forrester photography

A Touch of Magic

2011-12-24T15:53:00.000Z

In the 21^st century you’ve got to be ahead and keep up with new technology.

What am I taking about, keeping mobile, today you don’t justhave sit behind your PC or Mac for your fix of favourite websites you viewregularly, it's all done on the move, either by Smartphones or the new breedof Tablets, whatever your weapon of choice it's a world on the move.

Today though instead of fiddling away tapping in website addresses there is a smarter way to download your favourite sites.

All it takes is a swipe of your phone or tablet and hey presto the websiteappears like magic before your eyes.

Once you’ve downloaded a QR code reader onto your phone ortablet, the world of magic is before you, no more the tapping of keys.

Try it here see for yourself.

See magic does happen. One of several new innovations Ishall be incorporating in my new look website scheduled for 2012.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.

A lesson learnt

2011-12-04T09:36:00.001Z

Atthe beginning of last year after we returned from the Christmas break one ofthe assignments was to research a genre we were not familiar with and toproduce a series of images, plus a write up of the journey etc.

Iwas undecided on a genre for this assignment so I edged my bets in a couple ofareas, one been sport the other portraiture. I managed to obtain a press passto the British 2011 Squash Championships, if you look here I wrote about theexperience back in March.

Gettingto the point of this blog entry, I took so many images over several days it wasdifficult to view them all, when I viewed them I wasn’t that happy with what Ihad taken, for that reason I went in the end with portraiture.

Afew months later I returned to have another look at the squash images, when youdo distance yourself you see things differently.

Iwas now seeing potential images I had either not seen or were not registeringwith me back in late February early March. Two or three of those images I havesince processed but not done a lot with them until recently when I entered acouple into the Wath salon This is an old established competition run by theWath on Dearne camera society which attracts numerous entries from theYorkshire region and a few more beyond. If you read my news entry Best in Showit gives you a little more information plus a few other images that did wellfor me.

Bothmy squash entries were accepted into the exhibition, one winning the best colourprint, earlier in the year I entered two digitals into the YorkshirePhotographic Unions annual exhibition and both those were selected.

Somay be discarding the sports as my assignment and going with portraiture was possiblya mistake, but one I think I can live with but also a lesson learnt.

Hereare the four images that did reasonable well.

Deadline completed. New one starts

2011-11-12T09:31:00.001Z

Certainly no rest on this course as six sets of assignments arecompleted and handed in, on time may I add, it was only just though, burning the candle at both ends to complete them all was needed.

Thinking cap on again as the new set of assignmentscommence, I need to come up with ideas and solutions so the past week hasresulted in a few sheets of scribble note paper looking at various ideas etc,but at least we have till early January 2012 to complete these assignments,mind you it is the middle of November already erm better get going on themsoon. I will let you know nearer completion time what they are about and my takeon them, may be another sneak preview.

Back to the previous assignments and in my last bog entry Igave you a sneak preview of my work. Below are a few images from one thoseassignments.

First a little background, a company called Innocentproduce smoothies and veg pot meals, the brief roughly was to produce advertfor the veg pots, below are a few of my final submission ideas.

Sneak Preview and a ticking Clock

2011-10-21T16:47:00.000+01:00

In my blog entry “Can Men Multitask” if you remember it wassix weeks and six assignments. Three were photographic and three text andgraphics.

So with around ten days to go to deadline and hand inthought I would update you, well it is manic and it will go to the wire. Howfar completed, well about 60% with another 20% it some disarray and the final20% yet to start, so it’s chill time really, not.

Anyway I’m on with it so not an issue, but what about twosalon exhibitions to enter and a mentoring panel to put together, oh and twoclients images to print and mount, now its panic time.

So a quick sneak preview ofa few part finished images, right got to go lots to do

Black & White Photographer of the Year 2011

2011-10-08T10:33:00.001+01:00

Black and White Photographer of the Year, has a nice ring toit and I’m still on cloud nine after the awards night in London on Thursdayevening.

As well as receiving my award sponsored by NikSoftware, thank you very much guys for the goodies, it was also a chance to doa bit of networking, hopefully one or two things may come from the evening,time will tell.

So going back to entering this competition and reading thebrief, which was “to be imaginative andthoughtful in their interpretation”

My tutors have been over the past year drumming this side ofmy photography into me. All I can say is I was listeningwell I must have been as thousands of entries from not only the UK but world wideentered the competition through the eight themes.

These were shortlisted from the original digital submissionsdown to 350 images of which you had to then submit prints for the final round of judging, twoof my three submissions made it to this stage with the “Dials and Levers” imagewinning the Technology category.

All the wining prints are on show till the end of October atThe Printspace Gallery London, they can also be seen in this months edition ofBlack and White photography magazine in a special supplement.

The wining photographsare challenging, quirky, thoughtful, tender, mythic and beautiful as per MarkBentley Deputy Editor of Black and White Magazine.

Winner of the Black and White Photographer of the Year Technology Cateogry

Can men multitask

2011-09-25T11:02:00.001+01:00

September 20^th 2011 blog entry should read are men able tomultitask, why it was the start of year two of the photography course and theassignments came thick and fast.

Three photographic with mega prints to do and one heavyweight of a bound portfolioof business practices to produce plus did I mention we have only six weeks, ohand a presentation as well.

So the males in the group are on a multitasking steeplearning curve, as the females with the group will think it’s a breeze, sorrygirls. I will keep you posted how it is all going in a few weeks once were further into to it. I have a few ideas formulated the question is will they work and can I pull them off inthis next six weeks.

Took a little time out yesterday from the gruelling scheduleto try a revive the photographic spark that has been lost in my work these pastfew months, we all go through it I know, so it was pleasing a pre arrangedshoot with Lara Nicole who had travelled yesterday morning from Glasgow to be at Arcstudios Preston for a group shoot and was returning the same evening.

I think with the enjoyment of yesterdays shoot and theplanned gruelling programme this next six weeks the spark looks like it mayjust be flickering.

I have just finished downloading yesterdays shots with Lara Nicole, first look atthe images are encouraging. Here is a taste of what we shot on the day.

