Dead

A few months ago I decided to stop using this blog as I don't find Blogspot to be as user-friendly as it could be. Tumblr wins. My new blog can be found here.

Day Four: The Final Curtain // 09.04.2010

Today was my last day with NME. My main mission for the day was to search the Press Association’s online archive for pictures of musicians. I was given a list of people to search for (quite an extensive list, about 40-50, only a handful of which had already been found) and was allowed to use my best judgement to choose a suitable picture. I was only allowed to use images from the Press Association since they were free and we’d have to pay for others. My research was destined for the NME website, for a lyric rating section. It took most of the day to do this, as after I had downloaded all of the images, I had to resize them all to 600px in height, and quite a few of them also needed some serious colour balancing. I was a little baffled at how bad the levels were on images downloaded from a photo agency.

For the last hour or so of my day, I returned some prints to their homes in archival cabinets in the office (not the same as the archives I went to yesterday) and also had a look through some for my own amusement. Whilst doing this, I asked Zoe some questions about the company, and although I’m sure I forgot to ask her some really important things, I found everything she had to say very interesting.

NME does not seem to have any strictly NME photographers; they appear to be mostly freelance but doing a large amount of their work for NME. This is good, because it means the photographers can do other things outside of NME and not just be tied to one company. There is apparently a team of around 20-25 photographers they use frequently, some of which are best suited to studio work and others better for live shoots. As of about four years ago, NME’s photographers went 100% digital. I was a little saddened to hear this, as at present I can’t see a way out of film. Zoe said that very occasionally a photographer will ask to use film, but it is completely off their own back if they do: they have to get it processed and scanned themselves and send the files to the picture desk, in the same time allocated to digital. I also asked about how much the photographers have to do with their images after a shoot, and the answer is basically nothing – their responsibilities end when they have come to the end of a shoot and send off the images. Everything else, such as colour balancing, dust removal, editing down, etc is done by the picture desk.

I also asked Zoe about how she ended up with her job at NME. Her exact words were, “Working really fucking hard”, which differs from most other stories I have heard. She graduated with a degree in Fine Art, and from there she found herself in and out of a variety of jobs, including photo agencies and print labs. After a number of years of hard graft, she finally got the job at NME of Deputy Picture Editor, although I daresay this may not be the position at which she started in the company. I frequently hear other people spouting extravagant but uninspiring stories, shrugging off their success as “luck” and “constant badgering”, which is ultimately quite disheartening for someone like me (a soon-to-be graduate with no idea where they want to be or how to get there). It was a little more encouraging to hear Zoe’s story, giving some credibility to the idea that effort does lead to some sort of reward.

I was actually really gutted to be leaving today; four days was not long enough. I had only just started settling into the environment, and I also think everyone else had taken the same amount of time to become accustomed to my presence in the office. I don’t feel like I’ve had a chance to prove myself. I have learnt things about the approach to working for a magazine and what it involves for the picture desk, but I didn’t get to see the other side and experience anything with the photographers, which is a great shame. I also think that I would have settled in more quickly and interacted more if I had been at a computer actually on the picture desk with the others, but because I was slightly detached from them it was difficult to get into any proper conversations with them. I appreciate everything they did for me, but can’t help feeling that they could have given me more to do, and also given me some more interesting things to do rather than just the things they didn’t want to do.

All that said though, I did enjoy my time at NME. And at no point did I have to make tea for anyone other than myself – in fact, I had people offer to make me tea. So it wasn’t all bad.

Day Three: Archives – A Home From Home // 08.04.2010

My day started off with more image research using the online databases of two photo agencies I couldn’t log onto yesterday – IDS and Retna. Both were packed with great material and very useful, so helped to expand what I had already achieved yesterday. This took me up to around lunchtime, so went for a bite to eat and returned to the office shortly after to read the Feb 2010 issue of Vice magazine that was lying around on the desk. Whilst browsing the pages of Vice, the graphic artist sat next to me asked if I could pick out some lyrics (from a list he had already made) and write it on a piece of paper. He was getting various people in the office to do the same, in order to scan in the writing to put onto his designs for the next issues lyrics page. I felt quite gratified that my handwriting might end up the magazine.

When Zoe returned from her lunch break, she showed me to the archive room, which was quite small but filled with so much stuff that I’m surprised it didn’t start cascading from the room when she opened the door. Shelves upon shelves upon drawers between cupboards…full of transparencies, prints and CD archives. And what wasn’t properly archived was in boxes on the floor. It was an absolute mess, a nightmare to find anything. Zoe asked me to see how much Muse stuff I could find, which I was more than happy to do, but I also wanted to organise the shit out of that room, which would have taken days. I found a limited amount of Muse slides and some content on CDs, but couldn’t find a folder of prints as it had probably been put away somewhere stupid. Regardless, I suddenly felt really at home in there, spending time with photographic prints and transparencies. What was even more exciting was getting to look at all the images, not just of Muse, but pretty much every other band I have ever enjoyed. I could have lived in there.

