Unit 6 UAL Level 3 Foundation Diploma in Art and Design

Unit 6: 

Ucas-  

      
I attended a Ucas fair which was very helpful by giving me prospectuses and actually talking to people from the university's I am wanting to attend.

        I discussed with various tutors about my options I was thinking about attending. I spoke to Martyn at the beginning of the course where he advised to to have a look at London university and also Newport university in the south of Wales I went away and researched these university as I am aiming to specialise in documentary photography but I just didnt think they were for me as of Health issues with my specialist being based in Preston it just wouldn't of been practical. I went away and researched other university close to home which I took great interest in University of Bolton, Manchester Metropolitan, and Blackburn university. My first choice is Bolton university as it specialisehttp://www.blackburn.ac.uk/about-blackburn-college/college-buildings/ucbc/s in documentary photography. 

These are the choices I applied for through my UCAS application:- 

1.      University of Bolton.  http://courses.bolton.ac.uk/Details/Index/1485 
2. Manchester Metropolitan http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/

   3. Blackburn University http://www.blackburn.ac.uk/about-blackburn-college/college-buildings/ucbc/

I discussed these options with Jamie and martyn about my choices.

I have been building my portfolio as I have been invited for an interview at UCBC blackburn university on the 5th March at 10am. 

I am also going to Bolton university open day on the 29th march to have a look around.  

Personal statement:- 

I am currently studying a Foundation Diploma in art and media at Blackburn College. I came to photography through an unusual route, I was studying an NVQ in hairdressing at school, I had to chose an enhancement course to go along side my main pathway. I chose photography and this is where my real journey began. I decided to finish Hairdressing and went on to enrol at Blackburn College where I studied for two years and obtained an Extended National Diploma Level 3 in Photography. For my final major project, I documented whippet racing and produced three double A0 prints that were praised during the final exhibition. The Lancashire EveningTelegraph came and asked if they could photograph me with my work and review the photographs for the local paper. This inspired me to take a further year to develop my ideas, skills and experiences and enrol on the UAL foundation at Blackburn College. I approached this as a third year, but one where I would meet new students, develop my portfolio, work with new staff and fully prepare for university. In my current work, I have chosen to document the lives of Homeless people, and also people who have addictions such as alcoholism and drug addicts. I am aiming to go in to a rehab and document the recovery progress and the impact that addiction has on the day to day lives of the subjects. I also intend to explore the mental health issues that these controlling addictions have on peoples lives, depicting the physical and mental impact that addiction has on a person. In my spare time I take great pleasure in experimenting in different types of photography such as shooting on 35mm film and developing my images in a darkroom and also digital photography I have great passion in landscape photography. My main hobby however is a northern cliche, but it is one that I am passionate about. I breed and race whippets. I am a successful trainer and my dogs have won many races and awards. I apply to you from the heart of Blackburn, a twenty year old whippet trainer. No flat cap, just a desire and commitment to develop as a documentary photographer and succeed at degree level.

   I have also had a varied amount of tutorials with Jamie which has helped me choosing the university I am wanting to attend which i have talked about the pros and cons of each university also talked about the courses they are offering. As i am wanting to specialise in documentary photography I research Bolton university knowing they offered documentary photography and writing down the pros and cons within this uni it was clear that it would be the right choice for my education to further it self.


Building  my portfolio hasn't seemed to be the most easiest of tasks to comply with, from choosing the correct photographs out of a wide range of images to the quality the images i printed to also presented them, iv had lots of feedback off all three tutors jamie, jo and martyn. i have acted on this by reprinting my first lot of photographs on better quality paper, when i backed my first images onto white card i used double sided tape as i asked Jo and she advised me on using that as spray mount/photo mount can leaves unnecessary inky dirty finger prints on the white card but after a while my images started to wrinkle and wasn't presentable. Martyn advised me on getting a portfolio box which i have looked into but seem to be very high priced and out of my budget at the moment, i will think about this in the near future when presenting my photographs.

I got my Interview date through from UCBC which i was using as a practise run for my Bolton interview to prepare me the best i could as i have never been in the university interview procedure before. i spoke to jo the day before briefly who spoke about being confident and talking about my work when in the interview. i attended my interview which was at half past nine with richard but i ended up having it with Martyn i didnt see the interview as being a structure university interview it was more of a one to one talk, he criticise the quality of work and the quality of printing and also the way i presented my portfolio. also it made me think about how to word things next time also. 
i acted on this by looking at portfolio boxes to present my work in but it wasn't a fee's able amount of money at this time. Also I asked other peoples opionion on presenting work my cousin works at preston college as a photography lecturer so i got in touch to see what she thought and her response was all of her students present there portfolios mounted on white card in a portfolio case the same way as i did for my blackburn interview so i am thinking of keeping it the same way for bolton but maybe looking at reprinting images. My interview skills are very basic and not very proffessional so i will be working on these with her to help me with a better chance at Bolton uni. 

