There are some tweak (when aren’t there tweaks?) but this whole site has now been moved over to The Photography Pages complete with comments and posts going back over the life of the WordPress iteration. Please change your bookmarks and add the new RSS feeds. It’s been great, but it’s time to go.

Comments will stay open here for a few days if you want to say a fond farewell.

• We’re moving!
• Upgrading to 2.5
• Swell at the Heugh
• How commenting works: a 10 step guide
• Editorialising

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New domain names: The Photography Pages

Rebuilt professional site coming soon here Brenda Burrell

It’s all so exciting!

• Closed !
• schwagging
• How commenting works: a 10 step guide
• 124 photography tips and tricks
• Geek help needed

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For some intellectual stimulation after several months of the pretty much low-content technical, this might well have been on the list of things to look forward to after hand-in, a list which grows by the day. In other photography-related news, the digital era has made an illustrative photograph a key component of lost cat posters and jumble sale announcements, but how about this?

• Park Life: stark staring
• Rebuild and Focus
• Lost and self publishing
• Women and Photography
• Murdoch’s minibook

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Remember this beautiful stuff? Anyone got a decent source?

• Miksang photography
• Get Carter
• Colour film going cheap!
• this time last year
• no caption needed

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Can’t quite believe that it’s done. Research for the final 3 projects all typed, filed, contacts printed, analyses made, costings costed, evaluations evaluated. Two years work almost over!

The very last set of Projects goes in for final assessment tomorrow. Then there’s just the nice part left: final processing to get the colourspace right, and then printing and taking the show photographs to my favourite framer. All will be over by the week of 9th June. It’s hard to believe it’s almost done.

The photograph here is the one chosen for the front of my new book. More on that soon, including photos showing what a fabulous quality hardcover it is, and there’s a small version, cheap(er) to come .

Sleep, now.

Over the next few days, now that we have the time, there’s going to be a new server hosting the websites, which will definitely speed things up and stop all those erratic outages we’ve been experiencing. And new domains for this and the professional site too. We’re going for thephotographypages.co.uk. What d’you think?

• 20 things I’m longing to do in 2008 (Part One)
• Twenty things to look forward to after final hand-in
• 20 things I’m longing to do in 2008 (Part Two)
• Gale Zucker Photography
• Sophie and the Hare

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So, what to expect?

1. A feeling of intense relief followed by one of mild elation.

Possibly the need to drink large quantities of alcohol in celebration, with or without dinner. Maybe not altogether a good idea, but this will most certainly be happening in your own near vicinity. Heaton, Elswick, Bournville and Erdington will resound with the joyful laughter of escapee undergraduates on a final binge before the final binge of all: the graduation party.

2. an overwhelming sense of achievement.

Possibly. Possibly not. What if it all feels like a huge waste of time and money? Nah, not possible.

3. facing the elephant in the room

Whatever, it might be a hippo or a tiger. A photography degree?!?! WTF was that all about?

4. building a working darkroom

Yes, that suddenly becomes a rather realistic and achievable goal. And all the bits of knowledge built up over the months of mistakes and frustration are suddenly pointedly pertinent. A red light is good for printing black and white but of course it’s no good for loading sheet film, is it? A working darkroom will have to be a place where it’s possible to load dark slide cases, so it’ll have to be more light-tight than for mere printing. Yes, things like that.

5. downloading extraneous photodross to ebay

The piece of glass that came in a box with the filters - it’s an enlarger lens! And those flat things with rulers down the sides - they’re darkroom easels, and you don’t need them in all sizes, a small and a big one will do just fine. Spend any Thursday with a decent bottle of wine or a bar of Green and Blacks and list everything with immaculately accurate descriptions, for 10 days, auction to end the Sunday week. It’s a quiet time anyway, for photography gear on Ebay, and prices aren’t what they were. If you’ve the storage space it might be worth hanging on to a surplus F5 or SB, but otherwise, clear it out.

6. taking photos for just fun

Get the lomo back from the nephew, or borrow a focus-free pola, a fisheye, an APS or a half-frame camera. All those damn-fool crazy things that can’t be done by pros. Enjoy it, take snapshots, make double exposures and frame shifts. get them processed in the supermarket, get little prints, hang them up with bulldog clips, photojojojoy.