For the final part of the day I scanned some rather ancient NME spreads from a giant A3 book, which meant I had to scan each page in two halves with the A4 scanner on the desk. Pretty annoying, but it was something to do until I went home. I would rather have hung out with the archives though…

Day Two: Photo Agency Muse-ings // 07.04.2010

I congratulate myself once again for getting out of bed (reasonably) on time, and making it into London for my second day at NME. I collected my pass from the front desk, and the black guy greeted me with a hello as he let me through the gates. Maybe he wasn’t laughing at me after all, I’ve always wanted a black friend.

Up on the fourth floor, the day started in much the same way, except this time I had a keyboard and mouse, and people knew who I was. Tom (that other work experience guy with the good name, remember?) asked if I would help sort the post again, which I have come to accept as the menial, boring task that the work experience monkeys have to do because nobody with a salary actually wants to do it. It was done in a Jiffy® (excuse the pun…there were a lot of jiffy packs). I sat at my desk, and was soon greeted by Zoe who promised she had some slightly more exciting work to do than the post, album art and retyping articles.

She wasn’t wrong; it was slightly more exciting. I use the word “slightly” in its most literal form. My objective for the day was to research a variety of images of Muse – a band I am conveniently a fan of anyway – as NME are planning a big issue dedicated to the band. I was given some basic instructions on how I should name the files, to then organise them into some sort of chronological album order, and finally rustle up some contact sheets for each albums time span. At first I thought it would be a nice easy task to keep me occupied until lunchtime, but it actually took me all day. I was given a generous list of photo agencies with whom NME have accounts, including Getty Images, and allowed free reign over all the images I might choose to put in the magazine. There was a massive amount of stuff to look through, way more than I had expected, and needless to say I ended up with a lot of material. But that’s probably a good thing. I presented my work to Zoe at the end of the day and she said that tomorrow we will be having a look through them all together, which I am hoping means that I will get to help them edit down to a strong selection of images for the magazine. Since visual editing and sequencing is probably one of my most accomplished skills, I would very much like to be a part of it.

To summarise today, I definitely enjoyed it more than yesterday, but hopefully not as much as I’ll enjoy tomorrow (that vague sense of optimism is still loitering in the corners of my brain). One thing that did please me today was the severe lack of entertaining work the journalism students have to do – every time Zoe came to see how I was doing, one of them would ask “Do you have anything we could do?”, to which she would reply “No, sorry, not for the picture desk”. It makes me feel like I’m wanted, even slightly valuable.

Oh, and the taps in the kitchen switch from scorching-hot freshly boiled water to icy-cold refreshing liquid with one small movement. I want that in my house.

First Day at the Office // 06.04.2010

The initial part of my day was a brilliant success. What I mean by that is, I got out of bed on time – it’s been a while since I’ve had to leave my cave as early as 7am. In some sense, this was probably the high point of the day, as it got progressively less interesting…

I got a train from Farnham to London at 8.28, which ploughed into Waterloo station at the unhealthy time of 9.19 (usually still sleeping). I wasn’t due to arrive at the Blue Fin building until 10.30, so the 1 hour 11 minute gap might seem a little excessive, but it was all part of my grand plan: limbo time gave me – a) time to get lost, b) time to suppress my nerves with a coffee, caramel shortbread and a cigarette, and c) the advantage of an early arrival, perhaps making a good impression on my first day.

I definitely got a bit lost. After wandering in and out of Waterloo station a few times like a lost sheep, trying to work out which direction I was actually meant to be going, I remembered that I have an iPhone. Hooray for technology! I was soon on the right track after consulting my multifunctional electric friend, arriving at the Blue Fin building for 10.15, leaving plenty of time for another nerve-dispelling cigarette.

At 10.20 I penetrated the Blue Fin through its fancy revolving doors. As I set foot on the freshly buffed floor, I suddenly felt too scruffy to be allowed inside, so quickly flattened down my windswept haystack and approached the front desk. The black security guy standing beside the gates gave me a welcoming smile as if I was a permanent member of staff he enjoyed seeing every day, which was slightly comforting, although he could have just been amused by my dishevelled exterior. I dragged my suddenly weighted legs further toward the desk, ignoring their insistence that I should turn back and run far, far away. After finally announcing myself to the receptionist – whom I later discovered had managed to take an awful photo of me for my gate pass – I found myself sat in a rather comfortable chair waiting for Karen Walter (my contact), as she was yet to arrive. The cleaner was going about her business, which reminded me of how meticulously clean and shiny the building was, and she seemed to keep looking in my direction as if she wanted to clean me as well. I sank down in my comfortable chair, hoping that I might be accidentally swallowed up by the crease at the back and end up back in limbo again – safe from the cleaners, failed photographers posing as receptionists, and nice-but-not-nice security blokes.

About 40 minutes later, I finally got to leave that chair, which at one point had been comfortable, until I had been sat in it for too long. Karen Walter, as the cynical part of my brain had suggested during the extensive wait, was off sick. I was presented with my visitors pass (endorsed with aforementioned terrible picture) and led upstairs to the fourth floor – home to Nuts, Uncut and NME.

