Simulacra studio - placement report

Simulacra StudioPlacement Report

By Rachel Johnson 2628422

page2 Placement Report

Contents

3 0- Intro: My placement- context is half of the work and placement outline4 I- Career tools: Curriculum Vitae5 cover letter8 online portfolio28 II- Project Outline with images (screenshots of blogspot)40 My images of Simulacra Studio48 III- Use of social media (screenshots of twitter)

0- Intro: My placement- context is half of the work

Simulacra Studio is based in Brixton and founded and run by Chris Charalambous and Francois Boutemy; two young, innotive photographers. I was initially impressed by their Flash website and photgraphic content. I was also encouraged by the location of their studio as i am currently based in Brixton and hoped this would allow for increased involvement in my placement.

After contacting Chris Charalambous and Francois Boutemy of Simulacra Studio via email on 31st Ja-muary 2009, i was excited to receive a positive reply in mid February offering me the chance to meet them and look around their studio. After meeting, we confirmed at least a 4 week placement, this com-menced on 13th March. I was given the task to help finalise Simulcra’s press release and individually email it out to everyone on their mailing list. Once i completed this i was given the tast to create and maintain an online blog of Simulacra’s past and current activities: http://www.simulacrastudio.blogspot.com i worked from the Simulcra office and my position involved selecting images, retouching and formatting for web, upload-ing to blogspot with relavant titles, captions and dates, and finding and adding links to relevant sites; acknowledging eveyone’s involvement.

Unfortunately because i was given a fixed task to complete i had no scope to create a personal project and i wasn’t given the oppertunity to get involved with any of the photography. Therefore the context of my work was to create a blogspot that had continuity with Simulcra’s style of photography design aesthetic of their website. I achieved this through the visual appearance of the blog spot, using a similiar colour pallette to their website, with a professional but fresh, modern result.

Furthermore, Simulacra’s decision to take on two more student placements in the beginning of March meant that the maintanance of the blogspot was shared between the three of us ( i have only included screen shots of what i added to the blogspot in this report) as well as the office space, which only really accomodates for one placement at a time. This meant the oppertunity to work at Simulcra decreased vastly and i had to become much more flexible with my hours (to the extent of missing seminars/lectures at University to ensure i was able to get involved with Simulacra at least once in two weeks). I found this a rather negative factor of my placement.


1- career toolsCurriculum Vitae

Rachel O. Johnson

Address 60 Gresham Road Brixton SE9 7NN

Tel Mobile: 07816 115 928 Email [email protected]

Date of birth 14 February 1988

WORK EXPERIENCEDixon International, Pampisford - Photographer for website, January 2009Mike’s Tennis Academy, Cambridgeshire - Photographer for website, Summer 2008Piya Piya, London - Waitress - January-May 2008Retrofit Architecture, London – Photographer for website, Autumn 2007 The Video Emporium, Cambridge – Sales assistant – University holidays 2007-2009Blue Arrow, Cambridge – temped at DC10 for Cambridge examining boards – June/July 2007Genesis Telecommunications, Huntingdon – photography at corporate entertainment day at Duxford Airshow – Sept 2006Back on Track, Cambridge– Sports photography/advertising project – Summer 2006H. Domestics, Cambridge – Cleaner - 2005-2006Pembroke College, Cambridge – Silver Service Waitress 2004-05

EDUCATION1993 – 98 RAB Junior School, Saffron Walden1998 – 2001 St. Faith’s School, Cambridge2001 – 04 The Leys, Cambridge2004 – 06 Hills Road Sixth Form College, Cambridge2006 One year at Roehampton University, studying Photography and English Language &

Linguistics2007 - Digital Photography at London South Bank University – 3yr BA (HONS)

QUALIFICATIONS1 Certificate of Higher Education: English Language and Linguistics2 A Levels: English Language and Literature, Photography2 AS Levels: Maths, Film Studies1 CLAIT Certificate - Computer literacy and information technology11 GCSEs: English language, literature, Maths, Double award science, French, History, Geography, Drama, Physical Education, Divinity

EMPLOYMENT SKILLSI am an organised fast learner with a great work ethic. I bring energy and enthusiasm to everything I undertake, whether I am working individually or part of a team. I have good social and communicative skills and plenty of initiative. I am computer literate and have specialist knowledge of photo-editing, graphics and web-design software, including Adobe’s photoshop, indesign, rapid-weaver, flash and final cut pro.

Online Portfolio: www.racheljohnson.clickgarden.net

References available on request.

260 Hardess StLoughborough Junction

BrixtonLondon

SE2431st January 2009 Dear Mr Boutemy, I am writing to apply for a placement at Simulacra Studio. I was referred to you by my lecturer at London South Bank University, Paula Roush. She has introduced a new module to our course named Photographic Art, with the solo aim to find a relevant placement and undergo whatever is expected of the position. As you can see by my Curriculum Vitae, I am a second year under-graduate studying Digital Photography. Within my course, I am currently working with Indesign to complete a second edition of a Lulu self-published photo-book, Rapid-Weaver to create an online portfolio and a Flash built website with a set brief. On top of my studies, since 2006 i have photographed and designed for several businesses and companies, freelancing mainly to create websites as well as an advertising campaign for Back on Track in Cambridge. I have gained much technical knowledge, mainly surrounding my own personal photographic practice as well as editing software such as Adobe Photoshop, Bridge and Lightroom. In addition, the experience of meeting with clients to present visual idea’s and ongoing updates of design progression, while continually working within the constraints of a brief and to a deadline has been crucial to my personal growth and knowledge within the industry.

I am therefore interested in pursuing a position within your team at Simulacra Studio and feel that completing this placement would be very valuable to me, not only to gain a firmer grasp of the everyday challenges within this environment but also as an inspiration for my creative ideas as yourself and Chris Charalambous produce work of a high technical standard but further more capture intriguing content through visual twists. ‘Contact Sheet’ especially excited me and i feel that i have similar styles in my own work and hope that i could bring creative ideas to the table. I am eager to learn more about Simulacra and anything else this opportunity may bring.

I look forward to discussing this opportunity with you. Please reply directly to this email or alternatively, contact me on 07816115928. As i live locally it would be no trouble to pop in for a face-to-face.

Yours sincerely,

Rachel Johnson


Here is a screen shot of my Website homepage and a selection from my Portfolio,to see more please vis-it my website:

www.racheljohnson.clickgarden.net

Alternatively you may wish to view my Interactive Photomontage which can be found at:

www.racheljohnson.clickgarden.net/flash










Self Portrait


‘Liquid Light’


II- Project outline with images: I was given the task to create and maintain a blogspot for Simulacra Studio, formatting images using Photoshop and then inserting images text and links: http://www.simulacrastudio.blogspot.com/

II- Project outline with images: I was given the task to create and maintain a blogspot for Simulacra Studio, formatting images using Photoshop and then inserting images text and links: http://www.simulacrastudio.blogspot.com/


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My images taken of Simulcra Studio




Unfortunately i only got to see the studio set up once for a photgraph-ic shoot, here it is set up for a film screening.


III- Use of social media

Documents

Simulacra studio - placement report