Women Like You

I submitted this photo of my Grandma :)

Women Like You: Submit photos for International Women's Day 2010

Manchester Art Gallery exhibition

Is there a woman in your life that has inspired you? Then Manchester based artist Charlotte Newson would like a photograph of them.

Women, by their very nature, are strong characters and Manchester is full of strong and motivating women. We want to celebrate the lives of these ordinary women who in their own way are doing extraordinary things every day.

In celebration of International Women’s Day 2010 (IWD), the city council in partnership with the Pankhurst Centre has commissioned Charlotte to create a new portrait of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst for an exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery called Women Like You (6 March – 9 May 2010).

All the donated photographs will be scanned and digitally recorded and will be used to make up the portrait of Manchester’s famous suffragette daughter Emmeline Pankhurst.

The theme of IWD 2010 follows on from this year’s theme which focused on the inspiration and aspirations of women.

Councillor Val Stevens, Deputy Leader of Manchester City Council said: “This project gives all of us the chance to think about women who have inspired us. And it’s not just about women; we want men to send photos of women that have made an impact in their life as well. We want to celebrate and recognise the positive aspects of women and their contribution to society. And it will be a chance to be involved in some way in a piece of artistic history in the city.”

Councillor Sue Murphy, Lead member for Women’s issues at Manchester City Council said: “Women, by their very nature, are strong characters and Manchester is full of strong and motivating women. We want to celebrate the lives of these ordinary women who in their own way are doing extraordinary things every day.”
Artist Charlotte Newson said: “We want photographs of women that you feel have made an impact on your life. It really could be anyone – your mother, grandmother, friend, teacher, historical figure or even a contemporary personality. We would like them all.”

Photographs are needed by the end of November to give the artist time to create the portrait. If you have a photograph you would like to contribute you can do so by visiting this facebook group

Photographs can also be dropped off now at the Pankhurst Centre, 60-62 Nelson Street M13 and at Manchester Art Gallery and Manchester Central Library between 1 November and 1 December 2009 where special boxes will be available to place them. Please note, it will not be possible to return photographs.

The finished artwork will be officially unveiled at IWD 2010 and will be on display at Manchester Art Gallery until 9 May 2010.
More info here

Jessops Photo Printing: Review

I decided to use Jessops photo to get some photos printed, with the suggestion (screenshot below) that I could order the prints online, and then I could collect them from my local Jessops shop soon afterwards, and not need to pay postage charges.



So I started with the order process. This was straightforward, and it was easy to order different prints in different sizes, which I needed to do.

Then you give them your details, then pay. One of the payment options was paypal, which was also good for me.

But then it got odd. It was only after they had taken your payment that the images were actually uploaded. This presents many problems, mainly that if there are then difficulties in uploading the photos, you are stuck. You have already paid - what happens if the upload does not work? I use chrome browser, which can have difficulties on certain sites, so I could have had real problems.

Thankfully though, the upload worked ok. But I found that rather than them being ready to collect within 30 minutes, it would in fact take 1-3 working days for the photos to be printed.

So yesterday I checked the order tracking, and found that they had been printed. Good, I thought, they are ready (I need them for Thursday). But no, they are still not ready to collect because it will now take another 1-3 working days for them to be delivered to the store!

The store I ordered them to be collecting from does photo printing, so why do they have to be printed elsewhere and delivered to the store? The time taken to get hold of my photos started at a promised 30 minutes on Monday, and could end up being 6 working days - more than a week! Next Tuesday!

I have no idea whether they will be ready for me to collect tomorrow, when I really need them. All I can say is that they had better be excellent quality prints.

In addition to all this, they don't tell you that you need to own a printer until the confirmation that the photos have been printed has arrived by email. At that stage they tell you that to collect the photos you need a print-out of the email.

I am really not impressed by the misleading message on the original Jessops site screen. There are suggestions on the 'order tracking' page that I should check my local shop's webpage to find out which day they take deliveries on, but that information is nowhere to be found. I will be charged for calling an 0845 number to call the store to find out. Also, the uploading after payment, and the very late notice that if you don't have a printer then you presumably can't collect the prints you have ordered, and already paid for, are both fraught with difficulties.

Not dead impressed, Jessops, I'm afraid.

Resizing Lots of Photos at Once

I had just finished editing photos from a day trip to Cleethorpes and as well as uploading them to flickr, I also wanted to upload them to facebook.

After a few failed attempts, I realised that photos for facebook have to be less than 5mb, and few of my photos were.

I started resizing them individually in Photoshop, but realised it was going to take all day, so with a bit of googling, I found Resize My Photos which is free software which you can use to resize a whole folder of photos in one go.

I downloaded it and it is very light on the system, as well as incredibly easy and quick to use. You choose your resizing options, you choose where the photos will end up, and you choose what should happen to the filenames. You tell it to do it, and it does it. It's that easy, and managed a folder of 81 large photos in 30 seconds or so.

So, if you need to do a similar thing, I'd strongly recommend Resize My Photos.

Painted Animals

Lately there have been some fab painted animals in the Winter Gardens in Sheffield. They are due to be removed soon so I grabbed the opportunity to take some photos over the last few days.

