photograph, people are my favourite. Rather than ask people to pose with each other, say cheese or organise them before I photograph them, I prefer capturing them acting natural and not feeling forced. Below are 3 examples of this. I've taken photographs of my friends since I got my first camera phone. Anytime we were out at each others houses, out for a walk - anywhere, anytime! My computer was (still is) full of those types of photographs. I must admit most of the time they got pretty pissed off, no wonder though who needs some madman documenting them at every opportunity?! I still continue to record my life through photographs to this day, I believe it's a very important thing to do. Who knows when your memory is gonna begin fading and fading and eventually you can't remember what you did last weekend? Well not to worry because Martin has a 13 images of you eating a meal at that restaurant you went to last Saturday! In all seriousness though, the main reason I have taken so many photographs over the years is probably because of my Mum and Dad. They done a great job recording me and my siblings childhood. One of my favourite things to do is sit down with a box of old photos and home videos. My wish is to look back at my photographs not only for my pleasure, but for my children's! Even if that's the last thing they want - they will sit down and watch my life re-told through hundreds and thousands of photographs form my childhood. Back on point - here are those 3 photographs :

This one is of my friend Calum. It was taken in Krakow Square, Poland earlier this year in July. As I said above I prefer photographing people without them knowing (not intending to sound creepy) as I feel I can capture their true selves, or rather an unfiltered version of themselves. We were sitting down to beers and sandwiches as we had just arrived and Calum lit up a rolled cigarette. The light hitting the right side of his face, arm and hand works well and contrasts with his dark t shirt. I also like how his sunglasses cover his eyes, I think it gives a little mystery to the image as whatever his  feelings were at the point this photograph was taken are slightly less obvious.

As it was my sisters turn to wash the dishes that night, I decided to put the opportunity to good use and photograph her. My kitchen window faces the back garden so I went out and sat on the grass so I could see my sister through the window. At first, looking through the lens I couldn't find her face but when I did she looked straight up at me with this deathly stare. I love how the reflection of the bright green grass is able to be seen in the window. It almost makes it look like a floating mouth, nose and pair of eyes. 

This last one of my Granny is interesting. I can't remember whether she annoyed or just listening very intently.. who knows. Either way I like how the background of the house and hills are out of focus and the foreground is so clear and in focus. I took a few but the exposure was all messed up on the first couple, so this was the only one I managed to get right. Luckily the conversation she as having with my Mum went on a while so I was given ample opportunity to play about with settings.

Photography experiments

I've been looking through some of the photographs I've taken over the last week and tried to fuse them together. Finding 2 photographs that blend together is tough. I'm not necessarily looking for two images with similar subject matter - but images that compositionally work together. 

Here is an example:

Because of the empty space on the left hand side of the photograph, this makes it perfect to combine with an image with perhaps an empty space on it's right hand side. 

Much like this one underneath:

As I said I'm not bothered about the two photographs being explicitly related. All I'm looking for are two images that would blend together and become connected like 2 pieces of a jigsaw (kind of).

In this case I felt there was enough free space to work with in both photographs. So I got to work bringing them together and manipulating things like colour, brightness, contrast etc. 

In the end I came out with 2 final images. Here they are below:

At this point I can't decide which one I prefer! But pleased at the result. I think the black and white version has more fuzz and blur ('noise' I think they call it?) in the background, which make the colour image more appealing.

For the black and white image I chose to crop out the wall on the right hand side. I feel it took away from the main subjects of the image. Saying that I don't mind it being in the colour version.

I guess if I was pushing to relate the two images I've combined, I could maybe make the point of saying the photograph of the person (Alice) pointing the camera towards the ground, is opposing the perspective in which the other image was taken (pointing upwards, from the ground). 

Nonetheless I enjoy fusing images together and will continue playing around with my photographs and posting the results!