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My chosen theme for this project is Owners and Cats. This photographic project portrays the strong relationship between the feline and their human, highlighting this strong relationship through candid photographs in black and white to reflect on the subject matter. The reason for me choosing this theme is me being a cat mum of two, I wanted to ensure this photographic project was something I'm passionate about and could expand my contacts. Initially I was stuck with how to approach my idea as I haven't set a finalised approach and allowed more room for experimentation. I also had a motivation problem as I had a holiday in October and when coming back, realising I had to organise this project without having a specific plan was stressful. I spoke to my lecturer on numerous occasions, changing the approach as he felt they weren't strong enough. This led me to overthink this whole project as a whole. When researching and planning I didn't have a particular photographer or style which I wanted to follow. I wanted to ensure this project had a natural feel as this is the main goal, ensuring both subjects were in a natural state and in their comfort zone. But this did lead me to numerous problems as the shoots went by, I changed up the approach multiple times due to individuals resisting to participate in the process, some weren't aware that they had to be photographed, therefore I ended up taking photographs of cats only for certain shoots. One of the major issues I encountered was people cancelling last minute due to unexpected circumstances/personal reasons. If I was to revisit this project I would ensure to use models who are reliable but as those models were strangers, it was easier for them to cancel. During the post-production process I had to decide wether to keep the photograph in black and white or in original colour, some images looked beautiful in original form but I wanted to ensure all of the photographs had a consistent design other than the recurrent theme. During the shoots I was using my DSLR with a kit lens. This followed up by me having to edit the photographs more than I intended to as some of the backgrounds were distracting. This wouldn't have been an issue if I used a lower F-stop or a fixed 50 mm lens to create a more contrasting depth of field.  But luckily, I was able to create this effect using Adobe Photoshop, selecting the background and blurring it out. The outcome was successful. Another issues I encountered was not being able to use my on-camera flash as certain shoots objected this idea due to rules, for example, the cat cafe. This made the photographs look much flatter than the other where I used flash. The flash added more contrast and tonal variety which made the portraits pop, creating depth. Overall, this project was a good opportunity for getting myself outdoors and meeting new people, as this was my first experience organising shoots with strangers. It was nerve wracking as I was going to people's houses but in order to stay safe I had my fiancé come with me to every shoot. Another factor which I would change if revisiting this project is the equipment, I must invest in a better camera for future projects as this would allow more creativity and quality, having more lenses at hand as previously mentioned as this would remove my issue with capturing my initial vision without going to postproduction.

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After the brief was introduced, I began brainstorming for ideas and interesting storytelling subject matter which I'm fascinated about. This led me to an idea of photographing 10 owners and their pets, specifically cats. As a cat mum, I would love to see each individual personalities of the owners and their pets

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In order to get some models for this project, I will post a public post on a local Facebook page in order to get some volunteers

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A humorous approach to this project, I thought this was an interesting way to capture the bond between the owners and their cats. I remember seeing this across social media years ago which explains that it's a captivating project.

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17 Cats And Their Human Doppelgangers By Photographer Gerrard Gethings

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If you’re not convinced that pets tend to resemble their owners, photographer Gerrard Gethings’ latest project will change your mind.

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30 Hilarious Work-Related Memes, As Shared By This Instagram Account

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STUDIO BASED - If working on location, I would need to make sure I prepare a setup to recreate a studio environment as the double exposure part of the project would work best without a distracting background.

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PET PORTRAITS — Danielle Spires Photography

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Unique and stylized professional Los Angeles pet portrait photography, offering studio and in-home pet portraits. Family portraits with cats, dogs, reptiles, bunnies and all animals welcome!

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In comparison to the other two ideas, this one is more sensual and encapsulates the relationship between the owner and their cat without having the individual within the photo.

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Pet Photography that Celebrates the Bond Between Cats and Their Owners

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It’s just not fair. Maybe it’s because of the whole

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There is a possibility of me using 'Ten Portraits' project to my advantage for the Moving Image project. Interviewing owners about themselves and their pets.