Sometimes it goes wrong

2011-09-17T15:46:00.000+01:00

Backto the Mamiya 645 and the second test roll of black and white film, there werea couple of Clarence Docks Leeds to start of with, an experiment withoutfilters, as you can see the sky is blown but there is some detail and with alittle work we recover that detail but I wanted with these to see what detail Icould obtain from buildings etc as I have a project in mind for next year and Iwould rather spoil film now than during the project.

Thereal sometimes it goes wrong came a week or so later I was shooting at a studioin Preston, thought it would be a good idea to take the 645 along and try a fewblack and white shots, anyway rattled the rest of the roll off the 13 framesthat were left.

Wellwith this film photography there is no looking on the back of the camera tocheck exposure etc and on this learning occasion it all went wrong, you can seefrom a couple I have chosen to post there is a shutter issue as half the frameis not exposed. Now is this down to me or is it a hardware issue, more likelymy doing and its on all 13 frames, I have a problem

Sonow I need to remember what the setting were, I was going to start recording settingsso I could look back if there ever was an issue and check what settings I’dused, whoops didn’t do that, another point to add to the learning curve of film.

Butback in the studio again in another week and I will try again, sometimes whenyour learning it does go wrong, you pick yourself up and learn what caused theissue, learn and move on.

Ohthe last on I sort of cropped and rescued, but only for the purpose of the blogyou understand, plus I had my 5D Mk11, which I used mainly on the day, so allwas not lost.

Reaching for the Skye

2011-09-13T16:56:00.000+01:00

Just back from a superb week on the Isle of Skye, bit of walking,hiking, good food and oh a bit of photography, plus lots of driving.

Main images to follow on the main website in due time, but alittle taster of three here, ok the first is Glencoe but we were driving pastat the time, it would have been rude not to stop.

Well next Tuesday is the return to college for part two of slave labour, a hard and difficult year ahead me thinks.

A Summer's Project

2011-08-21T09:16:00.003+01:00

Another little project during the summer break was to add a couple more prints to the existing collection on sale at the Victoria Baths Manchester.

The staircase ones came about due to several requests by visitors asking for prints of the staircase in my particular style, so as I had another photographic request in Manchester it was time to combine these together.

Above and below are the new staircase additions for Victoria Baths with an added one of the Male’s Entrance, which is an update of a previous image.

The staircase images will be on sale soon as 16 x 12 mounted prints along with several others, which got me thinking I only have one displayed in my portfolio, must rectify that I think and devote a gallery page for my Victoria Baths images, so keep a look out at the main website for more images for this wonderful location.

A Whole New World

2011-08-21T07:33:00.002+01:00

Yes that’s right, film, black and white and medium format. Starting late in this photography malarkey I missed the wonderful world of film and all that went with it, so recently I purchased a Mamiya 645 pro inclusive of motor drive and prism thingy anyway more about entering this whole new world of medium format film photography in a future blog post.

For now this entry is about images from the first roll that’s travelled through the Mamyia been developed and scanned.

Neither of the images shown will win any awards nor even come close, but being new to this film photography you have to start somewhere. The image above of The Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield was shot on an evening that had heavy grey / black clouds above but had some nice low sunlight coming from the west, I managed to get two or three slightly different frames from this bridge location before the sun disappeared for the evening.

The second image below is what was the old Corus steelworks at South Gare near Redcar with the historic fisherman’s huts in the foreground. Shot in a mid July morning is probably not the ideal time to photograph this location but as it was part of me getting to grips with the camera and film then it was a good learning exercise.

So out of the first roll all 15 frames were exposed reasonable well and second roll is away for developing and high res scanning, so we will see what that brings although I will say it is a different subject mater to these above.

One thing I need to do whilst in the testing, learning mode is to write down the settings I used plus any filters or other points that will help me understand where I am going wrong so the next time I hopefully improve.

Final Score

2011-08-02T16:06:00.000+01:00

Well not exactly the final score more like the marks are in for my first year, resulting in me returning for the second year at university late September.

Not a bad result as far as the year went by the looks of it, can’t confirm yet as my I one to one with the tutor has not taken place yet but the marks suggest in was a pass proceed with merit. That will do nicely.

Enjoy the summer everyone.

Still Clicking

2011-07-03T10:56:00.000+01:00

As the summer is upon us, but now on the downward slide since the longest day has passed, Wimbledon coming to a close, what you supposed to do.

The sunrise is a little early in a morning at around 4.30am, for me that could be a 2.00am start, so I will may be wait a few weeks yet as I have one or two locations in mind, some mono film in the Mamiya 645 that I am itching to use. So when the sunrise is a little more sensible I will show you what I’ve been up to, but there has been a bit of clicking going on, below are a couple of recent images from a 5.00am start a Grosmont, the home of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.

The first is from inside the workshops as they carry out the on going repairs to the rolling stock.

I was pleased this shot was accepted into the premier website of 1x.com

The second image was a rare opportunity to shoot from the footplate of a Black Five engine, as preparations were almost complete for it’s day’s work ahead. Not a lot of room on the footplate but this is where the tilt and shift is useful

A few more to add from other shoots soon, enjoy the summer.

End of Year One

2011-05-27T18:39:00.000+01:00

It feels like yesterday that I embarked on this degree course, now several months later first year is now over.

Gone in a flash, that is how it appears, but there has been lots and lots of hours put into it, even the final push these last three weeks or so have seen researching, photo shoots, re shoots, writing and more writing, printing, book binding and mounting prints, but last Monday everything was handed in completed, well 99.9999% it would have been good to have the fate of my stock photography submissions. Typically they tricked in on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, each day another rejection or two, the ten were now starting to fall like a pack of cards, but one little ray of sunshine on the Thursday one was accepted.

It would have been good to write up the reasons for the rejections and if your wondering mainly either no release form, for the people shots I took last October in Vietnam, erm good excuse to go back and get them signed LOL, and some building images not correctly tagged, so I will resubmit those with correct tags in the coming week. The image that made it, rice terraces in Northern Vietnam.

