That was funny wasn't it!

See what I did, I said I would update and just said I was tired.

AH HA HA.

I am, its true.

Handing in the exam project a week tomorrow. ARGH!

For those of you who don't know...the exam project is a 6 week long self directed project. You hand in a proposal for a project at the start and then work on it for the next 6 weeks, handing in a finsihed body of work. You are allowed no help, guidance or input from any lecturers or staff and when you hand in, you are given a number - the theory being its marked blind. They read the proposal then look at the work and mark you against how you met your own brief, in theory - without knowing who did the work. In reality I am sure they guess generally due to peoples own photographic style and general subject matter.

I choose to do a project about the night. Perhaps I will post the proposal I wrote up here at some point. I choose the night as I have been into night photography for ages, in fact, thats how I first got into Photography. I did a night project called 'chasing light' at the end of last year and never felt it was quite concluded. In fact, I have never really got accross what I want to about the night in photography so thought I would attempt it for this piece. What is more, I was tactical. Choosing the night means I can shoot at night and print etc during the day. Also I could continue with my major project during the day and shoot the exam project at night. Clever huh? Time management and all that.

Its gone quite well I think. I like the images I think. It will look quite good I think. Can't be more specific than that as I have seen the same frigging images for so long now, I am too detached from them to judge them!

Running on empty a bit as been in the dark room all day, everyday for weeks now printing it. I have finished the smaller prints which will form a book and have to take it to be bound professionally tomorrow (exciting). Then I have to re-print the images in the larger size for my protfolio box. See in the proposal you had to say what the work would be used for and being the chump I am, I said it would be an exhibition and book. Hence I have to make prints for both!

Can't wait for next week when its all done! That will then be 40% of my degree done (20% on the dissertation and 20% on exam project). So I can concentrate fully without disruption on the major piece.

Its been relentless, especially with the Guf problems and such, but hey, its character building and I am feeling good about it now, and quite confident as a fair whack of the printing is done.

I also got contacted by the North Laine Photography people, they are doing a collective exhibition of all the finalists for the competition last year, of which I am one. I decided to show the night project I am working on and they really liked it, so are showing 9 of my images and in fact my own hand prints, which is nice. Not sure when it goes up...so I will let you know.

Other than that, haven't had much time for anything else! Desperately fighting off a cold and pretending it doens't exist so it will bypass me. Finished watching all 5 seasons of Babylon 5 and feel lost without it.

Sorry, thats a boring update and post isn't it. All I ever bang on about is school, but thats all there is at the moment!

To cheer you up, here is the text that will be at the start of the book I am doing for my night project. Its a passage from Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf and is lovely. It sums up why I like the night. If you haven't read Steppenwolf or anything else of his...do...he is an amazing writer!

"With playful lightheartedness, I trod the mist pavements of the narrow streets. As though in tears and veiled, the lamps glimmered through the chill gloom and sucked their reflections slowly from the wet ground.
The forgotten years of my youth came back to me. How I used to love the dark, sad evenings of late autumn and winter, how eagerly I imbibed their moods of loneliness and melancholy when wrapped in my cloak I strode for half the night through rain and storm, through the leafless winter landscape, lonely enough then too, but full of deep joy, and full of poetry..."

Its lovely isn't it? Sits with my images really well too.

One last thing, henry's new blog post made my day today! Its brilliant and if you haven't read it yet, do so! You wont be dissapointed. He may not be prolific, but its worth the wait. It brought a wry sense of glee to my face and if he had been near by, I would have shook his hand...or worse.