tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79933151918163405052024-02-21T05:01:28.466+00:00OCA Learning Log - People and PlaceThis blog forms the learning log for my OCA photography degree module Photography 1: People and Place. My learning logs for other modules and my personal photo-a-day blog can be found through the tabs below.npmimageshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11325544772783926152noreply@blogger.comBlogger139125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-67272024235069305342012-07-01T11:49:00.001+01:002012-07-06T15:51:03.325+01:00…coming to an end ( I hope)<p>As things stand, and assuming I pass this particular course, this is going to be the last post on this blog. If anyone is interested in my continuing studies they can find my future musings over on my <a href="http://nmoncktonland.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Landscape blog</a>.</p> <p>All my assignments, and the working associated with them, can be found via the links on the right. The assessors have received my documents on CD, but for anyone else who is interested the links to the final assignment submission documents are here:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/56087834/PnP%20Assignment%201%20Final.doc" target="_blank">Assignment 1</a> </li> <li><a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/56087834/PnP%20Assignment%202.doc" target="_blank">Assignment 2</a> </li> <li><a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/56087834/Assignment%203%20Final.doc" target="_blank">Assignment 3</a> </li> <li><a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/56087834/Assignment%204%20-%20Final.doc" target="_blank">Assignment 4</a> </li> <li><a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/56087834/Assignment%205%20Final.doc" target="_blank">Assignment 5</a> </li> </ul> <p>This is going to be quite a long post, but I want to cover three main areas: My thoughts on the course itself, my personal assessment of my achievements against the learning objectives, and the impact of the course on my personal photography. So first up – the course – and I’ll stick with the same general headings I used at the end of DPP.</p> <p><strong>What did I want/expect from the course?</strong></p> <p>Having completed DPP I had a much clearer idea of what to expect from the course material so what I wanted was a course that would effectively force me into my ‘discomfort’ zone – people photography. I think that I was a little worried that it would immediately force me into social commentary – but was prepared to give that a go if it was what was needed. Beyond that there’s not much to say under this heading.</p> <p><strong>Did it deliver?</strong></p> <p>Unequivocally yes! The early stages of ‘people aware’ allowed me the escape route of self-portraiture – although that has it’s own set of issues to resolve – but the ‘people unaware’ stage pushed me well and truly into photographic places I’d not tried before. I also found the approach to place quite challenging – it’s easy to snap a place, rather more difficult to photograph it. I think it’s at this point that it finally dawned on me that I was doing a degree course, and that my previous certainties and overconfidence wouldn’t cut the mustard.</p> <p>I struggled with some of the middle phases – not because of the course material, but because it was so unfamiliar to me as an idea. I also think that my perception (right or wrong) of the UK as a very hostile environment for street photography caused me some problems, because I found the same thing considerably easier in Switzerland during my holiday. In some sense this holiday came at a fortunate time, because I was becoming bogged down on the people exercises and it restored some momentum for me</p> <p>For reasons explained elsewhere in this blog, Assignment 3 was a bit of a wake-up call. I found the somewhat open nature of the final two assignments quite tricky as well – photograph more or less what you please, but be prepared to explain why you did it and how the photos support that. The first part is easy – that’s what us amateurs do – the second part was new territory for me. It’s a measure of the course’s success however that by this stage I had the nerve to wander the streets of the local town in the dark with a camera – even if I wasn’t quite ready for walking up to people to photograph them in that circumstance.</p> <p>I think another part of the courses success for me was the way it has developed my understanding of the ability of a photo or series of photos to tell a story or convey an idea or feeling, again the last two assignments feel like good examples of that.</p> <p>I still found the reading requirements a little vague. I revisited some of the photo theory texts I read during DPP, and this convinced me that I needed a better understanding of the artistic context in which photography has developed, so I’ve tried to work on that as well. Alongside this I’ve tried to look at more photography. The nearest decent gallery is nearly 2 hours away so I’ve tended to rely on the web, and on books, but hopefully these efforts are reflected in the reading list I’ve developed and various posts in my blog over the duration.</p> <p><strong>How do I think I fared against the learning objectives?