So a few days off recharge the batteries, a bit of personnel photography, there is a couple of projects I want to get started, some stock photography to do, plus lots of business issues, oh and I am working a couple of days a week on a temporary contract, so before you know it September will be here and it will be back on the merry go round for another year of degree work.

I did have a little wobbly about continuing the course a few weeks back, right up till beginning of this week to be honest, but I think the pressure of all the work involved, not getting much time to my personnel work and the trauma of loosing my niece just before Easter was taking its toll, now everything appears a little calmer I feel better and I am fully up for the next years work, like I said a little wobbly.

One of the last projects we had to complete was the redesign of a brown paper bag, you know the type those you get your Chinese take a way delivered in. What did I do with it, simples made some ladies shoes and handbag out of one or two paper bags along the theme of Bags to Nature, using the woodland theme and nature as a fashion statement to get the message across about the environment, below are a few images to give you a flavour of my mad idea.

I will continue with the blog throughout the summer, updating you on projects I am working on along with a few other things, watch this space.

Speak soon.

The Final Push

2011-05-03T18:31:00.000+01:00

Apologies for no updates of late, lots being happening in my life some unfortunately not so good but getting back on track slowly.

But slowly is not the answer or an option, the clock is ticking towards hand in day, 20^th May for the final three assignments of my first year.

One of the assignments is choosing a different genre to your normal work, difficult at first as I do a variety of stuff. After looking at Street photography, nearly did that one, then one to do with reportage and trains, not normal trains but steam trains, time with access was fast running out on that, and then I looked at sport, another that I was inches away from doing.

But in the end portraiture won the day, a genre I need to improve upon and one that will serve well in the future, so why not.

Here are a few as a sneak preview.

Still working on the stock library images and the brown paper bag, don’t ask I will fill you in later in the month, with so images as well, till then it’s back to the grind, life as a student eh, was easier working full time for a living.

Audley Traveller - Spring 2011

2011-04-01T17:49:00.000+01:00

Audley Travel, the award winning travel company have just realised their spring 2011 edition of Audley Traveller.
An article wrote a couple of months back with a couple of images from our October holiday to the remote Ha Giang Provence of Northern Vietnam are included

Audley Travel website

Click here to read the PDF version

Super Tuesday

2011-03-10T19:29:00.001Z

Meet up with Beth, a second year dance student Tuesday to create a few images for her portfolio and hopefully a few for my own.

What a session, thought we would be a couple of hours, but fours later we were still shooting away, both of us and Ben a colleague from the same photography course who was topping up his own portfolio were feeling the pace, so we stopped called it a day, well with nearly a couple of hundred images in the bag hopefully there are a couple of keepers.

Hopefully there will be a second session, I think Beth has some more ideas and I certainly have a few locations and poses for Beth, plus there is one special one were both after, but you’ll just have to wait for that one.

Above and below is a small selection of what we shot in Tuesday’s session

Mono Catwalk Image - Gold Award

2011-03-02T15:50:00.001Z

A few months back now, via Facebook a wedding photographer Simon Revell, whose other work besides weddings I have admired for a while invited me to a website,

http://www.dramafreephotography.co.uk

I won’t bore you with all the details of how and why this came about, but I will say watch this site for uploads early April, that may give you an insight to it all.

Anyway the site is a forum for wedding and portrait photographers, many of them running successful businesses in that line.

So what am I doing their, after all my interests don’t span those genre of photography, but in the world of commercial photography people play a huge role, I need to learn this craft, planning into the coming months some people and portrait shoots that will help me hone a few skills along the way.

So above I posed the question what was I doing on the site, well each month they have a little competition, a couple of months back I entered my first, I thought lets see where my current work stands, that way I will have a stake in the ground to measure my future progress in photographing people, I won the first one, not really what I expected, chuffed though all the same. The second one nowhere, back down to earth, ok that’s fine no problem after all I am the novice in this field, lots to learn yet.

February sees major changes to the competition, mainly an anonymous team of judges, each awarding marks for differing aspects of the submitted images, two submission allowed each month and the winning categories being, Gold, Silver and Bronze, to achieve Gold you need to amass more than 80 points from the judges.

So for the third month and the first in this new format I throw my hat into the ring again, with my mono catwalk image, yes only the one from me.

So the results are in and its another win, well one of three images awarded Gold, status the other two images coming from Simon Revell himself, so I was in fine company.

Below is my Gold award image, now what to enter this month, be rude not to wouldn’t it.

Sneaky Preview

2011-03-02T08:37:00.000Z

Thought I would show you a teaser into the latest assignment I am working on, the brief was to research one of the largest advertising sheet / display providers and come up with a range of adverts, selecting one product from a short list of five.

Below is a part completed advert that fits on those huge displays you see around our towns and cities, apparently they are called a 96 sheet advert.

Huge thanks to my two models Lucy and Paul who kindly took time out of their briefs to help me complete my image sets. Once hand in is completed I will explain how it all came to be and possibly add a few more images, but till then shhhh there’s an embargo on it.

Pro Squash Photography - Whole New World

2011-03-01T08:10:00.002Z

I spent couple of days the other week at the British National Squash Championships, an annual tournament that brings the elite of British Squash under one roof, like the men’s world number one and British number one Nick Mathews, the ladies world number two and British number one Jenny Duncalf. So before I launch into my experience a huge thanks goes to England Squash, especially Madeline who allowed me access with a media pass.

It was difficult not knowing prior what to expect, what was I letting myself in for.

Research was called for, eventually I came across Duncan Grove, a professional sports photographer www.duncangrove.com a couple of e mails later I had the low down of what to expect, he really gave me a superb grounding of what it was like to shoot this sport, plus kit needed.

So the time came, what was it like, well Duncan’s information was spot on, firstly your only a few feet away, your shooting through glass, looking back at the players from the front wall, plus your low down at worms eye view, the light is not the best for photography, oh and on the all glass show courts there are the reflections from the glass, metal fixings and with the final stages the elite players are so fast, just a few obstacles then.

