tomworman's diary

Okay, so since i last posted back in October alot has gone on. Just a quick round-up as to what has been happening in my world as a Media and Publication whore. But before i start (as this blog could go on for some time) i'd like to wish you all a very merry christmas and a happy new year - see you in 2008 if not before.

First off for those who don't know who I am let me outline my "position" within the university. I am a student, not that many would believe it, but I am in my final year studying Digital Media (and some how doing fairly well at it) at the same time, I live, sleep, and breathe Media mainly revolving around the students union. For the past 3 years I have been the Union's photographer for the night club and major events. Now I am the Union's photographer, part time web designer and graphic designer, pugwash news design editor, video editor, and general media bitch.

So what have i been up to since Freshers Fortnight ? 

Freshers Fair

The year started with a bang for me, 2 days of filming and taking photos at the freshers fair. Being harassed by Indian Restaurants and almost ending up in a paddling pool full of Jelly (thanks cannon) were just some of the highlights of the freshers fair. This is the first opportunity for UPSU media to start and shine and of course i wanted to be at the forefront of this so offered to take photos and film the events. 

Pugwash News

Pugwash News is the new student newspaper, i would hope now 6 issues in most of you would have seen it. If for some reason you have been living on Mars, Pugwash news is what has replaced the old purple wednesdays magazine with an all encompassing paper with News, Features, Reviews and Sports. I ran for position as Design Editor and won, which was nice considering i hadn't planned on running until 30 seconds before the meeting. This has been a massive learning experience for me, learning to put together a newspaper with software i have never previously used. This is a huge learning curve for me and i really hope to be able to share my experiences and knowledge i have gathered with anyone else who is interested over the coming year.

   

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Okay,

So i am sat in the media suite - where i currently seem to live. Its a bit of a piss take day today, we have just missed about 200 sports students all climbing on coaches, minibuses, cars to get there various away games, all of whom would have been prime readership of the newspaper. This is what happens when deadlines are moved due to certain people over working !!!

The magazine is back and looks like it will make a great supplement to the newspaper  

It's quite depressing when you lecturer sends you facebook messages that your coursework is due soon.

Okay so i've been lagging in updating my blog, sorry guys, but i have been struck with the dreaded "Freshers Flu" so been feeling pretty rough recently. Anyway, to make up for it i'm gonna write one massive blog for you all to read (and i know you do cos people have said they do). 

Purple Wednesday 

Well what can i say, Wednesday was busy, but what do you expect for the first PW back after the summer break. It took me an hour to get from home (nr fratton station) to the union, when i asked the taxi driver why, he said i would see when i got to the union. I arrived and the queue was round past Balfour, to the cash-points, and back up towards the Nuffield centre. You may ask why i didn't walk but, to be honest, i refuse to take £3500 worth of camera equipment through the heart of Sommers Town in the dark. So anyway, i arrived, jumped the queue, signed in and immediately got to work. Lux opened at 8pm with Ali and the Pure FM team keeping the house music flowing pretty much all night long. I'm not quite sure what the music policy is for the Union now-a-days, i thought it was student anthems and cheese in Lux and House mixed with RnB in CO2 but the two seem to be blending now - i'm not sure this is intentional but i'm not sure there's such a marked difference between the music policies of Lux and CO2.  Apparently capacity (which i have now learnt is in excess of 2000) was reached by 8:45pm, which by any stats is a huge achievement, Waterhole was so rammed you could hardly move there was so many sporto's in there, whereas, Lux and CO2 were remarkably quite. Although the two clubs were busy there was room to move, which i admit i was surprised at.

Apparently i missed the safety briefing so wasn't allowed on stage to get any photos what-so-ever, which is ridiculous considering i wasn't informed there was a safety briefing hence the reason the photos lack any kind of stage shots from this night. But anyway, we move on... so PW flew by as normal with the usual snakey-b being necked in copious amounts, and alot of freshers who can't quite "keep up" yet - you will learn. The jungle theme fancy dress was well adhered too, loving the sexy lions although you told me you would find me at freshers fayre (still waiting for you to find me) - i expect to see the quality of fancy dress to remain high for a while to come people. Oh and big shout out to the guy who dressed as a tree. Very amusing. 

On a side note, if you are drinking in the queue outside the union, please use the bins, the state outside was left in was atrocious - seriously disgusting, broken glass all over the place, beer cans just dropped on the floor. Have some respect!