</strong></p> <ul> <li>Use technical and interpersonal skills effectively to capture images which reflect your ideas – I feel that my last 3 assignments in particular show that I have the technical skills. On the interpersonal skills side, I still have some way to go before I could take a close portrait of a complete stranger uninvited, but otherwise I think I have demonstrated that I can take photos of people with a reasonable degree of success, and use people in shots to emphasise the points I am making, or to add emphasis or interest to a shot. </li> <li>Demonstrate the importance of note-taking, research, ideas and concepts to the process of developing a story – this was a big step forward for me on this course, perhaps most effectively demonstrated by the difference in my approaches to Assignment 2, which was quite spur-of-the-moment, and Assignment 5, which was planned as thoroughly as I could make it. </li> <li>Demonstrate a good level of ability in the effective selection and editing of images to achieve objectives – difficult to make a neutral comment on this, as I would not willingly submit a set of images which I thought did not achieve the objective I had in mind. </li> <li>Show that you can reflect perceptively on your learning experience – again difficult to give a neutral answer, but I believe my response to tutor feedback on Assignment 3 demonstrates that I can react positively to feedback, and take on board lessons learned along the way. I think this is most effectively demonstrated by the way some of my personal projects are developing. </li> </ul> <p>Which leads very neatly to:</p> <p><strong>What impact has the course had on my photography?</strong></p> <p>Overall my photography has developed a thoughtful, or experimental, strand that was missing previously. Rather than individual photos I am beginning to think in series or groups, with an attempt at an idea behind them. Clear examples include my <a href="http://nmoncktonpnp.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/reflecting-on-shiny-objects.html" target="_blank">reflective self-portraits</a>, my <a href="http://nmoncktonpnp.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/stretton-space-and-place.html" target="_blank">night-time shots</a> and the <a href="http://nmoncktonpnp.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/two-lane-blacktop.html" target="_blank">series on roads</a> that I have just started to develop. Both of the latter I hope to be able to develop further during the Landscape course.</p> <p>Another major change has been my adoption of black and white photography. My first real experience with monochrome was during DPP, but I have found that it works very well with night time shooting to support the atmosphere I am trying to create, and I expect it to continue featuring in my photography going forward.</p> <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p> <p>I found this a difficult course to engage with in the early stages, because it pushed me so far from my comfort zone, but I’m glad I persisted. Whatever the outcome of this assessment I’m sure my photography is better for it. A key challenge for the next few months is not to lose the momentum on people photography simply because I am engaged in a Landscape course. Whether I’ll be able do this by weaving people into the Landscape module, or by developing some more personal projects remains to be seen, but I’ve gained too much to drop it now. </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-55100543053597193472012-06-28T22:38:00.001+01:002012-06-28T22:39:16.676+01:00Two-lane Blacktop<p>Posting this here because it has emerged from the shots I’ve been taking during the later stages of this course, although in reality I’m hoping to develop the idea as I move through Landscape. Roads are a reality in all our lives, but doing 30,000 miles a year means they feature in mine quite a bit more than the average so I guess, as with hotels, that it’s inevitable I should want to photograph them.</p> <object width="400" height="300"> <param name="flashvars" value="offsite=true⟨=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2Fnpmimages%2Fsets%2F72157630232233082%2Fshow%2F&page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2Fnpmimages%2Fsets%2F72157630232233082%2F&set_id=72157630232233082&jump_to="></param> <param name="movie" value="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=109615"></param> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=109615" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2Fnpmimages%2Fsets%2F72157630232233082%2Fshow%2F&page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2Fnpmimages%2Fsets%2F72157630232233082%2F&set_id=72157630232233082&jump_to=" width="400" height="300"></embed></object> <p>If you travel them enough, roads, even parts of roads, seem to develop personalities – this is a good bit to drive, this bit is just tedious - and you start to develop a relationship with them. The relationship is even closer at night when the countryside is essentially invisible and even the towns seem otherworldly and distant from your car/road bubble. Turn the radio off and the only company is engine/wheel noise and the flashing white lines just head off hypnotically into the distance – it’s a bit of a cliché, but it’s just you, the road and the night. I like walking in the dark for much the same reason – the loneliness and the sense of being inextricably linked with the road or path.