I also bought in Manchester two books I like to read for my course

• Camera Lucida - Vintage Barthes
• Living happily in China, Lisa Ccarducci

The first book is directly related to photography. It exams the themes of presence and absence the relationship between photography and theatre, history and dead, these reflections on photography begin as an investigation into the nature of photographs.

I also check a few blogs/websites  about it:

• http://phenomenologyandphotography.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/on-studium-and-punctum-in-camera-lucida/
• http://www.so-rimlee.com/literature-supernova/2011/5/10/roland-barthes-camera-lucida-excerpts.html
  

The second book about China is about how the Chinese people think, behave, what is the different with the western culture. I like to read this book as one day I hope to work with document photography and specially I want to work with Asian culture, as I am interested in there way of life, there toughs  and I hope express that life and there toughs  into photography.

later in the research part more, when I finish the books

After listing through a lecture on I phone university I done some research about the 1 person who spoke, I found a few other websites about Photo tourism. Photo tourism is a system for browsing large collections of photographs in 3D.

http://phototour.cs.washington.edu/
http://video.mit.edu/watch/meet-2011-tr35-winner-noah-snavely-6/

For me it was very interesting to know more about this technology

Our approach takes as input large collections of images from either personal photo collections or Internet photo sharing sites , and automatically computes each photo's viewpoint and a sparse 3D model of the scene. Our photo explorer interface enables the viewer to interactively move about the 3D space by seamlessly transitioning between photographs, based on user control.

I am just back from Manchster and have spent the last 3 days only on photography and other art.

I arrived Thursday afternoon in Manchester for my work. I went to a party from work and from Friday on I only spent time by taking photographs and visiting museums/exhibitions.

The first museum I visited was the Museum of Science and Industry. I already was here back in the 90th´s on a schooltrip but that time I was not busy with photography and was not interesting in museums. I spent a good few hours in the museum and took many photographs. Some of them I hope to use for the projects. I took my book with me so I could check what photographs I was looking for.
After this visit to the museum I went to the people history museum. There was an very interesting temporary exhibition on about Picturing politics exploring political poster in Britain. I first didn´t do visit to the museum for my OCA course but in the museum I realise that poster design is related to photography. First in the early 20th century posters where drawn, on the poster you find cartoons, text but no photography. But later in the 20th century this all changed to photography. I will write about this more in the research/museum part of this blog.

http://www.phm.org.uk/
http://www.mosi.org.uk/

Saturday morning I done a visit to the Manchester university area. I visit the Whitworth gallery and the Manchester museum. I took hundreds of photographs for myself and the assignments and exercises. I have to make a selection of them what I can use and what I keep for my self. I will write about this visits in the research selection later on the week. I took several information with me and took notes during my visit.

http://www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/
http://www.museum.manchester.ac.uk/

Saturday afternoon I visit China town, Chinese art centre and the Manchester art Gallery.  In the Chinese art centre there was an exhibtion from Chen Man,  one of the most well known female Chinese photographers of the 21st century and is a leading fashion photographer in China. Later about her more in my research part. of this website.

http://www.manchestergalleries.org/
http://www.chinese-arts-centre.org/

In the evening I had the most interesting visit of all the weekend. I went to the final party of ¡Viva!, Spanish & Latin American Film Festival, Manchester. My friend from the UK was co-ordinator of this festival and known the management of the organisation.  There was a interesting photography exhibition "filmmakers counted". It was a photography exhibition of well known Spanish photographer in the Spanish film industry,  Oscar Fdez. He has 20 years of experience by taking portraits of Spanish film directors. After his presentation I met him and he gave me and my friend a private tour. He explained in an 45 minute tour every photograph in detail. I will write in my research part more about this exhibition and my experience.

http://www.visitmanchester.com/articles/whats-on/viva.aspx
http://www.cornerhouse.org/viva2012

My last day of my visit to Manchester I visit 3 museums, almost 4 but I did´t had time to see the national football museum from Manchester united. I decided to concentrate more on photography, museums, gallery´s etc. I did took a few photographs from the building itself.
After passing by the football stadium I went to the Imperial War Museum North. The building was very intesting and near building was a beautiful view. Inside I took several photographs of the items, cars, machines etc.
After this visit I walk around near the BBC studio´s but you where not able to get in. Anyway it was a very beautiful area to take photographs.

