Photosynthesis

The photographer's responsibility

2012-01-13T11:21:00.000Z

Shopmobility

"It is the duty of contemporary photographers to question continually what they are looking at, and why it is appropriate to permit others to look too." An excellent quote from a very thought-provoking article on the BBC website. The article is by Max Houghton, course leader in MA Photojournalism at the University of Westminster - here is a link to the full article which I expect to read again more than once http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-16282985

I sometimes take pictures, in the street and elsewhere, and struggle to decide whether it is right to share them. Where does observation, with maybe a little humourous undertone, shade into unkindness or just a cheap recycling of stereotypes? I took the picture above a few months ago but haven't posted until now. Still not sure whether it is right to do so.

The year that was: 2011

2011-12-31T17:04:00.000Z

As 2011 draws to a close I want to look back over my photography this year and take stock. I have been inspired by all those 'Picture of the Year' photojournalist threads but this post will concentrate on what I have done or learned photographically this year. Sometimes it is difficult to see what, if any, progress one has made over time and I have found it interesting to look back. I hope to make similar posts in years to come and over the course of a few years it may be interesting to see themes emerge and develop or run their course.

At the start of the year I made a conscious decision to spend time in my own area and not to reserve my photography for trips to Kew and the countryside. I wanted to make pictures that looked at the world I actually live in, warts and all, and not the world I would like to live in. The pictures to the left and above were taken on a cold but sunny day as I wandered the area looking for anything that might be interesting. I have enjoyed my walks around the area, turning down streets I would have no reason to go down normally just to see what's there. I am naturally interested in pretty much everything and have found it easy to be increasingly intrigued by how we live now.

My second assignment for PWDP was called 'A day in the life' and required one to take a series of images documenting a day and make them into a composite. For a variety of reasons I decided to make pictures of myself and after one false start ended up with this composite of details. It's an evening in front of the telly rather than a whole day. It was an interesting experiment and I learned a lot from this. I had hoped to make a composite image that said something deep about who I am but found that immensely difficult and settled on this outside view instead. I have continued to explore portraiture from time to time during the year and want very much to make progress on this front in the year to come.

Around the time I was completing these Clive mentioned on the OCA forum that using Google Image Search with your pictures can bring up some interesting results. I had a play - see below. I haven't done anything with this yet but am very intrigued by it and want to note it as an idea to explore further.

Some of these selections are really very strange indeed...

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Selective vision

2011-12-10T09:07:00.001Z

One of the things I want to work on at this time is improving my skill in making selections. I began working on selections in my first PWDP assignment (see here and here) but want to spend time over the winter honing my skills. It is a helpful skill and while I may choose not to use it often in my work I want that choice to be made for artistic or ethical reasons rather than because it is in my 'too difficult' pile. This picture - originally taken as part of the TAOP lighting module - came into mind as a subject with potential. The original version (below) had a dark background, and while I was not unhappy with it I did feel that it was a bit flat. The dark background gave a reasonable contrast to the flower but did seem to drain some of its colour and vivacity.

The complex shape made it a good subject for an exercise. I had hoped to find some quick way of making the selection but didn't manage that - it took ages. I am sure that if I do a few more I will eventually pick up speed and learn ways to make a smoother and more efficient workflow. I strongly suspect that this is an area where the only way to learn is to keep working at it - like a painter learning to draw hands.

Technique and reflection
I made a selection initially using the 'Color range' option in Photoshop. I had thought this tool might work well given the uniform appearance of the background but it wasn't great. The edges needed a lot of work (I used quick mask and the brush tool to refine the selection). In addition, I found out rather late in the day that pixels that appeared selected were often only partly so - this meant a fuzzy selection that showed up when applying the background, though not really when viewed as a cut out or in 'marching ants' view. It was kind of visible on Quick Mask, in light shading. This partial selection could be useful in some cases but in a picture like this you need precision. so my learning points from this are to pay more attention to mask shading, and also to see a way if I can easily refine the initial selection to reduce this difficulty.

Having finally made a reasonable selection I played with background, using some textures from the Florabellaa collection and a range of blending modes. I wanted a background that would harmonise with the flower and set it off but without clashing with it. The thistle itself is so detailed that it would be easy to end up with just a fussy mess. Getting the right balance between flower and background was tricky (too blue and the flower got lost, too green/yellow and it looked odd, some versions were too luminous and some too dark. The picture at the top is version 11 and I am reasonably happy with it but may still revisit (I wonder if there's too much vignette?).

A friend suggested it might work well as a Christmas card so I have produced an alternative version that is slightly cooler and lighter - see below.

Only three versions this time! I had wanted to make this lighter and 'frostier' overall but found that putting any kind of overlay on top of the flower or otherwise reducing its contrast and definition just made it look busy. I think that it is such a finely detailed thing that it needs to be left largely alone.

Conclusion
This took absolutely ages to do: it would have been quicker for me to go out and buy some canvas and paint a backdrop - it is always best if you can get things right in camera. Was it worth it? Maybe not in terms of the picture itself, though I do like it, but it was useful as a learning exercise. even if I had made a backdrop and lit it well in the original I might still have wanted to change its hue and it is good to be able to make chanegs if you need to. In addition I have a request for a print as a Christmas present so that's a bonus!

I'm going to try some more of these selections over the next month or so and hope to improve. And then on to soft-edged and transparent selections...

A different kind of truth

2011-11-27T13:02:00.000Z

These short films document the process of making an artwork for 'A Graceful Death' a project of work by Antonia Rolls and others exploring how we deal with death and serious illness. I wrote about the most recent exhibition in Birmingham in a previous post.

Stuart's beloved wife Sue killed herself. After an extended period of grieving and recovery Stuart (an old and dear friend of mine from college days) expressed an interest in taking part in the Graceful Death project. He wanted very much to tells Sue's story, to speak about her struggles and decisions, her highs and lows. I will make a separate blog post with more of Sue's story. These films explore the process of making art about painful subjects. They begin with Stuart looking at Antonia's paintings. They explore issues of pain and honesty: sometimes real pain requires a different kind of truth.

The films have many technical and other failings (I have a lot to learn). But I think the subject rises above these irritations.

This final film shows the process of developing the pictures of Stuart and Sue (shown below at the Birmingham exhibition), looking at some of the considerations that went into each aspect.

I have measured out my life in coffee spoons

2011-11-27T11:53:00.000Z

I took this little video clip with my phone a month or two ago. It was a wonderfully sunny lat summer/early autumn day. My friend and I were enjoying an excellent lunch at Pallant House gallery. The gallery cafe was full of sun and people. There was a courtyard outside and I could sea these leaves dancing in the sunny breeze. They were moving to a different rhythm than the sounds I could hear of human chatter and eating and I felt that I could almost, but not quite, hear the sound of their music. Some lines from T.S. Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', half-remembered from schooldays, came to mind:

"For I have known them all already, known them all-
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room."

I have been reflecting this morning about how easy it is to spend time being busy, doing necessary and even useful stuff, and how it is easy in such circumstances for time to slip away and for bigger and more important things to be left undone. Still not making much progress with my assignment four work. Determined to take a little time out this week to play and explore.

Below is another little video clip from the summer. I was trying to capture the experience of
being in a summer meadow. I hope to make a better job of this next summer.

In memory of Kit

2011-11-19T18:40:00.001Z

This is Kit, my friend Toni's much-loved aunt. Kit died earlier this week. She had been very unwell for some time but, as you can hopefully see from this picture, her spirit remained undimmed through it all. To give a sense of who Kit was, one of her nieces wrote that she "taught me how to fry eggs, curl my hair with rags, how to have a blatant disregard for what anyone thought of me and, most importantly, how to drink gin!"

I was fortunate enough to visit Kit with Toni just two weeks ago. While we were speaking I thought she looked so very lovely that I couldn't resist asking for permission to photograph her. And here is my tribute to Kit. No single picture can ever really capture the essence of a human being, but artists and photographers like me feel compelled to try.

In some ways it seems almost wrong to talk about how I processed the picture at this time, but doing so has brought forward a range of reflections and I want to set these out. For me it is very important to be respectful of people when I photograph them: I want to be true to what I see, but not unkind, and that is not always an easy balance. Because this is the final picture of Kit all those decisions seem more signifcant - it feels even more important than normal to try do her justice. This picture has changed in a number of ways from the raw original beyond simply losing its colour. I may post a colour version at some later stage, but removing colour allows one to concentrate on character and the play of light and shade, and that seemed right for this picture. The original was quite contrasty - harder than I remembered the scene - and I slightly reduced the clarity to soften contrast. I also used curves and some dodging and burning to further soften the picture and lighten the shadow side of Kit's face. I corrected a few little skin blemishes. Finally I sharpened only her eyes, and added a little tone as I think she would have liked that.

Kit was very ill and I don't want to pretend otherwise. But I really wanted to bring out the spirit and liveliness I saw, and have processed the picture to draw a little more attention to those things and a little less to the signs of illness, without removing them altogether.

So many choices are available to a photographer once a picture is taken. You can end up with a final image that has almost no relation to the scene the camera recorded, and I have no problems with that when it fits the photographer's vision. But when you want to make a fairly faithful record there are still subtle questions of what you emphasise and what is played down. Would a harder, more contrasty picture have been more accurate or faithful? Perhaps, but it wouldn't have been the picture I wanted to make.

RIP Kit.

Becalmed

2011-11-19T13:43:00.001Z

"Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean."

Lines from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Colerdige

I have been working, on and off, on PWDP assignment four for some time. I took a break for a month to finalise my APEL application. Having started again in earnest last week I have come to the conclusion that the work I had prepared just wasn't coming together and have decided to give up on this project and take a break before startng again. The assignment is quite straightforward and relatively open - I am required to produce eight landscape images with a linking theme. Four themes are suggested - earth, air, fire and water - but I can agree another with my tutor if I wish. There is no steer about how you interpret the theme: what I have done is quite literal but that isn't at all necessary and I may take a less literal approach to the final work.

I had chosen water and have in fact been collecting possible images for the assignment since I started PWDP. I was planning on a relatively abstract set, exploring the play of water, light and shade and particularly reflection, in part as a sort of metaphor for the photographic process. I've been through the usual selction routine, narrowing down the images to a potential set and so on. I have done some work to produce final versions - working with colour and shade and so on. The pictures in this blog post show where I had got to when I decided to call it a day.

Although some of the pictures work on different levels, the whole thing just doesn't quite hang together and, to be honest, doesn't really inspire me. It had begun to feel like yet another task to be got through. After some reflection I have decided I need a bit of a time out until I find a concept that inspires me more. I suspect that the fact that I knew deep down this wasn't working is partly why I have been putting it off and finding so many other things to do and write about. I have been very busy and pressured at work and in other areas of life also and that has added to the mix. I feel rather burnt-out and lacking in energy generally. So for the next few months the plan is to play a bit, work through the PWDP exercises I have been ignoring recently and see where that takes me.

I nearly always start a module with a range of ideas about what I will do for the assignment already in my mind and it is very unusual for me (and well out of my comfort zone) to have no real idea at all of what I am going to do. It is still open to me to take more better pictures of water and complete the assignment as I had planned. But I don't really want to do that. I think a setback like this can be very creative if you go with it (at least I hope so). I won't stop doing photography and blogging. I will just try not to push myself to come up with a new idea but to let the idea perhaps come out from my playing and other work. We will see. It is rather disappointing to give up at quite a late stage and having done quite a lot of work: inevitably this will delay completion of the module. But doing the degree is not for me primarily about getting a badge of achievement: it is much more important to me to do decent work that means something to me.

For now, here are the pictures I completed. The picture at the top feels to me like the most fully resolved one. Not sure how it will come across on screen but it works well as a subtle print. I like the combination of interesting detail and cloudy mystery in this picture. Others express different facets and moods more or less successfully.

Killarney reeds


Reeds reflected. This picture is upside down - I found it works better that way.

Spring: the play of light and air

Roiling waves

Light on the water

Exhibition: A Graceful Death

2011-11-13T12:13:00.001Z

"This is such an alone place to be" Sue and Stuart.

Some pictures from the opening of the Graceful Death exhibition in Birmingham. This is a project exploring the end of life and major illness, the work of my friend Antonia Rolls. You can read more about the project here. I contribute to the project by recording events, making portraits and prints of the individuals who contribute and providing other practical and moral support. The current exhibition is in the church of St Martin's in the Bullring in Birmingham and there is still time to visit if you are interested.

The work above is the most recent contribution to the project. Sue Pryde committed suicide. She left extensive notes explaing her decision and trying to ameliorate the pain that would be felt by her husband Stuart and close family and friends. Sue was quite a remarkable woman and Stuart is a remarkable man. Stuart has spent much of the last few years coming to terms with Sue's death and speaks and writes very profoundly about his experience and his love for Sue. You will be able to see some films of Stuart shortly. The pictures above show Stuart and Sue facing each other surrounded by favourite plants and with a sunny blue sky behind them. Between them are smaller pictures containing Sue's wedding day speech, her suicide note and some words from her journal.

A few portraits and detail shots below, showing of people who visited the exhibition on the opening day.


Poetry workshop: Penny and guest


Lost for words

This baby had the most wonderful range of expressions.

Entertaining a little boy while his parents view the exhibition.

Conversation pieces. I have been trying to resist the temptation to work in black and white recently, in part as a discipline to just work with what is there in front of me. But these two images just wanted to be bw.

...while the irony is hot

2011-10-30T18:41:00.000Z

Some reflections on the OCA study day at the V&A, looking at the Postmodernism exhibitions. I am trying just for a change to get the blog completed soon after the visit while my memories are still fresh. This was a very comprehensive exhibition and I won't attempt to cover every aspect in this blog, concentrating on the things that most struck me or may be relevant to future work - such as the images in the postcards I bought - shown above.

There were two exhibitions - the main blockbuster Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990 and a small separate display of photography influenced by postmodernism - the picture below shows the photography gallery.

OCA students and tutors deep in discussion at the photography exhibition. Amano has spotted me and Yiann adds a wonderful splash of colour in the background.

Gilly

2011-10-27T14:44:00.000+01:00

Shy Gilly

This is a picture of my friend, fellow blogger and OCA student Gilly. It was taken during our recent trip to the South Bank. We were sheltering in a cafe from the heavy wind and rain and I thought the light on Gilly's face looked rather nice (diffused daylight from a steamed-up window). Gilly doesn't really like having her picture taken and was rather embarassed, but very kindly allowed me to take a few quick snaps. I like this one becaue of the light and Gilly's expression.

The pictures below were taken on a different day and in very different light (a dark cafe with no natural light source). Again we were having a cup of tea and chatting away. Sitting down and talking tends to make up a large part of our outings. I loved what Gilly was wearing and thought it would be interesting to take some detail pictures, to see how much you can suggest of the whole person from telling details.

Here is a composite image showing my favourite details. You can get a surprising amount of information from small glimpses.

Composite Gilly

No picture of our days together would be representative without some evidence of tea and chat.

Just got this month's BJP - very pleased to see that the subject of this issue is portraits. Off for a relaxing read now.

Pretty pictures

2011-10-27T12:34:00.000+01:00

The theme song for today's blog is 'I just want to fill the world with silly love songs' by Paul McCartney and Wings - feel free to play the embedded video at the bottom of the page while reading this.

Sometimes I find I just want to make pretty pictures, particularly when the world is feeling a bit tough and difficult to cope with. I guess it's not the worst possible photographic crime. There will be scope another time for reflection on why pictures of young females, children, flowers and fluffy animals seem particularly apt for such moments but this is really a blog about processing learning points and deeper reflection and research can wait for another day and a different post.

I took these pictures two few years ago at a flash photography workshop run by the wonderful Neil van Niekerk. The model is the very beautiful Francesca from Model Mayhem. I was very happy with the picture above when I first took it. I did some basic processing and posted it to Flickr - you can see below in the top of the diptych how it looked at that time. Recently I bought the Florabella Collection Classic Workflow Photoshop actions and revisited some of the pictures from that shoot to familiarise myself with the workflow. The difference is quite dramatic as you can see.

In working on this picture I used a set of actions called Classic Film, together with two finishing layers called Modern Colour and Rosy Cream. All of the actions use layers so are adjustable at each stage, and I have used layer masks and varied the opacity to apply effects in different strengths to different parts of the image. The actions are applied on top of what is essentially a raw image - I have not attempted to tidy up any skin blemishes or uneveness (as you can see, Francesca has lovely skin). I think the picture will benefit from a little further work but I was so struck by the global changes that I wanted to discuss these now.

One effect of these changes is to lighten parts of the picture considerably, and to add an overall reddish colour glaze. This has led me to look again at my initial processing decisions and wonder if the picture was not a little underexposed. The additional lightness in the centre of the image draws your attention to her face and eyes. I am familiar with the use of dodging and burning techniques to draw attention to and from areas of the image but seeing the effect of these actions has led me to wonder if I have been paying enough attention to such details. Don't get me wrong - I am not planning to use these actions or similar levels of processing for every portrait picture I take - sometimes one wants a straightforward uninflected picture. But I do want to pay more attention to every aspect of the picture in post, and to be more mindful of subtleties of colour and tone.

Looking at the revisited version now it's posted I can see that one side of her face looks a little too bright and one perhaps not bright enough, and arguably too much of the subtleties of moulding and softness have been lost. I had been planning to carry out some beauty retouching on this picture when I have worked my way through the course examples and my Kelby manual - I may try to even out her eyebrow, for example. I will revisit the light on her face also and repost a final version in a few months' time.

