Back To School

Two weeks ago today, I turned 30. Shut up. I'm still rather devastated by that little fact. However, one week ago today, I finally began something that has been listed as one of my major "priorities" in life. I started University. Funny how life gets in the way of something you dictate to be "one of the most vital things you need to do in life".

Beautifully, the course is for a Foundation Degree in Commercial Photography through Leeds Metropolitan University via Wakefield College. This should be thoroughly interesting. So far, the first three days have been rather droll; mostly consisting of enrolment and a few very basic camera craft assignments. However, there already is brightness in the future.

If nothing else, I've already found out that I will be able to sign out both the Mamiya 645 and the Rolleiflex TLR. Consequentially, I've already ordered 12 rolls of 120 so I can get that show on the road.

As I get deeper into the course as well as my own work outside of the University, I promise I shall not neglect this blog as I have. Furthermore, as a class, we've been informed that we shall be required to start a new Blogspot blog as of next week. I will link to that as well and if nothing else, I can ascertain that that one will be very regularly updated as it is considered part of the coursework.

Okay. I'll stop for now. Updates with images will be on the way soon!

Frolicking About and Playing Around

Frolicking About and Playing Around

Earlier, I tweeted: "I want to fall in love with my camera again . . ."  Well, I was kind of serious. Through everything that goes into starting up and running a photography business, it's quite well documented that the actually taking of photographs isn't the largest time consumer. 

It was time to play. In fact, it was long over due.

Enter my grandmother-in-laws garden; add a dash of exquisite late afternoon light and a sprinkle of shallow depth of field and I just spent half an hour playing around.

None of the results are perfect and a lot of the post-processing is clearly even more playing around, but it was fun and even though all the fashion and beauty and stuff is tremendous fun that has no equal, this sort of fun is totally stress free (especially when were talking about someone who's whole system shuts down around other people!)

So, without further ado, here's the results of an afternoon just mucking about with the light tight box and its requisite hole in the front.

Follow Friday - Or - Lots Of Twitter Love

Follow Friday - Or - Lots Of Twitter Love

Okay! As I said in my last post, it's time to give credit where credit is due! If you're on Twitter, then you should be following these people. They epitomise wonderfulness! If you're not on Twitter, well, this list should tell you that you're missing out on a lot!

#FF

@ImmortalRStar - It's scary how well I know this guy. Some might think we were the same person!

@amandarecker - Amazing photographer. Amazing person. Amazing friend. Stalking her is a must!

@LaurenIntegra - Because she's all sorts of pleasant wonderfulness and one hell of a model!

@kittiwakekate - Tis' Kate. The very first victim of my tattoo project and many many other times shooting her in the facepalms! Seriously, the world just wouldn't be complete without her!

@tamaramarie89 - The multi-talented, hugely versatile and utterly lovely Tamara-Marie. Model, Stylist, Photographer! She rox0rs!

@raychelperks – Creative Genius. Amazing friend, cohort, mentor, co conspirator!


@piratephoto - After meeting her in person, I can certainly say she's as lovely as she comes across! Fabulous photographer! Do not miss! Ever!

@violaceouslatex - This brand new latex designer is utterly amazing! I've already had the pleasure of collaborating with her several times and can only hope there's much more to come! This woman is going places!

@tattoo_23 – He’s the one the only! Joyously insane!

@HeleneAtsuko - I had the pleasure of working witht his incredible model for the first time the other week! Incredibly lovely and extremely talented!

@BlackLotu5 – Amazing alternative model with whom I can only hope the future allows for many more collaborations! She also single-handedly keeps several tea plantations in business!

@Panda_Face - The Brain to my Pinky. We will take over the world one day! But in the meantime, alt model and photographer goodness not to be missed!

@Rudigo - Because she’s awesome and lovely and prettyful and nice!

@Misscobweb - Another amazing model! Definitely one of the best around!


@misslilystark - Had the pleasure of working with her for my tattoo project recently! Great poser, lovely person! :D

@Cottonarts – Great friend, brilliant designer, genius artist and an immensely talented photographer!

@ASYLUMseventy7 -  No one person should be allowed this much creative genius! 

@zivity – Zivity = blissful interwebs. What, you’re not a member yet? For shame. For shame.

@nicesmilesir- Nice Smile Sir is a 365 project that I'm currently taking part in.

@thejeangenie10  - A charity event with a difference! Get creative and revamp/recycle/mutilate an old pair of jeans for charity and possibly win a prize! What could be more fun?!