I spoke to my cousin who then gave me a list of interview questions that i may be asked at my interview at bolton university, this was the feedback she gave me:

These are the answers I gave to each question I will put her feed back underneath in red.

                                                   Interview questions.


1) Why do you want to go to university?
A) to gain more experience and learn more about photography in greater depth, also to specalise

 in documentary photography.

2) What do you hope to gain from going to university?
A) I am aiming to gain a BA in photography, also i am aiming to get more experience in

 documentary photography and

 work experiece to gain alot of experience in the work place.

3 What do you want to do in the furture.
A) i am wanting to start my own business in documentary photography.

4) What career do you want to pursue?
A) Documentary photography

5) What do you have to offer the university?
A) A wide range of skills and great enuthiasum in documentary photography.

7)Why do you want to study photography?
A) photography is my main intrest i find it very knowledgable. i like to experiement using the

 dark room to develop 

films and experiement using cyanotype.

6) why should we accept you onto the course? what will you bring?
a) i will bring enuthsiaum and my knowlege from 3 years of studying an ND level 3

 photography course and a year on a foundation degree in art and design.

8) What is your strength?
A) i see myself as a perfectionist and i will not give up until it is to high enough standards. 

also my strengths are experiementing i 

find myself really good at expereimenting with films and cyanotypes.

9) What do you hope to explore, examing and extend at university?
A) i am wanting to explore documentary in great detail to help me fulfill my choosen career

 i would like to extend my barriers

 of working and explore different working envirorments whilst photographing.

10) Which is your best piece of work in your portfolio.
A) My dog photography is my best peice of work this is showing movement within the 

photo which helps to bring the photograph to life this had a great response at my final

 major project last year where 3 of these images were blown up on a large scale and 

hung freelely from the celining over the 

infinity curve. were the telegraph took great intrest who then interviewed me and i

 ended up in the Lancashire evening telegraph.

11) What do you consider as your worst piece of work? how would you improve this?
A) I consider my photograph of the dog in the studio as my worst peice of work as its very plain 

and its exactly what you see but it shows that i have experience within the studio, it could be

 used as an adversitising photograph as its very what you see is what you get. What i would

 change about this image would be the compostion of the dog as 

id change how you can see all four legs and make it so its stood so you can only see 

2 legs and maybe experiement on the angle i photograph to see what the difference the

 outcome would be.

12) Why do you want to study in this city? what does it have to offer you?
A) I am wanting to study at this university as i think it fulfills what i need to comply with to 

further my career and also as it specalising in my overall subject documentary photography.


13) Have you attended open days? what did  you think?
A) I am attending the open day on the 28th (i think i need to check) i have booked my appointment.

14) Have you spoke to other students on the course?
A) can i say no here? a little bit unsure what to say about this because i haven't?

FeedBack 

These are actually really good answers to the questions.

Ones that I would add to:-

12) Why do you want to study in this city? what does it have to offer you?
A) I am wanting to study at this university as i think it fulfills what i need to comply with to further
 my career and 
also as it specalising in my overall subject documentary photography.

I would consider:- "Also Bolton is a city with its own subject content to photograph and close
 enough to Manchester and other major cities 
that I can extend my exploration of."

14) Have you spoke to other students on the course?
A) can i say no here? a little bit unsure what to say about this because i haven't?

I would consider:- I have not yet spoken to any students, however, I will do on the open days.

Remember, they may not ask you all or any of the questions, but at least you are prepared with 
your answers.

Hope this helps,

I found this feedback very helpful for my interview.

My original interview for Bolton university was arranged for the 19th march 2014 but I was ill

so i contacted Jamie who helped me out by contacting Bolton uni to cancel my interview.

I then went onto UCAS and re-booked my interview date for Monday 31st March 2014

Within this time i wasn't  too happy with my quality of printing for my portfolio but when i had

looked into getting them printed professionally to have had the amount of images printed I

needed would of come to around £250-£300 making each individual cost around £9.60 each

on glossy paper so with this i looked into buying myself a A3 printer which worked out cheaper 

than to actually 

than to actually send away to get them printed professionally where I then printed my images 

to a high quality standard.