So lens choice, I was advised a fast 50mm 1.4 was may be the best choice, so lucky for me I have a 50mm 1.2 but you still had to crank up the ISO. I also tried a few shots with a 70-200 at the 70 end, although I found this extremely difficult to use, I also think because I was using my 5D Mk11 this was not the best choice for sports photography, ok I know it was not built for this type of photography, but that’s what cards I was dealt so it was get on with it.

My success from the experience well at present there are few that are ok, not bad but I wouldn’t say I captured an award winning image, this was a massive learning curve understanding about sports photography at this level.

I enjoyed the experience hugely, I may not have got the stunning shots but learnt so much about professional sports photography.

An Appreciation - Fay Godwin

2011-02-08T17:19:00.000Z

Living a short journey away from Bradford, I had never visited the National Media Museum, but Friday 4^th February ticked that missing link from the list.

A few fellow students and myself arranged to meet there, we wanted the opportunity to view the Fay Godwin Land Revisited Exhibition.

Fay Godwin (1931 – 2005 ) was one of Britain’s greatest landscape photographers. She is best known for her 1985 exhibition and book "Land", a very personal celebration of the British Landscape that enjoyed enormous popular and critical success.

Above is an extract from the Bradford Media Museum website setting out a little about Fay Godwin and the current exhibition

To view more about Fay Godwin and the exhibition please click here a link to the Media Museums webite.

I am relatively new to photography, around five years is my time, brought up in the digital age, but the current course already has taught me a little more appreciation about the era of film along with mono prints both past and present.

Viewing this exhibition from Fay Godwin brought home further that appreciation of how skilled this work and that of others real was. We live in a digital world but going back to the eighties and may be the seventies when these photographs were taken and seeing them together in an exhibition instead of flicking through images on a website was refreshing, inspiring also due to my love of mono especially prints.

With these photographs coming from a time I remember, the connection to them I believe was stronger, a couple really stood out, one taken above Heptenstall with the back lighting and the other high on the wild moorland near Haworth called Top Withens.

Sadly in reflection over the weekend we didn’t stay long enough to fully absorb and take in this remarkable ladies talents. The exhibition ends on the 27^th March 2011 but I will return long before then to indulge myself a little more.

Degree Work - Published

2011-02-05T18:17:00.000Z

In the first semester one of the projects was architectural photography at different times of the day, you know early morning late afternoon, night photography. Well one of my submissions, not a main one was “Last Light” in London just before sunset, anyway not strictly architectural, that’s why it was submitted as an other selection, long story but it was.

The interesting thing why I am writing this is because it was picked up by one of the photography magazines, “Digital SLR” magazine, they have published it in the March edition, which is good news and hopefully gives me a few brownie points at the end of the degree, although I doubt it but good news all the same.

Below is the March edition’s front page plus the shot that they have included, full page I may add LOL.

Here we go again...

2011-01-29T09:55:00.000Z

So Tuesday saw the start of the second semester and the unveiling of the modules that are to be our friends or enemies for the next few months.

Expected a hike up in both workload and content, the creative side is surely going to be tested in this semester, it is Saturday morning as I write this and since Tuesday, plus a little before that as I had an idea of what was coming. I have tried to come up with ideas for the four main projects we have to produce, though more about these projects as the weeks unfold and I get past the planning stages.

Two are sort sorted for the planning stages, the third and the one I find most annoying and difficult as we knew the basics of this from December 17^th since I have struggled to have any inspiration, ideas what so ever, zilch, nothing.

Even a brain storm with a couple of the other students and my tutor late Friday afternoon brought nothing, they had ideas don’t get me wrong but I couldn’t connect with them, think is until this is solved I am finding it difficult to move forward on the others, it is like a block somewhere, once it’s freed all the other projects idea’s will fall into place, well at least to the planning stages.

But a ray of hope at 3.30am in the morning, it just happened the idea, the concept it all came to me, so out of bed pen paper wrote it down, phew hopefully cracked it know, three projects with ideas and one to go which I am not to concerned about, what a feeling, on to the planning stage now.

Part One - tick. Part Two - the start

2011-01-21T09:24:00.000Z

So Tuesday this week was D Day, feed back time with a one to one with my tutor, three projects handed in, did I do enough in my first ever semester to progress.

Worst thing was I had all day to wait 3.00pm was my sentencing time, it felt like going for a job interview and this was the crunch time, were you to be successful or not.

For those that have followed me as a mature student going through this first semester will know I have not found it easy in places, enjoyable well yes most of the time, suppose the writing styles and not understanding how things worked in the first month, then a holiday plus half term. So before I got fully started over six weeks had pasted and now I was playing catch up, managed to hit the deadline though, but boy did I put some hours in, good job I have a supportive wife, cheers Lorraine for your support and understanding.

So how did it go, well two passes and a merit so I was a happy with that, feed back from my tutor was good, spot on really with where I needed to improve, the main criticism if you want to call in that, whatever I found it constructive was some of my write ups did not fully explain the process I was doing, a bit like if you watching a film, you see the start and the end but what happened in the middle, your left wondering, that was me in a nutshell with my work.

So the first semester is completed, I now know what projects lie ahead in the second semester, not easy tasks I can tell you, but challenging, yes more about these once I have got my head fully around them.

So we start back next week with the course but onto another level I suspect as the bar is raised.

Pushing the Boundaries

2011-01-20T19:18:00.002Z

Presentation header page

Monday evening saw my boundaries and experience pushed to the limits once more or should that be the second time.

Let me explain, nearly a year ago I was contacted by SMCC (South Manchester Camera Club) about carrying out a presentation of my photography, this I gladly accepted, well a year is a long time off isn’t it, but suddenly it’s upon you, what shall I present, how many images, what will I talk about, all these thoughts and many others go through your head after all some of these people know a great deal more about photography than I do.

So I looked back on my first venture into speaking about my work at my local Wakefield camera club last August, looked at what images I used, the notes I had written after the talk, more about the wrongs and improvements I could take from the evening for the next one.

So at SMCC what was I going to present on Monday the 17^th January, a title of the presentation was set months ago, “The F Stop Journey”.