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consider a specific cat location, like purple cat cafe or rspca

maybe shoot within their homes, just a cat on a stool, wide angle lens

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This was my first ever shoot within someone's house and especially with someone overall that isn't a friend or family member as I tend to use my sister or my fiancé as models for a lot of my photographic projects. Therefore, this was a bit nerve-wracking even for me, I love meeting new people and even then I was a little nervous of the steps I'd need to take to ensure I photographed in the way I envisioned in my head. This means for this part, it would have been much easier to plan ahead of what exactly I want to photograph. But I was open to trial and error especially since it was the first shoot of this project. Beforehand, I made sure to prepare a short PowerPoint to help me format in words some of the objectives.

One of the main problems I had was the couple wasn't aware that they had to be in the photographs which made it a little more difficult as my goal was to photograph both the owners and the cats together. I ended up photographing the cats alone, just as they play in their comfort home, with their toys, getting treats, love and attention and wearing cute outfits. I tried playing around with my light wand that I recently bought of Amazon but because it was quite hard for me to capture the light within the photographs for some reason (I needed to familiarise myself with camera settings and etc. as I haven't shot in months prior). Some images turned out great but they were a little blurry. Even thought I taken a camera lens out, it didn't really allow room for experimentation as it wasn't as fisheye lens effect as I wanted. It just expanded a little more of the view of surrounding area.

When thinking about postproduction, as I wasn't entirely pleased with the outcome of the shoot. The only positive factor was that the couple got cute images of their cfurfriends. I wanted to try and experiment with overlaying the environment (the cat home and how the couple decorated their home to adjust to their cats) with the portraits of cats on top. I thought that would've an interesting way of capturing both ideas within one photograph but after speaking to my lecturer, he wasn't keen on that idea.

I was struggling with this project a lot. I kept going back and forth with the ideas and how I would execute it. At first the idea was to shoot the cats alone in their environment i.e. in the middle of their room with a fisheye lens but to me that ideas wasn't strong enough, therefore I wanted to include the owners as well. This then led to the photographic project which I undertaken of owners and cats. The photographs are candid, they highlight the love and care for the cats and potentially reflecting on similarities between the two.

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MAGDELENE AND MARCO

This shoot took some time to successfully complete as Marco comes from a traumatic background, he is shy around strangers. We waited minimum of 30 minutes for him to get used to my scent and my presence. After giving him loads of treats, careful pets, he began to settle down and get comfortable with me. I took as many shots as I could without annoying him.

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FELIX, JIN AND VELVET

This shoot went smoothly. Felix is an actor which made it easier to photograph him as he was familiar with cameras, therefore there's a natural feel even if the images are constructed. The cats were playful, even though Velvet was a little afraid, I managed to get some interesting shot of her as well. One of my favourite photographs from this shoot is when she's on top of Felix's shoulders

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On top of photographing volunteers, I decided to email a cat cafe in Glasgow, Meow Cafe to see if they can give me permission to shoot within their place. I photographed the cats alone and asked some staff if they would be okay with me taking a photograph of them and their favourite cat. I managed to get one member of staff who was willing to do it, the other politely declined.

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CAT CAFE

Various personalities. Some cats didn't participate in this shoot as majority were napping. I had some lighting issues as I was preparing to shoot with a speed lite but the cafe rules were strictly no flash photography which explains why some of my photographs are under exposed at first. I managed to work with camera without using the flash, but I noticed that I had a struggle with some of the darker area within the cafe where the cats played or sat

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HOLLIE AND SHIRO

Shiro is my fiancé's cat. Hollie is my fiancé's sister. Hollie is the closest person to Shiro, he isn't keen on anyone else which is quite funny looking at these photographs while knowing this information. He hates being picked up but I managed to get some good photographs of them both. Interestingly enough, he kept constantly eyeing the camera as soon as the flash went off. I had some issues with trying to focus on the subject matter while photographing in dark lighting conditions, therefore some of the first photos were focused on the background rather than them.

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KIRSTEN AND POPPY

This shoot was one of the quickest shoot out of all of them. There's not much to it, it was simple and easy. Poppy did get a little annoyed at the end because she doesn't particularly like being held as well as other cats throughout this project. But she corporates very well.

