Kayleigh Bickle - Blog: photography

Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts

Experimental Still Life of Roses

Wednesday, 8 July 2020

Technically, this isn't a good edit. And that's fine. Sometimes you have to do the random ideas that pop into your head. And sometimes you have to do a low-quality job, to understand the ideas you're having.

Like always my work is looking at natural inanimate objects (flowers/fruit/veg/plants/etc).

Currently, I'm interested in the use of colours. I've played with background colours, but never pulled out the colours of the subjects. Flowers have such bright, vivid colours, which is what draws us to their beauty. In a past project, I looked at removing the flower heads from the bouquets to take away societies ideals of beauty. But this time, I've played it up. I've added extra stripes of the bright colours to enhance and make them stand out further. The stripes are minimal and uniformed, giving the work a modern and sleeker look - in comparison to the natural flows and shapes of the flowers.

The stripes create an almost flag-like look, reminding me of the Italian/Irish flags.

If these were flags what would the colours represent for flowers? Pink: beauty, love, youth. Lilac: mourning. Green: jealousy/growth.

light & shade

Sunday, 19 August 2018

why throw shade when you can shed light?

The lovely Kinga and Maciej invited me to their Still Life workshop, aptly named: Light & Shade. I didn't know what to expect from their workshop, but I had a feeling that it would be a well-spent evening.

I travelled into Plymouth, into an area of Plymouth I never visit. (University life kept me firmly in the centre of Plymouth.) Got lost a couple of times with the one systems. But I made it, only 20 minutes late.

It was a small and intimate workshop, in the Fotonow CIC studio space at Ocean Studios (perhaps the dream studio location?). After introducing ourselves, we set to work creating still lifes and using the props provided by Kinga and Maciej. The light was beautiful coming through the large windows.

If you've been following my photographic work, I'm primarily a still life photographer. And I love it. However, I work almost exclusively from my corner of the studio. Going somewhere different had such an effect on me, that I changed the way I edit - where are all these blue tones coming from?

Unfortunately, Ocean Studios isn't the most practical and quickest place for me to get to, but the location was so perfect and wonderful to work in.

Have you ever visited Ocean Studios? Or Royal William Yard? It was a whole new area of Plymouth for me, and perhaps my favourite area now.

GRADUATE SHOW '18

Sunday, 10 June 2018

PSA: Before the main bulk of this post. Just a reminder the Graduate Show '18 is taking place at Plymouth University until 15th June (my work is on display in Scott Building, Top Floor! If you're coming, let me know and I'll come in and see you!) There's a link (here) to the Facebook event for more details, free admission, and lots of posters/postcards/books/etc available from photographers - illustrators - graphic designers - everything else in the art & design world! Thanks.

Back to regular scheduling...

This is a post to collect a few images I've got from the past weekend. Admittedly, not many. But in fear that I'll accidentally delete them, or lose them in the vortex of social media - here are some memories...

I'm going to be in London as from next week, send me any place I HAVE to go and recommendations! I'm there for the rest of the month, so have some time to kill between shows.

10 Things That Make Me Content

Sunday, 25 March 2018

My Simple Pleasures.

01. Family dog walks on a Sunday.

02. Making coffee. Even when it's busy at work, and customers are waiting, I love the process of making a coffee.

- Extra - Drinking a coffee at optimum temperature.

03. Keira. That dog is just the greatest. I cannot be swayed in my opinion.

04. Having a day off to just read a book.

05. Wondering around supermarkets with Mum. Our route: M&S, B&M, Lidl (only on a food shop day), then Tesco. It's a highly curated system.

06. Finding the perfect playlist on Spotify. Currently, that is 'Winter Acoustic'.

07. The process of creating a still life, editing a still life, and then putting the image out on social media for the world to see. (Also, creating behind the scene content for Instagram stories, I put just as much work into setting up small videos for them.)

08. Roast Chicken. On a Sunday (duhh).

09. Sundays. I refuse to work on Sunday's and truly believe they're meant for rest and a slower pace of life.

10. Writing on this corner of the internet.

11. (shh) Having a glass of bubbles and watching a film on a Sunday evening.

What simple pleasures make you feel content and fulfilled with life?

-Kayleigh Bickle

No one is you

Sunday, 18 March 2018

There is something to be said about slowing down. Whether that be for five minutes or your whole way of life. Still life photography helps me to slow down - I can spend hours creating these little displays and faffing around with seed placement, just to take a photo and move onto the next one.

If you're following me on Instagram (click HERE, if you aren't already) then you would've seen a recent rise in still life photographs on my feed. I thought still life photography was too simple and boring for anyone to be interested, and tried so hard to think of exciting projects that other people on my course would create - but that just isn't me. I'm so happy creating a little still life and having just one photo at the end of the day, over having a billion photographs of Dartmoor.

Mostly, this post is to remind me (and you, if you need it) to stay true to yourself, and stop trying to create (or have) what other people have in their lives.