</p> <p>So, whether I can weave it into Landscape or not, this set is going to be developing over the next few months and we’ll see where this particular road trip takes me.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-70094231714027853502012-06-27T22:16:00.001+01:002012-06-27T22:46:47.482+01:00Into the dark: A history of night photography - British Journal of Photography<a href="http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/report/2184046/dark-history-night-photography">Into the dark: A history of night photography - British Journal of Photography</a>: <br /> <br /><a style="font-size: 13px" href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk">'via Blog this'</a> <br /> <br />The May 2012 edition of BJP had the theme of night photography so - given my interest in what they humorously call the 'Dark Arts' - I was more than usually keen to get the wrapper of this particular edition. Inside however I found a bit of a mixed bag - summed up for me by the irony of running a review of two cameras which have sufficiently high ISO capabilities that you can photograph in dark situations as if it were daylight. <br /> <br />A significant proportion of the photos and sets seemed to be about defeating darkness, rather than using its creative potential - one set even used 'artificial' darkness - overpowering daylight by the use of flash lighting. I'm not trying to say that some of these shots did not have merit in their own rights - but I'm not sure they live up to the promise of the headline. James Nizam's <a href="http://www.jamesnizam.com/" target="_blank">Thought Forms</a> set is a case in point - they are extremely clever, well executed and quite thought provoking, but they are more about light than they are about dark. <br /> <br />I was less clear about the merits of the shots which 'reveal' secret military exercises and missile launches. Quite what I'm supposed to make of the revelation that the American military practises night fighting in the dark eludes me. <br /> <br />On the flip side the set by <a href="http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/18/Bill_Henson/" target="_blank">Bill Henson</a> seem to me to catch the essence of night with his dark, murky dream worlds hinting at unseen terrors  - touching on some of our primal concerns, and maybe fantasies, about darkness. Miti Ruangkritya's portfolio of<a href="http://mi-ti.com/flood/imagining-flood/" target="_blank"> flood shots in Bangkok</a> were given added mystery and poignancy by the dark, and the photographs of Inuit people by<a href="http://donaldweber.com/stories/arctic/" target="_blank"> Donald Weber</a> using the characteristic light of an LCD screen was a clever take on the challenges facing a people who have moved from the stone age to the digital age in a single generation. <br /> <br />So overall - the usual BJP mix of stunning photos, clever ideas and stuff which I don't get (yet - if ever). Plenty of food for thought though, and it  makes me wish for the earlier night-falls again (sorry). Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-66150950789441113452012-06-22T21:24:00.001+01:002012-06-23T09:37:45.989+01:00Takehiko Nakafuji "Night Crawler" 1995<a href="http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.493068134585.272489.125730734585&type=3">Takehiko Nakafuji "Night Crawler" 1995</a>: <br /> <br /><a style="font-size: 13px" href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk">'via Blog this'</a> <p>With apologies to anyone who isn’t on Facebook, but this was the best link I could find for a selection from Nakafuji’s Night Crawler, which I discovered in the <a href="http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/report/2169106/night-crawler" target="_blank">May 2012 issue of BJP</a>. There is a somewhat smaller but more accessible selection <a href="http://www.zen-foto.jp/web/images/NFARTWORK.jpg" target="_blank">here</a>.</p> <p>It jumped out at me for its resemblance to Daido Moriyama, in that they are night shots in grainy high-contrast black and white, so it was no surprise to find the Nakafuji had studied under him. Night Crawler 1995/2010 is about Tokyo at night and concentrates on the differences between the ‘95 set and the later set. Sadly, it’s rather difficult to make head or tail of these differences in the rather limited viewing circumstances offered by Facebook and the other galleries. However I find the individual photos themselves very striking (not least I suspect because of the stylistic similarity to some of the stuff I’m currently producing).