Samples of My Work

Below are some samples from projects that I have worked on, there are more but because of the purposes of safeguarding I can not publicly post them on my own personal blog without the permission of the young people and their parents.

Why Lie? A Stop-Frame Animation Project

This stop-frame animation project was designed, led and facilitated by me from start to finish, in collaboration with a youth arts group. The finished film, below, was shown in Jubilee Library as part of the Youth Arts Festival 2012

YESTV with The Youth Employability Service

I am a co-founder of the YESTV project, I collaborate with the service staff to create films designed to provide advice on education and job situations and to get related information to the wider youth public through social media. The channel also promotes the Youth Employability Service and what they do. Below are a series of films that I have not only starred in, I've also planned, filmed and edited. 

As you can see the title sequence is entirely made up of stop-frame animation, we use this title sequence throughout and we use stop-frame throughout the series.



You can find more films from this project on the YESTV Brighton channel: www.youtube.com/yesbrightonhove

Exhibition Timelapse 

Here's a timelapse that I put together using only photo stills camera equipment, so it works on the same principals as stop-frame, only I had an added gadget: an intervalonmeter, so that I didn't have to press the shutter release every four seconds for two hours!

Photography Projects

As well as using photography and photographic equipment to make films through stop-frame I also run traditional photography projects, the images below were taken by the young people involved.

This image was part of a 'macro' series  where I asked the young people to photograph what young people can do and do at their local youth centre.

The image above was taken as part of an Easter holiday activity day.

These are just a few samples of my work, to find out more please email me on: michaeladdison@live.co.uk 

For youth work related enquiries please contact me on: michael.addison@brighton-hove.gov.uk

YESTV Episodes one & two

 

I’ve been working on this project with the Youth Employability Service for a little while now so I’m proud to present to you the first two episodes of YESTV!

You might’ve read a bit about the introduction episode earlier in this blog, we thought it was finished but after going away and watching the episode later on we realised that it wasn’t at a standard we were happy with –which just proves that it’s not good to rush things! 

This introduction episode is going to be featured on the front page of the Youth Employability service Facebook page (that’s going to be like a mini website built into Facebook, flash!) It’s the video introduction to the new careers advice service that Brighton has to offer, the rest of the series is about getting some of the advice that the service has to offer out there!

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Here’s episode two, I only had to add in the titles as the film had already been created!

This film is going to appear on one of the subpages of the mini-site, along with another film that we’re in the process of editing.

This is an on going project that I think I will work on on a regular basis, so visit again soon to see more of the latest work from this project and for a link to the official mini-site when it goes live.

A new favourite portrait

 

So here’s my new favourite portrait featuring Jessica Allum and Helga the dog.

This is now a favourite mainly because of the natural lighting that is coming in from the left side of the image, I also like the unintentional colour scheme and pose that Helga the dog has got herself into!

I’ve noticed that I don’t edit my photos as much as I used to, for this image I only really changed the contrast as I thought of most other settings as I took the photo (aperture, ISO that sort of thing!)

& that’s all really, it was just a short post to share my new favourite image!

‘YES TV’ with the Youth Employability service

 

Here’s the first episode of YES TV for the Youth Employability service, it’s the introduction and will appear on the front of the YES Facebook page.

We completed this film in one day, it only took 3 people, 2 different cameras, 1 laptop with free editing software, 1 pizza (each!) and 8 hours to film, edit and export –so that’s a whole days work!

As you can see I’m the presenter of the show, this was a little different for me as I am used to being behind the camera!

As we had a strict deadline of that night I got ‘the wife’ (a.k.a Katrina Harmer) to come down and help out with the filming and editing as she also has experience in film making, this proved really handy as I could ask her to do something with the camera or on the computer whilst I prepared (or did) something else - so I might ask her to help out again one day! 

Well this was just the first episode and there has definitely been another short film planned so I will probably post episode two up here soon.

 

The 'Opposition' Project

 



"The 'Opposition Project' is just an experiment really... but one that gives really nice 'arty' results, so I might carry on with it!"


I've been looking at my work recently and it has been very documentary like (edited very straight forward to show everything just as it is) and seeing as I have access to Photoshop I thought I might as well make the most of it. Plus I've also never created a proper collection of images that fit together through a re-occurring theme so I thought it's about time I did!

So to start off the project I rounded up some left over images that I'd never used anywhere before, maybe they didn't fit with what I was doing back then or I just lost them at the time?
The images were taken on a range of different digital cameras compact and DSLRs (when I say a range I mean Kodak compact cameras and Olympus & Canon DSLRs)

I just opened them all up in Photoshop where I applied some adjustment layers (mainly 'Invert' and 'Photo Filter' with the occasional use of the 'Channel Mixer' to convert to black and white) to get the reulting images!

If I were to go on about my work alot in a big myself up way I'd say "I see them as a means of escape from reality" and talk about stuff like colours, textures and the rest of the formal elements and so on... but I'm not like that I'm down to earth- I just like the way they look!  

I'm going to finish this post by saying: It's good to change your style every now and again, it's refreshing! So I'm planning to take some photos deliberately for this project in my spare time and who knows in the future I might set up a small exhibition for them!

Actually now that's an Idea....

Cemeteries, Memories & Working with Kat

It’s not everyday that somebody who studies photography gets in contact to say that they want to do some research on you and your work but that is what happened when Kat first got back in contact with me!

She told me that her project brief was titled “Exploration and Discovery” and that she was interested in my photographs of different cemeteries. So I decided that I’d take her to the very first cemetery I shot (back when I only had a ‘point and shoot’ camera that was fully automatic!) some of her final digital images are below: 

 

Images above: © Katrina Harmer

I had visited the location a few times as my equipment grew and my knowledge of the subject got more advanced but nowadays I don’t really have the time to go back there so working with Kat was a great excuse to visit again and a great excuse to get back in contact!

Kat mainly shoots in film but hasn’t had the time to scan her negatives for me to post here so the images above are her digital versions but I have no doubt that her film photographs will be posted online at some point!

A newly found favourite:



This photo is actually one of my own, I think I took it last year (I’m too lazy to check the metadata!)

After sending it to Kat for her work  I noticed the some small details in the image that have persuaded me that this is a newly found favourite!

The two people who’s headstones these are were husband and wife and then I noticed that the Hannah Hubbard’s stone leans into her husband, this opening up all sorts of thoughts and ideas really working on the imagination! A small reminder of the love that they had for each other in life, love that has carried on even after death.




Above: Photos of Kat Harmer from the Cemetery shoot.

Here’s a link to Kat’s Flickr site where she uploads most of her work, it’s also got more photos from our shoot together: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42391281@N05/

Self Portrait & a new Prime Lens!

I don't really take photos of myself, I'm not really into that but when I got my hands on a new 'portrait lens' I sort of had to!

It's the Canon EF 50mm F1.8 Prime lens (the first prime lens that I've ever purchased actually!)

I chose this one because of the large open aperture, it's good for when I'm working in darker conditions plus I wanted to create an even shallower depth of field for some of my portrait work, oh and it was a lot cheaper than some of the other lenses I’ve seen about!

So far I’ve only managed to test it out indoors, it works brilliantly in darkened situations and as soon as the weather improves I’m going to be taking a lot of portraits outside, taking full advantage of the F1.8 shallow depth of field.   

Check back here soon to see more photos taken with this new lens.

“Self Portrait 2011” © Mike Addison 2011