gintareraguckaite-blog

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developing film

last Friday I developed my photos I took on my film camera, however I took most of them on my other film and only used half of the film I was given for free, but I wasn't able to develop the other film that was full because it needs different times in the chemicals so it would just be too complicated so I had to use the film that I didn't finish which ended up ruining half of the film but I at least got a few strips of film that came out okay. I found the overall process of having to put the tank and all the other equipment together in the dark very tedious, however i started getting better the more

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Country Doctor - W . Eugene Smith

I found out about Eugene Smith when I was watching a short documentary about LIFE magazine and found out that he was one of the photographers for that magazine and he became more well known after these photos. I thought it linked more to what I want to do due to the fact that it includes a doctor and a hospital and peoples reactions towards the tragic situation. I like the way how the photos look so perfect they seem almost staged because the peoples reactions seem so unreal because people aren't used to reactions being so exaggerated.

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Gun Nation - Zed Nelson

Gun Nation explores the paradox of why America’s most potent symbol of freedom is also one of its greatest killers - resulting in an annual death toll of almost 30,000 American citizens.

I like Nelson's photography because I think he portrayed his passion through the photos very well because if you were given any of his photos without context you would still be able to understand the main focus is guns and Americas love for them. I like his work, however I don't think I will be following his idea with my work because my idea is completely different to his because he focused on something that includes an overall situation, but I will be using just a single person as my subject, I might ask my stepdads and sister perspective of this however because I think it would be interesting to have other peoples opinions also playing in the background of the video.

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New brief/how will I fulfil my requirements

For this unit I will be exploring the concept of photo essays, this will be new to me because I don't think I have ever done a photo essay. A photo essay is a set of photos documenting a subject to tell a story, a story that explains the subjects situation and that also evokes an emotional response in the viewer. Photo essays has evolved to also making short documentary film which I will be created as well as photos with a film camera. At the moment I only have one idea for what I will be documenting and that is my mum because at the moment she is very ill and I thought documenting her illness would be an interesting idea, I have already asked her if it would be okay if I could and she said it is fine and she even gave me a few ideas of what type of photos I will take of her, for example, she invited me to go with her for some of her scans, however I have gone to one of her scans so far and they are very strict about people being around while scans are in progress so I'm more limited to what I can take pictures. I have a few ideas for videos as well, I was speaking to my mum about her illness and she was telling me how the medication she is on really makes her struggle focusing while reading or watching TV, so I thought it would look interesting if I got her to lay or sit on the sofa while the TV is static, I thought this would link to what she told me because it is almost like her brain has turned static. For the photo essays I don't have many ideas to what I could take pictures of but I would like to take photos of her when she is in the hospital gown before her scans.

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Final image

i chose this as my final image because i thought it shows the gritty harsh reality that we live in. i think the atmosphere and the actual framing really suit each other and makes the area look much more gritty than it was in reality. i think this image links well to my idea because it shows how much we have stopped caring about our environment and how we don’t even try to make sure the rubbish is in the right bin.

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This is my contact sheet for my main shoot which just includes lots of rubbish i found around my local area, i found it very fun because i found some interesting things along my travels and realised how many sofas people leave outside their houses.

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This is my contact sheet for a shoot i experimented with because i found so many mcdonalds wrappers and found it so strange how bright the colours of the wrappers were because when i was walking around, looking through rubbish the only rubbish i could see was the mcdonalds wrappers. However, i didn’t like the outcome of most of them due to the lack of variety.

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My plan

I would like to respond to the event of sea pollution for my final photo, but I would also like to include just photos of rubbish because I think it all links together. 

Andrew Mcconnel 

For this event I looked into artists that take pictures of rubbish and I found Andrew and was more than delighted to see his photography because they are so powerful and I think just seeing one is powerful enough and means so much. I chose to research into him because he focuses on issues we are having all across the world and when you go on his page there are different titles for his photography for example ‘rubbish dump 2.0′, this show cased multiple photos of a rubbish dump in Ghana and it was filled with things that still worked and that's why there are people that are local from there picking things up so they can sell it, this made me realise how we are so quick to throw things away when we want a newer version of it but we never really think about where it all goes. I would like to go out around where I live and take pictures of all the rubbish I find because I realise every day when I go out there is always rubbish thrown around on the streets or outside peoples houses especially after the rubbish collectors come. I want to use my 35mm lens for this because I want to take pictures of the rubbish close up and on a fast shutter speed making the lighting dark and gloomy making the rubbish blend into the gloomy atmosphere. 

my other plan will be to go to Stroud and go down to the canals and take photos of the rubbish that is thrown into there because I have realised a lot of people throw rubbish into there even when there are many bins around there. I don't know what kind of photos I want to come out of it but I would like to make the atmosphere of it look gloomy as well to blend in with the rubbish and the water. I will like to also take pictures of the beauty of the canals and maybe even convert my photos into a diptych and put a photo of the rubbish I find in the canal and then next to it present a beautiful photo of the canals. 

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cannabis legalisation critical perspective

Mike Barton, chief constable of the Durham police force, has called for the ban on cannabis to be scrapped, arguing that it damages public safety, puts users in more danger, and gives millions of pounds to organised criminals.

while searching for peoples opinion on legalisation of cannabis in the UK I found that when I searched on google I found more opinions opposing the legalisation of it, however when I turned to twitter I found that more people were for it and I think this is because more younger people are on twitter and I believe more younger people want the legalisation of it to happen.

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cannabis legalisation

Canada has become the second country after Uruguay to legalise the possession and use of recreational cannabis.The landmark ruling was driven by a campaign promise by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who argued that Canada’s laws criminalising the drug have been ineffective, given that Canadians are still among the world’s heaviest users.