Lovely Reflections in the Balls of Steel

Promotional Postcards

I've just created two designs for postcards, which I could get free through Vistaprint.

I made them in Photoshop, to promote my t-shirt (and other product) design site, lovelytees.co.uk, and I'm really pleased with the look I created.

The back:

Disposable Camera Experiment at Sheffield Pride

I have wanted for a while to carry out a photography experiment with a disposable camera. I decided that Sheffield Pride would be a great place to try it out, so I did!

I wanted to see what people would do if they were faced with a disposable camera and a sign next to it asking them to take a photo with it. Would they? What would they photograph? I just had to find out!



I started off with two disposable cameras, string, duct tape and scissors, and some signs I made for this very purpose.





On arriving at Pride I found a bench and a picnic table, and set it all up. The sign was taped onto it, and the camera was attached with string.



At this stage I had to just leave them there and go on to enjoy the day!

My anxieties were that the cameras would be stolen or destroyed, or that they would sit there all day and noone would want to play with them and take any photos! The final worry was that someone would take an, umm, inappropriate photo of a part of their anatomy, and I would be arrested at the photo developing shop!

My friend and I occasionally sat nearby and secretly spied on the bench and table, just to see if anyone was showing any interest. To my joy, everyone who sat down did read the sign, and most then started looking at the camera and taking photos. At one point children were playing with it, and I wondered if they would even know to wind the film on, in this digital age!

At the end of the day I went to collect the cameras. To my dismay, the one which had been on the picnic table had indeed been stolen. I was initially gutted, but soon realised that with an experiment such as this, I knew full well it was a possibility, and annoying as it was, their karma will catch up with them at some point. Maybe none of the photos will come out for them!

However, the camera on the bench was still there, though the photo counter showed that no photos had been taken. I had no idea what to expect when I took it to be developed. Would they just laugh at me on my return for taking an unused camera to be developed??

I picked the photos up a few days later, and I love them! They are blurry, random, and absolutely perfect! People got into the spirit of the game, took photos of themselves, their friends, and the park we were in.

Their very imperfections are exactly what appeals to me. All I have done to the photos is scan them into the computer, nothing else digitally has occurred. They are visible to you exactly as they are visible to me.

And no penis photos at all!

You can see the setup and all the developed photographs here. Do go and look!









See all the disposable camera experiment photos here.

When Ukuleles and Charity Combine

Buy this t-shirt in the colour and style of your choice!.

Ukuleles are cool. If you were in any doubt, just watch this:



If you don't play the ukulele then you clearly should, and probably know other people who do. In this case then both you and they, and everyone you know, should read on.

From 17th June until the 31st July 2009, every sale of this t-shirt will result in a £2 donation to Cancer Research UK.

This is to celebrate the London Uke Festival which takes place on June 20th in London.

So remember, every time anyone buys a Ukulele Hero t-shirt between now and the end of July, £2 will be donated to Cancer Research UK.

Buy one now from the link below! Or buy 5 and give them to friends. Then spread the word by passing on this URL: http://bit.ly/kRVPV

Buy this t-shirt in the colour and style of your choice!.

Highland Fling

On Bank Holiday Monday I went to a Highland Fling fair in Graves Park in Sheffield. There were gorgeous highland cattle, dog and horse displays, a farmers market, other stalls, bagpipes, and it was great, but freezing.

The photos from the day are here.

Creative Protest: Blogging Against Disablism Day 2009

This post is to blog against disablism, using the medium of anti-disablist images and designs I have created.

I am a firm believer in creative protest, and these designs I have made feel to me like a powerful statement against the disablism we face.

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=="Special" design on different items==

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A witty design as a response to the 'what's up with you then?' question that's often asked to disabled people in a rude and insensitive and nosy manner!

==Witch's Curse design on different items==

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Disabled people don't want to patronised and pitied, or called brave or be used by charities to raise money. No pity! Just respect, equality and access please!

==No Pity Designs on different items==

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For anyone who doesn't follow the rules! Anarchists, disabled people, psychiatric patients, protestors... promote civil disobedience if you dare!

If you want to break free, get non-compliant! And rubber stamp it across your chest with this t-shirt.

==Non-Compliant design on different items==

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Disability rights slogan and logo. Nothing about us without us! Works well on all colour backgrounds.

Promotes independence and self-determinism, as well as opposing being patronised or pitied.

==Nothing About Us Without Us design on different items==

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==A t-shirt for those with invisible disabilities.==

RedBubble Activity

Some news on my latest RedBubble uploads and features.

I have made 4 T-shirt sales!

1) Children Playing Stencil Art (on dark)

2) Sir Trevor McDonald" T-shirt

3) But You Don't Look Sick Invisible Disability T-shirt

4) Children Playing Stencil Art (on light)

I also had artwork and t-shirts featured in some groups.

1) "Be Kind" - Dalai Lama t-shirt (on light) was featured in the Current Issues group

2) "Be Kind" - Dalai Lama t-shirt (on dark) was featured in the Anticonsumerism group

3) My "Love Hearts" photograph was featured in the Food for Thought group

4) My The Eyes of Buddha photograph was featured in the Buddha group

5) My photograph of a subverted traffic sign, "Stop Eating Animals" was featured in the Art Action Union - Creative Activism group and the Anticonsumerism group.