Before and after

Innocent when you dream

2011-10-26T16:09:00.004+01:00

This picture, of resting gold miners in Burkina Faso, is part of a documentary series taken recently by OCA tutor Jose Navarro. I find it a very powerful picture. The sight of the two young men curled up like children and sleeping in public view conjures up a wealth of ideas and emotion. One is aware that they are young and fit and strong, but they look like children in their sleep - the outstretched hand of one of the miners, resting as it does on the other's arm, convey a sense of initmacy and companionship. Their dust-covered bodies and clothing blend in with the landscape they lie in, and will one day return to. The picture suggests to me a life of hard physical toil and one can't help wonderful how their lives will turn out. Will they have a long and healthy and happy life? I hope so, but fear otherwise.

The picture reminded me of this short film below, by war correspondent Tim Hetherington. This short film contains elements from a larger multimedia installation called 'Sleeping Soldiers'. The film shows pictures of young American fighters asleep in their bunks, intemingled with sounds and video footage from their daytime life of battle and fighting. I find it almost unbearably poignant. Tim Hetherington's conflict photography concentrated on showing the human side of war, from the perspective of civilians and fighters. Whatever one feels about the role played by the US in recent conflicts I think it would be hard not to feel empathy for these very young men - not much more than boys - in a foreign country surrounded by enemies, while we keep up with the war from our armchairs.

Sleeping Soldiers_single screen (2009) from Tim Hetherington on Vimeo.

Seeing people exposed in the very private act of sleeping makes us aware of their vulnerability, and perhaps of our own position as voyeurs. Sleep and death look very alike from a distance, and both works evoke echoes of mortality - as does the act of photography itself, capturing a brief trace of a moment that is gone even as the shutter closes. One of the great qualities still and moving images can have is to bring us closer to other human beings in a particularly immediate way. Really good documentary photography can show us how people live, and can communicate messages in a direct way that is hard to replicate in words. It draws us in and engages us. I find this work haunting and have found it impossible to forget either piece of work since I saw them.

Tom Waits's "Innocent when you dream" seemed a very suitable soundtrack to this post.

The eyes have it

2011-10-26T11:24:00.000+01:00

This is a picture of my friend Toni, taken recently while visiting her Bognor studio. We were talking in the studio about our many current and future projects and plans for the next Graceful Death exhibition when I was struck by the sight of this picture 'staring' over her shoulder. I took a few photographs and this is my favourite. I think her expression is very compelling. The contrast between the view of the person who was in front of me (naturalistic colours, clear and direct gaze and soft-toned) and the striking painted image behind creates some tension and elements of ambiguity that appeal to me. The burnt-out highlight on her shoulder is unfortunate. I have other versions where the highlight detail has been retained, but at the expense of the key parts of the image, which are underexposed. I could rescue them in post-processing but on balance decided to go with this one, where the most important elements - the faces - work well.

When taking the picture I was unsure if the painting behind would not be simply a distraction or annoyance in the final photograph, but think it works. There is a tension between the two elements which I quite enjoy. Do let me know if you think otherwise - constructive feedback is always welcome.

In the post!

2011-10-16T18:12:00.001+01:00

I sent off my APEL application this weekend. If successful, this will get me credit for two first year photography degree modules. I have already passed one first year module(you need to complete three in total) so if I get the credit I will have completed the first year of the degree. In a few months I will have completed one of two second year modules and will officially be half way to the degree (assuming I pass both ; -)).

I have uploaded the APEL application to Dropbox so you can see it if you are interested.
APEL application It is a large file and may take some time to upload (strangely, making a web-friendly version made it a third larger again). I hope I have demonstrated the relevant learning outcomes and will be successful - will update this post one way or another so anyone interested can share the learning curve with me. My understanding (hope?) is that people aren't often failed outright but allowed to re-present if not successful at first.

I took a few risks and am not sure how that will go down. The main one is that the first two pictures in one of the modules are not the very best I could produce now: they are included as part of the story of development and progress. Doing a retrospective assessment in this way made the process of putting the applictaion together more interesting and meaningful for me. I am aware that others may not feel the same way. I also wonder if maybe I should have included some of my most recent work instead of repurposing a TAOP assignment for PaP. And is there enough 'place' in those pictures - I feel sure there are enough people images to make the grade?

It took a long time to put it all together and I learned a few practical things in the process, putting some extra effort into formatting the assignment, experimenting with PS text and layout tools - per the Title page image above, learning how to make PDFs and also printing CD covers for the first time.

The whole exercise took a lot of time and mental energy - more than you might think from the end product. All sorts of little details add to the time taken (renaming all the CD files so that they show up in the right order, for example). It's been a very busy time at work also so am feeling a bit washed out now. I plan to have a relaxing week, and next weekend to do social things and not much photography as I need a bit of a break. Then I'll get back to my PWDP assignment 4 which I parked for a while.

I have a dozen blogs half-written in my head and hope to actually complete a few of those over the next week or so.

Bognor in bloom

2011-09-18T10:20:00.004+01:00


New look

Bognor is blooming! Well it was two weeks ago when I spent a few days there. Bognor is taking part in Britain in Bloom and full of floral displays. I was struck from time to time by how the displays sat within the context they were placed in, sometimes complementing it and and sometimes not - serving almost as a commentary on the place they found themselves in. I spent some time exploring the town with my camera, and here is what I saw.

The picture immediately above is the first picture I took in this series - I loved the colour and exuberance of the display but found it sat oddly among the 1960s concrete that is Bognor town centre.


The gooseberry bush


Hatter's Inn (fag break)

Market

Shopping and gossip, with views of victorian Bognor in the background.

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The Bench

2011-08-31T18:43:00.001+01:00

51°27'54.51" N 0°05'27.49" W

This post has been inspired by a poem written by Rosie Miles. Rosie is studying for a literature MA and the programme includes sharing her writing with visual artists, who are to produce work in response. Rosie sent me a selection of poems, including one called 'Bench (for Kate Etheridge)'.

Kate was a friend of Rosie's who died young from a brain tumour. A group of her friends collected money to have a bench engraved in her honour. The narrator of the poem describes sitting on the bench, tracing the inscription with her fingers, thinking of Kate. The poem brings out the tactile qualities of the bench, still very much there years after Kate's death.

                                              "...As yet you're not
           defaced, and ten years on you're part of what
           lives, grows, belongs here in this place...."

Reading the poem I was very strongly aware of a sense of the solidity and presence of the bench, and the absence of Kate. I often look at the inscriptions on benches in parks and wonder who these people were, people who loved the park so much, and who were loved by those who chose to commemorate them in this way. I found that the bench was in Ruskin Park in South London, not too far from where I live. I thought it would be interesting to visit and document the bench, to sit on it and explore it and the space it was in, to place it in my mind and on the map. I wanted to explore the sense of the solidity of the bench, to see if it was there still, while Kate, whom I never knew, was- where?

So here is the bench made in Kate's memory. The little film clip above was taken stting on the bench, trying to capture a sense of being there, while the stills below document the bench as it was in August 2011.

Scenes of life on the bench - the spider's web

Evidence of other visitors

I have located the bench on Google Earth and have attempted to post these pictures to Google Earth - I didn't realise until I started that it takes up to four weeks for pictures to appear. I will update this post when/if they appear. In the meantime you can find the bench for yourself by plugging in the coordinates at the top and bottom of this post.

So here is the bench, and its surroundings, and the inscription to Kate from her friends. I have explored it, and I have located it fairly precisely on the map. But where is Kate? Who was she? What did she look like? We will probably never know much beyond her name, her lifespan, and that she was much loved. So what does the Bench symbolise, to you or to the people who loved Kate? I suppose this work, like the poem that inspired it, is about love and loss and what remains.

Reflection

I don't regard this as a finished project but as work in progress. I want to visit the bench again, in winter and in spring, and take some more pictures/film footage. I hope to get a recording of Rosie's voice reading the poem, and ultimately to put the stills, audio and film clips together into a single piece of footage, ideally linked to/from Google Earth.

I've not tried to make work in response to a poem or piece of writing or music before. I've found it a very interesting and stimulating experience and expect to try it again. I look forward to finishing this project and am grateful to Rosie for sharing her work with me and giving me this opportunity.

51°27'54.51" N 0°05'27.49" W

The Lion and Unicorn

2011-08-28T14:24:00.000+01:00

I recently spent a fascinating day at the South Bank with my friend Gilly. The complex is hosting a great number of exhibits, art works and events to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain. I found this installation particularly interesting and resonant. It is called "The Lion and Unicorn": a reference to a pavilion at the original exhibition which celebrated what it meant to be British. The pavilion had at its centre a collection of ceramic birds, symbolising migration and freedom of speech.

The current installation was put together by artist Gitta Gschwendtner working with 50 young refugees. The papers contain poems about their experience of exile and belonging, and as you near the installation you hear their voices speaking the poems, while overhead the paper airplanes suggest flight and departure, freedom and movement. I found it all very powerful and thought-provoking. I particularly liked the combination of written and spoken words with the visual elements of the piece. Sound pieces were a signifcant part of the various installations at the South Bank - more of this in a later post ...

(Sub)text continued

2011-08-28T11:49:00.000+01:00

Fragile

Spotted on my way to work one morning last week.

Communication

I took this a few weeks ago in my local area. My eye was initially caught by the graffiti: as I looked further the complexity of the scene and the colour combinations attracted me. I can't make much sense out of the graffiti. It looks to me to be half-finished - in partcular missing the top of the letters. Perhaps the authors couldn't reach? Maybe the handy ladder will be pressed into play next time. I am sure there are many stories behind this scene. Life is full of these little puzzles.

Further exampls of this ongoing project can be found here and here.

More (sub)text

2011-08-21T17:38:00.000+01:00

A few more pictures from this work in progress.

Vivid colour, stunning detail

Common cafe

No drinking in the churchyard

Everything must go

This is our home

Inspiration: Paul Strand and others

2011-08-21T12:21:00.001+01:00

I've come across a lot of inspirational work this week and thought I would do a bit of a round-up.

Firstly, I found this beautiful film of Paul Strand's life and work via @hungryeyemag on Twitter. The film is in six parts so around 1.5 hours long and if you are interested I would suggest that you set aside time to watch it all the way through. It is something to savour and reflect on rather than quickly skimming.

I found it fascinating to see how Strand's work changed over the years, from his early period as a pictorialist through ground-breaking formal modernist works and finally towards work that explored social and political issues as well as more formal studies. I found it fascinating also to see his work in film, and the development from someone whose film-making started from a still image and an interest in light to work which was much more aboit movement, more film-like in its essence. The exploration of his post-war books is really interesting also, including the realisation that you could find enough material to make a book anywhere, once you start to look.

Throughout his life Strand spoke of his work as being about the outside world, and not a self-expression- "People ask me how I decide which picture to take... (all I can say is that) something outside of myself stops me and says 'Look at this, look at me' ". This strikes a chord with me as my primary drive in taking pictures is to capture what I see outside me. Of course, individual personalty and taste do come across in photography in any event, but pure self-expression is not my main interest. There are many wonderful and thought-provoking images to see in this film, alongside the personal story and the events of the century. I love the fact that he was working hard to the end: his final, and only titled work, 'A bird on the edge of space' is a profoundly moving exploration of the end of life, calling to mind later life Kertesz's polaroids.

Other riches:

Brassai, interviewed by Tony Ray Jones - another fascinating exploration of a man's life and work. Two comments made by Brassai sum up the main themes of the essay and are meaningful for me. The first was his statement that "one doesn't photograph with the eyes but with all one's intelligence". I suppose my ideal is to take pictures that work on more than one level - things that please or intrigue the eye and than engage the brain and emotions also.

Szarkowski on Eggleston - a very thorough exploration of William Eggleston's work by the great curator. Some aspects of the commentary in this essay looks dated now, showing how the photography world has moved on in 40-odd years, but much is still insightful and relevant. The discussion of the move from black and white to colour particularly struck me. Szarkowski sees Eggleston's use of colour film as part of his decision to open up his photography to show more of our everyday life, as we live it, eschewing pictorial scenes and great moments for a more inclusive exploration of the everyday. Again I suppose I find this inspiring because it is what I am currently trying to do in my own work.

Finally, I found this comparison of Google Street View vs boots on the ground as ways of tacking for social documentary photography very interesting. The subject is the prostitutes of Italy's backroads and I find the comparison between the detatched voyeuristic street view approach and the engaged exploration by Paolo Patrizzi very telling.

And speaking of my own work, I think it's time to stop looking at others and get on with some. ; -)

A confusion of flowers

2011-08-14T13:44:00.002+01:00

I was at Ruskin Park in Denmark Hill yesterday, working on a project which I hope to be able to share soon, when I came across an area of meadow planting. The site you see below used to be a bowling green: in 2007 it was replanted as a wildflower meadow.

It was a lovely space to find in the city (that's King's College Hospital you can just see in the background), a managed wilderness full of insect life and a sense of the abundance of nature. Of course I had to try to take some pictures while I was there.
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Ghost Town

2011-08-09T20:44:00.005+01:00

There's a seriously strange atmosphere in my area tonight. When I left work Central London was looking lovely in the evening sun - people lying around in parks, enjoying a pint at the local pub. Police vans from Surrey and Norfolk and lord knows where lined along Petty France and panic buying at M&amp;S were the only signs that something slightly odd might be afoot. Hard to take the sight of people wandering out of M&amp;S with bulging bright green bags too seriously, though.

But what a change when I got off my train. everywhere shut - evening the local takeaways and ethnic always-open we-sell-everything-at all-hours shops. As I walked from the station I noticed quite quickly that all the people melted away, to a point where there was mostly just me and occasional solitary individuals. Everywhere shuttered and boarded. Almost no traffic. Almost no people. Like something out of a science fiction film. Much, much more unsettling than if there had been lots of people and a bit of mild trouble - that wouldn't have unnerved me nearly so much.

My local bicycle shop has removed all its stock, and the second hand car lot is empty (see below) for possibly the first time either. I took a snap to record the occasion and then realised that maybe pulling out an expensive camera wasn't such a clever move so stopped with just one pic. When I got into my street I met a man who said he had walked up the high road for half a mile trying to find milk for his baby and not finding anywhere open. Luckily they have enough milk to get by till tomorrow. All I've been writing this near my window I have heard almost almost no traffic and no-one out. Not many sirens so far. Here's hoping for a peaceful night, and that all this has been an overreaction.

A bit of an experiment

2011-08-07T18:50:00.001+01:00

So, after some trials and tribulations, here is my first attempt at a video clip. I wanted to capture the sense of peacefulness I felt. The sound quality is poor (I think the crackling soudns is something to do with the breeze hitting the microphone- it wasn't there in real life) and there are other technical flaws but I am fond of this all the same. Maybe that's what all that furry stuff on professional mikes is for. Anyway, we all have to start somewhere, so here I am. Started.

PS: I hope this plays for anyone who is interested. I had to compress it and could only do that by turning it into a Windows Media Player file. I've embedded a much larger file below which should play on anyone's system but might be too large to download. Let me know if this works for you or not (on any level)?

A day at the Royal Academy

2011-07-31T18:00:00.005+01:00

I spent a great day yesterday at the Royal Academy, seeing both 'Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography in the Twentieth Century' and part of the Summer Show with my friend Gilly. Here are some quick notes and reflections.

Eyewitness
'Eyewitness' is a fascinating and comprehensive exhibition, containing a selection of the best work by some of the best photographers working in the 20th century. There was so much to see and absorb that I think at least one further visit will be needed. I can't attempt a comprehensive reveiw so will just mention a few works and artists that were particularly meaningful for me.

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Inspiring film of Bill Brandt

2011-07-29T13:28:00.004+01:00

Do watch this fascinating film of master photographer Bill Brandt. I found so much in this inspirational. His gentle approach and lack of pretension ("...It was lucky... one has to have luck...they were so nice.. I just knocked on the door and asked if I could take some pictures... they were very kind..."), combined with Dogged persistance and talent, enabling him to take wonderful pictures across a wide range of subjects.

There's something in the set of four short video clips for people working in almost every genre - a very interesting discussion of portraiture in part 2., darkroom practice (You print all your own pictures? Yes... I change pictures completely in the darkroom... Most of the work is done in the darkroom.") and landscape work in part 3; then his favourite nudes and - just for Yiann - feet! - in Part 4 below.

The aspects of his work which most resonate with me are his thinking on portraits, something I want to explore again soon, and his pictures of a changing culture and landscape. There is an early discussion in this series of how, as Brandt puts it, the pictures have got more interesting with the passing of time. Many of the street scenes I capture change within days by their nature, but some of the buildings I photographed just a few months ago are gone already also. A desire to capture the passing moment was one of my initial reasons for starting to take family snaps as a child, and I would like to find a way to communicate this feeling in some future work.

I find Brandt's work particularly inspiring and resonant for me. I have been aware of it for many years but think I may study it a little more closely soon. I don't in any way see myself trying to replicate what he has done, but learning form him and building on what I've learned could be a very interesting project.

(Sub)text

2011-07-24T15:11:00.003+01:00


All butter croissants

Following the 'Approaching the Street' workshop mentioned in previous posts, I decided to take ''Text and image' as my theme. I already had a few pictures I've taken over the last six months that featured text in some way. I had been considering a series using text and the workshop helped me start. I decided mostly to go out and explore my local area with a fairly open mind and see what I found. What I found is set out below, together with a few images previously taken. The pictures can be gathered together in different ways - ultimately I will make one or more sets from them. Here is where I've got to so far.

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Approaching the Street part 2

2011-07-24T12:17:00.001+01:00

A quick update on the second and final session of this street photography work shop with Tiffany Jones (you can find details of the first day here).