</p> <p>The lead example in the BJP article is a case in point:</p> <p><a href="http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/report/2169106/night-crawler" target="_blank"><img title="Tokyo in 1995. Image © Takehiko Nakafuji." alt="" src="http://www.bjp-online.com/IMG/023/224023/night-crawler-01.jpg?1339585255" width="190" height="240" /></a></p> <p> </p> <p>The overall image is dominated by the contrast between the very deep blacks of the shadows and the strangely luminous – almost ghostly – face of the girl under the umbrella. Incidentally, it is placed almost dead centre in the photo, which is contrary to conventional wisdom, but serves to draw even more attention to it. She seems to be huddled against the cold or even hoping to pass by un-noticed – I can’t help wondering what is happening just out of shot. The tilt of the picture also adds to the tension, as does the hint of activity in the background. It’s unclear if the intense white around the girl is a result of the lighting or has been added in the darkroom, but it does add to the shot by hgelping to isolate her from the surrounding shadow. One final thing that stands out to me (punctum perhaps) is the size of her shoes, which seem surprisingly large. </p> <p>The article does not mention why Nakafuji uses the high contrast treatment, but I’d be interested in his take on this as it might help me understand my own interest in the style. One thing the set does make clear though is that it can be used quite effectively in people pictures – something I’m just starting to experiment with.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-40297290724278773182012-06-19T23:24:00.001+01:002012-06-19T23:24:21.070+01:00Loose ends (iii): Just sitting<p>Another loose end from my list is that on reviewing this blog I found I hadn’t completed Exercise 8:Varying Pose. Continuing with the rather literal and un-creative self-portrait theme I adopted some 18 months ago feels a little like a tick box exercise at this stage, so I felt it would be more instructive to consider some photos I took during the course of this module in the light of my current understanding of the exercise.</p> <p>I’m going to start with this pair of photos – taken 20 seconds apart – in York during the early stages of the module.</p> <a title="P4105338.jpg by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7396811076/"><img alt="P4105338.jpg" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5460/7396811076_c000121b9e_n.jpg" width="240" height="320" /></a>  <a title="P4105339.jpg by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7396812994/"><img alt="P4105339.jpg" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7212/7396812994_0100d03724_n.jpg" width="240" height="320" /></a> <p>I especially like this pair because they show that relatively small changes in a pose can reveal quite different things. In the first the woman is clearly talking. From the upright posture of her head and the position of her arm it seems likely that she is being quite animated – yet by the simple expedient of leaning slightly forward, moving her arm to her neck and tilting her head to one side she becomes an attentive listener in the second shot (about 20 secs later). This variation in interpretation is achieved without any recourse to her eyes – which remain hidden in both – and is a good example of the power of pose to affect our reaction to a portrait.</p> <p>This next shot is another example of the importance of head position in interpreting a sitting pose. This pianist, with his arms forward on his instrument and his head tilted to look at the keys is very clearly concentrating on his music and appears oblivious to the little girl watching at the end of his piano. A more raised head position would have suggested a greater awareness of his surroundings, perhaps even suggesting that he was not actually playing at the time of the shot – unlike in this version.</p> <a title="P4105368.jpg by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7396814088/"><img alt="P4105368.jpg" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7216/7396814088_08dbdcaacb_n.jpg" width="240" height="320" /></a> <p>This final shot is of a group of people sitting listening to a brass band concert and I include it here for the variety of seated poses and their impact on our view of the individuals pictured.</p> <a title="E5070303.jpg by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7396815270/"><img alt="E5070303.jpg" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8016/7396815270_3e1c596757.jpg" width="500" height="236" /></a> <p>The two gentlemen in the centre are sitting in very formal poses, and seem to be taking listening quite seriously – particularly the one on the left who appears to be craning his neck slightly. By contrast the three people on the left hand seat are very clearly relaxed as indicated by the more slouched position and their leg positions as well – indeed the only way the gent on the far left could appear more relaxed would be by putting his hands behind his head. In another take on a simple sitting position the girl on the right is quite upright, but the twist in her body suggests that she is really paying attention to the child in the buggy rather than the band. So, in one shot, in which the subjects are all in essentially the same pose, the slight nuances in limb and body position provide a whole range of clues about activity and intent which we are free to interpret on the basis of our experience.</p> <p>It is only a short step from here to deliberately using this sort of variation to allow interpretations of a more formal portrait sitting.