6) My blueberries photograph was featured in The Woman Photographer group and Out of the Blue group.

7) My "It's a Girl Thing" photograph around breast cancer awareness was featured in the In the Pink group and was in the top 10 results of their challenge.

8) My Alternative Valentine's Card photograph was featured in the All About Hearts group.

In other news, I have had a burst of t-shirt creative activity lately!

It started with my Homophobia is so gay t-shirt which I have been meaning to design for ages, and now I have done I am really pleased with it. I hand-printed the words using a DYMO machine, then scanned, vectorized and then edited with photoshop.

Then I did a couple of disability themed t-shirts. The first is a response to ignorant people who think it's acceptable to ask a complete stranger what is wrong with them! The t-shirt answers: "It Was a Witch's Curse!"

The second disability themed one was almost the opposite - for people with invisible disabilities, who can find it difficult to be taken seriously. The phrase for that shirt is "But You Don't Look Sick!"

I created a pretty Floral Swirls t-shirt, and a mad Psychedelia one.

I then created "Twit twit twit twitter", for those of us who are twitter addicts! (I am incurablehippie on twitter btw!).

Then I was thinking about how everyone at the moment is raving about the 'Guitar Hero' computer game, but that I know increasing numbers of people who play the Ukulele... so I created an hommage to Guitar hero, called "Ukulele Hero"

Then I did some more silly and funny t-shirts.

The first was related to the saying, "Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue", including this photograph.

The second one, on a light background and a dark background, illustrates the phrase "I dream of the day when a chicken can cross the road without having its motives questioned".

And finally, a NSFW manipulation of a certain multinational coffee company's logo, "Starbucks Fuck Off".

Generation Loss, What JPEG Compression Looks Like After 600 Saves

Generation Loss from hadto on Vimeo.

We all know that JPGs are a 'lossy' file format, but watch this video, it is shocking! While we are unlikely to save and re-save a photo 600 times, it does make you wonder just how much damage we are doing to our .jpeg files each time we edit a bit and save.

If working in photoshop, saving in one of the Photoshop formats, e.g. .psd (a lossless format) is a way to save images at various points during the editing, before saving the final image as a .jpg if that is the format you need for the final photo.

(NB it's lucky that blog posts are lossless, the number of times I've posted and edited this entry!!)

Photographing Out Aloud: Sheffield's Gay Choir.

Recently, I photographed Out Aloud, which is Sheffield's LGBT Choir.



It was a really interesting project, the key to which was meticulous organisation. I attended a week before I was taking the photos, so that I could get an idea of the room, the lighting, and do test shots, all of which I took a note of, with different lenses, focal lengths, and flashes.



This meant that I could attend on the week with confidence that I was as prepared as I could be. I had made notes of the shots I wanted too, which helped me reassure myself that I wasn't leaving at the end of the night, missing a crucial shot.





It's always worth remembering that, when the choir requests a 'silly photo' at the end, getting everyone to jump at the same time is trickier than it looks. Each photo represented various stages in what was essentially a mexican wave. I don't know why tenors and basses are so much quicker off the mark than the sopranos and altos, but it was consistently true.



All the photos can be viewed here in their flickr set, and if choir members or others want to buy individual prints, they can do so here.

A CD of the photos is going to the choir committee, for them to use them.

Prize Announced!

Lilith has spoken, and I will be getting her a print of Alternative Valentine's Card made up.

Bloggy Giveaway Winner

I am so pleased to announce that Lilith Silvermane is the winner of my bloggy giveaway.

I was so overwhelmed that 70 people entered, it made me happy :)

If I don't hear from Lilith within 7 days I may have to re-draw the winner, but hopefully she'll get back to me, and I'll post here about which photo she chooses.

This is the email I have sent to Lilith the winner:

Hi Lilith,

Thanks so much for entering my competition for the Bloggy Giveaways, at philippaphotography.blogspot.com.

You've won a 10" x 8" print of any of my photographs on my blog. In the comments, you mentioned you liked the Alternative Valentine's Card photo. Is this the one you'd like a print of?

Please let me know as soon as you can, which image you would like a print of, and your postal address.

I really hope this has made your day!

love Pippa x

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hippieness.co.uk

Bloggy Giveaway

I am taking part in my first ever bloggy giveaway carnival!

One lucky reader of this blog will win an 8x10" photographic print, and you can choose which print you want from this blog - any one photograph of my own (i.e. not someone else's image I have used here**) will be professionally printed and sent to you, wherever in the world you are, if you win.

All you have to do, to be in with a chance of winning, is to leave a comment on this post, saying you'd like to be entered. Feel free to have a look round this blog to see my photography - you will see there is a wide variety of photographic and digital art here, so you should be able to find things you like if you win!

You can see my older posts via the links under 'Blog Archive' further down this page.



I will randomly choose a winner after the 1st February, and let you know. Please make sure there is a way for me to contact you from your comment.

**The vast majority of the photos on this blog are mine, if they are someone else's that will be obvious as they will have been credited.