Of course, if you're not following me, please do!! @macjw2

There it is for now. I'm utterly positive it's not complete, but the beauty is, this will be an evolving process. This list is certain to grow over time and I'll likely be expanding on why these wonderful persons should have a place in your "follow" list

Follow Friday Chaos - What to Do?

Follow Friday - Or - Lots of Twitter Love

The Problem!

For those of you who use Twitter (that should be everyone) you all to well know the concept of "Follow Friday".  In it's bare simplicity, it is nothing more than a tool to recommend other Twitter users you "follow" to your "followers". It's a brilliant concept and as such, it has been a mainstay of the networking site on every Friday since it's inception.

Now, everything isn't without complication. There's one huge problem with "Follow Friday". It's messy. Every Friday, hundreds if not thousands of random screen names come flying through my feed. It's difficult, if not impossible, to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I also don't like putting random names out there without any inclination as to why I recommend whom I do. That means, when I have the time or remember to do my #FF recommendations, I'm suddenly quick-firing 20-30 tweets into the Twitterverse. That, of course, doesn't help the chaos either. As I hinted, that is also time consuming, which means often I forget and that's no good either. It's hard to give credit where credit is due when you're not actually giving the credit.

The Solution

I've noticed a few small trends recently of different ways people are trying to clean up the "system". To me, this one, in all it's simplicity and brevity, makes the most sense. Quite basically, I'm going to put all my "Follow Friday" recommendations into the next post on this blog. I'll then tweet that every Friday, once in the morning or afternoon for the UK crowd and once in the evening for the US crowd. I'll update it everytime I have new recommendations and most of all, my favouritest of Twitterers will never be forgotten!

I do hope this works the way I see it in my head! Anyways, off to go make my recommendations! 

It Feels Like Starting Again

It Feels Like Starting Again

Though starting over isn't quite what I'm doing. For a long while now I've been considering ways of separating my alternative work from my more mainstream work. Obviously these two don't exactly go together like peas and carrots and even the most die hard of the non-rocket scientists out there can confirm that mixing two such genres can turn people off.

At first this wasn't an issue, but in recent months with a bit of press coverage and a huge increase in web traffic, such naysayers have started to become a bit vocal. Add to that, I refuse to put and NSFW content on my main site, a lot of my work has just not been shared.

The main reason why I haven't acted on anything yet is simply because I've had a serious block for the past year and a half coming up with a pseudonym to group it all under. I could have gone for some obscure fantasy references with some dark, huge words that would require a scholar to decipher, let alone spell correctly. Obviously, that wouldn't do at all and I needed something, catchy, kitschy, simple and memorable. Not an easy task I tell you. Not an easy task.

The other week, Raychel of Raynbow Studio approached me with the concept of marketing material focusing around the word "immortalised". It was love at first incantation! However, that didn't solve the pseudonym problem. 

Transfer back to two nights ago and I really began to get desperate. With some of the proposals I've had for work, including Zivity, I really needed to move this stuff away from "John McIntire Photography" so I frantically started churning random words out. Eventually, I uttered something I really liked. A quick google check told me I shouldn't though. Though there were no photography related results, there were a lot of music entities and a fashion designer using very similar monikers. No good.

Then, something slightly miraculous happened when I woke up the next day. Raychel's "Immortalised" popped back into my head and the concept of kitschy and catchy with it. 

Epiphany!

After two hours and several hardcore Google searches it became apparent enough that after so long, my revelatory moment had given birth to my new pseudonym for my Alternative Fashion and Glamour work!

So, with a quick visit to my web-hosting platform, I quickly secured the domain, threw up a splash page and with that, we have the birth of:

Immortal Rockstar: Alternative Imagery

Check out the teaser page here: 

Personally, I love it. A bit cliche, yet catchy and kitschy and it should easily stick in a few minds!

Now I have the enormous task of building a brand around it. Not the least daunting of tasks, but it should be fun and it is quite an exciting prospect. It does kind of feel like starting over, but it's bringing back all the nervous thrills that starting out brought up in the first place and I will tell you, the blood is flowing and I feel more excited and creative than ever!

T-Shirted Merl

T-Shirted Merl

Apart from piecing together a fabulous outfit that merged Victorian, steampunk and geisha styles, for our last shoot Merl brought along a selection of T-Shirts from "Cute Culture"! 

The concept we came up with couldn't be simpler. A clean white background and some cute, quaint poses to match the wardrobe! Add her blue wig (her hair was green) and there we had it. She even managed a few smiles to top it all off! Simple but effective! 

As always, thanks for reading!