At the end of the first workshop we had been given a set of themes and told to choose one, work on it over the next two weeks, and bring back what we'd done to the second day. We spent the day looking at each other's work, with feedback from Tiffany and a colleague and from and each other - and very interesting it was too. It helped that everyone was really interested in the subject and very open to learning and sharing with others. About half of the workshop participants used film and three did their own developing and printing also: Roy's Crown Graphic (seen in the picture above) was the most extreme example of use of a camera not best suited to standard quick-fire street work. Trying out different kit like this wasn't just a gimmick - everyone in their different ways wanted to use the workshop to try things that were out of their comfort zones, whether in terms of subject matter, kit, working practice, or all of those.

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Edward Weston

2011-07-24T09:21:00.000+01:00

A fascinating film from 1948 showing Edward Weston at work.

"The work is the statement - right?"

2011-07-19T21:38:00.000+01:00

Brian Duffy, bald and scruffy: watch these clips - an amazing record of an exceptional, difficult, and brilliant man.

http://youtu.be/kQ1f3l-xVVg

http://youtu.be/B4N6yBypNxI

Hockney, Beaton, Bailey, Duffy, Litchfield - check out this cracking comtemporary clip also.

Assignment 3 essay: tutor feedback and reflections

2011-07-16T10:54:00.002+01:00

I received my tutor's feedback on my essay a few days ago and want to post a few thoughts and reflections at this point.

As background I should explain that the theme I selected for the essay was 'Value': more specifically I wanted to explore whether the impact of digital technology had increased or reduced the value of photography. I looked at three broad aspects of photographic practice - photo journalism, wedding and social photography, and contemporary art photography, and how technology had impacted on each. I should say that I was only required to write about one aspect of practice but chose to explore a wider range. Because I had decided to cover a range of practice I knew from the start that I would have a challenge ordering the material and sticking to the suggested word count (c2,500 words). And as expected I did struggle to organise the material and my 6,500 word bruiser hugely exceeded the word count.

I knew when I sent the essay off, a month or more over time, that I would want to revisit it before submitting for assessment. But at that time I thought it was in at least reasonable state, and I just needed to move it on.

Back to the feedback. To my relief I haven't been told to cut the thing down drastically, though I have been quite reasonably reminded that I should aim to keep future work within +/- 10% of the suggested word count. My tutor has suggested that I look again at the essay to think about whether any parts should be cut out, or whether I could refine the question to be more specific. I have some thoughts on one or two sections that could be cut or significantly shortened, and will aim to do that. I probably do need to consider cutting out whole sections - as in whole areas of practice - so I just concentrate on, say, photojournalism, but am not sure that I want to do that. On one hand it would make the whole thing simpler and more coherent. On the other hand I have actually found it quite interesting and revealing to compare and contrast the impacts in the different areas of practice and wouldn't want to lose that. I do think I could make the links and interactions between sections a bit smoother and more coherent and will work on that.

Despite this question about whether I have bitten off more than I can chew I think it's fair to say that the overall feedback is positive. My tutor says it was an interesting read, with excellent research and using apt quotes. She discusses the more detailed points I have made and seems engaged and to broadly agree my conclusions, finishing with an additional thought that I might find a way to work into the revised version (without making it any longer!). I have found it very helpful to get a detatched critique of the work and will use that in my reworking.

When I have revised the work so it is ready for assessment I will find a way to post it here, not because I think the world is desperate to read my essay but because I found very few examples of others work when I was starting out. For me at least, seeing how other people address a subject can be a really good way to get your brain cells moving, even if in the end you decide to do something completely different.

Approaching the Street

2011-07-10T10:20:00.001+01:00

Reflections: a busy Saturday afternoon in Brixton

This is a quick report back from the workshop I attended yesterday. It's called 'Approaching the Street' and is led by Tiffany Jones, one of the exhibitors in Photofusion's 'On Street Photography: A Woman's Perspective'. I highly recommend both the workshop and the exhibition (which I'll do a separate note about at a later stage).

The workshop atmosphere was helped along by a really friendly bunch of participants. Before I got there I wondered if the workshop would be all or mostly women but the split was in fact a fairly standard one for photography, with seven men and three women. There was a good mix of experience and an unusual range of kit: cameras ranged from a toy one called the 'Diana' through a Ricoh 28mm compact, two Leicas and a Mamiya medium format camera. About a third of attendees shoot film mostly and a good number work in black and white. I am very intrigued to see how everyone's work will turn out, exspecially the pictures from the toy camera. One of the attendees is a professional paparazzi and press photographer while another has only been taking pictures for a few months. Most of us are somewhere in the middle, Everyone, whatever their experience levels, wanted help and ideas to move their work forward in some way.

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Update - work in progress

2011-07-09T08:46:00.000+01:00

I've been a bit neglectful of this blog recently, and thought it was time for a quick update on progress.

Firstly, I finished my essay (assignment 3) a few weeks ago and am waiting for my tutor's thoughts. The essay took even longer than the generous amount of time I had allowed for it and was more than a month over time. It was a bit overweight also, weighing in at a healthy 6,600 words. I feel a bit guilty about sending all that to my tutor... Looking back at it now I am not unhappy overall but do think it will need some sub editing and tidying up before I submit it for assessment. To be honest, I wanted to have another go at it before I sent it, but that would have added at least another week to the delay and I think sometimes you just have to get the thing off your desk and out into the world. I do expect to revisit it once I have some distance from it and can see it a bit more clearly.

The PWDP essay is different than the other level two essays as you can't really concentrate on one photographer - few have worked exclusively in digital for long enough to build up a really substantial body of work. So it tends to need to be a survey of some genre or style of work, which is difficult to organise and keep to small numbers. Everyone I know who has done the course has struggled to a greater or lesser extent, and most end up doing something on the ethics of digital manipulation. I know that the course is being updated and hope that the essay assignment is a little more strucured in the new version. I made things worse for myself by looking at three areas of practice - documentary, commercial social photography and fine art practice. My theme was value - specifically, how has the development of digitial technology impacted on the value of photography? The subject of what we value and why, and how people manipulate value, has interested me for some time and it was good to take time out to really think about the subject. I have two or three related blogs written in my head (tangential ideas that didn't fit into the essay) and hope to get round to sharing these sometime soon.

I am also working hard following a Kelby Training book (Professional Portrait Retouching Techniques for Photographers). This is a great step-by-step guide to retouching. I wanted to learn this skill as part of my course and thought it was about time I got started. I am for the time being parking any thoughts of the pros and cons of retouching. The technques in the book could be used for any tyoe of digital work and not just portraiture. I am learning lots of selection techniques, for example, that could be adapted to any work. There are lots and lots of exercises to do and I am trying to work through them methodically to get them really into my fingertips. I think it's a bit like learning a language - sometimes you just have to do the drills and repeat things over and over again. Kelby is really good in that he doesn't just tell you what you need to do - he remembers that many of us need to know how to do it, and keeps reminding you how to make the Pen tool or Warp tool do what you want, and what the shortcut is for an inverted layer mask, and so on.

Sadly I can't share any of my tidy eyebrows or extended lashes as the sample pictures are not free to share, but when I am done I will do a few real examples from my own archives and share with you. In the meantime I thought Lexi in her curlers a good symbol of where I am. ; -)

As well as this work I am working on both my planned assignments four (pictures based on the theme of water) and five (street photography images). I am off shortly to Photofusion in Brixton for a street photography workshop. Busy busy busy.

On truth and beauty

2011-06-01T16:48:00.000+01:00

I've been struggling for some time with two quite divergent aspects of my photography: a desire to make pictures that please me aesthetically, and a desire to record the world as it is. the world I live in isn't alawys beautiful, though it can be interesting. I make pictures of flowers and weddings and happy people, and I also take Street style documentary images, which can be a little bleak. There are two recent examples below.

I think sometimes that the pictures look like they could have been taken by two different people, and I am uncomfortable about that. In an ideal world I would like to bring together what feels at times like two warring sides of my personality in my work. Although I am not quite half way through PWDP yet (must get on with that essay) I am thinking ahead to the final year module I plan to start next year. I am hoping to explore the idea of beauty in that module - what we do and don't find beautiful, and why, and the role of beauty in art and life. Perhaps by the end of that year I will feel that I have arrived at a way of working that is more resolved. In the meantime I expect to push harder on both fronts - in the sense that I'll continue to take pictures that record the less beautiful things I see, and ones that record the things I find beautiful (or try to). I have decided that my next PWDP assignment will have (hopefully) attractive pictures and the final one will consist of a selection the street pictures I have been taking this year. Maybe eventually the work will meet in the middle.

I was inspired to write this blog post by reading a wonderful book by Robert Adams, and by a discussion with some friends about the value of beauty in modern art. Adams's book is called 'Why People Photograph' and is a fascinating sustained meditation on the art of photography. One passage in particular really struck a chord with me. Adams is discussing the work of Laura Gilpin, who photographed the American West and Navajo tribespeople. He notes that her pictures, taken as a whole, show the people and the land at their best: in documenting the Navajo she does not look at their alcoholism, for example. Adams believes that the greatest photography should remain faithful to the appearance of the world and record contradictions: by doing so the greatest pictures would bring about a kind of wholeness. He goes on to reflect, nevertheless, on the value of other methods of working:

"At a time when, more than ever before, we have to live by hope, the question is what can photography contribute. If it can take us by way of the ominous surface of life to discoveries that can save us, that still seems to me to be the best, because the surface is where we have to live most of the time. Alternatively, if some art can allow us briefly to escape that surface so that we can recover a memory or an intuition of what is affirmable, that contributes too." (c) Robert Adams 1994

I don't believe that beauty and truth never coincide, but I do believe that the truth isn't always beautiful. Limiting my photography to only the beautiful bits of the world - the ideal that Adams writes of - no longer feels wholly comfortable to me. But a life without beauty or hope would be a very bleak one indeed. Maybe I won't ever square the circle to my own satisfaction, however I feel the need to spend the next year or two trying.

Paul Graham

2011-05-23T21:40:00.001+01:00

Paul Graham from white tube on Vimeo.

Some notes on my visit to the exhibition at Whitechapel Art Gallery, organised by the OCA. Lack of time (and a desire to get my thoughts down quickly so I can read what others thought of the work) means that I will concentrate only on those aspects of the exhibition that struck me most.

Overall, I found the exhibition enthralling. It is unusual to see so much gallery space devoted to one photographer's work, and seeing a sample of work across his career really helped one get a sense of who he is as an artist. Themes (and colour palettes) recurred across projects. It was great to see both his development as an artist over the decades and at the same time see those aspects of his work that are consistent.

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Last Days of the Arctic

2011-05-15T21:42:00.000+01:00

A fascinating slideshow of Ragnar Axelsson's recent work, documenting life in the Arctic Circle as the ice gets thinner. The pictures are exceptional. I think the audio elements of the slideshow complement the images very well.

Here is a link to Ragnar's website, and to the BBC iPlayer page for the recent documentary about his work, which shows a remarkable civilisation on the edge of the world; a way of life that is hugely affected by climate change. Will the Arctic survive?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0110ghk/Storyville_20102011_Last_Days_of_the_Arctic_Capturing_the_Faces_of_the_North/

Extreme contrast - some learning points

2011-05-08T18:11:00.000+01:00

A few more holiday snaps. These were taken in the beautiful gardens of Derrynane House, ancestral home to Daniel O'Connell; lawyer, politician and statesman. The house setting and garden are truly beautiful. Very remote on the South West coast of Ireland, it was a much-prized retreat from the hurly burly of the courts and the campaign for Catholic Emancipation.

We were fortunate enough to visit on a beautiful spring day. The strong directional sunlight brought its own problems for photography and I thought I'd document my struggle with them here. To get a reasonable range of light and shade I took multiple exposures and combiend some using Photomatix Exposure Fusion. This took a lot of trial and error, mainly because the anti-ghosting tool doesn't work so well in scenes that have a lot of contrast and small details, resulting in patches with uneven colour and tone. Unfortunately these don't show up on the preview and so I had to reprocess all of these files a few times. In future I hope that I will be able to spot these potential problem areas in advance and save myself some time.

I'm moderately happy with the end results. Contrast is very high still and ideally I'd have taken more shots in the sequence - but of course that would have added to the potential for ghosting. A scene like this was always going to be tricky and I feel happy that I've got something usable. These are very much holiday snaps rather than serious offerings for assessment, but I think they've been a useful experiment in dealing with extreme dynamic range. And they give me at least some sense of the beauty of that place. I fully intend to visit again, and hope for softer light.

The picture above is quite unusual for me, in that most of the interest is around the edges of the scene. I loved the colour of the rhodedendron bushes and the sense of abundance and spring so had to try to capture the scene.


Spring colour

This last picture wasn't taken at Derrynane but at Mount Ephraim in Kent. I have added it here as the colour seemed to work so well with the bushes here - the red comes from one of Mount Ephraim's many spring flowering plants.

Assignment four for PWDP required eight landscape photographs all addressing a common theme. My theme will be 'water'. I had thought that this picture might be included but now think I will end up with something a little quieter and more meditative. We'll see - things never quite work out how I plan them!

Irish spring

2011-05-03T13:43:00.000+01:00

Just baack from a week in Ireland. My sister and I went to Killarney for the first time. Such a beautiful place, and we were lucky enough to enjoy unseasonably good weather. I am frustrated by all the pictures I missed, and by a sense of just touristing through the landscape rather than really exploring it as I'd have liked to. But I got some pictures I was pleased with and here are a few.

The picture above was taken on my morning stroll through the grounds of our hotel - can you believe we woke up to this veiw every day? Heavenly.

This picture shows the Killarney lakes. Viewpoint just off teh road from Kenmare to Killarney - part of the ring of Kerry.

Closer to home, there is a small stream and wooded area just at the back of my sister's house. The wood was filled with bluebells.

Surviving cancer

2011-04-21T20:28:00.000+01:00

This is Nushi Khan-Levy. Nushi's body is cancer free after two operations, and today she had the last course of the chemotherapy which will help keep the cancer away. Nushi was interviewed about surviving cancer earlier this week for the Graceful Death film. I was fortunate to be asked to take some portrait images and I wanted to share some of the pictures here with my refections and some learning points.

It was a pleasure and an honour to meet Nushi: she was full of energy and spirit and a wicked sense of humour (since she lost all her hair people keep telling her what a nice shaped head she has: her husband and daughter were a little taken aback when she suggested she might donate her head to an artist to study if she died).

A busy and successful actress, Nushi hasn't really liked looking at herself in the mirror since she lost her hair. She tried a wig but just couldn't get on with it. In addition the steroids she needs to take make her face rather rounder than it was. Not having eyelashes is a pain (literally) as your eyes get quite gritty without their protective curtain. But every day she puts on her make-up and faces the world, driven largely by a desire to show her daughters that nothing is too difficult to be managed: the secret is not to give up or give in.

In preparing for the session I had two main thoughts. I was very keen to take good pictures: this seemed too important to mess up. I decided that the key to a good portrait would be the interaction between me/the camera and the subject, and resolved to try to empathise with and really look at her and to tune into her energy levels and see where that led. My second thought before I got there was that I'd have liked to do some moody black and white images (maybe a cross between Richard Avedon and Sarah Moon) but that ambition didn't fit with who Nushi is. Her house is full of clean lines and light. She says that since the cancer lots of small worries have faded away and these bright, direct images seem to me to reflect that. My initial idea of rather fashion-led pictures seems a little insubstantial in comparison.

The painting in the background in this picture is by Nushi's very talented sister. I was a little concerned that it might be too busy as a portrait background but think this works quite well.

The light in this image is I think acceptable. Ideally I would have liked to have had the lighter side of her face and body further from the camera rather than nearer to it as here. Something to work on for future sessions.


Pensive

Overall I am pleased with the way the session went in photographic terms. I think that I have caught some sense of this remarable and very beautiful woman.

I think the first picture in particular shows her extraordinary combination of strength and honesty and vulnerability.

This is the first time I have tried to take portraits as part of a larger session including filming and an interview. It was difficult sometimes to catch and hold her attention as so many other things were happening. I think that the key to a good still portrait is to be able to get your subject's attention and hold it in the image, and I think my learning point for future sessions is to work at finding ways to make the most of quiet moments and to find ways to make more of them, without getting in the way of the main event, which is the interview and filming. Overall I am pleased with the pictures I got: I would have liked to have more to choose from.

I also plan to continue to work towarsd more interesting light. In the event my almost trademark soft flattish light mostly works here. But I'd like to be a little more in control of it.

I thought I'd end the post with a picture showing her warmth and laughter.

The fish that fell to Earth

2011-04-19T18:43:00.000+01:00

Last week's instruction for the Street Photography Now project was from photographer Paul Russell, who suggested we "Go somewhere you haven't been before - a dog show, a polo match...". Last weekend there was a kite festival on Streatham Common: it coincided with a glorious summer-like day and I thought I'd look by and see if I could find any interesting pictures. I had a pretty good day overall. Sadly it was such a busy week that I failed to put a picture into the pool (again) but I got some that I liked. The light was very intense which was problematic at times but gives a really nice three-dimensional effect to people and shapes. No one was hurt when the kite/balloon finally fell to earth. As well as the main scene I like the little boy and girl on the left hand side, being watched over by the green starey thing...

The festival demonstrated to my ignorant eyes what a range of kites are available. These are sports kites, which can be made to do the most amazing things, often to music.

The picture below reminds me a bit of Peter Dench's work.

The next two remind me of Joel Meyerowitz's Central Park pictures. They're fairly typical park scenes, and I didn't take them for that reason, but looking at them on screen afterwards did make me wonder how often we unconsciously imitate or are influenced by others. How much does looking at other works help us to see more or differently ourselves?

Not quite as incongruous as a loo roll, but odd to see the carrier bag there nevertheless. Perhaps that should be our next OCA comp?

Almost as colourful as his kite.

Father and son. I liked the leisurely approach.