The past year had seen me going more into architectural, interiors exteriors so the first section was born, a tour I thought, London, Manchester Leeds then to Gromont and the trains at NTMR, they are different and the prints have done well in completions so hopefully they would be an added bonus and to finish the presentation a sneak preview of a series of images I am putting together about Vietnam called “The Hidden Vietnam – Uncovered”

So we have a plan, but still no images, how many images will I need, they will also need resizing to 1024 x 768, headers for the presentation, what to present in, the list and the thoughts go on and on.

I finally ended up with 75 plus the headers and sub headers, all sorted batched renamed and sized ready to go, backed up to two memory sticks, CD, external hard drive, and computer hard drive, just in case you never know. Final thought a selection of prints, nothing like the real thing

After a couple of e mails to Graham the clubs syllabus secretary and everything is set, arrive 7.30pm start 8.00pm finish 10.00 pm 15 minutes coffee / tea break in-between, asking how many turn up on a night like this, 60 to 70 was Grahams reply, oh I said, thinking not again similar numbers to my first venture, never mind were here now, to late to make a run for it.

So the presentation started, good thing about back ups of the images the external hard drive and a memory stick would not work but luckily the CD worked and of we went.

So how did the evening go, what did I learn had I improved from the first one. A failing of mine again was to many images, I had to rush the second half to get through to finish at 10.00pm, may be talked a little bit to much on certain images and laboured points also. The plus points were including the prints they appeared to be received well, plenty of questions about my work, in the interval and at the end, so that was good. Still lots to learn, I will write down my experiences from this session to improve on the next one, yes there are three more invites coming up so three more opportunities to improve on each one.

Presentation finish page

A Mono World

2010-12-14T17:37:00.001Z

Mono time, whilst working towards the hand in of the first semester, Friday 17^th December yes this Friday, just about there now phew.

Sorting out of a few images for my hand in I found a few I had played around with a few weeks back, thought I would share them here.

The “pair of boots” shot I uploaded to Ephotozine just to see what people thought, get a bit of feed back etc, although the shot is below if your interested have a look but go large for extra boot laces

Gallery Review – Take a View-Landscape Photographer of the Year 2010

2010-12-07T14:59:00.002Z

Exhibition visisted on Saturday 27th November, written over the following five days

PPD Gallery review.

The brain child of Charlie Waite, sponsored by several large companies this is it’s 4^th year, the prize for the ultimate winner £10,000

A book published each year with all the accepted entries along with an exhibition in London at the National Theatre, one of the sponsors. It then splits up and travels around the UK over the next year. Having had personal success in the past two years with this competition, I thought this would make a fitting subject for me to review.

It would be impossible to reflect and critique every image that made the exhibition and book, so I have pick three, the ultimate winner, a highly commended image and an accepted image.

The winning image, Winter mist at Corfe Castle, Dorset England by Antony Spencer

I really like this image, it is a different perspective of Corfe Castle than those you usually see, high from the hill to the left and shrouded in mist.

We do have some mist in the shot but subtle, the castle is in the centre of the image but sits nicely on the upper third. The pathway and heather with the winter frost leads you through the shot straight to the castle with the distant hills adding a stopping point, a touch of pinkness in the sunrise helps to balance the shot.

Highly Commended, Malham Moor in Winter, North Yorkshire England by Stephen Garnett

A shot I have looked at several times before it grabbed me fully. It conveys the bleak and harsh conditions from this location, which I am familiar with but at the same time the sunlight across the top of the shot gives a warm feel without loosing the coldness.

Like the winning image, the main focus is central. It works again because of the high wall right, high snowdrifts and the fence on the left. The sheep funnel you down to the farmer and I think that without him it would not have been as strong an image, he is instantly focused upon as you travel through the shot, then you go across the top third with that wonderful pastel sunlight.

Bamburgh Castle at dusk, Northumberland, England by Lee Rudland

Another image that I like although it could be said having the castle on the edge of the frame is taking a risk. The rocks balance this out; the front and rear main rocks are on the thirds and the three rocks with the castle make a nice triangle. It is further balanced with a third/two thirds sky and sea area.

The long exposure gives the sea a milky look. Personally I like this but I know others like the sea more natural, but for me it makes the rocks and the castle the focus. Lastly Lee has managed the sunlight nicely on the castle.

Conclusion.

For me this 4^th series of Landscape Photographer of the Year was excellent. The chosen images mainly had wonderful compositions, excellent lighting and most of all gave that wow factor, personally the best year of the four. I had a thoroughly enjoyable time viewing these enlarged images so much I have bought the book for inspiration.

Prior knowledge experiences and aspirations

2010-12-07T13:56:00.000Z

Note this PPD was written over the weekend 6^th and 7^th November 2010

To write this piece of work I have decided to split it into the heading of this deliverable essay.

Knowledge

My prior knowledge is a self taught one, starting about five years ago. The first year I was not really sure I understood camera editing and what I wanted to do, it all appeared a little daunting. Thinking back, most of that first year was wasted. I thought I would do glamour photography but was really useless at it; why, well it was costly and more so where was it taking me. I decided it was going nowhere and started looking at landscapes and the like instead. I found this less costly and, surprisingly, more fun. I practised this for well over a couple of years before I found architecture and urban shots took a hold on me. Photoshop and printing were another self learning module; the hours I have spent trying this and that until now where I think I can use Photoshop reasonably well, although I still have that quest to learn more and to perfect things.

Experiences

It was more self challenge really, a motivation, a goal if you like. The camera club had four members who between them always won the competitions or were second and third, I knew if I could break that four and get one of those places not once but on a regularly basis I was on the right track going forward. Did I achieve my goal, yes but it took me nearly two years.

Going on from that I have had successes in local exhibitions and competitions and more recently two of my own exhibitions. I found they were an experience to learn from. Both taught me about planning, presentation, quality, logistics and much more. I learnt my planning and time management are weak, these areas needed attention, the same with my first camera club talk. To be honest my first plans for a talk were over ambitious; I had to tell myself this is walk before running time, keep it simple. I did and it was a success in other people’s eyes but not my own. I made mistakes; it is these I need to focus on with other talks planned so the same mistakes are not repeated. So in my short photographic life there have been a few experiences.

