Himalayan Plastic Pleasure is a series of sculptures made from found plastic bottles in the mountains. Beautifully photographed in the Himalayans. Naratively touching on plastic pollution and mismanaged waste entering nature. From the way Nadine Baldow photographed them, they look like creatures that live in that habitat. They almost look organic. This picture in particular reminds me of a frog sitting on a rock.
This is just something that I was working on after collaging with plastic on an image. I started gluing ripped plastic that I had in the house and some found in the streets onto a transparent plastic from packaging. I’m really into the 3D textures that I created. It looks even more textured in direct lighting. Potentially be something for a shoot. Either a backdrop or on someone like a garment piece.
Below I did a mini shoot testing about my ideas and concept. Using it as a ‘filter’ with a figure behind.
In this day and age, it is important to be mindful of what you post on your social media as it may make backlashes in the future. A good example of these are celebrities or any one who is high profile. Some have been incarcerated in the media for what they have done/posted in the past. Costing their careers and reputation – their image.
I’ve been googling my name to see what comes up – pages and images. And most of it are accounts and images that I’ve posted in the past in accounts that I’m no longer active in. The first one that comes up is this blog which I can change the privacy settings so it is not visible in search engines. I’ve deleted accounts that I don’t use anymore like lookbook.nu and I tried to deleted my old twitter account but the email I used to create that account has been hacked. I’ve contacted Twitter but they weren’t much help. I just got an automated reply that does not even answer my problem. So I guess that will stay there until other websites / images cover it up from the top searches. My YouTube account I’ve just privatised my videos and activity log on there.
Reading through Dr Masaru’s research was really interesting. Exploring the biology of water and how it evokes emotions and feelings from music, words, pictures and how it is treated. Creating various beautiful structured snowflakes often waters that are treated nicely with ‘Love and appreciation’ or melodic music such as ‘Mozart Symphony No.40’. Whereas waters that are neglected and treated with disrespect showed no formed snowflake.
I think this study is not just for water. It can be and should be applied to among other things like plants for example. Cater and water them well and they will flourish. Neglected then it will rot and die. Same applies to plastic products and clothing. Treat it with care and its use can last for years and so we won’t need to produce more plastic and decreasing plastic and textile waste.
The whole study and it’s message is a mindset on how we should live and treat nature.
Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Tiktok ? INSTAGRAM.
Facebook seems to be a great platform. Although, it is more focused on connecting with family and friends and I don’t see my brand or work growing in the Facebook community.
Twitter. Not a platform that I’m currently active in. I was but I honestly just got bored of it. I may open on for when my business/brand grows that I’ll need a platform to further reach out and interact with people but as of now, I don’t think I’ll be using it. Also, It is really not a platform for showcasing my photography work.
Snapchat + Tiktok is a growing and popular community. Can be used for BTS-type of videos. But I don’t it fits the whole aesthetic of my work and I don’t take many vids so I don’t really see having a separate account for videos is necessary.
Currently, I think the main social media that I should use is Instagram. There are more people active on the app than other socials and it is a perfect platform for my photography and visuals as it is an app where you post pictures. I can tag appropriate accounts and hashtags to get my work ‘out’ there. Also there is an option to post videos cancelling out Snapchat & Tiktok as a main social accounts.
Right now I’ve made an Instagram account @judie.balagot. There is nothing on it just yet but I made it so that I can claim the handle name as soon as before someone else gets it. I wanted the username to be @judiebalagot so that it is the same as my website but it is already my personal account.
I was looking into buying a domain and how much they cost. It would just look much more professional if i had my own domain on my postcard, business card and CV. www.judieee.wixsite.com/judiebalagot is way too long.
If i do buy a domain I would have to upgrade my Wix website to connect a domain which costs quite a lot. A yearly costs that will cost me £100 every year plus £10 for the domain. Its a lot of money at this time especially now that I’m currently unemployed but I am really considering it as an investment for me.
Above is my Homepage. It’s a simple layout with a slideshow type of gallery of my work from each project. I’ve chosen a font thats bold but minimal. And chosen a vertical menu as I think all my listed work will fit better that way than having a horizontal menu.
This is the layout when you click on one of the projects on left. I’ve chosen a ‘mason gallery’ to showcase the images. I wanted the images to be big enough but not too big where you can’t see the full image in one screen so I chose to have 2 columns max. This layout may change.. if theres too many images, it feels way too long / dragging scrolling down to see all the images..
WIX
Pros
Cons
Tumblr
Pros
Cons
So far these are the only sites that I know and that I’m both confident enough to use to create my portfolio website. Looking at the pros and cons, I think Wix would be a better choice to create my website. The navigation and tools are easy and straightforward enough.
I went on a holiday to Philippines for 3 weeks in January. On of the days I scheduled a trip to the infamous dumpsite of Payatas where hundreds were killed due to an enormous pile of garbage collapsing in the year 2000. Unfortunately I was only able to take pictures from the inside of our car with the windows rolled up. The air was not safe to breathe as Mount Taal has just erupted days after the visit to Payatas.
The disaster in 2000 left thousands homeless. This dumpsite was clearly neglected by the government in the Philippines. The disaster would have been avoided if the government imposed proper rules and regulations for managing the city’s waste. The dumpsite was closed for a couple of weeks but had to re-open because they had ‘nowhere to put the garbage from the city’ and ‘health and safety of the people in the city was at risk’ due to the uncollected garbage after the disaster.
Today it is still the main dumpsite and ‘recycling center’ for the city. They’ve imposed rules of no piling of garbage of ‘incredible heights’ and have also built walls so that the garbage is not seen from the public. You can see from the photos I’ve taken than I only managed to get a glimpse of the garbage from opened gates.
Here are some websites of photographers that I liked.
Naomi Wong http://naomi-wong-znmy.format.com/
Leo Berne http://leoberne.com/
These layouts that might be too bold for my style but I would still consider. I really do like the idea of having a full blown image as my homepage. Although now that I think about it, most of my photography work are portraits.
However, the coloured background like Naomi Wong is giving me ideas. Probably not a bright colour but more muted rather than just having a white background.
Ivania Carpio of Love Aesthetics & Aetelier http://love-aesthetics.nl/
Instagram @love_aesthetics (personal) & @aetelier.ae (retail brand)
In terms of layout, the website was ‘ok’. It is easy to navigate but it looks too all over the place for me and there it too many things going on on a homepage. I do like the minimalism idea of it though. That is something that I will definitely carry forward for my own website.