Work Experience

I'm Paul Watson a mature student studying a B.A. Hons. Degree in Photography and Digital Media with UCS Suffolk, currently in the final stages of the third year (all course work completed and awaiting my final results.) I initially contacted GGS requesting a quote for printing and mounting my final exhibition piece which was done extremely efficiently, an A1 print mounted on MDF for what I though was a very good price. It was whilst arranging and discussing this job that I enquired about the possibility of spending some time with them on a work experience basis. It was arranged that I would spend the week beginning the 8th of June at GGS.

Having previously worked at a Print Finisher and studied Graphic Design at HND level I was keen to gain experience with a company that specialised in the different aspects of the design process. I was also interested in discovering more about web design, as I have recently been spending a lot of time expanding and developing my own website.

On the Monday morning that I arrived at GGS I was introduced to the staff at the regular Monday morning meeting and I was given a tour of the building, I was rather overwhelmed by the size of the company and the abundance of technical equipment. I spent the first morning in the large studio helping to construct a large exhibition stand that a client would be viewing in the afternoon. This was am interesting insight into the process of design and construction as all the elements of this job had been designed by GGS. Once the stand was viewed it was then dismantled and shipped off to the customer. The afternoon was spent in the Graphic Design department. Here I spent some valuable time looking at a number of live jobs and got busy familiarising myself with software such as In Design and Freehand on an Apple Mac.

On the Tuesday I assisted photo shoot that had been booked by a client who specialised in the design and manufacture of industrial safety helmets, this was an interesting experience as we were working with a model, taking portrait shots in which the main point of focus was the safety helmet. It was interesting to observe the various lighting techniques that were used to highlight the contours of each helmet. I feel that this was also a valuable insight into working with client and a model.

Wednesday was spent on location in an industrial unit photographing industrial equipment; these final images would be used in brochures and sales literature. Once again this was a valuable insight into the nature of a photo shoot of this kind. Becoming familiar with the type of kit that a professional photographer uses on location, and ways in which lighting is used in order to define the shape and form of the object. This was an extremely valuable and educational experience and I learnt a great deal; not only about photography but also about the nature of working as a professional in industry.

Thursday and I spent the first part of the morning observing the process of image conversion on the work from the previous day. Here we were concentrating on adjusting the contrast and brightness of each image slightly to reduce highlights, looking at histograms and the nature of RAW files.
I then spent much of the day in the Website Design department. Looking at various live jobs and learning about Dreamweaver and Flash software. Here we also spent time updating the GGS website and adjusting images to create an interactive Flash movie.

So far this has been an extremely valuable experience for me as a Photography Student wanting to work in the industry and I would like to offer my thanks to all the members of staff at GGS who have been so helpful and welcoming to me this week.

Friday
Today we started working on a photographic project for a company that manufactures curtains, we had to build a set in the studio that would display the curtains as they would appear hung in someone’s front room. After helping to construct the set in the morning I spent the rest of the day adding coats of white paint and making the set appear as clean as possible. I fitted the pole from which the curtains would hang and then we spent a great deal of time pressing the curtains so that they would look there best in the final photograph. As you can see, there is a lot more to photography than just taking photographs.

Monday
This morning we continued to work on the curtain photo shoot adding final touches to the set and hanging the curtains, we concentrated on the lighting setup using a spotlight, two flash lamps, and a large diffuser to create a bright daylight effect that appeared to come from the window. We then redressed the set in the afternoon and pressed and hung another pair of curtains using a different lighting setup, with only the one flash lamp and less overall brightness to create softer tones in the final image.