Aspirations

With being made redundant I now wanted to go my own way. I see this current course as “knocking off the rough edges” not just with photography but social and business skills, hopefully opening a door or two along the way.

The plan, and you need a plan, is before the end of this first year to have set up a photography business or have started the planning. The ultimate aspiration is that my business and skills are transferable aboard as the goal is not here in the UK but several thousand miles away in South East Asia; this past year and the next couple are my driving force to that ultimate goal.

Winter Wonderland

2010-12-05T17:39:00.000Z

Out for a walk this morning in the local woods, so along camera the 5D and the 50 mm 1.2 for a bit of winter wonderland spotting.

The idea being looking out for small compositions, with interesting textures and along the way the odd change of depth of field change and the chance, well a defiant really of including a bit of snow, the bonus being some nice sunlight into the bargain.

Below are three offerings

No 16 with rice – the ingredients

2010-12-01T17:26:00.000Z

From a previous blog regarding food photography, which was a group involvement it was time to go solo.

My chosen food set up was to be on a Chinese theme, this on the proceeding days nearly changed but into Leeds for a quick trip around the Chinese supermarket, I thought then deliberated over this and that before deciding on the food props.

During setting up I thought the set looked quite good but, yes another but was it over complicated, what was I focusing on, which part of the food or was it the other props taking over, doubt now entered my head but getting the camera and lighting up it was all ready for a test shot.

Not bad first attempt but that soft box straight on again, I have got into bad habits here as I always go for the soft box then position it more or less straight on shot straight on, it is something I need to move away from because when I changed to the light with a grid, went more side on to introduce shadows I found it gave more mood about the shot, again there is another but, I was finding it difficult to get a composition that suited the revisited lighting and a shooting angle away from straight on, not so easy as I thought this lighting and food photography.

Below are some images from the shoot, not 100% happy with these but the lighting and shooting angles in my head are starting to change or should I say make sense, I need to both practice and experiment more to fully understand what works and how and why it works, time for some home shooting.

A neighbour brought round some magazines from Waitrose for my wife, who looked at them first, yes me just looking and weighing up how certain photographs in the magazines were shot, what lighting may have be used, which direction and invariable I am thinking I could do something like that. So I may not have gained a contract for M & S today but the learning curve goes on.

Masters of the snow.

2010-12-01T15:08:00.000Z

So Tuesday morning and heaps of snow, lovely just want was required, not. Uni day and the first sign of snow sorted the men from the boys LOL , with only four of us making it in , hope the rest were working hard at home or were they out sledging.

A switch from going to Nostell Priory was a good move with conditions as they were, so it was recreate a master painting. The weather we kept an eye on, the time somehow slipped by, a small break in the morning followed by working through lunch to finish early with the weather, this all fell away as we stayed till the death.

This was an interesting day, with my copy of Van Gogh’s “A pair of Boots” and props at the ready setting up the scene/ composition was a challenge, looking at a copy of the painting below.

I found it a challenge in setting this up but more so trying to get the lighting somewhere near, using flash gave me a cold light, where as the painting it appeared warmer, yes I could take the easy way out and correct in Photoshop but trying to get this looking right in camera was making me think, I think we all had this issue and at times we helped advised each other as you became tunnelled with your vision.

I settled on this been a warmer looking shot and by tweaking the composition, changing to modelling light only, varying the camera settings I got to an image I was pleased with, by now it was 3.00pm only being at this since 9.30 am. This may look like a long long time for one shot but the lessons learned throughout this time were so valuable for me in understand lighting or was it understanding shadows, as I know understand they play a huge part in lighting.

Once we got the shot it was time to try with the same set up, tethered capture, Mamayia medium format with the Phase digital back and lastly the 5 x 4 film plate set up. A good day yes, learnt a lot regarding lighting. So thank you snow, you turned a possible bad day into a terrific learning experience, sorry to those that could not make it.

Some may like the first attempt, for me it was obtaining minimun lighting, I know it is not the same colour/ tones of the original, but it's my version of it.

A Touch of Fashion Photography

2010-11-15T21:00:00.004Z

Yesterday I had the opportunity to be at a fashion shoot, three agency models, hair stylist, make up artist and clothes stylist.

Having now been in the studio at university a little using the lights etc I thought this would be good experience to pass on plus I thought it would be a good learning curve to see what went on in preparation for this kind of shoot, listening watching and generally asking questions here there and everywhere was the order of the day with note taking, trying not to forget things. Well the time came for me to get the camera out and shoot a few frames, well a more than a few to be honest.

I have just downloaded them, had a quick look, yes I can see lots of errors in the images, lighting position not in the right place, shadows across the nose etc, selection of set, selection of pose and of course the cutting off of limbs within the shot and everything else you can imagine. But hey this is not my normal type of photography, looking quickly at the bad shots I have learnt more than drooling over those that are not to bad, that of course is my opinion.

One of the hardest parts was directing the models, they were happy to do most things, poor communication quickly shows, not only between model and photographer but in the images you take. Another lesson learned was using the camera handheld, fine but pushed into your face and talking to the model becomes a muffled sound that the model just cannot here.

This all sounds a little negative but is was great fun really I enjoyed the experience, hopefully improved as the day went on well I thought so, oh and used the light meter I had bought a few weeks ago looked like a right pro, to be honest it helped I more or less got the exposure right. Credit though to the models, Amy, Jess and Kelly because they helped me along which in turn helped me get just the odd keeper of a shot.

Not having a real chance to review them all, as I like a few days in between, but here is one of Amy to be going on with.

The Apprentice "Your Fired"

2010-11-15T18:17:00.000Z

If you ever watch the TV programme “The Apprentice” well last Friday afternoon in the studio was our own unexpected run of the TV programme, two team leaders chosen, well called art directors but same, with the rest of us split to form the two teams.

The task was to choose an item of food, brought in by the tutor, think of a set up to photograph around a celebration.

This was not a competition like The Apprentice but if it had have been it would certainly have resulted in “your fired” within our team, loosing coming second whatever was not the issue, even the fact we ended up with a 2^nd rate shot and the idea was not the main problem I could live with those.