Looking away. I saw this dog from a way away and thought he looked interesting so I wandered over in his direction. I took the picture on instinct because I liked the shapes and light. But on looking at it on screen I think it's interesting how everyone is looking in different directions: the dog is looking at me, the men are looking at the mother and child, the woman is looking at the ground and the baby is staring off into space. I also like the little group in the middle distance that look like a grandfather taking a snap of his granddaughter.

Distance.

Group scene. As the day went on the common got increasingly busy. I struggle with busy scenes: my natural instinct is to simplify and concentrate attention on a limited subject or set of shapes, and I find it hard to make a satisfying composition with lots of elements - to see the design in the bigger picture. That said, I am quite pleased with this one. It's not perfect - ideally I'd like a little more interest on the left hand side to balance the whole - but I think it gives a good sense of a busy scene without wholly losing the plot.

Slightly surreal. Not a perfect composition, but the scene was over in a few seconds so I didn't have time to rearrange. As well as the cow shape I like the little puppet boy on the bottom left. ; -)

The solitary spectator. My alter ego.

Camelia

2011-04-09T20:22:00.000+01:00

Another spring flower. These pictures were taken almost exactly a year ago, at Kew. I was never been able to decide whether they work or not and haven't posted them until now. Last spring, as you may recall, was very windy, which made shooting close up images out of doors very tricky indeed. To get a reasonably fast shutter speed I stuck to f/8 and below, which wasn't sufficient to allow for full sharpness (let alone the problem of getting focus when they kept moving). Because the pictures are so minimal in terms of detail I think every thing that is included needs to work extra hard, so the lack of DOF does pull them back and is a fatal flaw. But I am interested in knowing what others think.

The picture above is probably my overall favourite - I really like the top left of the picture with the two petals shielding the core. If the line of the petal in the bottom right had been sharp I would have been very happy, but c'est la vie. Another reason for not posting this last year is that originally the bottom right petal was very white, which made it quite distracting. I knew I wanted a wash of soft pink just to take the edge off it but a few attempts with brushes and various other tools failed. I knew a gradient fill work but struggled with the tool. It's actually incredibly simple once you know how. This time, I sampled a pale pink from one of the upper petals and used the gradient toool to apply a soft wash to the front. Here is the original for comparison.

These are two leaf details. I liked the simple, almost abstract shapes they made. Again there's a lack of sharp focus - this time in the dark centre leaves. That said, I think they work quite well as a simple diptych.

Finally a detail from a plant that had lost its petals: a naked camellia, and the only one where I got good focus all the way through. Time for some more practice soon, I think...

Spring flowers

2011-04-09T14:24:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I went for a lovely afternoon tea with good friends, in a lovely litle tea room in West Sussex (well worth a trip if you're nearby). The tea shop is in a converted cottage and was full of pretty things and great cakes. I took a few snaps while I was there. The first one above shows one of the table decorations. I've been meaning to try using textures for some time and this picture looked like a good candidate. The back wall was roughly textured but as it was out of focus it lacked a certain oomph. I feel that the texture just gives the eye something to fix on in what would otherwise have been a large expanse with limited visual interest. It's a very simple picture but overall I am pleased with it: it is pretty and delicately colourful and makes me feel happy.

Another table from the tea room, showing the former cottage door in the background. I liked the light shining through - it feels like spring is finally with us. The texture in the curtain and tablecloth seemed more than sufficient in this image and I was tempted to play around with it in any way. Overall I don't think it has quite the impact of the first image (maybe because the first is genuinely simple and sufficient in itself, but this seems to tell half a story and needs either more information or less) but I like it well enough.

Finally, having begun to experiment with texture layers I dug out a picture I took some time ago and which I felt need some work, but wasn't at the time sure what to do.

Again this is a very simple picture with few elements. I've always liked the combination of colours - pinks, creams and brown - and the composition, but the original has a fairly plain brown background made from a bedsheet and the light is soft and undramatic and it looked a little dull. I used a couple of texture layers on the background, using vivid light and overlay blending modes, and think it has given the background much more interest without distracting from the flowers. I used a multiply layer at reduced opacity to darken the jug down a little so that the flowers stand out more in comparison. I think the picture is significantly improved as a result of this work.

I've enjoyed this experiment with textures. I find it very easy to overdo it them - I had to redo the last picture a few times as each time I returned it looked a bit heavy-handed. Originally I let some of the texture inpact on the flowers but that just didn't work. I look forward to further experiments on this front. The textures I used came from The Florabella Collection, which has a number of helpful tutorials for any who wants to try themselves. I have taken a number of texture images over the last year myself and will experiment with using some of those later also.

St Lucia blues

2011-03-22T20:15:00.000Z

Catching up with processing from my holiday in the Caribbean last year. I put off processing some of these pictures because they needed HDR or other processing and I wasn't quite ready. Then I got busy, and a month went by, and then another... When I have worked my way through the pictures I will put them together into an online album so they can be seen as a group. In the meantime, I will work though them in smallish groups.

This first set are are a few pictures taken on a too short stop in St Lucia. I loved these building details. The picture above has been processed a little to bring out colour and contrast but is otherwise as taken.

The side of the house. HDR picture with exposure fusion. Not sure if I like the angle or not. Wish I'd taken one straight but didn't. Now I see them together I notice that the colour is a bit cooler than in the picture above. I may post a revised one to make the set match a little better.

I loved the texture and colours and the little collection of flowers and plants. All so full of life. The building materials suffering from harsh sun and a tropical climate, and the living plants revelling in it.

I was fascinated by the weathered mural on the school walls. Another HDR (exposure fusion) image. the treatment is a little illustrative - I have opened up the shadows and brought out colour and texture. I think it suits the subject, but as always would welcome feedback.

Palm and tin. Just a little detail from a roadside stall.

And finally, a pretty rubbish shot of the Pitons, taken from a moving boat, just to remind myself that I have been there. I want so much to go back and spend time and really appreciate the wonderful place fully.

Why the blues? It's been a bit of a long day. Time for me to put some music on and relax a bit.

My first HDR

2011-03-19T19:52:00.000Z

A quick post from a rather weary me (I've had a busy few weeks). It's fair to say I've been neglecting some of my processing projects in the last few months as I've spent so much time on street and assignment work. I've particularly been putting off attempting HDR as to be honest it daunted me a bit. I think I may also have been deterred by some of the overworked examples I've seen. I'm not attracted to the kind of HDR that is visibly processed but am interested in it as a way of capturing extra information in some scenes where the dynamic range is simply too much for the camera. I have a small collection of pictures that I want to work on and hope to post a few decent ones over the next few weeks. But for now I'm posting this first attempt as a marker against which to measure progress.

This is a window in St Dunstan's church in the city of London, seen on a walking tour with the excellent Hairy Goat tour company. Normally this picture wouldn't see the light of day (Why did I take it at that angle? I suppose it seemed like a good idea at the time...) but as I say it's a starter for 10.

Here is the HDR (tonemapped) picture...

... and here for comparative purposes is the mid-range Raw, essentially unprocessed.

Learning points

Firstly, I shouldn't have been daunted by HDR. I used Photomatix software and it is extremely simple to use at a basic level (considerably easier than Photoshop).

Tonemapping boosts colour in the midtones significantly, and also, as in this case, tends to warm the image. I knocked the colour back in the posted image to get a more natural look. I also added back some contrast and sacrificed a bit of the shadow detail as a result: I found that the original processed image looked a little too flat and slightly unnatural. The raw image is a little underexposed and I would normally have done some work to bring out the midtones and brighten it up so it looked a bit more like the scene as registered by my eyes. In terms of which of these two versions was more 'realistic' I would say that the truth was somewhere between the two - the HDR is not a million miles away. it is a pity that you can't easily see the original and processed versions side by side in the software as this might help with judging colour before you commit to processing.

I would have liked to try an exposure fusion which is much more natural in appearance but had only taken three raws, each 1 stop apart and the fused image was too dark. Normally as a minimum you need one image about two stops over and one about two under as well as a mid range version.

Anyway, here is my starter for 10. Hope to post one or two more interesting pictures soonish.

Right here, Right now: Format 11

2011-03-13T17:36:00.000Z

A lively debate: (Rob, Dave (I think) and Jose) - meeting everyone and talking pictures was a real highlight of the day

Some notes of my visit to the Format festival in Derby yesterday with the OCA. Format has many works on show - over 300 photographers are represented. We saw only a portion but even then too many for me to record, so in this blog I will concentrate on works or observations that meant something to me personally, and things I want to record for future reference. At the end I will post a number of links to reviews and other people's thoughts on the event so you can see a more complete picture of the event, if you are interested.

Why street?

Nick Turpin discussed street photography in a short film he specially made for the exhibition (see link below for an extract) and his analysis summed up what street photography means for me. He talked about the importance of street as photography of modern life which is not owned by anyone (such as a newspaper or corporate client) is uncensored and generally not taken with a particular agenda in mind. It's a relatively unvarnished version of the world, with limited post-processing or stylisation and mostly in colour these days. Nick talked about how changes in camera technology have made it possible to make more sophisticated and complex images (grainy black and white film couldn't hold sufficient detail and worked better with closer scenes). He thinks that it is important to use the tools we have today and not cling onto retro styles.

I have tried to stick to colour and limited processing in my attempts at street to date (though some scenes just seem to cry out for black and white and I have been tempted from time to time). I am naturally inclined to try to take attractive, aesthetic images but I am aware that the downside of this approach is a danger that we won't have a straight record of the world we live in and have made a conscious effort to take more inclusive, wider-ranging pictures. I am enjoying the challenge - particularly as a contrast to my other work.

Exhibition display notes

This is the view inside the Quad, one of the largest exhibition venues.* Two things struck me about the exhibition in general: both are evidenced in the picture above. One is that as a rule the pictures weren't very large - somewhere around A3 size I'd guess on average, as opposed to A1 and upwards, which is more normal for gallery images). I think this was in part responsible for my general feeling that seeing a familiar picture here (Matt Stuart's pigeon, for example) wasn't really that much more impressive than seeing it online or in a book. There were some exceptions which I'll discuss later but by and large these weren't large prints treated as relatively precious artifacts in their own right. In this, and in the fact that there were a wide range of styles of print (white, black and wood frames, flush mounts, mat mounting, and foamboard to name a few) the exhibition was notably different from the Brighton Photo Biennal 2010, curated by Martin Parr.

I imagine that the relatively small size of most images made it easier to bring older and more recent prints together (the older ones might not have responded well to enlargement). It might also have been about a deliberate choice of not treating the prints as rare objects of significant value - perhaps a more democratic aesthetic. It will certainly have been cheaper than producing very large images and of course allowed more pictures to fit into the space available. The lack of a single house style for presenting images intrigued me. I don't know if it is just a different, less controlling approach, perhaps letting each artists choose their own style, or something more deeply significant.

*Taking pictures - I asked if it was OK to take pictures of the exhibitions, and was told that the artists were happy to allow that as long as there is always some evidence of context within the frame - like the picture frame and exhibition boards - so that the exhibition context is clear.

Interesting works

One of the first pieces that caught my eye was this group of images by Nate Larson and Marni Shindelman.

Called 'Tales from the Data Stream' this was a new commission for Format. The artists selected geotagged quotes from Twitter and went to the places where the users were when they posted. They took a photograph to mark the location of the Tweeter in the real world. They say they try to think what the Tweeter may have been looking at when they made the Tweet or to find something in the spot that echoes or interacts with the words. You can see some of the works in more detail here, along with their thoughts on the pieces. I thought this was a really interesting piece of work. So many online comments are context-less and to most of us almost anonymous. Grounding the quotes in a real place seemed to me a very interesting way to explore the sense of illusory closeness we get from many online exchanges and the contrast between the virtual closeness and physical separation and isolation.

Beyond Borders: From Vienna to Beirut is a series of pictures taken on a journey from the eastern edges of Europe to the Arab world. It explores issues of identify and the boundaries between east and west. And many of the pictures are fascinating and very beautiful. This was one of my favourite displays and one that I found personally very inspiring. The work is published in the form of a Photobook with concertina pages and was displayed by opening the book out as a long stream of images across the wall. I would buy this book if I could, but it has a hefty price tag (95 Euro) which makes me pause.

Other works in the Quad exhibition that I liked very much include Joel Meyerowtz's selected images and the work by Will Sanders which you can see in the lightbox-style display in the main Quad picture above. Will's website is a bit unusual in having not many pictures but his photo blog, Some very short stories is worth checking out. Look at his Christmas-inspired images - very funny.

Other artists whose work I enjoyed and would like to explore further include Polly Braden, Raoul Gatepin and Amy Stein. Peter Dench's exploration of English life was interesting. I didn't like his 'drunken' pics - they felt unkind, like he had skewered some very easy exhibits on the hedge of a pin. Possibly a little exploitative. However he had a series of pictures exploring multiculturalism and I found those much more interesting. They showed a society which seemed in a precarious state of balance. Overall those pictures felt more complex and interesting and less judgmental than the drinking scenes.

Outside the Quad building in the central square was a display of street images by Magnum photographers Constantine Manos, Richard Calvar, Raymond Depardon, Trent Parke, Chris Steele-Perkins, Bruno Barbey and Alex Webb. I've written down all their names because there were some wonderful pictures on these boards and I want note them for further exploration.

I was particularly taken with the work of Richard Calvey. The pictures on show here were mostly made in the 1960s in Italy. Some wonderful surreal, striking images. Definitely one to explore further.

I liked the way this display was put together, with some thought-provoking quotes by the photographers concerned and views of the surrounding area as you looked at the pictures.

After the Magnum exhibition we moved on to Derby Museum and Art Gallery. Discussion and debate continued as we went - as you can see below.

Jose and Keith continue the debate: Jose observed that he had come along as his own colour accent for the day.

At the Museum we were able to watch (though not always hear) Nick Turpin's film 'In-Public-In-Sight', which shows interviews with street photographers from the In-Public collective talking about their work and also in the streets taking pictures.


Watching the film

I've already mentioned Nick Turpin's comments at the start of the blog. Other than that I was struck by Richard Bram's comment that NY is probably the most extrovert place on the planet and so great for street photographers. This made me ponder on whether one could characterise street as an essentially extroverted

form of photography - quick, focused outwards, always looking for new things to see, at times a little shallow - a thought to explore further on another day.

Gus Powell talked about his working method. Essentially he starts with a scene that makes a good frame. Then he waits for something to come along and add to it. He described this as working in an additive way, spending time in the rectangle, finding ways to make it work. He talked also about spending a little time so you get to understand the rhythm of that patch of land, learning how people move and walk through it, starting to see opportunities, grabbing onto moments that most people don't participate in.

There were a number of others speakers but it was often difficult to hear anything they said and sometimes to work out who they were. I did hear Christophe Agou talk about how he come to NY from the Massif Central region of France. Once in NY he loved the movement on the streets and the interconnectedness. His work explores themes of servitude and connectedness and common humanity. He spoke of wandering the streets looking for little tableaus from reality, pictures that say something about the human condition. He spent 2-3 years exploring New York's subways and eventually produced a book of images called 'Life Below'. I loved his work - I find it very powerful and really engaged, and very human. Another significant inspiration for me.

The Museum also hosted a room full of Bruce Gilden pictures taken in Derby. Full of character (you'll recognise a few types) and strangeness. They also had a film of him taking the pictures but even with earphones I couldn't hear it. Poor sound quality was something of a feature of my experience of Format: before I attended the event I tried to listen to a live webcast of Joel Meyerowitz talking about his work. The sound quality was very porr indeed. I hung on for about 10 minutes hoping things would improve but still couldn't hear as much as one word in every ten and gave up. There's a trailer for the Bruce Gilden film online at BJP but I haven't yet managed to find the full film. Hopefully things will be better next year.

The last exhibit I saw was a room full of pictures by an emerging Iranian photographer. Mehran Atashi's 'Tehran's Self-portraits' are said in the programme to "explore the experience of living in a changing city by looking through her Holga camera as is she were a statue - part of the fabric of the city". However she does it the end results look like double exposures with strange colour casts and fogging. I thought they were interesting but am not really getting them yet. I can understand doing a few as an experiment but a whole roomful seemdd to me samey. This could very easily just be a case of my missing the point: perhaps a subject for further study. This picture shows some of the pictures that I felt worked best.

A few links for further reading

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/mar/08/street-photography-format-festival-derby?CMP=twt_iph

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/photoblog/2011/03/right_here_right_now_at_the_format_festival_in_der.html

Nick Turpin's website with film clip - http://www.sevensevennine.com/?p=2418
Discussion on street art on iPlayer -http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00z5bp1/Front_Row_Ballet_from_the_Pet_Shop_Boys_street_photography_discussed/

OCA thoughts from Gareth here.

Stan's take on the day here.

And Penny's here.

And finally...

It was good to see that the police were participating in the festival in their own way

The quick and the dead

2011-03-09T20:49:00.000Z

While passing through Victoria station last week I caught sight of the poster at the top of this picture. I glanced at it quickly and had one of those moments when I felt the world move round me while I seemed stuck in a moment of silent stillness. I had realised that the subjects were not sleeping but dead. The pictures struck me so strongly that I had to go closer and look at them to try to understand what they were about.

They're part of an advertising campaign by St John's Ambulance. They're essentially 'if only' pictures: if only a first aider had been nearby, Keiko and little Abigail might be walking through the station themselves. Instead they are dead. Forever still. As you can tell the posters had a really profound effect on me and I've tried to record the effect in this picture - that stillness and silence in the midst of it all. I think there's a bit of a metaphor in there somewhere.

Focus: the view from here

2011-03-08T21:24:00.000Z

A few thoughts on things that interested me from the Focus event in Birmingham yesterday.

I didn't have particularly high expectations of the event: I've never been before but got free tickets from OCA and thought I would have a look. All the major photographic suppliers were they (except Canon ; -)), and stalls with equpiment or tutorials or models to shoot were predictably busy, as you can see above. But there was a good deal more to the show than that.