'No one is you that is your power'

It took me sitting down and thinking about what work I want to create after uni, for me to realise this is what I want to create. So just do you!

- Kayleigh Bickle

Buckland Abbey & Lanhydrock | National Trust

Sunday, 11 March 2018

When the cold kills your camera battery - use your phone.

I'll give you three guesses as to who forgot to charge their spare camera battery and went out with only 34% charge. (And then killed their battery in the cold weather). These are my remaining photographs from my camera, the rest (which I'm yet to go through) was taken on my phone.

- Kayleigh Bickle

Cotehele, Cornwall | National Trust

Thursday, 1 March 2018

Kill your darlings.

Sometimes you have to get rid of the photographs/work you love for a project to work. And that's what I'm supposed to be using this blog for. Here are my recent darlings, now they're yours too.

- Kayleigh Bickle

An apology to photography

Sunday, 11 February 2018

I used to adore photography. I was constantly trying to recreate others work, trying to create something new, wanting to show it to everyone. Then I did a degree and started to feel too much pressure from projects and deadlines. Then I did another degree and struggled for 18 months to love photography. But then on Tuesday, someone said to me 'if you're a professional pianist, you don't stop practising. So why are you only taking photographs for projects?' and before this person told me to shoot as much as I could and keep practising. But ignored them. Since Tuesday I've shot over 10 shoots in three days. I'm constantly thinking about what I can take a photograph of next. And I don't doubt many, if not all, of the photographs, are sh!t. But I have that buzz from doing something you love.

I've done several digital shoots, one roll of 120 film (which I NEVER shoot - because I'm a wimp), and currently four rolls of 35mm. I find this amazing, for ages I was only doing a shoot after planning and getting confirmation from a lecturer that the idea was OK.

Because I'm unlikely to put these photographs on my Instagram (@kayleighbicklephotography), I'm going to gather a few and chuck 'em into this post.

(If you didn't guess I'm looking at flower for my project)

Here's to taking photographs (or creating your relevant creativity) for the sake of creating.

- Kayleigh Bickle

21, Female, UK, Member of the National Trust

Wednesday, 7 February 2018

At 21, I'm a member of the National Trust.

I joined the National Trust to help towards a photography project over the next few months. And I cannot express how much joy the whole thing has brought to me.

It's forcing me to drive the car and go places, Lanhydrock is only 30 mins away from Home, but it was a place I have never had to drive myself to before.

Keira is getting new walks and places to run around (bringing Keira does mean we can't go into the houses, but that's not my most significant interest - I'm there for the gardens/estates.) I love seeing how excited about new walks and watching her run around like crazy sniffing all the new scents, meeting new dogs, and then she's so sleepy in the evenings and just wants cuddles.

Finally, it's great for your mental health. There was something so lovely about leaving the house at 10am, on a Monday, to walking around a country estate in the sunshine.

Unfortunately, the gardens don't open again until 10th February - however, you're allowed to walk around the general estate for free. Side note: you do have to pay for parking at Lanhydrock (£2.00 for one hour, £4.00 for all day) BUT, it's free if you're a member of the National Trust!

2nd year of uni round-up

Sunday, 1 October 2017

The past year has flown by and dragged by in equal parts for me. I moved away from Exeter, back to Cornwall, and started at a new university with no friends.

A year ago, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and knew that it was ~~highly~~ unlikely I could make a career out of photography. Fortunately, I now have a clearer view of what I would like to do and if that turns out I'll be happy, to say the least.

September 2016; I started at a new university with nowhere to run and no one to run to.

Originally I was going to be going into the third year, but after consideration, I decided to join the universities second year and retake. Fortunately, I had finished with a first, so I got to carry my first-year grade from Exeter with me.

My first project was a group set building project, we had four weeks (i think) to build and photograph a photographic set and complete a sketchbook to go alongside. Everything about this project was marked as a group, and we had to use one sketchbook between 8 (possibly more or less) people. [September '16 - October '16]

Then we had a collaborative project, this project involved us working with another creative person and create a collaboration project. They were not allowed to be from the university. I chose to work with local independent businesses where I live, to create advertising booklets. [November '16 - January '17]

Next, was a project of our own choosing. I looked at reduced flowers and the relationship between flowers, consumerism, and commercialism. [February '17 - April '17]

Finally, was a short 'trial' project. We had four weeks to start a project or complete a project. I chose to start looking at 'what makes up a hedgerow', the plants, animals, insects, man-made creations, etc. [May '17]

We had two theory projects. The first involved writing an exhibition review & creating a critical journal. The second involved writing/presenting a group project, creating another critical journal & starting our dissertation project for next year.

Below I'm going to show some images from the past year. When I finish my degree, I plan on doing a large post (if I'm still writing then) about my overall uni experience, changing university, pros, and cons, etc, etc.