The problem, issue call it what you wish, we just did not function as a team, giving up, throwing the teddies out of the pram time and moods shall I go on, no think that was most if it, well we had it all really.

Yes the task was difficult none of us had done food photography before, no reason though for not getting it together, good job it was not a client we were working for because he work have sack the lot of us after the first five minutes.

So you can gather from this rant, it is a few days since Friday so I have had time to think about it before writing this, it still makes me feel ashamed of how we went about the task, hope the others feel the same way. What will be interesting is we all have to do our own food shot this week working as individuals.

Having had my rant at some point we need to work together again, may sound daft but we need to prove to ourselves we can work as a team and last Friday was just one of those days.

So what went so wrong it took us an age to decide our pitch and even longer to agree how we should photograph these chocolate biscuits, it was that long the other team / group had done there’s before we agreed to disagree for the umpteenth time and still we had not come up with a suitable set to photograph.

I was going to post a couple of images reference our efforts but decided that was not the fundamental issue, the five of us were

Missing Uni through Vacation

2010-11-03T11:23:00.000Z

It has been some time since my last blog entry, why well earlier this year before I new about the change in my life, redundancy and starting this degree course we had booked a holiday in Vietnam.

This meant missing several sessions (5 in total) and some valuable photographic sessions in the studio but I am sure I can make those up over the coming weeks and taking of the coming weeks the pressure is now on as the December hand it date for all the assignments write up of exercises etc etc needs to be completed. Time to structure ones time now me thinks, first job is to list down what I need to do, get myself a timetable and stick to it. I will let you know in a few weeks how the plan and timetable are progressing.

So what about my recent photography, has the course so far changed anything, well yes being an avid fan of HDR photography since the course started I have not done this once, a pat on the back me thinks. On holiday in Vietnam and last Saturday in Padley Gorge (this is in the Peak District) I now think about my shots more the exposure, try new settings, generally experiment and I appear to have slowed things down on my image taking side, which is not a bad thing. My approach in Photoshop with my workflow has suddenly changed, weird it appears to have crept up on me un noticed but is a refreshing change.

Talking about refreshing changes, yesterday, my first day back and what a day, film photography we shot a few weeks back, well today was the processing and printing day. People have mentioned to me in the past about how good a hand printed black and white is over the digital photo shopped versions and are they you ask, well this was only the first go at the processing and I could see by several of us that we all got a buzz out of this process with some impressive prints around the group. We can use the darkroom now as we sort of know what were doing, I can see this been a busy place over the coming Wednesday afternoons.

I have a love of mono images myself and with the loan of a Canon EOS3 which my lens fit nicely although its manual focussing I will be out and about taking digital and film of the same subjects, processing similar images through photoshop and the darkroom to see where it takes me on the film side with the hope of producing a good black and white print I would be pleased to mount and display or even enter into a competition, I will let you know how I get on.

So to leave you with this entry below are a few images taken in Vietnam and a couple of Padley Gorge.

"If I can do it, so can you" - Tim Wallace

2010-10-03T15:49:00.005+01:00

A change to the two previous posts, I had intensions of updating with last weeks studio sessions but yesterday I attended a seminar, here are a few snippets which I think are interesting and relevant to the world of commercial photography, anyway you can obtain the updates from last week by checking out my fellow students blogs.

Ambient Life is Tim Wallace, a down to earth straight talking North Yorkshire based Commercial Photographer who has built up his business over the past three and a half years gaining a formidable reputation of been one of the worlds best commercial photographers in his field. Yesterday in Manchester he was fitting in around his busy schedule one of his road shows which is touring the UK “If I can do it, so can you”

I say busy schedule, well Tim explained to us he only arrived back from Barcelona the evening before, a two day drive there, two day shoot, two day drive back seminar today then home before various shoots next week starting Monday.

In the above paragraph I said down to earth and straight talking which was the perception I was getting from the first ten minutes of this seminar and this didn’t change throughout the 4 plus hours, a hugely successful photographer talking about his work and commercial photography in general how others could make it in this world by applying processes and techniques.

Having your own style, images correct in camera, branding, marketing, lighting, honesty, sticking to ones beliefs, sales and licensing are all subjects I came away with having a better insight about, I certainly have a lot to learn, but if I look at these sections one by one and research I will get to understand each subject more than I do today, but above all the way Tim delivered these messages had a greater impact on me, there was a single mindedness and a steely determination to succeed constantly striving for improvements, from this I now understand the magnitude of my task ahead to stand a chance in the commercial photography industry, not that I didn’t already know there was to be hard graft ahead.

Going on to explain the reasons why these different aspects gave me a better understanding will take this blog entry into 2000 plus words of more, trying to reflect everything in a concise way is so difficult because so much of it had a positive effect on me, so I have chosen just one area to expand on, lighting, its changes everything.

If you look at the images on Tim’s site (http://www.ambientlife.co.uk) you may be sceptical like I was about post processing but the explanations given and actually showing his out of camera raw files left me in no doubt Tim is a master in the craft of lighting.

Below are a couple of images that reflects that craft as is the one further up this blog

Please note - the images shown in this blog are the work of Tim Wallace of Ambient Life , permission was sort and kindly granted to reproduce here only, the images shown are the copyright of Tim Wallace and therefore should not be reproduced in any form

Tim explained and demonstrated three main principles of lighting, Direction, Proximity and Intensity, getting these right and your part way there, for me with this information plus last weeks studio sessions I now realise lighting is not as daunting as I first feared but there is lots of hard work to be done practicing which will be the only way to improve my knowledge of lighting, I have no doubt this will change my photography for the better.

I have already started to right up notes from yesterday so from time to time I can refer back during practice and beyond as this new journey of mine continues.

day two, end of week one

2010-09-26T09:47:00.000+01:00

On to Friday24th September and the second day of this journey, having picked myself up from earlier in the week, today I was prepared and ready for the day ahead.