I am not the only person on work experience with NME at the moment. They seem to have oversubscribed themselves a bit in terms of space – there’s not very much of it – and more people on work experience can only mean less work for us to do (something I’d usually relish, but this is not one of those occasions). Fortunately, I am the only one placed on the picture desk – the others are doing journalism courses and therefore doing work to suit their field.

Upon entering the office, the five-minute-replacement for Karen was unsure what to do with us, so got us to sort out the mail. I didn’t think I was on a GCSE work placement so saw this as a bit of an insult to my intelligence, but went along with it anyway. It didn’t last long since there were seven of us running post around the room. To make up for the lack of Karen (and a lack of innovation from her five-minute-replacement), one of the other guys on work experience who had already been there for one week, Tom (good name), showed us some of the basics and helped us out where he could, which was nice. After that, I was left to sit at what I seemed to have decided was my desk, equipped with a Mac Mini and a monitor (no keyboard or mouse). I sat for five minutes wondering why my work placement was lame, and then realised I should probably make myself known to the picture desk, since that was why I was there. I came across a floorplan, with all the staff names and their respective locations in the office. The picture desk was conveniently right behind me, and since Zoe Capstick was the first person I had emailed for a placement, it seemed sensible to go speak to her, so I did. She was very helpful, finding me a keyboard and mouse for my computer, sorting out a system login, and finding me something to do. Things were starting to look better. Slightly.

My first task was to find the album artwork for the next issues reviews section. This didn’t really take very long, although it would have taken even less time if the computer didn’t keep forgetting it was connected to the network and ruining my Internet-trawling exercise. No matter, I finished by lunchtime, at which point I went to the Blue Sky Cafeteria on the 11^th floor where, much to my excitement, I got myself a fish finger sandwich (the Chef’s Special for the day…they must have known I was coming). After that I checked out the extravagant smoking terrace on 10^th, which had a nice view, nice garden and nice benches, making it an all-round nice area for smokers. It was mighty windy though, so I reacquired my windswept haystack.

After lunch, Zoe did not return until a short while after me, so I somehow allowed myself to be accosted by a man from yonder desk, asking if I wouldn’t mind typing up some old articles on Muse for him. I stupidly agreed before I had seen how much I had to do, partly because I’m nice and partly because I wanted something to do. There was much more than I had first anticipated, as it kept me disappointingly occupied until I left at 4.30. Zoe didn’t seem to have anything more for me to do anyway, which was also disappointing because it meant I couldn’t escape the typing. I don’t mind helping people out, but that was a bit ridiculous, especially since I was on a placement with the picture desk, not the writers. Never mind.

All in all, I don’t really know how I feel about today other than a little disgruntled at how dull it was. I hope the rest of my week is not the same because I was quite looking forward to it. I remain instilled with a certain amount of optimism for tomorrow. I can only hope that it shits all over the metaphorical face of today’s letdown exercise.

The Dispute

Something to illustrate how I am currently feeling...

Climbing The Wall

You know there's something seriously wrong with you when you have to talk to your parents about it. Fortunately, it seems to have tackled some of my issues, or at least prodded them a bit. I'm starting to think a little more positively, and although I have my doubts about what I'm going to do when I finish this final year, I feel like I can actually finish it without melting.

I've decided that I need to do a project which is fun and a bit of a "mishmash" of ideas: I don't really have much idea about a theme yet, but it will hopefully end up with a strong narrative. One problem I always seem to come across is a lack of enthusiasm for whatever I end up doing - although I do often find stuff interesting, I struggle to sustain any motivation to make the work. By making the work more fun, more "me", more focused on my everyday life; hopefully it will encourage me to keep making work, and lots of it.

I've been wanting to do a shoot of my band for quite some time, but have never got round to organising it. I'm going to do that. We practice once a week - I make quite an effort to go home every Monday night just for those few hours - so I consider the band an important part of my life. I'm also planning a shoot for a friend's band. I'm buying a Metz flash, another thing I should have done ages ago, and I'm going to start experimenting with that. I want to continue doing my night photography, but allow that part of my practice to be informed by the other things I have planned. I think, in order to love photography again, I need to start taking photos all the time like I used to, and I need to realise that anything I do is worthy of inclusion in the project.

Today I took my first photograph in a long time. It was quite spontaneous, I just forced myself to do something and suddenly had a strange idea for an image. It's not great, and only shot on digital, but once I get my Metz I will reshoot it on the Hasselblad, and maybe even on 5x4. Here it is:

"Computer Music"

Also worth mentioning: I am taking part in a local (Portsmouth) photographic project called Culture Flash. Basically, I'm given a disposable camera (as are 99 other people) to take photographs of.....whatever the hell I want! This will hopefully be quite refreshing for me, as the photographs won't have to mean anything. Visit the Culture Flash website to find out more - Click Here.