Neil, look at this. Thanks.

Pictures I plan on compositing into a brochure for my traveling project:

Sachsenhausen, the original Nazi Concentration Camp, which became the model for all further Camps.

Composite #2

How do we feel about the layout?

I like the disjointed feel like before, but should I switch to the white background, or go back to the black? I think the black stands out more on the page, but what about in print?

Feedback please and thank you =)

Tuesday Usual

Today was a slow photo day, but not for lack of trying. Seemed that everyone in Canterbury didn't feel like getting dressed up today. I took Caroline with me for support when approaching strangers since I felt the need to have a companion, especially when talking to groups or men. Even the men today thought we were just trying a really expensive pick-up line. 

Here we were, two girls flat out saying that we're art students from America, and we're doing a piece on European street fashion, and I'm holding an SLR with a zoom lens... yes, I am clearly messing with you and desperately trying to get your number. Let's go get coffee and hit a discotheque. 

Honestly.

I did get a couple good ones though.

In other news, I found a way to make my recent extremely vague idea work, with the homeless. It's just going to take a bit more dedication, and a lot more guts than I'm positive I have. And potentially several trips to London...

We'll see.

I am going to do everything in my power to get a local paper, a Uni paper, and a sports schedule tomorrow. I have a break in between classes where I will be productive. Tonight, I will actually go to sleep at a decent hour so I'm not forced to come home at 11am and take a nap until my 4pm class, like usual.

Composites

Caroline is always willing to help out with an impromptu fashion shoot - the boy with her is Will, and is in fact British, so I don't feel bad including those photos in my European street style adventure.

The second set is of the first couple I asked to pose for me for real. It needs work, I know, but this is where I went today. The boots were fantastic, and I couldn't let them get away without a real picture.

(Edit: I think non-Mac users can click the images to see them larger sized. Blogger runs photos with Picassa, which currently does not work with Macs, at least not last time I checked.)

Day one of Street Fashion

...Proved to be more difficult than I anticipated. I wouldn't call it a total fail, but I certainly learned what I have to work on for next time. This is going to be an extended project, so this is just a little sampling of what I shot today, and as stuff gets better, I'm sure you'll see none of these as finals. 

Since I don't know how to work blogger properly, I'm going to include the composite images in a separate entry. 

In other news: 

I looked up several photojournalists yesterday, and found one I fell in love with. 

Lauren Greenfield is amazing. She shoots female subjects in very common situations, but she shows the irony in why these situations are at all common. Things like little girls getting manicures and their mothers thinking it's totally fine to take their 4 year old to a spa on a regular basis, or images of a woman being weighed in at 84 lbs, bones protruding everywhere and still feeling unattractively overweight, within an eating disorder clinic. Eating disorders, overindulgence, how much money is affecting a younger and younger demographic, plastic surgery - I think what she's really trying to tell us is that girls in society these days are growing up far too quickly and society turns a blind eye to it. Because of the media and things like that, little girls are acting like teenagers, and teenagers are acting like women in their 30s, and there are actually mothers encouraging behavior like that. Her work is intense and at times heartbreaking, but above all, eye-opening. I attempted to get the dvd of her HBO documentary special called THIN, about the girls with eating disorders, but the Canterbury Public Library isn't the most helpful library of all time, to put it nicely. They didn't have a single thing on Greenfield, so I'm left with the internet and youtube. 

I also found a really interesting side story to picture-perfect Canterbury, and I have all intentions of looking more into it: the homeless situation. I took a picture today, basically on a whim when I first set out for the day, and while I edited it, I realized it had some real impact. I think I want to do a series of them, since there's more to the story, and Canterbury does everything it can to keep their homeless and the homeless situation swept under the rug, rather than dealing with it; it's highly ignored, and I want to see how much I can exploit it before leaving the country.