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-51578230032119955462012-06-17T18:10:00.001+01:002012-06-24T09:08:55.394+01:00A few loose ends (ii)<p>This particular loose end refers to Exercise 18: How space changes with light. </p> <p>I took the pair of shots below on our summer holiday – from the same seat at an outdoor restaurant table in Geneva. They are taken slightly over an hour apart – both on auto white balance, which may have some impact as the colour temperatures are a little difference – and clearly show the impact that changing light can have on the perception of a ‘scene’. In truth ‘scene’ is rather overstating the case for a concrete rendered wall with a hole in it, which to my mind makes it all the more notable that the first appears cold, soulless and drab, and the second, taken just an hour later, seems to speak of warm summer evenings and makes me want to know what’s happening inside.</p> <a title="Restaurant l'Armature, Vielle Ville, Geneva by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/5970329883/"><img alt="Restaurant l'Armature, Vielle Ville, Geneva" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6014/5970329883_d2f03e5c7f_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" /></a> <a title="Restaurant l'Armature, Vielle Ville, Geneva by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/5970330343/"><img alt="Restaurant l'Armature, Vielle Ville, Geneva" src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6150/5970330343_9a57bf0972_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" /></a> <p>There is no direct light in either picture so the difference is entirely down to the colour temperature of the light.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-85283034478072023682012-06-17T10:27:00.001+01:002012-06-24T09:10:10.599+01:00Ralph Gibson - Master Fine Art Photographer - YouTube<p> <br /> <br /><a style="font-size: 13px" href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk">'via Blog this'</a> <br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzMQcE2E-1o">Ralph Gibson - Master Fine Art Photographer - YouTube</a>:</p> <p><iframe height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/NzMQcE2E-1o?rel=0" frameborder="0" width="560" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p> <p>This video is well worth watching for Gibson's explanation of his background and interest in black and white photography. The following is also worth a look  as he is not only a very good photographer but a competent guitarist as well. This would fit with his thoughts about needing to be 'cultured' - have an understanding of literature, music, poetry - in order to keep finding inspiration. <br /> <br /><iframe height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/fx1hlvITEqE?rel=0" frameborder="0" width="420" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-54945250931297699132012-06-16T17:22:00.001+01:002012-06-16T17:22:08.682+01:00A few loose ends (i)<p>Have been reviewing my Flickr collection for this module and have spotted a few examples of shots I took with the an exercise in mind which I subsequently didn’t use or comment on. As they clearly felt worthwhile at the time I thought I would do them some justice and post them here.</p> <p>One thing I have learned in the course of this module is the joys of black and white, and in particular how well it works (for me at least) when dealing with shots in extremely low lighting conditions, allowing te creation of very definite moods. In truth any number of these might be used to develop the ideas of Exercise 3: Experimenting with Light – the shot of my wife in the Northumbria set, for example – but for this post I wanted to show another candle-lit shot, taken on my daughters 17th birthday and uploaded to Flickr back in the March of this year.</p> <a title="1000/742: 02 Mar 2012: Happy Birthday Naomi by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/6948568923/"><img alt="1000/742: 02 Mar 2012: Happy Birthday Naomi" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7188/6948568923_990137e6dc.jpg" width="500" height="375" /></a> <p>The original was already quite dark and after conversion to black and white I lit the face a little more by brightening the orange/yellow channels and deepened the blacks further to produce this version. As I noted when I posted it originally this creates a ghostly effect which seems to hint at the memories of childhood slowly fading.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-52884593327565388682012-06-12T23:08:00.001+01:002012-06-12T23:10:03.508+01:00A Northumberland weekend – part (ii)<p>Just a couple more shots from the weekend which seemed to draw on individual aspects of the course material. First up is ‘a comfortable situation’. Alnwick Castle has some magnificent gardens – chock full of people doing touristy things  - like taking photos – so a little bit of candid photography was easy. In this first one I was taken by the match between the colours of the flowers and the lady’s cagoule.</p> <a title="Colour co-ordinated by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7167377277/"><img alt="Colour co-ordinated" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8148/7167377277_97a9771a6f.jpg" width="500" height="262" /></a> <p>In the second I was drawn by the fairly striking architecture of the tea-room, but felt it was a bit sterile without people (figures as accent) so I tried this angle which aims to capture both the architecture, its scale and, to a lesser degree, its function.