I visited a professional printing shop in London last week ‘The Print Space’ (www.theprintspace). Not only was it beneficial viewing the various papers available for final prints, but we also had the opportunity to look behind-the-scenes at the two different kinds of printers that they have Giclee and C-type. At Print Space you’re able to rent out a small room to check your images before printing, each of the monitors are calibrated weekly to ensure that every image printed is consistent with its colourings. From their websites there is a link to download print profiles for each paper type so that you are able to soft proof images in Photoshop at home.

They kindly let us print an image so we could see for ourselves the quality of their products. When I got home I compared to the printed version to the image on my monitor. I realised that the colour balance of my monitor was way out. I think my monitor must’ve realised I wasn’t happy with it, as the next day, it decided to stop working altogether! I was able to borrow one, only the colours on this were even worse. As I have only just bought a Canon 7D mk ii last week, my budget is a bit tight for a new monitor so I made compromise and bought a Spyder 4 Express. This calibrating software was extremely easy-to-use and only took about four minutes to turn my rather pink toned monitor into a bright crisp well-balanced screen. Hopefully this will enable me to get what I see on screen will be the same as what is printed.

My FMP project is going well, I feel like I have turned a corner and I am more focused on what I’m attempting to achieve. The feedback that I have received so far has been promising and I feel like finally my work is becoming to become a ‘style’ of my own, rather than that of copying or imitating others work. This is mainly due to the fact that I now have a strong idea behind the images, described as ‘totemism’ between horse and rider.

There is particularly one image so far that has raised quite a few positive comments and that is the image below. There is a tribal edge and togetherness in this image of the two souls becoming one.

Since this image was taken I have a few more ideas that I’d like to implement, so tomorrow I am reshooting this model and her horse. Hopefully I’ll be able to use some further poetic images for my FMP.

Laters

Michelle x

Time is flying and I’m currently in the process of developing ideas for my FMP (final major project). For my dissertation I research to into the relationship between people and their horses and the deep psychological relationships that can develop. The horse in art dates back over 30,000 years as some of the earliest cave paintings found in France depicts the horse. Whilst researching for my dissertation I came across the topic of totemism, which I found fascinating. Totemism may have been a very early form of religion where prehistoric man placed a piece of his soul in a totem animal, this animal then became sacred and was then worshipped.

For my FMP I thought it would be appropriate to carry on and through photography investigate this subject further. Having been a horse owner in the past, I have first-hand experience of how one can become so attached and ‘in tune’ to their horse. It is this partnership that I’m aiming to capture in images.

As a part of this investigation I contacted Tim Flach and had an in-depth telephone conversation with him. If you’ve not seen Tim’s work before, I highly recommend that you visit his website at: www.timflach.com. His work is truly outstanding and inspiring, by discussing why the horse has been such a main focus for his work in the past, I have a much better idea of the fundamental reasons why he finds the horse so fascinating. Tim’s knowledge of how the horse has become such a symbolism of ‘good’ through a multitude of cultures is enlightening. It was also extremely interesting to discover that Tim makes direct references between his work and those of great painters such as George Stubbs. By gaining this information from a photographer that I admire, I realise that even the greatest artists refer to and get ideas from each other!

A few weeks ago I had the good fortune of being able to visit my second cousins yard and photograph her beautiful horses. This was the first photo shoot for my FMP, and I treated it like a pre-shoot. Now that I have finished my dissertation I hope to concentrate on editing these photos as well as expand the ideas I have to enable me to refine my work. I have an open invitation to go back down to this yard where I hope to experiment with these new concepts.

Yesterday I visited another yard where I photographed about five horses and their three owners. These images will be going on my website soon as they make a great addition to my portfolio.

I’d just like to say a quick thank you to those that I have photographed so far. With spring on its way, I’m due to visit other yards very soon. If you and your horse would like to be photographed please do not hesitate to contact me.

Laters

Michelle x