Hardware: I meet my next monitor

I looked briefly at some of the major kit such as lenses but didn't think that the prices were particularly keen. I'm sure you could do better buying from high Street shops let alone online. But if you were wanting to try out lenses or cameras there was a lot to offer. I spent some time at both the Colorvision and NEC stalls looking at monitors as I know I'm going to have to give up on my aged CRT screen sometime soon. I think I'm the only person I know who isn't using a flatscreen monitor, but my CRT (which was quite advanced in its day) gives a much better picture than most of the lcd monitors I see. However it is becoming harder to calibrate and losing contrast and doesn't do blacks very well any more and I know the writing is on the wall. I've been planning to get a high spec 24" monitor for future proofing purposes and because I am fussy: my big question was what the difference was between mid spec and those nearer the top range.

In some ways I wish I hadn't asked: I will just have to save my pennies for a few extra months. At the NEC stand they were able to drag the same picture across different monitors so you could see how they changed. We looked closely at two pictures: one of a red tulip and one of a grey pigeon. On the NEC Spectraview Reference 241 the red tulip was quite natural-looking with a blue tone to the red colour and a good deal of detail retained. Looking at the same image on the next one down the red shifted to a warmer tone and lost some of the detail and shading. The shift wasn't as strong as it would be on this or most monitors (see my earlier posts on the difficulties with red tones) but it was not very close to the natural tone. The pigeon was an even better test. When you looked closely at it on the Reference there was a lot of fine detail in the feathers. You could also see subtle spots of colour and tonal variation across the greys. On the other monitor there was less detail in the feathers and some of the suble colour variation was lost. The technician told me that what a monitor can't show it compresses and smooths and you could see this effect quite clearly.

Looking at the picture on the Reference I thought it showed a similar level of detail to what I'd see on a good print. My monitor doesn't show that - I often find details in a print that are not really visible on screen. I'd already picked out this monitor as the one that looked best to my eyes before I asked for the comparisions: it just had a great 3D quality with lovely rich dark tones - again like a good print. There was just something about it that said 'I'm what you've been looking for: buy me'. As I said, a few months more saving needed on top of my current pot, but I don't think I'm going to regret it. I am very fussy indeed about these things and just won't be happy with something that doesn't give me the quality and colour I'm looking for. Of course I will need to carefully soft proof pictures for viewing in web browsers with signifcantly less gamut. But I can live with that.

Consumables

Lots of the major paper manufacturers were there. From Innova I bought some very good value large fine art card blanks (£10 for 40 7x5 cards and envelopes) and some cheap sample packs of fine art papers. They also showed a product called the JetMaster display system - essentially these look like canvas wraps but the frame is folded card. Flimsy to hold but on the wall these would look fine. For £65 you get enough background and paper to make 10 reasonable-sized canvases. The canvas material is archival quality. Anyone who has tried will know that you'd struggle to get more than one similar sized bespoke canvas print for that money. I am going to buy some of these to make prints for my own walls and for friends.

Hahnemuehle were there but their sample packs weren't particularly cheap. Their Fine Art Rag looked a very nice paper and I kind of regret not buying some samples of it. I think if I had a car I might have bought quite a lot of paper as there was a really good choice.

Permajet had a very busy stall and were really helpful and friendly. they gave me some useful tips on calibration and some free paper to try out. They are bringing out a lovely new paper for black and white printing. Called something like Fibre Base Distinction it differs from their other Fibre Base products by being extra white. Pure untoned black and white images looked wonderful on this paper. Definitely one to consider for the future.

Frames

A company called Artsy Couture caught my eye. www.artsycouture.co.uk They offer a relatively new product in the UK. They're essentially gallery block prints which have inset floating blocks on top of the main background. So you can have one image on top of anyther, or on top of a pattern or texture. These have the potential to be quite naff, but with careful picture and background choice could look rather nice. I can see how you could turn out a very lovely feature for a nursery or child's room or an effectively grungey image for a teenage room. They're a fun way to create some 'wall art' that looks a bit more characterful than the standard Portrait on a White Background on A Big Canvas Wrap. I think you're going to see a lot more of these over the next few years.

At the other end of the scale Ultimat did some very handsome traditional frames. Plain beautiful wood frames with double mounts framing the images these would make a very handsome addition to most homes. Perfect for a good portrait that will stand the test of time. Very very stylish indeed.

Wedding albums!

Where to start? I occasionally do wedding photography. Mostly I am not the main shooter but sometimes I am. I've struggled to find albums that look good online and thought this would be a great chance to look at the major offerings. Lots of suppliers there... and lots and lots of board books. Yes, board books. Like the things you give children but bigger and heavier and ultra shiny and with humungous heavy deep front covers. Other than those there were published books and I saw one ultra-traditional album with inset corners. In desperation I asked at the Loxley stand in case I was missing some alternative option but they confirmed that all their albums were essentially board books. Some looked very glossy and some had metallic and all sorts of printed covers or boxes. All to my eye looked uniformly ugly. The best example I found was at Graphistudio: they had one album where the pages had a little natural give and with a cover that was only about half a centimetre deep.

So essentially one single style of album in a range of variations. Loxley said they sold well - but then customers don't have much alternative if they want an album.

I'll give an example of the sort of alternative I have in mind. When I did my sister's wedding I had a handmade album made for her. It had normal archival pages with glassine interleaving. The cover was bound in lovely handmade paper with rose petals in it. The album lives in tissue paper in a handmade box which is also covered with the rose paper. The album was quite dear but not as dear as some of these. There was a time cost as I had to stick the prints in individually. In an ideal world it would be nice to replicate the feel of that natural paper but with some more convenient aspects, like being able to print directly onto the album pages. Natural papers and textures and favours are a big part of weddings these days - how can you fit a retro style wedding into one of those big glossy board books? I'm sure some people would not like the handmade romantic look that appeals to me, and would love the Jordan/celeb-style glossy board books. But quite a few would dislike these as much as me. And short of a printed book (or a bespoke album) I simply couldn't find an alternative. Very very disappointing. If anyone reads this who knows of a better option, do let me know.

People

Almost forgot to mention - I spent a lot of time at the OCA stall. Met lots of fellow students there, had a good chat with Gareth and Jose and got some good advice from Jose. It was really good to meet up and chat with fellow travellers.

Aware: Art Fashion Identity

2011-03-06T18:42:00.000Z

I went to this excellent Royal Academy exhibition at the end of December so this is a bit of a late post.
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/gsk-contemporary-season-2010/exhibition/ The exhibition was essentially about how clothes both conceal and reveal aspects of ourselves. There were some very lovely and interesting exhibits and films. Here are some of the works that meant most to me. I've been playing with a new software toy which makes photo frames and thought that a polaroid treatment was particularly appropriate for these pictures.

This wonderful dress is by Susie MacMurray. It was very striking on first view. As you get closer you could see that it is made of nails, pierced through a leather undergarment. The piece is called 'Widow' and was said to be inspired by musing on how grief can make people put up emotional and other barriers to the people around them. I'm not totally convinced by the depth of the analysis - but it was a lovely piece. Here is a detail.

The work below was for my money one of the most interesting pieces. It's by Helen Storey and called 'Say Goodbye, 2010'. It was a beautiful dress made of material designed to biodegrade quickly, especially when soaked in water. This detail shows the dress literally dissolving: the fact that I (and others) have so carefully tried to record and so to fix for all time the passing of this work is I think quite ironic. Helen Storey is exploring the potential for the use of biodegradable materials in fashion from an environmental perspective. The piece is also a meditation on the ephemeral qualities of fashion, our seemingly insatiable desire for more new stuff and its effect on the planet.

This shows a fragment of a piece which was in the section called building. Essentially the artists in that grouping were playing with the idea of building structures which people could wear around - these being beautiful objects which seemed like a cross between an umbrella and a parachute or similar. I liked the colours and diaphanous qualities of the material and its shadow.

This work is by Hussein Chalayan. It uses a form of traditional Japanese puppet theatre to explore themes of manipulation, showing the beautiful model in her flowing dress being manipulated by shadowy dark figures. The next section of my course considers the subject of photo-realistic retouching in some detail and I expect to return to this partcular theme over the next few months.

There were lots of other interesting pieces in the show. One of the most memorable for me was a red lace dress by Alexander McQueen. The dress was short with a long train at the back. It extended up to form a mask/hood covering the whole face and head. We were able to stand very close to this object but not allowed to take pictures, sadly. It was an extraordinarily beautiful piece - the lace was exquisitely fine and it was wonderfully put together. The beautiful mask was haunting. I wish I could show it to you but it isn't on the exhibition page so I can't even post a link.

Other material
Before I move on to a little light relief I thought I'd post a few links to other explorations of identity, a subject which has interested me a good deal recently.

First: Simon Roberts - Authorial Identity in Photography http://vimeo.com/19382643 Interesting musings on the use of the web and books as a way to do more 'authentic' work.

Next, The Self-portrait in Contemporary Photography: - BJP article http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/report/1939035/self-portrait-contemporary-photography

And a related book by Susan Bright: http://www.thamesandhudson.com/9780500543894.html

And finally...

On leaving the exhibition we found ourselves in Old Bond Street with Christmas decorations still in the windows. I have to say there were some very lovely things and I think next year I may make a special trip just to see them. Here are a few that particularly took my eye.

Tiffany - I loved the fairytale, magical quality of this display. And am impressed that they managed to suggest so much with just a very few props and some lights. There's a lesson there, methinks...

Dolce and Gabbana. Wonderful sense of abundance, richness and drama. I want to get back to still life work sometime soon and this is for me an inspiring example, showing how to use your material to maximum effect. Lush.

A necessary correction

2011-03-06T17:08:00.000Z

Or, the benefits of constructive criticism...

I've had a lot of positive feedback on my recent work for Assignment 2, which I am very very grateful for. I was hoping that other people would find the work interesting and it seems that a good few do. A little praise and the feeling that you may be on the right track is very nourishing to the soul and will help me keep going when times get tough. However a few days ago I got some constructive criticism about the work, and it's so useful that I want to record it here.

The feedback was from photographer Elinor Carucci. I've mentioned before that I am following PICBOD, a free open photography course run by the University of Coventry. There are students who attend the course in person, but the course materials and certain lectures and other goodies are made available online to anyone who wants to follow along. Elinor is one of their guest lecturers and her work inspired me to take the pictures which eventually became PWDP Assignment 2. Virtual students like me can post their responses to particular assignments and get feedback.

I posted this initial version and Elinor's feedback relates to that.

I should mention that she is looking at each of the included pictures in their own right rather than the composite. Her feedback is to the effect that I should pay more attention to composition (she thought the central mouth image was the strongest one compositionally). She found that there were a lot of close-up details and not as strong a sense of narrative as she would have liked. Finally she found the blur distracting.

I essentially agree with her comments. I knew that the final composite image contained some pictures that wouldn't work on their own. One of the things I was less sure about was whether the whole was more than the sum of its parts - whether it worked despite the obvious weaknesses. And I think, even though I agree with her comments, that it probably does, up to a point. I think the final composite ties the individual images together somewhat better than the first cut, which helps a bit. I think it does capture something of me (and people who know me well tell me that this is so). That said, the benefit of feedback from someone like Elinor is that she is looking at the work with a much more distant, dispassionate eye. She isn't a friend or fellow student and hasn't followed my blog. She is an internationally successful photographer and is looking at the picture and essentially saying that it isn't good enough. Because her comments are precisely tailored to the work I can see what I need to do to improve.

I've been busy taking composite images of friends and have a few sets of works in progress. It's so much easier to take pictures of other people that they are both reasonably well-composed and mostly in sharp focus. In fact, I've been vaguely wondering whether that was a problem - whether I should seek to induce a more random, blurry feeling to make the pictures feel more authentic. I think Elinor's comments answer that. Blur certainly isn't always bad but it needs to serve a purpose and fit the pictures. And like anything, you can overdo it.

I think an ideal composite image would consist entirely of pictures that work in their own right, but that also complement each other so that, taken together, they are more than the sum of their parts. I think the real trick to getting this right will be to capture really telling little details and gestures that describe the people I am photographing very well. It might be the curve of a neck or a typical hand movement or expression: the key will be to look really closely and then catch what I see. What I like about these detail images is that they get round some of the potential limitations of photographic portraiture (single viewpoint, instantaneous capture). David Hockney's Joiners do much the same thing, only rather better. Later in this course I get to do some digital joiners and expect to try some portraits as part of that section.

To sum up, I just want to reflect on the benefit of constructuve criticism. You can't grow if you can't see what your pictures lack and it is tremendously helpful when others take the trouble to comment in this way. I am very grateful to Elinor, and to PICBOD, and indeed to all those who have commented on my work over the years with suggestions for improvement.

Assignment 2 completed

2011-02-27T16:25:00.000Z

...at last. It's been a challenging assignment on many levels, and my changing horse half way through the race didn't help. In my last post I showed the first proof of this composite.

Here is a copy of the first version I posted so you can get an idea of the changes.

A combination of digital noise and odd colour artefacts meant that I knew then that it would take a lot of work to make nine half-decent A4 prints of the original images as well as the final composite, and I was right. I don't want to labour this assignment any more than I already have done but thought I'd quickly discuss some key processing issues and set out what I've learnt from working on these images. Much of the rest of this post discusses technical processing: if you're not much interested in the technicalities of capture and processing you might want to just look at the pictures and skip to the conclusion.

Technical points
The original pictures were all taken indoors in low mixed lighting (a combination of tungsten, a halogen spot, long life bulbs and a bit of reflection from the TV). None of the lights was partcularly powerful so in order to get a usable shutter speed the ISO was set to 6,400. One wouldn't choose such conditions to take pictures - but using flash would have spoiled the mood, and probably been too much for me to handhold at relevant angles. So it was a choice between taking the pictures this way or not at all. Often in such cases I use a mono conversion to get round the lighting problem but I wanted to stick with colour in this instance as the limited colour range tied the images together and I felt that a mono treatment would lose some of the intimate, everyday quality I was after.

The pictures were very noisy with both colour and luminance noise. I rarely see colour noise on my camera even at high ISO settings but I think all the different light sources and the skintones brought out the worst in the sensor. As well as simple colour noise there were some very odd yellow-green shadows and even patches of bright yellow here and there in individual images. The next two pictures were the most challenging in the set. I'm posting the corrected versions here: I did consider trying to show you how bad the originals look but the screen is far to kind to really bring the true awfulness out.

The picture above, as you can see, involves a large mass of relatively smooth tones, mostly skin tones. I've said before
that I don't think digital sensors cope well with broad flat areas of colour - I'm sure we've all seen the effect in skies where banding and posterisation occur in otherwise acceptable images. High ISO settings and colour noise complicate this further. In the picture above a large part of the skin area, when printed up, showed irregular splodges of yellow and pink. Rather than blending the two or shading from one to the other to come to an overall skin tone, it was as if the pixels in some areas decided they had to go all one way or another. Overall the tones weren't too bad in the picture: it was just this irregular splodging that was problematic.

I dealt with this in two ways. Firstly in the RAW editor I reduced clarity to smooth the tones a little as well as using noise reduction. I also slightly reduced saturation of yellow tones, and moved them a little towards orange to help them blend in more. These are all global adjustments. This made the picture look OK-ish on screen but not good enough for print. To smooth out the patches of discolouration I selected some of the normal skin tones and with a brush set to colour mode and low opacity I painted over the skin area to get rid of the discoloured patches. There were some orange patches on the lips and I used some of the more normal lip colour to blend those in also. The final version is not perfect but I think that overall it is acceptable.

This picture had many of the same problems as the one above. I didn't want to reduce clarity as I wanted to keep the things that were in focus sharp (though on reflection I could have masked those parts - another time). Unlike the picture above this had quite a distinct red colour cast (complicated by a lot of yellow and green in the shadows). In RAW I made some changes to colour temperature and tint to try to get a more natural overall tone, and also reduced the saturation of yellow generally and moved its hue towards orange just a little. The shadow areas around the eye sockets needed a lot of individual brush work. I found it was very easy to go too far and I had to keep deleting work and starting again. I think the human eye very easily picks up odd skin tones - I'm sure I could have got away with more if I was dealing with a patch of sky or some other non-human expanse of colour. Finally I used a bw layer at low opacity to take some of the excessive colour out of the skin.

Conclusion and learning points
I've documented many of my learning points in earlier blogs. In summary, this has been a very useful exercise in developing my thinking on portraiture and identity. I particularly enjoyed taking the little detailed snaps and have been carrying this on in pictures of other people, some of which you may see in due course. I hope to make some more composite portrait images over the next few months.

Technically I think having to face these odd colour casts and shadows (as opposed to just turning pictures black and white) has been useful. It's taught me that it is possible to rescue such images though I'm not certain that even the most skilled retoucher could make them look great. I wouldn't rush to try this kind of processing again but I would do it if pushed.. At the end of the day if there's a choice between capturing a special moment at a wedding or social occasion or missing it I will always try for the moment. I like candid, intimate, images and sometimes you have to sacrifice technical perfection. This work has made me understand why wedding and social photograhers pay such a lot of money for software packages that help them with this kind of work. Coincidentally, OnOne software have just emailed me with a huge reduction on their normal price...

On art: Robert Rauschenberg's Erased de Kooning

2011-02-27T11:53:00.000Z

Two short clips, both telling the story of the same work. I think Rauschenberg's idea very interesting and greatly admire his cheek. The more you think about this story, the more layers of meaning appear. What is Art anyway? ; -)

Sarah Moon

2011-02-13T19:24:00.000Z

A remarkable insight into the work of a remarkable photographer.

One of many inspirations I've gained from John Paul Caponigro's blog.