I visit there also the Lowry, there where in this complex 3 exhibitions going on

•  The House of Annie Lennox
•  A Flash of Light: The Dance Photography of Chris Nash
• Lowry Favourites

Later more information about the 3 visits at the Lowry in research part of this website .

My final visit in Manchester was the Ordsall hall museum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordsall_Hall


 http://www.thelowry.com/
http://www.iwm.org.uk/
http://www.nationalfootballmuseum.com/

Back again after a few weeks of taking photographs, but not placed them on the website yet. I decided to wait till next week. I go next week to Manchester for 4 days and at least 3 days I am going to do some photographing.
The photos I took in the last few weeks I am not 100% happy with. Only with my I phone photography I am getting better.

See:
http://ink361.com/#/users/14826785

I checked already a bit online about the good places etc. Then I hope after this weekend to finish my first assignment.

I just signed up for a photography meetup next week about churches, I personally not have ave something with taking photographs of churches although I like to take photos of buildings and modern art. I really enjoy doing all the shape exercises. I think that there will be a good few opportunities to take photos for my triangle, rhythm and pattern exercises. We will see next week.
Furthermore this week I mainly spent my time by reading about photography and checking out blogs and websites from famous photographers.

As well I have a look at a good book about photography.

Back again, I copied my wordpress blog to weebly, because weebly give me more possibilities and support. I can keep a blog, but also I can make a sort of website from my blog. I think it works better for me.

It the last cold weeks I took a lots of photographs but did´t blog about it. In the next few weeks you see more and more photo´s at the different project. As the weather gets better I have more possibilities to take photographs.

As always I hang out with a photo group during the weekends, see below the meetings I attended in the last year.

http://biancatheartofphotography.weebly.com/photography-activities.html

I made a list of all of my visit to have a good overview what I done in photography.

See you soon again

_ Yesterday I spent a few hours at an exhibtion from John Thomas. It was an exhibition about China through the Lens of John Thomson. I really love Asian culture and I enjoy the exhibition a lot. Although the photo´s the photos where taken in the 19th century. It was my first Asian photography exhibition experience.

http://www.cbl.ie/

http://www.cbl.ie/Exhibitions/Temporary-Exhibitions.aspx

http://www.visitdublin.com/event/China_through_the_Len

China through the Lens of John Thomson: 1868-1872 17 November 2011 to 26 February 2012, Dublin, Ireland This exhibition is devoted to images of China by Scottish photographer John Thomson (1837-1921). Born in Edinburgh Thomson first travelled to Asia in 1862, where he set up a professional photographic studio.  Fascinated by local cultures, Thomson returned in 1868, settling in Hong Kong.  Over the next four years he made extensive trips to Guangdong, Fujian, Beijing, China’s north-east and down the Yangtze.  This exhibition is drawn from his time in these regions.

In the early days of photography, when negatives were made on glass plates, a cumbersome mass of equipment was required but Thomson was nevertheless able to capture a wide variety of images.  His works present the human aspects of life in China through the extensive record of everyday-street scenes, rarely captured by other photographers of that era.

After returning to Britain, Thomson took an active role informing the public about China, through illustrated lectures and publications.  In 1920, he wrote to Henry Wellcome – pharmacist, philanthropist and collector – wishing to sell his glass negatives.  Thomson died before the transaction was completed, and Wellcome bought the negatives from Thomson’s heirs in 1921.  The images in this exhibition come from the Wellcome Library’s collection in London.

Timed to co-ordinate with Chinese New Year celebrations in 2012, the exhibition will include over 50 stunning images with a wide variety of themes in China including people, architecture, domestic and street scenes