Zara is a MFA student at Ulster but also has her own studio just in Lisburn, I was very pleased when she messaged me about saying that she would like me to take some photographers of her working as she seen some of the other photographs that i have taken.

I really enjoyed taken those – while i do feel like they don’t fit with the environmental portraits i meant to take but i just felt like i needed to included them as i personally think that they are good. I dont know if i will use them in my final edits, I feel like its too early to decided since i have couple more shoots to do.

Zara studio is very small so the space and movement was very limited, also the heating in the building was bad so she was electric heaters which give out a very yellow light in some images behind her and there wasn’t a way to move them as there was only one socket in the room. Even though those difficulties came across i feel like i still managed to overcome the difficulties and create some good images.

Before I’m going to shoot any images. I need to plan what I’m going to do first. The first thing is trying to get volunteers/ artist that would want to take part in my project.

So to begin my look for artist, I emailed some tutors at the Ulster University Belfast campus. So they could pass my email onto the students who would be interested in getting there images taken which i also said that they could use them in their artist website or post them on their social media. As i believe thats the important that you give them something in return.

So I emailed the following staff at Ulster-

Cara Murphy

Suzanna Chan

Maureen Collins

Brian Connoly – passed the email to the fine art students.

Christopher McHugh – Passed the information to silversmith and jewellery and ceramics students.

Micheal Moore – pass the email to 2nd and 3rd year student in ceramics.

I also emailed Artist studios

QSS studios – which i received two emails back from two artist that wanted their images taken – Grace McMurray and Amy Higgins.

Emailed the Platform Arts but never received an email back.

Emailed an artist who’s studio is in Larne – Judith Logan – unfortunately she’s just too busy and couldn’t take anything else on.

I emailed Alistair Wilson – but he won’t be back to Northern Ireland until 15th December. He has a studio in Orchid Studios.

Overall, I am quite happy with the outcome as many students have emailed me back, here is the list:

Inga Hamilton – Silversmith/ Jewellery

Zara McLaughlin – Ceramics

Erin Calvert – Silversmith/ Jewellery

Matthew Walton – Silversmith/ Jewellery

Emily Shaw – Fine art

Martin Marks – Silversmith

Maela Amin – Fine Art

In this post I will be looking at employability and entrepreneurship.

First lets talk about employability – what is it? It is a set of achievements or skills, as well as knowledge and personal qualities that make me more likely to gain employment after graduation or succeed in my chosen career. While being at University, employability skills I can acquire through extracurricular activities like work experience, volunteering and involvement in clubs as well as societies. This is also important as it lets you gain new contacts as well learn new things.

So what is an Entrepreneur – its someone who wants to set up a business with the aim to make a profit. So where there might start out isn’t where they will end up. This just means that entrepreneurship is constaly changing, more and more. It defines individuals and groups of people who take action to make a change in the worlds, they often aim to build something new that will advance the society. Its all about action and innovation.

Which i feel like i don’t have so I don’t feel like this will be something i will be doing. I think i would prefer to be employed part time and do my photography on the others days.

So what skills and attitudes i need to be employable. As a photographer i already posses skills like creativity, commitment and problem solving. Being able to reach out to other people i.e. other students in the university to collaborate with them to create some really good work.

First thing you have to do is explore your creative self. So the first question will be what is your idea of success – meaning what dreams and values do you have, once you know that then how are you going to achieve this so you will create a plan, within this plan you will set your self goals that you will be able to achieve. Once everything will be achieve you will feel happy and relieved.

So what do you need in order to succeed. Is it talent – in my opinion talent is overrated as the most talented people in the world are not the most successful ones and the ones that are successful aren’t the most talented. It’s all about putting in the work as no matter what you’re learning – trial and error is a necessary part of the process as you learn from your failures so don’t think about you failing as you will learn from it so think about it as failure is a part of the process to success.

Other important thing for entrepreneur is communication as its a two way street so you will need to send staff out into the world but also be prepared for what opportunities the world offers you so its a skill that you will need to practice over and over to be better at it. Even the best people who think that they are experts at communications still learn to be better at it.

Attitude is also something that needs to be work on. As having the wrong attitude won’t help you – it’s all about having the attitude of yes i can do this and i will achieve this no matter of how many times you might’ve failed before, it’s all about trying again and overcoming the failure. Also try to boost your confidence by challenging your self to do something that would feel like something you wouldn’t done before. It’s also about being able to think outside the box. Being an entrepreneur means you are a maker as well as a business owner it means that you need to take risk. So you will have to think outside the box when it will come to your artistic work but also the way you will go about with you business. Sometimes the risk you might take may not bring you any profit at the start but might later one but its all about trying new things to keep on top on the newest trends and to keep your client satisfied as well as being able to gain new ones. So learning new techniques, new technologies and investigating new ways to reach your clients but also new ones – it’s about being able to reflect on how that will impact you and your business and being able to adapt to it. So you shouldn’t be afraid to do this.

Commitment is also an important part as the work you put in – the time and effort, it will all benefit you and your business but if you won’t then nothing will happen. The work you put in will be the work you will get back so this means that you going the extra mile for your client means they will be satisfied and they will be able to recommend you to other people. There are ways that you can learn to work smart and not harder. Taking on side job would be something that you will need to pursue your career as it might show you what you just need to see or hear to keep going. As everyone would say its all about finding the right balance.

Networking is very important – it’s a way you keep in touch with your audience, find new inspirations and post your work. Increased activity will lead to new opportunity. But before you start you need to think about what you want gain from outside world and what you can give in return. Working with other people would be a good opportunity to gain new contacts which could lead to new projects. SO it’s important to be active!

Amy has a fine art honours degree as well completing a two-year long master’s degree both done at Ulster University. In her work she develops ideas around Barbara Creeds monstrous feminine, the sublime, the uncanny and Hannah Arendt’s notions around the human condition.

Her work is amazing. The studio place she rents out is quite big so i was able to move about, move some items that we didn’t want in the images. Also as she rents the studio with her friend, i had to make sure that i didn’t get her work in the images – Amy was quite good about moving stuff in order to get the perfect shot. I was also happy as when i took some images i would’ve shown them to Amy and then might’ve got a suggestion about i would like a image like that, what if you try to do this, if i sit like this would it make it better. It was things like that made the shoot go in really quickly but also made it enjoyable for both us.

Overall i am quite pleased with the images and the way they have turned out. Think i have a very good variety of images, as well as different composition but also portrait and landscape as we were trying to figure out which ones showed it the best. Also while i was taking the photographs that i needed – Amy also had some photos in mind that she wanted for her social media. I was happy about this as it left us both satisfied with them.