Traces

2011-02-12T22:43:00.000Z

In my last few posts you've seen me struggle with Assignment 2 of Progressing with Digital Photography. To recap, the theme is 'A day in the life' and the task is to shoot a series of images of a person's day and then digitally combine them into a single composite image. I'm doing myself, as a kind of taking stock of who and where I am at this stage in my life.

I've been struggling, in part because the self portraits I took for inclusion don't really work well as composites - each seems to want a good deal of space and attention. They would be fine in a simple composite but are harder to integrate with 4 or five other images. But the bigger struggle has been because I wanted the image to be a stock take of me, and that has proved to be much harder even than I had anticipated. Which one(s) should I choose - which were really representative? How did I try to get a sense of it all into one picture?

This week I was inspired by a task on the PICBOD site: Elinor Carucci's work inspired me to take some more intimate and informal images. As I started I also had in mind a Martin Parr session I watched some time ago, where he had his students pretend the camera was a fly, buzzing round and snapping at unusual angles. Once I got started snapping I got quite into it and these pictures are the result (these are jpeg contact sheets - still some work to do on colour and tone).

I think they are going to be my Assignment. They are an evening in my life rather than a whole day. I haven't done any flashy digital blending (I expect the finished image to look pretty much like these, but with better colour and maybe one or two changes). They are observations rather than a grand portrait and I quite like the freedom and fragmentary style. I even quite like the odd focus effects (try holding a camera with a macro lens at arms length, facing towards you, to see how difficult it was to get anything framed let alone in focus. Longer arms would have helped! ; -)).

Maybe they're less ambitious than my initial plan, but I had begin to feel that my initial idea was too abstract and was struggling to see how it would come together. The simpler more observational style just feels better to me. It doesn't precisely meet the terms of my brief (either Assignment 2 or Picbod) but I think I am happy with this work. I liked the freedom of being a fly taking snaps from odd angles and hope to repeat and develop this exercise with some willing victims over the next few weeks. Anyway, that's where I've got to. Feel free to tell me if you think I've lost the plot!

Hello

2011-01-30T13:25:00.000Z

Further work towards PWDP assignment 2

I have now selected some self-portraits that I think are possibles for inclusion in the assignment 2 composite image. This work has caused me to reflect, not for the first time, on the task of portraiture, and the difficulty of making an image that captures enough of a sense of a person to be said to be a good portrait. I thought I'd document my reflections here, as I think the story of my self-portrait session illustrates the struggle quite well.

As background I should add that I have always been interested in portraiture: Rembrandt was one of the first artists whose work really drew me and continues to do so to this day. I would like very much to be able to take pictures of people that get below the surface and say something about them. I have taken so many pictures of family members that I feel I have achieved that in some cases, almost accidentally. This earlier thread gives a few examples. I feel that I made more significant progress during my recent session and now plan to try to push this further with a few (hopefully willing) victims over the next few months.

Anyway, back to the actual session: I started with some pictures where I am facing towards my living room windows, with some extra light from bounced and diffused flash. Here are two from that group that I like.

This is a fairly straight picture of me. I don't have my glasses on (you can see the dents they've left at the side of my nose). I have some make-up and a new haircut. This looks pretty much like the person I see in the mirror. I don't think it's excessively flattering but it also isn't too unkind. I think it's a reasonably accurate picture of me.

It lacks some liveliness - the eyes are slightly glassy - and I don't think it's a great picture, but it is OK. I could use this as a publicity shot or avatar image and be reasonably content.

Although I allowed myself make-up I have scrupulously avoided the sort of subtle retouching I would normally do on a picture like this (I'd soften the impact the under-eye bags and the glasses dent without removing them completely, and slightly smooth the skin colour and texture).

This picture hasn't had any retouching either: I've simply added a bit more light and upped the exposure a little: this has the effect of lightening skin tones and essentially makes for a more flattering image. I think this picture is too flattering overall for my current purposes (though it would make a nice publicity shot ; -)). The thing I do like about it is that there is a definite sense of connection between me and the viewer - I think it looks at though I am looking directly at you and smiling. The expression is just that bit more alive and engaged than the one above.

I find it very easy to take pictures like this of other people. I like happy smiling pictures and ones where there's a connection with the subject. I find it harder to get below this surface layer.

I took lots more pictures in this set-up. I wanted some that looked a litle more neutral or serious. But I found that it just didn't work with that rather static set-up: I tend to look wooden or cross. I tried to change the lighting to give more light and shade but this didn't work too well either.

In the end I was inspired to try some against the windowlight to see if that might help. I also thought I'd try some where I was sitting on the chair rather than just standing straight. (Technical note: the chair is necessary because it's what I focus on. Once I get focus I set the self-timer and then move into position, aiming to get my eyes roughly in line with the chair back.) Instantly I felt that these were somehow better. I think it's partly the light, and partly the fact that I can move around a bit more naturally.

I tried a few with my glasses on. I had trouble with reflections and this is the only one that works reasonably well. I think it's not as strong as many of the others but put it in as a marker.

I'm very short-sighted and need glasses or contact lenses to see and feel that I should have some pictures with them on, in the interests of accuracy. That might of course be me mistaking accuracy in details with the bigger picture, but I feel a need to explore the option further.

I think these two and the direct one at the top of the picture are among the more successful images from the shoot. What I want to do in the final composite 'Life in a Day' image is to sum up my life and who I am now. I think the pictures explore the effects of ageing, which is something I've become even more aware of recently. I don't like getting older, though do appreciate that the alternative is worse. I've slightly cropped the picture above which I originally posted here, in a very unprocessed state. I have not processed it significantly beyond the crop and the sepia conversion. The sepia toning does soften the image a little. At this time I quite like that but may change my mind. Grateful for any comments you may have.

The colour of this and all the pictures in the series is currently provisional. When I put the final composite together I may use only colour or only mono or something in the middle. I want to use colour to unify it and see it in my head in browns and greens, but things may change.

To sum up: I think I've made some progress, both towards the assignment and in my portraiture skills. I think the self-portraits do get a bit closer to the real me than any I've taken before. I am still avoiding taking pictures without any make up and also full-length body ones. I feel uncomfortable at the thought of both of those options, though no make-up is much easier to contemplate than whole-body images. I think I have a way to go yet both on this project and on portraiture generally and intend to continue to work on both over the next few months.

Street Photography weeks 17 & 18: update

2011-01-29T16:50:00.000Z


A hard bed

Last week's street photography challenge was a particularly interesting one. It was "Take pictures where you're not comfortable, where you feel exposed, threatened, or morally on the wrong side." - Mirko Martin. Flickr site here.

This instruction brought to mind the picture above, which I took before Christmas but haven't posted yet. During that really cold spell I started to see these scraps at one of the entrances to Westminster tube station. There were three groups of material at that time - now there are four or five. I believe that they are used as bedding by people who sleep there at night. Every morning the material is arranged slightly differently but until last week I had never seen anyone there. Last week I saw two shapes coccooned in sleeping bags as we all walked by. It was too early and I was too befuddled to get my camera out - otherwise it might have made one for this week. The cleaners leave the bedding material although they remove any rubbish and so I assume that there is some agreement between the sleepers and the station management.

I haven't posted this before now as I couldn't decdie what I thought about it. I am wary of being a photographic tourist of other people's misery, and am not inclined to take pictures of people who are down on their luck without establishing some sort of relationship with them, which pretty much rules out candid material outside of a prolonged documentary assignment. This picture feels to me to be probably on the right side, in that it isn't obviously exploitative and doesn't show the individuals. It makes me think about the people who somehow fall between the gaps of normal society, and that we are none of us very far away from being such people, really.

I have been tempted for some time to take pictures on my commuter train at certain points. The times when I'm most tempted are when the train is very crowded and intensely claustrophobic, and it's that uncomfortableness that I'd like to catch. I see something like Henry Moore's wartime Underground images. But having a camera that is both bulky and noisy makes this difficult. Unlike most other street situations I wouldn't by definition be able to get away or easily explain myself if people were cross (and people are already unhappy in these situations) and there's a good chance they might recognise me as this is my own route. So I haven't managed that one yet, and I didn't get a picture that matched the brief this week.

Week 18 is a much easier one for me: the task is to "Look for a window. Through a window, out of a window, or at the reflections on a window." - Arif Asci. Plenty of examples of previous pictures for me to choose from there. ; -) I have a few windows in my local area that interest me and that I am watching for the right moment/light, so I'll go out tomorrow to walk past them and keep my eyes open. Perhaps I'll have an entry this week.

Inspiration: building a photographic practice

2011-01-23T17:33:00.000Z

The January 2011 edition of Professional Photographer has a very interesting article on photographic practice by Jonathan Worth. Jonathan is a freelance photographer who teaches a class on the BA photography degree course at Coventry University. The class is called Phonar, and aims to teach students the skills t develop a sustainable photographic practice. "A sustainable practice" in Jonathan's terms, is about finding ways to get people to pay you to do what you want to do, so that you can earn a living as a photographer. He aims to teach students how to approach the subject of developing their practice creatively. In an age when almost everyone has a camera it is increasingly difficult for budding photographers to earn a living - it is no longer enough just to be skilful when these skills are not rare (and not always prized - many businesses ask themselves why they should pay for a really good picture when they can get an OK one for free).

I'm not going to precis the whole article: the magazine is still available and the course material is freely available online here, but would encourage people who are interested in the concept of making their photgraphy pay to look at it. I liked this because essentially it encourages you to put your creative skills to use in developing your practice as well as taking pictures. One aspect which particularly struck me was how Jonathan earns money from giving his work away for free. The Phonar content is all available online. Nevertheless his course is one of the most oversubscribed in the university. People pay for access to bespoke advice on their work and mentoring from inspirational and successful professional photographers and from those who show and commission work. The online presence allows those of us who can't get on the course to access much of the useful content. It also creates an interest in the course which generates more applications from people who will pay... There are other similar examples, but I will leave you to discover those for yourself.

I have a new project of my own, which will help me develop my own practice in a number of ways. My friend, the artist Antonia Rolls has made a collection of work called 'A Graceful Death' which is about the end of life. The initial impetus for this work came from the death of her partner, but it has grown into a substantial shared body of work. The work tours as an exhibition (the next showing is in Manchester from 19-25 February - further details on the link above). A film of the work will be made over the course of this year and I plan to make a book, including my photographs of the pictures as well as photographs taken at the exhibitions over the course of the year and during filming. The book will have Antonia's own words and poems and other contributions from others who have contributed to the work. I will self-publish the book on Blurb, and also plan to publish an e-version (when I work out how).

This is a medium-term project: the finished book is likely to be completed early next year. I don't expect at make money from doing it, but the main focus of my photographic practice at this time is not to make money but to develop and deepen my skills, both practical and artistic. Putting together a major book such as this will develop my practical publishing and related skills, while taking pictures which work with the paintings and tell the unfolding story, and then editing the content will be an artistic challenge on a number of levels. I had already committed to doing the book when I read Jonathan's articile and hadn't thought of it in those terms, but I can see how this will enhance my own practice.

Taking stock: Progressing with digital photography assignment 2

2011-01-16T18:07:00.000Z

Assignment 2 for PDWP is called 'A life in the day of...'. The intention is that you should take a series of pictures of a person through the course of a day and combine them into a single composite narrative image. I have decided to do something slightly different, in that my subject is myself, and I'm planning to do a picture which is a reflection on me at this time in my life. Most of the pictures will be of the outside world - it'll be the world as I see it during an average day - rather than lots of pictures of me doing things during one particular day. However I plan to have one or more self-portraits in the finished work and today I took some that may work. Here is a sample image, as unedited as anything you'll ever see from me (not even a curves adjustment, or a bit of skin smoothing ; -)).

Taking pictures of yourself (or anyone else) involves lots of judgements, and I will write a more thoughtful blog on this subject once I've processed the other images and had some time to think. But I feel that I have made a start in the exploratory process and wanted to record that.

Street Photography week 15: Decisions, decisions

2011-01-11T20:46:00.000Z

The instruction for this week is "Wander aimlessly most of the time". This comes from photographer Melanie Einzig, who has taken some wonderful images of people spotted as she moves around. Link to her website here - well worth checking out. I have enjoyed the openness of this instruction and have been unusually lucky with pictures so far this week. I have a range to choose from already. None perhaps a prize-winning picture, but all interesting in their own way, I think. Haven't decided which one to submit yet, but here is my shortlist, with comments.

I was very lucky on Sunday - it was a really sunny winter day with strong raking shadows and reflections. My unlovely neighbourhood offered quite a few possible pictures.

This cafe has closed down, but they haven't cleared away all the tables. Something about the slight dinginess of it all, and the uncleaned window and the attempts at brightness make me like this little picture. I think it's kind of atmospheric. There's an element of homage to M Parr also, though that wasn't in my mind when I took it.

I love the colours and the handpainted signs. Not sure that it is strong enough to stand on its own - I think that it might make an interesting part of a series of images about the area. I had angled my camera and the wideangle lens caused quite a lot of distortion. It could be corrected but I think perhaps better to try again.Will also try a shot when it's open, though it might be less interesting without the bright shutters.

I was intrigued by the reflection in the van. I don't think this quite works.

I think this is one of the stronger images. Glad I crossed the street to get this one.

I went to the National Gallery today and on the way out was struck by these men. I liked their rapt interest in the scene below (some filming was taking place) and teh angels of their bodies and silhouette effect. I have to say it looked better in camera than it does larger. I still like it, but don't think it's my best shot this week.

This is David. I was very taken by his appearance and actually managed to get up the nerve to ask if I could photograph him, which is huge progress for me. It turns out that he is asked for his picture from time to time and was happy to oblige. I thought he looked very interesting - I loved his clothes and overall look, and his bags, and his lunch. He seemed very self-contained and yet quite approachable. He is from South Africa: he holidays in London once or twice every year, swopping his SA home with a London friend. I am very fond of this picture.

So I think my strongest pictures so far this week are check tablecloth, shadows, or David. Can't quite decide which to post in the thread. The window or shadows seem more 'street' in the standard sense, but Melanie's work is very much about people. Decisions, decisions! All tips, feedback or other constructive thoughts gratefully received.

The power of imagination

2011-01-09T19:51:00.000Z

This picture is on the walls of the Spanish fort in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is down in the depths of the building in the former cells, and was said to have been made by a prisoner awaiting trial for treason. I imagine him dreaming of the open sea and his ship and whiling away the time as he awaited an uncertain fate.

I find it very moving. I've seen a lot of discussion about the nature of art on the Open College of the Arts forums recently. The discussions tend to concentrate on art in the sense of high art - the sort of things we see in galleries and which tend to be driven by a search for the new or novel idea or image. Art for me has many aspects. It can show us the world in all its beauty and horror and can transport us to other places. It can communicate inner states or be objective and outward-looking. I need to do some further thinking on the subject before I have it clear in my own head. But every time the topic has been raised recently my mind has come back to this picture, and what it meant to the man who made it.

From the depths: Sea Turtles at Grande Riviere

2011-01-02T16:28:00.000Z

This summer I had the privilege of visiting one of Trinidad's famous turtle beaches, Grande Riviere. Trinidad is one of the major sites in the world where sea turtles come to lay their eggs. One of the world's largest colonies of Leatherback turtles nests there, and it is posisble to visit the turtle beaches under supervision and even to watch them laying eggs in the dark of night.

It's quite a remarkable experience seeing these massive creatures lumber out of the sea to lay their eggs in a ritual older than man. The only direct light allowed on the beach was the guides' infra red torches. At 25,500 ISO you can see that these pictures are severely underexposed but the dark graininess seems to me to fit the atmosphere which was intense and mysterious. It's a wonder any pictures came out at all (though I curse myself for not having my very fastest lens, which would have given two extra stops of precious light).

You can (just) see the scene above, as a large Leatherback Turtle lays her eggs in a pit she has dug for herself. When she starts laying the eggs she's in a kind of trance-like state and not easily disturbed. Even so we all stood round pretty quietly.

It's hard to explain what it felt like being a witness to such a mysterious and ancient process. To be able to be close to animals that live most of their lives in a depths of the oceans, and whose lifecycle and nature is still only partly understood. It was a truly remarkable experience, and very moving.

This is what it's all about - every day in season thousands of hatchlings set off for the sea as fast as their little legs can carry them.

Some years ago humans were one of the main predators as the animals were hunted for meat and skin. Now most of the humans in the area nurture the babies and try to ensure that they make it safely to the sea.

The main predator is a species of vulture, known locally as a corbeau.

The vultures take eggs which are dug up
when the sand is disturbed (often by
other turtles digging their egg pits).

They are partial to the baby turtles too. I find the way these two are looking intently at something quite worrying. You wouldn't want to be the subject of such an intense gaze from two vultures. They hold their wings like that to dry them out.

Inspiration: Vivian Maier

2011-01-02T11:54:00.000Z

I stumbled on this film this morning. It tells the history of Vivian Maier, a nanny who took around 100,000 street photographs in her lifetime, many of them very good indeed. She lived and died in obscurity (through personal choice - there is no evidence that she tried to show any of her work to anyone - many films weren't even processed). Her work is being discovered now with a first exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center this month.

It's a fascinating story, with great pictures, so well worth a watch. On the evidence to date she seems to have been an archetypal street photographer: strong-minded to the point of eccentricity; independent and essentially solitary while working as a nanny and taking pictures of people; driven to take pictures obsessively. A myth is emerging as I write this. You can see more of Vivian's work on this blog.

I found this film - and many other items to interest and inspire - on John Paul Caponigro's blog. Well worth a browse if you find yourself in need of inspiration.