Cannabis was made illegal in the UK in 1928 as an addition to the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1920. However, Data from the Home Office from 2016 showed cannabis was the most commonly used illegal drug in the UK, with 6.5 per cent of adults aged between 16 to 59 having used it in the last year (around 2.1 million people). why do I find this an important event that happening this year even though it didn't happen in the UK? well its been said many times that the UK will sooner or later follow Canadas movement and legalise cannabis as well, at the moment it is ruled that if CBD is being advertised for medical purposes, it needs to be licensed. This means that CBD is technically legal, which also means we are not that far off from cannabis being legalised in the UK as we think we are. overall, I think cannabis should be legalised as many people are getting persecuted for being in possession of it when it is not as bad as alcohol or tobacco and doesn't lead to people doing things that alcohol does to them.

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sea pollution critical perspective

For sea pollution I thought it would be better if I included what people have been doing to prevent or at least better the issue of pollution in the sea.

‘The #BinforGreenSeas is one of our major projects. It tackles plastics at sea at the very heart of the problem. Our iconic and thought-provoking bins will be placed on the promenades of UK’s busiest coastal towns. They will act as a visual trigger reminding people to throw their rubbish in a bin.’

marine debris

‘Through Partnerships Against Trash, we work with businesses, NGOs and governments to advocate for long-term solutions and influence waste management policies at local, national and international levels’

‘the first and only marine debris survey of its kind focused on scuba divers reporting types and quantities of debris found on the ocean floor.’ 

after researching all the ways people are trying to change this crisis we are in it made me realise more people have to be aware of how they can help even in the simplest ways.

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sea pollution

In 1975, the National Academy of Sciences estimated that ocean-based sources, such as cargo ships and cruise liners had dumped 14 billion pounds of garbage into the ocean. Over 1 million seabirds and 100,000 sea mammals are killed by pollution every year. This really stayed withy me because of how bad this issue is getting and it feels as if we are trying to sort it out but the issue never stops which just puts us into a cycle. while I was looking for facts I found out that every minute there is a truck of rubbish being poured into the sea, so as some people are collecting rubbish from the sea, others are putting rubbish back into the sea. 

I chose to use this as one of my events because I think its not only a big issue that's happening this year, but every year it doesn't seem to be getting any better. I think I would like to take photos in response to this by taking pictures of rubbish that is thrown inside of the canals in Stroud because I have realised there's quite a lot of rubbish there.

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Mac Millers death critical perspective

When everyone found out about Mac millers death everyone was in shock, however I realised not many people I knew, knew about it but many people on the internet were drawing pictures of him and making tributes towards him and there was even a tribute at a concert where his family came on stage and had a moment of silence for him.

I wasn’t able to find any actual opinions on this event because they were all just messages and posts about how upset they are or how much they miss him.

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Mac Millers death

Mac miller died on the 7th of September this year and it affected many people, as well as me. Mac miller was a rapper who influenced many people and was also known as Ariana grandes ex boyfriend.

I was really upset to find out that Mac miller was dead and I just couldn’t believe it because I haven’t experienced many deaths from people that I find very inspiring to me. I wanted to make this part of the events in 2018 because it really affected me for a few months and it affected many people over the world, to this day now people are still talking about it and are still upset and his ex girlfriend (Ariana grande) had to leave social media for a while and then came back with a song about it because her herself went through a lot this year like the Manchester bombing at her own concert and then Mac millers death. Overall, I found it a very overwhelming event this year personally for me and I still listen to his songs and will carry on.

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Insight mission to mars critical perspective

For this event I was able to find way much more opinions on it because much more people were aware of it and NASA advertised the landing of the space craft on mars.

‘That entire project is so amazing! I think I (along with NASA) held my breath for 6 1/2 minutes and then danced with glee when they NAILED the landing. BRAVO NASA!‘

‘And we get to watch it all through our cell phones. Pretty crazy‘

‘Scientists & engineers launched “InSight” from Earth (a moving platform) across 300million miles to arrive where Mars (a moving target) will be seven months later, landing safely to do geophysics at the Martian equator. And you have a problem listening to us about climate change? ‘

‘Just mind blowing‘

one interesting thing I realised while looking through peoples reactions was that many people were finding little details to question, for example some people were questioning if they can see roads on the ground in mars and why the photos were so clear, this shows that not everyone believes what they are shown when it comes to NASA.

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Insight mission to mars

The insight mission is a robotic lander designed to study the deep interior of the planet Mars. I chose this as one of my events because I found it so interesting because we haven't explored mars in 6 years, this event interested me because now that we have more advanced technology we will be able to find out way more about mars and maybe even make the possibility of people living on mars even higher.

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The parker probe launch critical perspectives

I struggled a lot with finding opinions that were bad on this launch mission because everyone seemed to be very excited about it and posted nothing but their excitement on social media. 

I found a few tweets on twitter speaking about it, however it seemed that not many people were aware of this launch due to the excitement of the landing on mars that also happened this year. While looking for critical opinions I found out that many people sent their names off with the spacecraft so that their names could touch the sun and I found that very interesting. 

‘ what makes us human isn't politics, our jobs, our faults. its the endless pursuit of curiosity, a yearning for exploration, and the hope of understanding the things that we’re barely able to comprehend.’

I found this quote very inspirational and shows that as not many do know about this launch, the people that do seem to be very effected by it in a good way. 

‘it really was the coolest experience I've ever had. it took a full minute for the sound to get to us and once it did... man was it loud’

‘I'll be taking a walk outside tonight to watch it live’

‘Those telling us to not worry about climate change because ‘scientists can fix things if they get bad’ are the very same people moaning about the cost of space exploration such as the #parkerprobe’

… while looking for interesting quotes I realised many people were arguing about the issue of climate change because some people were saying that the parkerprobe mission was a waste of money.