7. sleep and sleep and sleep

8. no more that creepy guy stuff

Photography has always been a bit of a haven for the creepy guy, as the Americans call him. Upskirt or downblouse, gropey fondly guy, or the sniggery type who can’t stop playing pocket snooker. Phew. No more of those, finally and at last. They do say that the industry is full of creepy guy, but there seems absolutely no reason why the colleges who do all the training for the industry should be full of them. Not every chef’s a sweary Gordon Ramsey. Shouldn’t the photography education biz be trying to get rid of creepy guy? Or maybe it’s just that the last vestiges of the breed hang around corridors and darkrooms lusting over the teenage and turning-twenty women who are the majority in photography schools now.

9. graduating

The palaver involving waiting around for hours in a black drapey effort that smells strongly of dry cleaning fluid and pulls the top button of your shirt into the deep recess of your epiglottis? Yes, that one. This time, graduation is at Newcastle Civic Centre, a truly gorgeous building which photographs very well. One unexpected benefit. Plus there’ll be an opportunity to make some jumping photographs in the lovely grounds afterwards. Twenty-somethings in graduation gowns, jumping. Got to be done!

10. doing other things without feeling guilty

For two years, anything else - going to Sligo, baking chocolate cake, planting daffodil bulbs - has been accompanied by more than mild feelings that really, one should be doing that piece of research, should be finishing that essay, should be scanning those negs. The process of enduring compulsory education is fraught with should and oughts. No more: should will again be expunged from the vocabulary.

11. following up connections

There have been an awful lot of really top-notch connections made that there just hasn’t been time to follow up. Photographers met, those not yet aencountered, but appreciated from afar, and photographs loved and galleries to visit and shows to see. All that awaits.

12. knowing stuff

Sharing the knowledge is really something to look forward to. Formally or informally, there’s an awful lot that’s been learned along the way. As the sign says - Ask Me. There’s a list forming, but answers will be given, most gladly.

13. the book projects

Tying up the loose ends of projects half started, and books that are to come. Can’t wait.

14. holidaying/gardening/decorating/

Insert customised pleasure here. Just getting a couple of coats of paint on the door of the shed will be fun.

15. discovering what the next thing will be

Ah. Endings always bring new beginnings.

16. consolidation

Gathering all this knowledge, these new and growing skills, and seeing how they hold up to real use in the wild. It’s like testing the brakes on a new bike. How well does it all really work?

17. looking at other people’s photographs without thinking of them as research material

Every photograph has provided inspiration - even cheesy product shots from magazines have taken on a whole new dimension. What’s the light like? Where’s it coming from? Can you see the photoshop joins?

18. replying to an inbox full of messages

Lots and lots of replies are owed, are outstanding, and grateful thanks to everyone who’s still waiting, and even bigger thanks to those who’ve given up long ago. You are not forgotten, it will all happen. June, maybe.

19. talking with people about themselves without looking them over as portrait material

Not sure this is going to stop any time soon, mind. The next project is going to be portraits, made properly.

20. sleep, in the short term, lots of it.

Needed repeating.

Good luck and warm wishes to everyone who’s in the final throes. It won’t be the end of the world if you don’t finish, you know that. But by now, you might just as well.

• Finished!
• 20 things I’m longing to do in 2008 (Part One)
• Klezmer paradiso
• Daniel Aziz
• thinking trope

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Every now and again, or even quite often, there’s a photograph you really wish you’d taken, or been there, or preferably both. On the evening of a day that has been full of the irritations of life: broken central heating boiler, an on/off web server, a vital bit of metal on the tip of the sole phone charger snapping off inside the phone, the kinds of things that make a long walk on the northern moors more likely than possible.

I didn’t take the photograph. Click through to see who did.