Street Photography week 13: Look closer to home

2010-12-31T18:26:00.000Z

Doh! Missed the deadline for this week again (I got my days confused and thought today was the final day for submission). Must do better next week/year! I've spent some time considering which picture I would submit this week, and although I've missed the deadline I've decided to record my thought process for development purposes.

I had decided that I would probably take the instruction literally and use some of my Christmas pictures. I wondered if these, being taken indoors in a home setting could be considered 'street' but on reflection I can't see why not. The term Street Photography normally refers to pictures taken in street situations, but the term doesn't include any picture taken in the streets, or always exclude pictures taken elsewhere. The most satisfactory definition I've found to date is in the opening chapter to 'Street Photography Now' by Sophie Howarth and Stephen McLaren, who speak of "the impulse to take candid pictures in the stream of everyday life". They quote Nick Turpin, who explains that: "It is important to me that my personal pictures don't have to "do" anything. They don't have to sell in a gallery or sit well beside the ads in a magazine. I don't have to make pictures that are easily categorised. They are not reportage, there is no subject, they are not art, there is no great technical craft or aesthetic beauty. They are just pictures about life."

The aspects of 'street' that I'm channelling in these pictures is that random stream of everyday interactions.

This was my first possible picture for the selection. I like the fact that the Disney Princess dress is in focus and the faces blurred. In some ways it's a very generic girly Christmas image, which I'm sure many would recognise and identify with on some level. The colours and the very feminine nature of the present leaves some room for other thoughts - the messages we give our kids, the roles of the sexes, the commercialisation of dreams and so on, without making any too obvious single point.

This was another thought. I liked the two separate groups, each preoccupied with their own interactions. What are the men talking about? What's the little girl thinking of? I think the picture is quite an interesting one. It captures the randomness or a big family event with breakaway groups and a variety of interactions.

This is the one I would have submitted to the pool if I had got my act together in time. It's candid and unposed, as the others are. Of the three I felt that this was the most ambiguous. The look between father and son may be benign or may betray some irritation, or something different. You can't see what father and daughter are bending over. The composition and angle of the photograph are off balance adding an extra level of unresolved tension. And this element of tension and ambiguity was why I thought it fitted best into the street category.

Winter trees

2010-12-31T17:04:00.000Z

It's been this kind of day for me today. Woke up with a fuzzy headache and haven't quite managed to lift the heaviness. Maybe my New Year resolution should be to try again at sorting out my sleep problem. In the meantime I thought I'd let the winter trees talk for me.

On love and laughter, and memory

2010-12-31T11:45:00.000Z

I had a lovely Christmas break at my friend's house. Naturally I took pictures. Here are a few of my favourites. The theme of this selection is love and laughter and the camera's ability to capture events and turn them into a visual memory or record. These kind of pictures are very much my photographic roots: I took over the family instamatic at a relatively young age, driven by a very Celtic sense that time was passing and that I wanted to record the moments before they went forever (and also by a certainty that fewer heads would be cut off if they let me do it). Looking at old snapshots I find that the pictures fix moments in time and become part of the memories in themselves, as they replace or at least fix the original memory of the event. A subject for further thought as the year goes on. But in the meantime, a few snaps:


A heavenly choir


Father and daughter

There were quieter moments too, as people contemplated Christmasses past...

Or dreamt of faraway places...

Some found quiet corners to get away from it all, but the all-seeing camera found them out.

Inspiration: Jay Maisel

2010-12-30T10:11:00.000Z

"It's all about light, and colour, and gesture." The pure joy of looking at the world and seeing what it has to offer fills this video. Well worth watching for inspiration on a slow day (or at any time).

Jay Maisel's website here.

The Omo people

2010-12-12T18:29:00.000Z

I tried to embed this video before and it didn't work. Hopefully it will this time. With many thanks to Jill who first drew my attention to the Omo people.

PS: there is some nudity in this video. Please don't click on it if you are likely to be offended by that.

Pretty colourful

2010-12-12T15:58:00.000Z

Rudbeckia at Mount Ephraim. And a shot of colour and beauty to brighten the day.

Student protests: different perspectives

2010-12-12T11:35:00.000Z

It was interesting to have a bird's eye view of the student protests. I work near Parliament Square - this is the view from an office window. We watched the marchers come into the square. The first people we saw were a group or maybe 20 youngish lads (they looked to be schoolkids in their mid-teens) running along in front of the main body of students. Many of these boys had covered their faces and most were carrying sticks and other things I couldn't see so clearly. They were visibly pumped up - full of energy - looking for something to hit with their sticks. I had the strong impression that these boys and other similar groups I saw as the day went on had watched reports of previous demos on the telly and come along ready for some action.

As with the first march, the vast majority of people I saw were protesting quietly and sensibly. They were well-behaved and keen to get their point across. there were some very good banners - my favourite was 'We haven't got a Clegg to stand on'. Look at my picture above, which shows the scene shortly before the protesting broke through the barriers and swarmed onto Parliament Green. You can see a mass of people behaving relatively well. And a flare, showing the pockets of people who had come prepared for violence. What you can't see from this is the incredible noise - drums, chants, sound systems - or the smell of smoke which became increasingly strong as the day went on.

You can see how many more protesters there were than police. We were close to one of the containment points and I must say that I thought the police who held those lines were both very brave and extremely restrained in the face of a good deal of deliberate provocation. I was very tempted to go out and take some close up snaps - that red flare was particularly tempting. But I needed to get on with my work. I never felt personally threatened at any time by what was going on. Although people at the very front of the battle lines did get hurt I had no doubt that I could mingle in with the crowd without getting hurt as long as I was sensible. Young lads with a lust for violence and a target can be very dangerous and I don't mean to downplay what happened or condone the damage. But anyone who has ever seen or heard a mob with real bitterness in their heart would I think be struck by the feeling that there was a good deal of play acting here.

You can find some close-up pictures of the scene on this link.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/12/london_tuition_fee_protest.html

The square was remarkably clean the next morning, with all the debris cleared away and most of the graffiti already almost invisible (the stonework had been steam-cleaned). Business as usual really.

The doors of the Supreme Court building were one of the few instances where graffiti was still visible (I don't think the oak doors would have responded well to a steam-clean).

I rarely see anyone making a call from these phone boxes: they are mostly full of tourists taking souvenir pictures of themselves. That morning they had an extra level of interest for the tourist snaps.

And of course the ever-present media were, well, present everywhere you looked.

Brighton Photo Biennial 2010

2010-12-05T15:08:00.000Z

Where to start? This is a note of a packed day spent at the Brighton Photo Biennial with OCA staff and fellow students. It's almost a month to the day since the visit, so this is something of a late blog. The delay is partly because I've been busy but also in no small part due to the fact that we saw so much and there was a lot to think about and almost too much to say. This may be a bit of a long blog but will try to keep it manageable by concentrating on a few of the main exhibitions.

The event was curated by Martin Parr and his interest in the kitsch and the positively bizarre was evident everywhere. There were some serious and even beautiful explorations but these were outweighed by the sheer number of the odder ones (Goya's Firing Squad reproduced in vegetables anyone?). My overall impression of the event was of the sheer number and variety of pictures, and an overall aesthetic which contrived to give the appearance of carelessness.

This picture was part of a series of prints of Queer Brighton by Molly Landreth.One of my favourite exhibits, Molly's lovely large portraits seemed to let the people in them speak for themselves. I didn't have a sense that she was displaying them as exotic specimens for ridicule as I sometimes did in other parts of the Biennial (and in M Parr's own work). I felt that I was looking at real people looking back. Their strengths and vulnerabilities were visible, and the portraits felt respectful and celebratory. I took a snap of this one for a number of reasons: it's a good example of overall gallery etiquette (see below for more on that) but one of my first thoughts on looking at the picture was that I'd have wanted to make a little less of the boy's spots. And maybe comb his hair. But of course without his spots he'd have looked older and less vulnerable and the picture would have been very close to a fashion image. My reaction to the picture brought me up short as it made me realise just how insidious the pressure is to tidy things up in pictures. Just to smooth reality a bit. I rationalise this kind of tweaking to myself on the grounds that the camera is often unkind and brings out spots and blemishes that one wouldn't see in real life. In respsone to this Clive W one of the OCA tutors, pointed out that helping us see things we might otherwise have missed is part of what photography is all about. Removing his spots would have made this a less interesting and less 'real' picture. I don't disagree - that realisation is what had made me look at it so hard at it to start with. But perhaps one could just make them a bit less obvious, a little voice says to me, just to be kind... I expect to return to this dilemma from time to time over the next months and indeed years.

Display aesthetics and semiotics
The print is clearly not framed and looks as though it is roughly pinned to the wall. I was prepared to be impressed by this apparently cavalier treatment of Big Expensive Prints but closer inspection revealed that the 'pin' is in fact a magnet. Another magnetic element is screwed to the wall and the picture is non-destructively held in place by them. All the pictures, everywhere we went, were unframed and fixed in the same way, which was one of the linking aspects of the exhibition. Do you put a fine border round the edges of your prints? I was told that this marks you out as a modernist: post-modernists don't have borders (the exhibition was post-modern, clearly). All part of the study of semiotics - every sign and every signal that surrounds an artwork is significant in its own way. Interesting, isn't it, these signals and codes that people use - do these art world etiquettes help distinguish between U and non-U perhaps, or am I being a bit uncharitable?

The House of Vernacular


A series showing the interiors of African dictators' private jets, including pictures taken by Nick Gleis

The House of Vernacular was an installation of dreamlike architecture in which a variety of collections of vernacular photography were displayed. This space, as you can hopefully see, was a long narrow space like the inside of a plane in which were displayed a series of images shwing the astonshing luxury of the plane interiors. I found it an effective and interesting presentation (though perhaps a bit of an easy target).

These were part of a slideshow of images shot for the German Ministry of the Interior during the cold war. The slides were projected in a dark room onto a screen which was suspended over a pool of water, into which people had thrown coins, as in a wishing well. The slides trainsitioned vertically and were reflected in the dark pool, with interesting effects. The whole thing was quite strange and alienating. Jose, another OCA tutor, felt that in many of these displays we were being invited to laugh at the individuals and find them strange. By showing pictures taken out of context it is easy to make people look a bit ridiculous. I largely agree with him about the displays in this building though I found this one quite compelling. I find the slightly nervous expressions of the two men uncomfortable and unsettling.

Another slide from the pool room. Something strange happened to the colours captured by the sensor when the slides were changing. the real picture is quite a flat-toned image. I don't understand what made them look like this.

New Ways of Looking
The former Co-op Department Store housed a vast number of exhibits spread over a number of chilly floors.

I think she's spotted me!

Among the works displayed were a selection from Dhruv Malhotra's Sleepers series. These are wonderful large format pictures of people sleeping outside in urban India. Dhruv talks about the pictures here and I won't rehearse what he says. For me the pictures stood out because of their curious quality of silence amid the bustle of the streets. they had an atmosphere that it's hard to put your finger on. the sleepers were at once vulnerable and safe. Poor enough not to have a roof over their head yet looking often oddly at peace. Perhaps a moment of rest from their difficult days. Who knows what they dream of? The overall effect of the series was complex: the pictures were beautiful. They don't trivialise the lives of these people and they don't sentimentalise them, exaggerating their poverty for effect. They just observe, record, and pass on. There's a tremendous feeling of common humanity - I think many of us viewers could see ourselves in these places in another life.


This was one of my favourite images. Excluded from the brightly lit hoems in the distance he neverthelss looks so peaceful and has recreated some home comforts with his bedding and mosquito net and bottle of water.

Other exhibits which left a mark in my memory were Suzanne Opton's Soldier and Many Wars series. These were huge prints of US veterens of current or earlier conflicts. The prints either showed just their head or a three-quarter body shot with the soldier draped in a piece of material which obscured their clothing. The overall effect was powerful but also unsettling. People's faces were very clearly shown so you could say their individuality was recognised but the pictures had the effect of making it hard to see them as people. They seemed to be both celebrated and anonymised. The standing pictures with the drapes reminded me both of statues of heroic figures and also 19th century photographs of native Americans (e.g. Chief Sitting Bull) in their ceremonial cloaks. I had quite a strong emotional reaction to the pictures in that I wanted her to let the subjects alone and be themselves and wear their own clothes and pose how they liked. But I suspect that is her point - and that the pictures are in part about how solders are both celebrated as heroic figures and dehumanised. Some pictures were accompanied by short pieces of text where the sitters told part of their story. Each was individual yet they've all blurred into one for me. I didn't really like the pictures (possibly I wasn't meant to) but they have got under my skin in some way.

Strange and familiar: Three View of Brighton
Last but not least, this was one of the headline exhibits. Three artists (Alex Soth, Rinko Kawauchi and Stephen Gill) had been invited to spend some time in Brighton capturing their sense of the town.

Of those the works by Stephen Gill and Rinko Kawauchi struck me most (Alex Soth was prevented form fulfilling his brief fully by not having applied for a work permit in time). Kawauchi had made a number of trips and produced a variety of different images. Those that spoke most to me were called 'Murmuration' and showed flocks of starlings at Brighton Pier. The resultant pictures were large prints with deep blue evening skies and flocks of birds captured in mesmerising swirling clouds. She did a series also showing people moving through the town, in continuance of the theme of movement and pattern, but I found this less successful. It just didn't quite work, and certainly didn't have the power of the starling images.

Stephen Gill did one of the most interesting bodies of work. I was particularly impressed by the gentleness and openness of his approach. He felt that he didn't want to wander around Brighton taking pictures and imposing his view on the town but wanted instead to find a way to let the place come to him. He had the idea of adapting a medium format film camera so that the film plate sat horizontally (a mirror at right angle to the film allowed a picture to be taken facing forward). He had a plate on top of the film plane and onto that he dropped bits and pieces that he found either in the vicinity where he was taking a picture or within the local area. Sometimes he selected the items and placed them carefully. Sometimes he asked passers by to choose what should be included, and sometimes he shook the camera to ensure a random arrangement. What you end up with is a picture which includes a standard view with tiny objects effectively on top of the film and recorded as either dark shapes or lighter ones depending on their transparency.

Stephen had collected all the items he used in the series and arranged them in a display cabinet as part of teh exhibition so they were there in real as well as in the pictures. The pictures were really very interesting - more than you might think. I enjoyed looking at them very much but I liked his ideas and approach almost more. I'd like to try some similar ideas later within this course.

The overall effect was of course Brighton in a very close sense, but I was struck by the fact that you wouldn't necessarily have been able to recognise the town. A botanist looking at some of the items might have been able to place the specimens fairly closely to a particular geographical region and time. But you wouldn't look at them and think "Oh yes, I recognise that as Brighton". I was left wondering a bit about the nature of identity and the different ways in which we identify places and indeed people. I suspect these thoughts will go round in my head for a bit and come out in some pictures at some time.

Stephen's approach in this series chimes very well with the 'Shadow Catchers' exhibition I saw and wrote about yesterday. I wondered if these signal a sign of a trend in the art photography world to value less traditional and more direct approaches over the tide of digital manipulation. If there is a trend there might be at least two reasons for this: one is the desire of artists to do something different and innovative and interesting for it's own sake; more cynically the popularity of such work might be evidence of a desire to put clear water between 'high art' photography and commercial practice.

And finally...

It was a great day. Very stimulating and thoroughly exhausting. I was cream crackered at the end of it (this marathon blog leaves quiet a lot out) but I had the feeling that Gareth (OCA director, seen on the right here making arrangements) could have kept going. I'm very grateful for OCA for arranging this, and for the tea and cake and good company!

If you can face more, you'll find a much pithier and less wordy discussion of the day from some of the other attendees here.

Update: Some thoughts on the festival from Martin Parr here.

Catching shadows

2010-12-04T19:18:00.000Z

"Photography is kind of tied up with death in many respects, in terms of you're looking at absent moments; they're no longer there. So it is quite a lot I think to do with loss as well as holding and showing.

Nothing is all in the state of coming into being, or in the state of dissolution out of being; it's always on the move, and I think that's my sense of trying to deal with how it feels to be… there but in the process of change." - Susan Derges

Susan Derges - Summer

Some thoughts on the V and A Shadow Catchers Exhibition, which featured pictures taken without cameras. Such pictures can be taken in a variety of ways, of which the most commonly used types are luminograms and photograms. The core of the process involves the use of light-sensitive material which is exposed directly to light to form an image or is otherwise manipulated. More about camera-less processes on this link.

Many of these works were a very pure form of photography with a very direct relationship between the photographic medium and the light. They were therefore fascinating for any lover of photographic in the purest sense of drawing with light. A major picture early in the exhibition is a life-size photogram of Lacock Abbey window, showing the link between these pictures and the processes used to create them and the start of photography.

Five artists were featured in the exhibition: Floris Neustiss, Pierre Cordier, Garry Fabian Miller, Susan Derges, and Adam Fuss. The exhibition itself is in a space with dark walls and limited light. This sets the pictures off very well, many of which have a glowing, luminous, quality. It is possibly also part of the process of conservation of some of the images, which are not fully fixed and so will change over time (byt hopefully won't fade too quickly). The dark background and subdued light contribute to the strong sense of an almost spiritual or mystical quality that comes from some of these images. That's not just me being fanciful: a good number of the works and artist videos have overt religious connotations. Pictures such as Adam Fuss's Shaker ladder and Garry Fabian Miller's Petworth Windows have clear religious symbolism (Jacob's Ladder, Cathedral Windows, the Crucifixion). Susan Derges also explores time, and the transitory nature of life, the sense of being here for just a little while.

With limited colour ranges the pictures are often remarkably powerful. Many are very beautiful, with deep glowing tones and colour and exquisite details and form. I very much had the sense that the exhibition contained samples of each artist's very best work I found some of Pierre Cordier's work a little fussy, but other pieces were wonderfully simple. One picture consisted essentially of a deep grey square inside a another deep grey square with just a little line of light around them. I found it strangely compelling, for reasons I can't quite explain - like looking at a Rothko, for example.

