iStopMotion on the iPad

I've just discovered that iStopMotion is available for he iPad with the addition of the free remote camera app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I think this is going to form the backbone of a scheme of work for the equally new GCSE photography course! I just need to give some thought to keeping the iPhone/iPod/iPad steady during image capture. Looks like a bit of research into mini tripods is in order. 

 

Billy the sports photojournalist

I've just received a great message from Billy, esteemed and long standing member of the Action Research Group. You'll remember that Billy won a competition on Flickr which enabled him to work as an official photographer at the Youth Olympic games in Singapore last year. It now appears that he has been invited to be one of the official photojournalists at the 2012 games:

I got an exciting email today confirming that I'll be getting press accreditation for London 2012 next year, as well as photographing the young hopefuls in the lead up (training) and qualifying to take part in the Games.

How cool is this? Further proof that if you can identify your talents, work very hard to refine them and get yourself out there to make the necessary contacts, the world is indeed your oyster. Well done Billy from your friends on the Creative Tallis ARG!

Billy talks about ePortfolios

Without wishing to embarrass Billy, I thought I'd share Mr Hawes' recent interview with him about the value of creating and maintaining an ePortfolio. Billy has some top tips for anyone who wishes to showcase their work online and reach a real audience. Check it out!

Une nuit avec JR

Une nuit avec JR
by Narbru

This film is one of many you can find online that features the work of the French Photo Graffer, JR. His extended project entitled "28 Millimetres" is an exploration of wall-based gaffiti art using photography. He has worked all over the world, challenging stereotypes through the exhibition of massive portraits in public spaces. You can find out more about the work here.

I wonder if it would be possible to do something similar at Tallis? There are plenty of walls and a brand new hoarding that could provide an amazing canvas on which to project images like this. What are your thoughts? If we did attempt something on this scale, what issues could we address and whose portraits would be included?

At Home in a High Rise

I promised to provide a few more details about Mark Cowper's photographs of Ethelburga Tower in Battersea currently on show at The Geffrye Museum so here's a link to the website. What I loved about the show was the consistent view of each room and the way the images were displayed firstly around the room, then as a grid of smaller images in the shape of a tower block then finally projected in a space the exact same size as the rooms photographed.

I think this kind of typological appraoch to documenting space and the impact that humans have on adapting their environment might make an excellent feature of our summer project. What if we attempted to photograph all the rooms in the school from a similar point of view and then displayed them in a variety of ways? Would we need the help of a professional photographer to do this effectively? Would it make an interesting document of the building? Would we include portraits of people in the shots or photograph the building empty?

On the subject of photographing buildings, here's another link to the work of a photographer in Birmingham who documented the Longbridge car factory after it had been abandoned. There is something really poignant about these images in my opinion. One of my uncles used to work in the factory and I suppose the images represent the loss, not just of a building, but of a whole culture in that part of the country. We should probably plan to photograph the empty Thomas Tallis before it is finally demolished.

Science Club on YouTube

The Science Club at Tallis has got its own YouTube Channel. Mr Davids has purchased a cool camera that takes video at hundreds of frames per second. This one of a cymbal crash is my favourite although the one of Mr Davids getting a slap, to demonstrate the elasticity of the human face, comes a close second. Photography and science are closely related and some of these videos remind me of Harold Edgerton's famous series of high speed flash photographs. Now that the new school is about to be built on the back field, we thought we'd try to record the whole process using a special camera mounted on the roof. The idea is to take a couple of pictures of the site every day throughout the build. We can then make a time lapse film of the construction. I suppose we should also think about doing the same thing when the old school is demolished.

The Genius of Photography

The BBC4 series "The Genius of Photography" is a great example of how television can be the most wonderful resource for learning. The entire series is available on YouTube in convenient 10 minute sections. This website helpfully lists all the links with a brief description of the content of each episode. The opening programme also demonstrates how intimately art and science are bound together. Witness Abe Morrel's amazing camera obscura photographs. It seems to me that technology, in all its forms, is often the most important aspect of the school curriculum because it is able to link apparently disconnected disciplines. It is no surprise that one of the inventors of photography, Henry Fox Talbot, was an eminent scientist. He was frustrated by his inability to draw and began to wonder if there wasn't a better way of capturing the shapes of things on a flat surface. His experiments eventually became a new technology called photography. Literally, drawing with light.

If you haven't seen this series, I strongly recommend you watch the whole thing. You won't be disappointed.