This started with the PPD (Personnel Performance Development) which was a 500 word statement about our aspirations and thoughts about been photographers and where we saw ourselves in the future, this was to be the first entry in the blog. The rest of the group again didn’t appeared fazed by the writing of 500 words, me I have been out of education for longer than I care to think about it was a little daunting but as some of the group kept tell me it’s only an A4 page full which was a positive for me that’s coming from the group, the willingness to help each other.

The group I keep mentioning us as a group and your probably wondering who and how may are in this first year group, well at this stage if at all it would not be right to mention names or to give other ideas of identities because we’ve only completed week one, lets see how and where we are in a few months. The mixture of the ten looks and feels good, one more yet to start, so, it will be a group of eleven, the group is made up of four females and six males. I know it was a brief introduction may be more about us individually later, lets learn to walk before we run.

Back to the blog and the 500 word statement, I managed about 200 words plus then the creative side was drying up but hey it was a start which I will finish later over the weekend but I wanted to come from a different angle as I mentioned in my first blog journal entry, must get my head around what I am going to call it, somehow journal appears to sit better with me than blog, is that an age thing is coming out, may be I should go with the word blog and be in 2010 not 1910, right that’s settled it I will call it blog from now on.

The rest of the morning was the design of the blog templates in readiness for it to be displayed on the worldwide web, it will be interesting to see the different styles from within the group of both the templates and how we write our entries, no doubt in the early days and weeks, styles of both will change as we find what suits us as individuals. We will look to see what each other with the group are doing, questioning ourselves in so many areas wanting to get the design and content correct. We will look at the 2^nd year student’s work observing how there blogs developed over that first year, researching other blogs from photographers etc for style and content ideas.

The afternoon session was an introduction to the studio and a little flurry into lighting plus we talked quite a bit as a group about lighting with portraiture in mind, this could be a popular subject and the studio a popular place for a lot of us, just a feeling I got from the session.

In the past I have dipped in and out of studio lighting may be more out because of my lack of knowledge and confidence in this field of photography. To improve my photography skills and develop as a commercial photographer I will undoubtedly need the skills of lighting, both in the studio and out on location, interesting times ahead for me and next week is the first shoot, an household object, hey the first image of the course may appear on my blog.

As a foot note my first entry was 1000 words plus and this is over 650 so my anxiety of writing 500 was a lack of confidence, I just need to refine the content and style.

the journey begins

2010-09-25T07:31:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the first entry in my blog journal, what is this all about well Tuesday 21^st September was new start whoops not a start more a venture

I am studying for a FDa in Commercial Photography at the University Centre Wakefield, last Tuesday was day one of the next two years previously before attending I felt pretty confident about the course and my abilities without underestimating the work ahead, well so I thought until the afternoon of last Tuesday, to be honest I think the previous couple of induction sessions the week before set me off with some doubts in my mind, why you ask, well when you are a mature student at 59 with most of your fellow students in there late teens or early twenties the age gap of this learning and student malarkey hits home a little but what is interesting is we all bring something different to the course.

My aims are during the next two years is to firstly study hard to achieve my goals which is to achieve this degree, smooth off the rough edges of my photography and enter the world of commercial photography no pressure then. I hope you will follow my journey as I intend to journal my experiences of the course as a mature student, no doubt this will be like a rollercoaster the ups the downs and everything in between, so this the first entry and my account of my first day, enjoy.

When entering the college I start to wonder what am I doing here and subconsciously I am thinking bet they (the young students) think I am a teacher or something anyway the point of writing this came about because on the afternoon of Tuesday 21^st September, that date will stick with me for a long time, wonder why, well we got to this part about PPD whatever that meant, apparently it means Personnel Performance Development, ok I then got that. Part of this PPD is designing and writing a blog about your photography, life, the course and thoughts etc but and this is where the scary bit comes in (never did like rollercoaster’s) am I out of my depth as I have that feeling may be I am, why well its was explained we need to do this in a reflective writing style, now that had my mouth hanging open and my mind thinking what the hell is she (the tutor) talking about, reflective writing everyone else appeared to either understand or act if they knew what it meant, me lost as the preverbal child in a sweet shop with no sweets and it was a mater of OMG what is all this about.

You forget see that this is now where the age gap is coming into play, the other students on the course come across as it’s not a problem, me I feel like I need spoon feeding with what I can only describe as a foreign language. Early in the day I could get my head around the F stops and shutter speeds but more about little episode later as I am still in a state of shock about blooming reflective writing but with the end of the first day drawing to a close my head now was in a bit of a jumble and I needed home and good old Google because I needed to get my head around this object (reflective writing) that was stopping me understand how the hell I was going to write this blog thing.

Right so were into Google and I find some information from Exeter University about reflective writing so a quick down loaded onto the old USB stick to print off at work in the morning, time now for a glass or two of wine to hell chill out and try and explain to Lorraine (my wife) about my chaotic and unsure day.

I had a restless night thinking of this dammed writing malarkey as I keep calling it but a new day and at work I print off the 18 page document about reflective writing and start to read it, there are quotes and things which are not helping me understand at all but hey this next section looks interesting on pages 6 to 10 as it gives 3 examples of a scenario written 3 different ways the third been in this reflective writing style bingo at last the penny starts to drop and the mist in front of me starts to clear as I think my first little flurry into research has paid off and I am now understanding the reasons of this writing style a little better, pugh some relief .

This is my first go at this writing style and I know it is not perfect but it is my first go and I aim to crack this.

I will continue to research this style of writing along with others peoples blogs specially photographers, this will improve my writing and understanding as a learning culture plus improve the design of my blog as it takes on different aspects from a marketing angle, what works and what needs changing.

A lot more practising still needed with the writing, so bear with me on this journey, I may have been low on Tuesday evening but one thing I am not is a quitter so I have made a decision that it would be good in this blog, I would rather call it a journal from now on it will express my feelings emotions and most of all what I as a mature student will be going through these next couple of years, some no doubt will be funny sometimes things will be on the low side but you will get an honest opinion of my journey. There will be plenty more for me to get my head around as this rollercoaster gathers speed, just hope I can hang on tight and not come of the rails but the first down has been overcome, otherwise I would not have written this and you certainty would not be reading it.