Floris Neustiss's photogram's were fascinating. One piece that I found particularly interesting was an installation with a chair sitting on a piece of photographic paper. The chair had a real shadow, cast by the light in the room, and also had a photogram image on the paper, which a person sitting on it. It's hard to explain but the combination of the real chair, its real and photographic shadow and then the shape of the missing person was a fascinating play of light and shade and three and two dimensions.

Of all the artists I think Susan Derges's work struck the most immediate chord with me. Not only because of her exquisite series showing the four seasons but also her work with water echoes some of my own preoccupations. In the last year or two I've taken many many water pictures trying to catch that sense of light and shade and movement. The connection between death and photography is very real to me also: I began taking pictures as a child to capture the moments that I could feel passing. Her work is therefore particularly inspiring to me personally on many levels. There's much in this exhbition for me to think on and I expect to return to this at some time in my work. But enough for now I think.

After the fair

2010-11-30T12:41:00.000Z

I had a great time at Arundel on Sunday. Sold some pictures and cards too! Some reflections and learning points below.

Sales and selling potential
Overall, my conclusion from this and events I've attended with others is that selling fine art prints and cards at fairs has potential to be a useful extra source of income, but is unlikely on its own to make a living wage for most people. I've been thinking about this because I would like some day to be a full time photographer and at the same time have a home and pay the bills and need to understand what is feasible.

I've noticed that almost every photographer and most visual artists that one sees makes a good deal or all of their income by providing services of one kind or another (e.g. training, seminars, magazine pieces, wedding or other commission work). Fine art income can be supplemented through sales of stock, either through stock libraries or by making contact directly with, for example, card firms. A very small number of people (Damian Hirst, David Hockney and similar) can live solely on their personal output but most visual artists need more than one string to their bow.

I knew this intellectually and from observation of others but preparing for and holding this Fair has brought it home to me in a concrete and personal way.

A few snaps to show the general layout below. Things got quite busy before I remembered to take pictures so my stock is somewhat denuded here. Learning point - allow more than 2 hours for setting up next time!

Costs and prices
The Hall itself was cheap - just over £80 split between two of us. There were some additional overhead costs that will prove useful in future events (picture hooks, blue tack, display stands, etc).

Stock costs varied. I've been buying frames in sales for the last six months so I would have a good range of different styles which might suit different people's homes. Getting the right picture in the right frame makes a great difference but some of my cheapest frames sold well and I have decided that I need to be more mean about buying frames in future to improve overall profit margins. I am fussy and won't sell something I wouldn't be happy to live with, but I will take every opportunity to buy cheaper frames and try hard not to get tempted by very nice but overly expensive ones.

You can of course offer unframed prints but people have told me that mostly they wouldn't buy those as they'd then have the bother of thinking about framing themselves. Much better to have nice framed examples that they can buy for themselves or as gifts.

My strategy for this and future fairs is to have a wide range of prices. One or two specially nice and expensive images. A range of framed versions selling from around £12.50 to £40.00. And lots of cards. I reckon that most people are like me: I look round fairs and often am not certain about buying an expensive picture even if I like it but am happy to buy cards instead and maybe take away a business card to give me a chance to think about future purchases.

This is my gorgeous goddaughter.
She makes great cakes! We decided
to offer teas and coffees and cakes,
partly in hopes of making money and
partly to make the place feel warm and
inviting. I think that worked pretty well.

Some of Toni's pictures and cards.

Sales
I sold five pictures and a good number of cards. I had made a range of cards in different prices.

Some seasonal ones -

- and some flower cards

Both went pretty well. I had spent a lot of time thinking about what people might buy (including doing some market research by asking friends and colleagues what sort of things they'd like). I found this really helpful in targeting the stock I made. One consistent message I've had is not to have too much variety (I take pictures of people and flowers, landscapes, urban images, abstract images and pretty much anything else that takes my fancy). People find a huge range of images that are not obviously related confusing. People like to have a sense of unity - a brand as it were- too much choice can make it difficult to settle on anything. Bearing this in mind, I concentrated on two main themes that seemed appropriate for the area, with some additional seasonal images. If I was having a show in London I would probably change the landscape images for more urban ones.

By and large, people buy pictures that mean something to them. That may be a memory of a place they love, or a feeling - a misty morning or a scene that speaks of hope or makes them laugh or that has some other resonance. The things that you want to live with and look at every day are different from those that you might want to have in books. I'm not really comfortable taking pictures solely with a view to someone else liking them. It's important to me to take pictures that I like. However I am quite happy to select pictures from my catalogue with a view to sales.

I am always surprised when someone wants to buy one of my pictures. So much so that I tend to panic a bit and get muddled about money, and always want to charge less than my asking price just because they're kind enough to buy. I need to work on that a bit. ; -)

One thing I realised while looking for possible images on my computer is that I have missed taking flower pictures and want to get back
into the swing of it. My degree course and then summer weddings and parties have
kept me really busy recently. I have enjoyed
all of that but do like spending quiet hours
taking flower pictures. Something for the long
cold winter ahead. I also really enjoyed
making the cards - it's quite relaxing and therapeutic.

At this fair I found that people tended to buy large landscapes pictures and that flower sales were mostly cards. I suspect that may be a general pattern, but will need to do a few more sales before I am sure.

I think with more variety (within my overall themes) I could have sold a bit more. Next time we do this it is likely to be in late spring or early summer and I will have seasonal images as well as my flower pictures. I am often in the area and will make a special effort to take some more local scenes as these always do well.

However even if I managed to double my sales next time that won't actually represent a lot of money per hour. It certainly wouldn't be enough to feed and house a family for a week. To make a living wage out of this you'd have to man your fair/stall five or six days a week (and then when would you take pictures?). That's why I think it has potential to be a useful source of extra income but not a sole income source.

What would I do differently next time?
Choose a time of year when there are more people in the town (or go to fairs where lots of people come to buy). Increase my stock but reduce margins where possible. Be more methodical with my float and have my packaging and sales material set out and ready to go. It would be nice to have some more stock, including perhaps pictures from other people. It's good to have variety and I think that the longer someone stays looking the more chance there is that they will buy something.

What did I enjoy most?
Other than the fact that people really did want to give me money for my pictures, I loved seeing lots of friends who came to visit and chat and help. We had fun! I also learned a lot.

Mother and daughter

Would you buy a picture from these people? Toni looks normal in the second one but I think I look like an idiot child.

We had good music all day. And when the floor was cleared, it was time to dance! I like the natural speech bubble effect...

Art Fair: Arundel, 28 November

2010-11-17T20:03:00.000Z

My friend Toni and I are having an art fair in a lovely little hall near Arundel Castle on sunday 28 November. Toni's daughter and my goddaughter, the Lovely Lexi, and her friend Arianne will be serving tea and cakes. I hope to see lots of friends old and new for tea and chat.

I am having fun making the sort of prints and cards that I would like to live with or send to people I liked. Toni is making light and playful images also. You can see some of them here. (I've already bought two). Below is a very rough snap of some of my prints, on Toni's studio floor. I hope that other people will like them too. But in any event, there'll be lots of tea, cake, and laughter.

PWDP Assignment 1: Seasonal changes - final pictures

2010-11-15T21:56:00.000Z

So, some time after I posted the first set, energy has returned sufficiently for me to complete the exercise.

To recap: this assignment requires one to photograph subjects which capture the feel of the current season. Four of these, which best capture your own personal response to the current season, should be altered to illustrate how colour changes from season to season. Put simply, it's a pig of an assignment. It's challenging to find pictures that capture the season and that can convincingly be made to look like each other season. I found it hard to make the necessary changes, and sometimes to work out what I wanted the picture to look like. The assignment is so prescriptive that it is hard to get any personal or artistic vision into it but I wanted at least to have pictures which I found aesthetically appealing and which spoke to me of the seasons. All of them have intersting light and I have taken that as a bit of a theme. I think I've been partially successful, but will need to return to some images at a later point.

All the sets below run from top to bottom in the following sequence - Winter, Autumn, Summer, Spring

Under the pier
This is my favourite of the four sets. I wanted to see if I could show seasons in a non-typical setting. I can't tell you how long it took me to make a selection of the seaweed so I could work on it and the background separately. After the pain I had with the first set I did wonder at my sanity in trying this (you'll see that wondering at my sanity is a recurring theme in this assignment). I seem to have chosen particularly difficult images. I know I could have found easier ones to play with, but I just wanted to try these. Anyway, I am glad I persevered with this set in particular. I really hope you like them too (but do feel free to suggest improvements or give other constructive feedback: I welcome comments).

Grasses
I liked the movement in the grass and the way the light hit them, as well as the contrast between the relatively warm colour of the grass and the cool background. The autumn and winter versions of this image work well I think - these are closest to the original. I fear that I've lost something in the summer and spring images and these are on my list to revisit at some future point (before assessment).

Mount Ephraim
The original picture was taken at Mount Ephraim gardens in Kent, on a trip with the wonderful GillyinKent. I've asked myself more than once why I like it, and even more what possessed me to try to make seasonal changes to it. What I really like is that it's so soft and subtle it's almost not there, and I wanted to make changes that kept that subtlety. Of all of them I think winter most successful, but also quite like spring and to a lesser extent summer. I think I've been a bit too heavy-handed with the autumnal scene and will need to return to this.

Wordle

2010-11-13T21:40:00.000Z


          title="Wordle: PDWP words">
          src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/2725143/PDWP_words"
          alt="Wordle: PDWP words"
          style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">

This application makes a picture from the words used most commonly on your blog.

Just a fun thing, but it is interesting to see which words I've been using most often.

PWDP Assignment 1 - rejects

2010-10-30T09:33:00.000+01:00

I continue to make slow progress with this assignment. I'm finding it very difficult, on a number of levels. The first difficulty, which has preoccupied me since starting the course, is finding suitable images. They need to show my response to the current season, and be capable of being changed, through the use of colour rather than cloning and more significant manipulations, to look like each other season. I've been taking pictures with this assignment in mind for months now (and have reviewed my catalogue of older landscape images) and found very few scenes that can convincingly pass for four seasons. Quite a few could represent three (spring/summer/autumn, or autumn/winter/spring). It's the summer-winter opposition that's the real challenge. Summer essentially is about abundance: everything is blooming and in leaf, while in winter the landscape is pared down and there's much less vegetation round. It's hard to take any kind of wider scene and make it work for those two seasons. I really wanted to do some wider landscape images but just can't settle on any. Here are a few I've considered and rejected, and why.

I was quite hopeful about this one initially. I like the light. I think I could make it work for autumn and winter (at a push) and spring. But I think there are just too many leafless trees to make this look convincingly like summer. some individual trees have an open canopy and I think I'd have got away with the main tree in the foreground on that basis, but the others are just too bare.

In this picture I had thought I might make the main tree look like a yew or cypress (in colour) and by changing the surrounding colours make this look like each season. But I think that there are just too many other trees in bloom to make a winter image look believable. I should say that I'm not trying to get an image that is entirely correct in botanical terms, but just one that feels right when you look at it, and doesn't look off in any obvious way.

This one I think I probably could make pass. There are two main reasons why I've decided against it. One is that it is in a panoramic format and doesn't fit with the others I am doing. I want all four to hang together as a set and adding one that's obviously different doesn't feel right. The other main point is that all the other images I'm looking at have quite strong light effects and in comparison this one feels a bit flat. I like the design qualities of the picture but miss that striking light. I do think I could make it work but I'm not excited by it.

Anyway, now back to trying to make the ones that are still part of the final selection work. Whilst I say that I've rejected these it's always possible they'll end up in the final cut if I can't get the others to work!

PWDP Assignment 1 - first set of pics (I think)

2010-10-24T20:05:00.000+01:00

I've finally made some progress on this assignment. To recap, the assignment requires you to take pictures which capture the current season, and then change the colours so they look like the other three seasons. I have to do four scenes - 16 pictures in total. Here are my first set of pictures. I think I am quite happy with them, although there is some room for improvement - not least in my selection techniques! I am fairly happy that each image looks like the season it represents, and these are likely to make it into my final selection.

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

I'm currently working on a more challanging set of pictures (actually I suspect all will be harder than this set) so struggling a bit. Thought I'd take time out to post these so I feel I've achieved something today.

Autumn and Winter

2010-10-24T15:59:00.000+01:00

I've made two of my four season palettes so far. They take quite a long time and require a good deal of concentration so am pausing for a bit or I'll never ever complete Assignment 1. I hope to finish the last two by the end of next week. The palettes are:

Autumn...

...and Winter

It was very tempting to do a palette for each season that had all the core seasonal colours in it, and only those - an 'essence of Autumn' for example, all reds and golds and a bit of mist. And maybe I'll do some of those in due course. These, though, are meant to represent the main natural colours for each season, and to give a sense of the changes from season to season. So winter is mostly earth and sky and brown trees. There is a little green for grasses and evergreens, a cold sea green, and some berry and deeper tones. There is a very pale pink for pale cold sunsets and also bleached seed heads and plant material. And a little soft yellow for early daffodils and crocuses.

Autumn has more colour in the sky tones, and a good number of soft light tones for seasonal mists, with lots of reds and golds and some warm greens to represent mellow fruitfulness. Earth tones are warmish. There's not as much brown as in Winter, but more than you'll see in Summer, when the earth is covered in abundant colour.

I've found these quite good fun to do. As I said above they're surprisingly hard to get right as you really have to think about the season and have a clear idea in your own head about how it looks, and have an idea of how to translate that into a relatively small number of colours. I have wondered if it's just fun or will actually help in the seasonal exercise. But having now done the first set of pictures I have to say that I found Autumn and Winter much easier to get right than Spring and Summer. there might be any number of reasons for that but I like to think that maybe taking time out to get a clear idea in my head of what thsoe seasons look like has helped. Anyway, back to have another go at my Spring and Summer pictures.

Street Photography week 3: Reflection

2010-10-24T15:29:00.000+01:00

Still not on topic, but am quite pleased with this one.

Saatchi gallery visit

2010-10-17T18:25:00.000+01:00

I went to the Saatchi gallery for the first time yesterday, with my wonderful friend Toni. It's a very interesting space and I enjoyed the visit a lot. This is the first of a number of entries which will cover the visit: it will take me a little time to process what I've seen and I'll post thoughts on various pieces over the next little while. I found that I often responded as much to the lovely building as the artworks: this work combines the best of both.

It's by artist Richard Wilson and is the only permanent installation in the gallery, occupying a room built specially for it. The piece is called 20:50.

When you enter the room it's hard at first to work out what you're looking at - a mirror or polished floor perhaps? The smell gives it away quite quickly: the room is entirely flooded in oil (thick, black recycled engine oil - 20:50 is the name of this type of oil). It's a wonderful mysterious space which I could have gazed at endlessly. I love the way it plays with perspective and depth and tone.

This is my self-portrait in oil (sorry!).

What is street photography?

2010-10-17T10:58:00.000+01:00

Wikipedia defines it thus:

Street photography is a type of documentary photography that features subjects in candid situations within public places such as streets, parks, beaches, malls, political conventions and other settings.
Street photography uses the techniques of straight photography in that it shows a pure vision of something, like holding up a mirror to society. Street photography often tends to be ironic and can be distanced from its subject matter, and often concentrates on a single human moment, caught at a decisive or poignant moment. On the other hand, much street photography takes the opposite approach and provides a very literal and extremely personal rendering of the subject matter, giving the audience a more visceral experience of walks of life they might only be passingly familiar with. In the 20th century, street photographers have provided an exemplary and detailed record of street culture in Europe and North America, and elsewhere to a somewhat lesser extent.

Link to full Wiki article

I suspect that my urban flower below, although taken in the street and sharing some of the other characteristics of the genre (minimal processing, 'straight' picture) probably isn't 'street' as such,
Here are links to some other useful discussions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/photoblog/2010/10/street_photography_now.html

http://2point8.whileseated.org/2006/05/18/the-phylums-of-street-photography/

Street Photography week 2: Urban Sculpture

2010-10-17T10:41:00.000+01:00

The instruction for this week was "Turn your attantion to the four-legged population. - Ying Tang" I looked out for dogs or anything else that might be described as four-legged and counted four sightings in the week, none of them particularly interesting, so no four-legged image from me. While wandering around I did spot this very pleasing sculpture. It's called the Dandelion Sculpture and was made by pupils at Westminster City School from recycled fizzy drink bottles. It turns in the wind and I liked watching the movement and the way the sky shows through the bottles.

And now for something completely different

2010-10-11T20:15:00.000+01:00

As a bit of a change from the focus on post-production and manipulated images I have signed up for this street photography project. I'll aim to take at least one half-decent street picture for the rest of the year, and post the results here and on Flickr. In taking these pictures my aim is to capture everyday life as it's lived on our streets, learning to become more observant and get better at capturing passing moments or interesting everyday details. My intention is to use minimal processing in these pictures. Certainly no fancy colour work, and as a rule I'll try to avoid the temptation to make black and white conversions. I had a stab at this earlier this year when Nick Clegg came to Streatham during the election campaign and I enjoyed the challenge. I hope to get a few pictures that I'm happy with.

This is the result of last week's challenge. The picture shows judges walking towards Parliament from Westminster Abbey. This ceremonial procession date back many centuries and marks the start of the legal year. I was attracted to the sheer strangeness of it all, with the rather wet and disgruntled looking policeman in front of a procession of bewigged judges. Sadly I couldn't get very close to the procession. In addition it was rather wet, and it's difficult to take pictures with a camera in one hand and an umbrella that keeps blowing inside out in the other (that's my excuse at least). So not the best picture in the world but an interesting subject.

You can find out more about this tradition and see Judges walking here