This is a photograph of my printed images.

These photographs apart from two of them are A3 and there is two that work really well together which I printed A4 so I could mount them together on one piece of mounting card but the rest I decided worked well on there own so mounted my images just one image on each piece of mount card which I will then put into order within my portfolio case. 

Bolton University Open Day. On the 29th March I am attending Bolton University Open day, which starts at 9am through till 3pm I am hoping to speak to students which are studying on the course I will be wanting to be on to study my degree in photography to hear about the course from students which are on it and the pros and cons within the course from someone who is studying there.

I attended Bolton university open day on Saturday the 29th March, which I found really helpful and gave me loads of information which I didn't know. whilst I was there i attended a presentation on arrival about student finance and budgeting which i thought was really helpful and went through step by step in depth about what money I will receive and when I need to start applying and also about accommodation and also about budgeting your money correctly to make sure it lasts you the length of time before your next payment.

I spoke to a tutor one to one whilst waiting for the photography talk, who was very genuine and told me to look also look at other reviews of university on unistats before accepting your choices. 

I then waited till half past one where I then went on a tour of the photography department and obtained a talk with the tutor about the course structure and the facilities where he then answered any queries any body had.
I found the photography department very well equipped and spacious where there was four studios 2 smaller ones for small objects and 2 big ones for models ect all four studios were kitted out brilliantly all lights on concertina brackets hung from the ceiling which were moveable all ways and angles which I thought was really great way to have lights also all types of back drops, small,large,black,white,textured and others all on reels attatched to the wall for easy access. also had great acress to equipement that i would be using on the course such as a large format camera, DSLR camera and other equipment i will be making great use of. we was also shown around the darkroom facility's which they had different rooms for each bit of film photography such as a a room for putting your film into the reels which had sinks, red lights which was small but would be fine for what you use them for, then they had there main dark room which was very thought out where I was told they have enough room for 15 - 20 max students working in there but mostly 15 students it was very spacious with a big main sink with all the developing chemicals in trays for B/W and Colour processes They had a large amount of enlargers. The last developing room we got shown around was a room that had all cutting boards and drying racks and dryers where the students can dry, size and frame there work in a work space made for that area of photography. We got shown around about 7 Mac rooms all furnished with Apple Macs with all the software we will be using on them and in each mac room there was space for people to do other kinds of work such as written work etc. 

We then went back in to studio 2 to have our talk where he told us about the sturcture of the course broke down into the 3 years we will be studying Photography which was:

Year One:   Learning new things such as writing essays using the correct language, using other mediums within photography if you haven't used them before, and getting everyone up to the same pace ready for the second year.

Year Two:  You will be given work experience if you wanted and also a chance to photograph football matches at Bolton with a pass to get you in to photograph either the managers, the match itself or the players before or after the match which gives you experience within working professionally and to time scales which I think is a great opportunity to peruse your career forward within the photography industry whilst also working on projects along side these opportunity's they offer you. 

Year Three:  In your third year you should be familiar with all types of lighting and camera's by this stage and will be expected to work with all different mediums to complete assignments within this year you are to write your own assignments which it will be structured for 2 major projects and exhibitions within this too.

I found the Open day very helpful and interesting I thought the facility's that Bolton university offer was to a high standard and a nice environment to be working in.


Bolton University Interview.

I attended Bolton University Interview on Monday 31st March at 10 am I was interviewed by a Photography Tutor James William, we begun by him just chatting to me about photography in general getting an idea of what i want to do within my 3 years achieve a degree and what directions I could go after obtaining a degree in photography he then looked through my portfolio where he then said 'Would it be ok to offer you an unconditional place' we then spoke about my cyanotypes quite a lot and he complemented my work where i documented Whippet racing, he also gave me a few lessons which I took on board on a way to make my photographs better which i thought was very helpful, he talked me through what would be expected from me and what the 3 years fulfil he also spoke about me looking into moving images if I accept my place which will help me document which I want to do.  
I took a portfolio of 25 Photographs a mix range of studio and location and documentary photographs, I also took a 500 word hand written writing and my 3 sketch books which was asked for.
I asked the question of how do they expect our work to be presented sketch book or blog, where he replied mostly sketch book but because i am wanting to document i may use blogs also to help me with that. I thought the interview went very well and was pleased with the out come.

As Bolton university is my first option I am now waiting for UCAS to update so i can accept my place. 
I have updated my UCAS and accepted my place and I have started to apply for my student finance