New term, new brief, same issue.

A short post to make excuses, introduce 2nd year and consider the horizon.

The first six weeks of second year have gone by in a flash of briefs, late night library sessions and weekend shoots leaving me with little time to blog. I regret this as I also attended London fashion week which naturally provided me with endless blogging material.

Sadly projects had to take priority and I would be lying if I said there hasn’t been a little hysteria among the gala girls as the realisation of the pressure and time scales begin to hit home and sleeping drops to the bottom of the extensive ‘to do’ lists. I would also be lying however if I said I don’t love it.

The environment we are working in is realistic to the industry and though you often doubt your capabilities nothing feels better than when all comes together for the deadline.

 Now studying wholly communication the pressure is obvious, especially for the self confessed perfectionists among us. With a course of only twenty there is little room to hid and no one wants to be the one to crumble in their presentation on cry during their crit (both likely to occur next week- stay tuned)

 The result of this however is getting to witness some incredible work being produced in a short time and seeing yourself beginning to respond quickly to the industry like pressure created.

 London Fashion Week really helped to focus my mind on where I am going while also scaring me slightly to death.  After spending a week working in a world where the pressure is fat, tolerances is thin and swear- words regular punctuation you leave feeling hugely intimidated yet exhilarated. The world manifested by the press exists in full ‘Devil wear Prada’ pride but behind this is a core of very talented, focused and hard working, dare I say normal people.

The threat realised is not will I be glam, thin or fabulous enough to get into the industry but do I have the talent to bother knocking in the first place? I suppose one can only wait to find out and first term of second year is as good a place as any to get started.

 This term is arguably the creative aspect of the course with modules covering photography, styling, and studio work and fashion film. The fashion film is based on Topshop which has been very exciting but more on that later.

 Next term we shall move onto my preferred areas of the course with business modules on promotion, advertising and journalism. This is not to say I have not enjoyed the artistic aspects so far and all the briefs are commercially focused.

 The first day back also saw our first hand in, yes fast off the mark high heels or not. It was a portfolio of artistic awareness work, including some challenging themes and course work research. The second part of this portfolio was 30 reviews and critics of fashion films, I will not share this but it is worth mentioning as a really beneficial way to prepare us for the work we are covering in Fashion film this term.

 Here is some of the work I produced for this portfolio, it explains some of the directions I am taking with course work and also will no doubt highlight a contrast with later work, post photography tutorials.  

The themes covered were shine, decay and wet. The photographs were not to be fashion focused so they are quiet random though in context do develop the appreciation of a theme. They also helped to get the creative juices flowing after a summer of Scottish rain and Kardashian trash. Enjoy.