Paula in Camden Town, 15:12, 16th January

Here's a snapshot of my friend that I've randomly taken using my D80 while I was photographing the sky earlier today.

I think it came out beautifully as it is, so no editing, no nothing. No cropping either. 

And yes, she does have the most beautiful eyes, ever.

So yes, here it is Paula, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your time in London! 

Sophisticated Boom Boom

Shot last week in Brighton trying to capture the 1920's, here's a Gabrielle Chanel inspired shoot featuring the wonderful Ani Saunders.

10 AWFUL Album Covers

...and while an awesome Photoshop parody video about how every woman (and men...) you see in magazines is cleverly Photoshopped, some Photoshop jobs aren't as clever. In fact, they're disgusting.
I'd love to make an album cover someday... shoot it, edit it, perhaps even do the graphics. There are quite a lot of awful ones out there. Such as these:

Selective colouring is unarguably one of the world's biggest evils. Perhaps whoever edited this photo thought he wanted the "artwork" to reflect the music- tacky, and really not very good. Or perhaps he or she has got taste issues.

This one might've been done with Microsoft Word, using Clipart. Britney is the queen of bad album covers. She should give me a ring for her next album. No, seriously, I'm sure they had a lot of budget for someone as successful as her and it pains me to think that someone got paid shitloads to create something so.. awful.

An overdose of HDR and way too much airbrushing, and the fonts are awful. If I didn't know his music I would've thought he's one of those virtual Japanese popstars (there's quite a lot of them, no?). Or maybe that's the look they were going for.

I love CocoRosie. Which is why this cover makes me so angry.

Leaving Photoshop aside for a while, let's discuss a HUGE modern day evil. The Hipstamatic app on the iPhone. It looks like it's been taken using that.. no?

Seriously, when it comes to airbrushing there is a line that shouldn't be crossed. Especially when it's 3 pretty ladies.

Let's ignore the fact that I'm really not a fan of this woman, and admit that very often her music videos are fantastic. The same cannot be said about this album cover. And no matter how much you love her there's no point arguing with me. Plus that font is the second worst thing to Comic Sans.

Eh, I guess by Photography or Graphic Design GCSE standard, this one isn't too bad. But I'm pretty sure whoever made this is classified as a "pro".

Would it be so bad if they kept the original background and they didn't add those awful tacky shiny ray things? Probably not. THEN WHY DO SO? 

Let's just say this wasn't a magazine cover for a VERY obvious reason.

.....so which albums have I missed out? 

Just in case your eyes are feeling a bit sore, feast your eyes on Smashing Magazine's 35 beautiful music album covers! 

Skin

"Skin" A Series of 10 images I've been working on since September 2011 for a University project titled Object of Desire. "Skin" is an exploration of the male body.

Images in order of appearance

i) oxter
ii) omphalic holes
iii) gammon
iv) teat
v) manpaw
vi) clawpads
vii) mitt
viii) scruff
ix) atoms
x) palm

Track: "Naturam" by Danjeli, from the album KontroNatura (http://www.soundsagacity.com/015kontronatura.html)

Special thanks to Gary Price


Best seen full screen!

prints are available upon request: rjatt88@gmail.com

My Top 25 Albums of 2011!

....and while we're at it, for the sake of more 2011 nostalgia and for anyone who REALLY gives a feck, these are my top 25 albums of 2011 in alphabetical order (Funnily enough, I just picked all the albums that I REALLY loved and it happened to be 25 albums. So the number 25 is just pure coincidence)... I am going to post my 2011 in photos in a couple of days time too!

Anna Calvi - Anna Calvi

Apparat - The Devil's Walk

Anika - Anika

Battles - Gloss Drop

Beirut - The Rip Tide

Bjork - Biophilia

Blondie - Panic of Girls

Bombay Bicycle Club - A Different Kind of Fix

Bon Iver - Bon Iver

Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams

Florence + The Machine - Ceremonials

Jamie Woon - Mirrorwriting

Lamb - 5

Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes

M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

Metronomy - The English Riviera

Patrick Wolf - Lupercalia

PJ Harvey - Let England Shake (My favouritest one!)

The Kills - Blood Pressures

The Raveonettes - Raven in The Grace

Those Dancing Days - Daydreams & Nightmares

Veronica Falls - Veronica Falls

Vivian Girls - Share The Joy

Yuck - Yuck

Zola Jesus - Conatus

And that was 2011...

I can remember this time last year. I wasn't in a very good place. I was pretty much new to Brighton and I missed London very muchly. I missed my friends in London and I struggled to make friends over here. I was freshly out of a relationship and I felt incredibly lonely. I went to London, stayed up all night with one of my closest friends, and pretty much had one of the most amazing New Years Eve/Day ever. I remember my bus journey back to Brighton on the 2nd of January. I felt incredibly sad that those 2 days were over. But it obviously had to happen.
Of course I didn't spend most of the first half of the year drunk, but it's pretty much a dark blur. I slowly started developing new friendships, some closer than others. I hated my course at Uni and even thought of swapping course. Even though I had new friends, I still felt incredibly lonely. I hated myself, I wanted to go back to London.
I spent most of the summer locked in my room listening to Lykke Li, writing poetry and eating Dominos. Of course there were a few good moments, there were weekends were I went out with my friends, but most of them went back to their homes for Summer. I felt lonely, unwanted and disliked.
Then there was Brighton Pride, the day everything changed. One of my longest friends came down from Essex, I found a new place with lovely housemates and sorted out some issues I had with a very special someone. For me, Summer started on the 12th of August. After that I had an amazing week in Malta, then Bestival, and all of a sudden I realised, Summer was over. Since then things only went uphill. Not only I have made some special friends and have lovely housemates, but I am enjoying myself. I love living in Brighton, and it's scary knowing that I'm not quite sure if I am going to stay here or move back to London next year. It's all blank. I might be back in Uni to do my BA top-up, I might end up working. It's scary, but all very exciting, but I'll drink to that with some of my loved ones tonight. 


Wishing everyone a happy 2012


Lots of love
xxxx

Brighton Students!

Was assigned to take 2 different portraits of 2 different Brighton students! So I picked my wonderful coursemate Sarah England (doing photography, of course), and my  lovely housemate Katie Padfield (who's a music student at BIMM). And this is what I came up with.