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ELIZABETH

CANCELLED LAST MINUTE

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ADERAYO

CANCELLED

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LANA AND ROOSKI

This shoot was similar to Josh and Trixie, because of the pair having a close relationship to the cats, it was simple and easy to carry on with the shoot

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JOSH AND TRIXIE

This was one of the easiest shoots I had throughout this project. That's probably because this portrait is of my fiancé and our cat, Trixie. She is an easy cat, therefore she didn't mind too much handling. In some of the shots, you can see her being playful, pressing Josh's nose.

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I decided to change my idea for this project to make it about myself/mental state, putting one my favourite track on top of the video, with interesting shots around the house and outside, similar to a vlog but more carefully composed

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Left: Andy Warhol – Self-Portrait in Drag, 1981 / Right: Andy Warhol – Self Portrait with Skulls, 1977.

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"Andy Warhol was an iconic and eccentric self portrait photographer. His works explore pop culture, entertainment, and iconic people.

Additionally, he is mostly remembered for his self-portrait work with Polaroid. Andy Warhol struggled with aging and his self portraits explore these insecurities. He especially liked to experiment with drag in his portraits including a lot of wigs."

6 August 1928 - 22 February 1987

He's a leading figure in the pop art movement and one of the most influential and important artists of 20th century

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At first I was stuck on what I wanted to do for this project. But with the factor of feeling demotivated through this semester I wanted to encapsulate a theme of my inner world and every day simple things in an abstract or simple form. When looking at the final product the beauty of it is that the viewer is able to create their own meaning even though this piece is self-reflective, sort of a biopic but without me being within the movie. The main focus is on the surroundings of everyday life, finding beauty and peace around you. The atmosphere created  eery, horror-esque which developed into me using the black and white filter for majority of the clips to develop it further. This also allows more focus on the contrasting tones and textures. As I was using my DSLR 2000D, when importing the clips into iMovie, there was a grain effect which was consistent throughout the clips. This was because my ISO was set to high when the camera was reading the environment as I was focusing on the main subject of every frame. You can tell the difference of this when comparing the high key clips compared to low key. At the end of the movie, there are four clips which are in colour, this decision was made as I had a beautiful clip which is 4th last, it was much stronger in colour than in black and white. This made me experiment with reversing the last few clips to create drama and deep meaning of wanting to go back in time. This reflects how I feel currently, if I had a chance to go back in time, I would change certain things about this year. The demotivation strongly influencing me and my decisions. The creative use of copying the same clips from the beginning of the short movie and using them for the outro as those clips had the most movement which can reflect this idea. One of the main influences for me are music videos and songs by an artist named Bones. His music videos for majority of them as taken using a VHS camera. This made me wonder if there is a way of me creating this effect in simple form which does have a sense of it within my final piece. The song used for the intro is 'I Guess' by Drew The Architect, Bones, cat soup' which is one of my favourite tracks. The sample is from Mister Rodgers' Neighbourhood, an American TV host who gives out inspirational speeches in his shows. These speeches are extremely informative and inspiring to me as they hit close to home. The one I used for this project, speaks about self love and taking control of your life, the beauty of you being you. It's a great combination of your favourite artists using such creative approach, making it relate to his fans. Bones has numerous side projects, each have their individual mood and personality. I am satisfied with this project as I'm extremely pleased with certain clips I captured. This is also a confidence boost for future projects as I am interesting in creating vlogs which captivate an atmospheric environment which doesn't entirely have to consist of me being within the frame. If I was to revisit this project again, I would develop it further, makes in more lengthy and in-depth and possibly using narration to add a storytelling aspect to the movie.

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Majority of the influence was by Bones, an American rapper, singer and songwriter. His video from his side project, a duo, surrenderdorothy, which consists of him and Greaf. The music video 'illleaveituptoyou' is one my favourites which inspired this project in some ways.

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I enjoy this style of filming, including photographs to create context, prolonging clips in order to create a said atmosphere. There's a persistent natural feel throughout the short movie which is ideal for the plot

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As a Montreal couple’s relationship shatters, their personal photos trace the highs and lows of love and shifting dynamics