• proper slide film showings, with a proper projector
• Rebuild and Focus
• thinking trope
• moving in…
• Get Carter

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A new bands “competition” that is making entrants buy/sell at least 25 tickets for their own gig at £6 each is trying to get the rather magnificent and award winning Created in Birmingham take down their review, where they quote said terms and conditions. Here they are, courtesy oh just about everyone in Birmingham blogland:

“As you must bring with you at least 25 people to your event you must sell at least 25 tickets for each round you play. If you do not sell 25 tickets you will still be allowed to play however you will NOT progress to the next round no matter how many Surface Ratings you receive.”

After receiving what looks to be a rather ill worded and legally tenuous takedown notice, CiB reproduced the T&C in LOLspeak:

“Oh hai! For to plai at event ur ordiance can haz 25 pipple. U muzt sell 25 tikkits 4 eech gig ur in. If u can not haz cell 25 tikkits u can still haz plai but ur band will NOT go froo 2 necks rawnd no matta haw mannie Sourfice Raiteens U getz. Kthnxbai!“

If there’s nothing wrong with the T&C of the competition, why try to hide them? Or is it that the organisers don’t want the bands to know? Tsk. To quote Danny:

“I would love to see the same structure applied to a regular night were six or so unsigned band played half an hour each and split the door, giving relatively new bands a chance to cut their teeth and punters a regular night to sample a section of the local scene.“

Quite right. How often are young artists, pretty much desperate for exposure, being exploited? Is that what’s actually going on here? Do feel free to blog about this if you’ve an opinion. Links will be um, linked. That’s how it works.

Photo credit © Lee Arkless, venue photographer at Newcastle’s Carling Academy

• Couple of Redeye deadlines
• The Artists Information Company
• Help! Filthy lucre alert!
• thinking trope
• Night exposure guide

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A Model Release is a simple contract, a form signed by the subject of a your photograph setting out what are your contractual obligations to each other. If you are working for publishers in the USA, or intend to sell photographs into the stock images market, you will need to get signed model releases for each photograph. Here’s Alamy’s model release page, and here’s one from a US model agency.

In the UK? No.

There is absolutely no requirement in the UK even to ask permission to take someone’s photograph, providing the photographer doesn’t harass the subject in any way.

If someone asks you to take photographs of them for a modelling portfolio, agree the terms for your payment in advance. In UK law the photographs always belong to the photographer, who might in law do anything, including publishing them anywhere, without recompensing the model.

Redeye, the Manchester photography network, say:

“if you are photographing in public for editorial or artistic purposes, it is good professional practice to explain to people what you are photographing them for, and ask them whether they mind their photograph being used. Whether you back this up with a piece of paper is up to you. If you take a photo of someone in the street and then distort it hideously and supply an offensive caption, they should sue you for defamation whether or not they gave consent.”

Photographing children is slightly different: paid child models need to be licensed, so use a reputable model agency. For photographing children who are not professional models, again it isn’t compulsory to obtain a model release, but a signed parental consent form is a good idea if you’re doing studio shoots.

There are a full set of legal forms at the back of the AOP’s Beyond The Lens, and available for free download from their website. The Getty Images model release form is on Page 18 of the PDF.

The standard legal guidance for photographers in the UK is available for download as a PDF from Linda Macpherson. The secretary of Newcastle Uni’s Photo Soc has some slightly more strident advice here.

So If you have photographs of local Yorkshiremen and women, their children and dogs, posing for your camera in the weak spring sunshine on Saltburn pier - go ahead and publish them!

• When is it better NOT to take the photograph?
• You’re never alone: Easy-peasy Photoshop Tutorial #1
• Passionate Rights Grab
• Sophie and the Hare
• Sneak preview of the roomset negatives

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Two photographers documented the last days of the London Routemasters. The depot portraits are particularly magnificent. (via D’log, a recent addition to the RSS reader.)

Engrossing blog and twitterings from a Travel West Midlands driver. It’s brought on some odd feelings of hiraeth. Needs photographs though. (originally via BinS maybe)

Pete Ashton (allegedly) made a Twitter/WordPress RSS mashup for Tweets of the phrase “on the bus”. Everyone studiously avoids the Brum, brum! cliche nowadays.

• Murdoch buys WordPress
• Josh Hart - impressive customer service
• Editorialising
• Everything comes in threes
• I Can Haz Sunshine

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