Fun Loving Criminals

I've not got alot to say about this as i had freshers flu and really needed a night off so got a friend, James Dare, took over the role as photographer extraordinare.  Although by the sounds of it, i didn't really miss much as hardly anyone showed up to support them, shame on you - or maybe u were all feeling as crap as i was ?

Orange Fridays - 999 theme.

You can arrest me anytime, or i'm sure i can find ...

I'm famous !

Well, that's kind of how it feels. I'm known throughout the land now already! Today (tuesday) i have spent the day doing various activities around the centre of Portsmouth, on my day off from working nights as the Unions photographer. It started at midday with a visit to the Union to see Mr Harries (Media and Publications Officer) to look at his new newspaper which looks great, although never gonna let him forget that he didn't credit the photos in this issue to me !!! 

On to the "being famous" bit, I've walked to and from Tesco's just off commercial road 3 times today (i forgot things so kept going back to the union) and on each trip, i bumped into either someone i recognised as an old student - like cannon - or someone totally unknown who knew who i was and wanted to know when the photos would be online.

THE PHOTOS WILL BE ONLINE SOON I PROMISE - IT IS OUT OF MY HANDS !!! 

Then tonight i have been to Tiger Tiger and met probably 10 to 15 people who all have said "You're Tom, the Unions Photographer aren't you ?" i don't remember ever meeting them before but as one chap commented, "it doesn't matter if you know us, just know that everyone knows YOU!" - i'm not sure whether to be happy or scared. So anyway, in total i think today i've met in excess of 20 new faces who all know who I am but I have no clue who they are.

To you I say... " HELLO, WELCOME TO PORTSMOUTH and MAKE SURE YOU KEEP IN TOUCH WITH ME!"

So, for me, the night started early as normal, a quick round to introduce myself to the Ibiza DJ Tom De Vos and his team of supporting DJ's/Glow Stick Monkeys !!! Time flew by so quickly and before i knew it the clocks had struck 9pm and the Lux doors were swung wide open. It took a little while as usual to get people upstairs from the Waterhole or even through the massive queue outside and up into the club, but once it filled out, it really filled out and it was a case of weaving in and out of everybody. 

I guess everyone's warming to me now, or getting drunker quicker - one of the two but tonight I shot over 100 photos in the first half an hour, and that's rare as most people are very shy in front of the camera before they have had a little lubrication inside them. Soon enough the HUGE foam cannon started up and pumped streams of bubbly goodness into the air above every ones heads, giving a snow effect of foam. Tom and his crew pumped out the Ibiza classics and some original remixes into the club and everyone partied on down.

The atmosphere in the Union can probably be summed up as Vibrant, the crowd were in a great mood, the staff were having fun (when they could) and the new darker club played host to some inspiring Laser displays and groovey lighting effects. By 11pm i had shot over 500 photos, some good, some bad, you can never tell really in that environment so it was a case of take a break. At the back of the stage managed to find myself a corner to review the photos deleting over 200 pics that were either repetitive or just plain terrible. And then... back to work.

A quick photo-shoot with Tom (see photo above) and then it was time to venture into the foam pit. I had to hold the camera high above the crowd (its an advantage being tall) whilst also holding back the swaying motion of the crowd (its also an advantage having some weight behind you to counter balance other people) by the time i had spent 5 minutes in the pit, i couldn't actually see my camera, it was covered in so much foam!!!  Thankfully, i had pre-planned and brought a towel with me to do a quick dry off. The DJ's seemed impressed that i was willing to venture into the foam pit with over £2000 worth of kit in my hand, well, to you i say: "In the name of good UPSU photography i will do all it takes". Plus my camera's insured

The base was so strong on the stage from the speaker stacks you things on the stage wouldn't stay still, for a whole track i watched a can of carlsberg (from Dodgey Daves bar) bounce around the floor panel in random patterns, if Carlsberg made dancing beer cans, they would be the best dancing beer cans in the world.  I have to give a big shout out to the security guys tonight who did a sterling job holding up the crowd barriers that popped undone due to sheer pressure the freshers were putting on it - with a little help from me of course. Standing on those barriers made a great ride, better than any fair ground attraction rocking forwards and backwards - you never quite knew where you were gonna go. About 221 more words in this entry