</p> <p><img alt="Alnwick Castle Tea-room" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7243/7352589196_36ba12a81c.jpg" width="375" height="500" /></p> <p>To finish with - pictures of my wife, my daughter and myself drawing on various aspects of ‘people unaware’. First up my daughter:</p> <a title="Looking down by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7352589778/"><img alt="Looking down" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7104/7352589778_afd3903eb6.jpg" width="500" height="316" /></a> <p>Then my wife. The location is a tent and the light source is three candles on a tray.</p> <a title="Reading by candle-light by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7167378851/"><img alt="Reading by candle-light" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7103/7167378851_b93df35c7b.jpg" width="500" height="396" /></a> <p>Finally, me, in a fish and chip restaurant. And for the record after my last post – this shot was definitely fun.</p> <a title="Fish and chip restaurant by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7352590462/"><img alt="Fish and chip restaurant" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7235/7352590462_b5162762e8.jpg" width="500" height="210" /></a> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-27818506673467466962012-06-12T15:25:00.001+01:002012-06-12T22:38:18.335+01:00A Northumberland weekend<p>Spent a few days in Northumberland over the Jubilee Bank Holiday weekend. Didn’t take quite as many photos as I expected – not quite sure why – but there is something about this course in the reasons. Can’t quite put my finger on it but it feels that many of the the things I used to shoot are losing interest for me – I don’t have the urge to shoot flowers and pretty landscapes at present, and I keep asking myself, “What am I trying to say with this shot?” and if I can’t think of an answer I don’t press the shutter. While that may be good in some ways – who needs a hard drive full of pictures of buttercups – a part of me worries that in striving to make my photography ‘better’ (whatever that means) I may be losing some of the fun. Our visit to Lindisfarne typifies the experience. Previously I would have come back with 50-60 shots – mainly of obscure stonework – whereas this time – if we ignore bracketing the total is about 8!! Perhaps the answer is that the fun was in pressing the shutter and collecting.</p> <p>Anyway, I appear to have substituted trying to take something more meaningful for simply amassing a huge number of shots to ‘prove’ (to whom?) that I’m a keen photographer. Sometimes this is fun, sometimes it isn’t. I’m guessing the secret is working out how to make the meaningful stuff fun on a more regular basis – I’m also guessing that when the meaningful stuff is not fun, it’s probably less meaningful.</p> <p>Anyway – enough theorising – time for some photos. First up Lindisfarne – and only two shots that I thought were worth showing.</p> <p>The first is an attempt to catch the historic image that the tourist brochures harp on about. The two kids on the wall caught my eye at about the same time as the view of the castle beyond the abbey.</p> <p><a title="Lindisfarne by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7167379881/"><img alt="Lindisfarne" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7225/7167379881_e38694e41c.jpg" width="500" height="375" /></a></p> <p>The second shot – which I’ve already posted on my photo-a-day blog – catches more of what I felt about the place. Forget the beauty,  forget the spirituality – it struck me as a giant celtic themed gift shop – not so much spirituality as spirits.</p> <a title="1000/837: 05 June 2012; Lindisfarne by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7157206073/"><img alt="1000/837: 05 June 2012; Lindisfarne" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7214/7157206073_92e8ccfe71.jpg" width="375" height="500" /></a> <p>Not quite sure how to tag this post – not even sure it belongs in this course, other than that I have tried to capture my sense of the place at the time I visited it.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-73324501216731822352012-06-11T22:33:00.001+01:002012-06-16T17:50:42.583+01:00Photo anthologies<p>Not sure anthology is the right word, but I’m talking about collections of photos from a variety of photographers. I have three of these so thought I’d do a mini-review of each as a single post.</p> <p><strong>World Photography: Ed. Bryn Campbell 1981</strong></p> <p>This is an excellent collection if you can lay your hands on a copy (there are several on Amazon). It has a dozen photo portfolio from each of 25 of the biggest names in photography – Erwitt, Friedlander, Cartier-Bresson, Bailey, Meyerowitz, Brandt etc. together with an extensive essay featuring the works of a further couple of dozen.</p> <p>The print quality, particularly for the black and whites, is excellent, and the size of the pages means that the photos are reproduced at a decent size. Plenty of highlights in a collection this big, but favourites include Erwitt’s dog photos, Burt Glinn’s photos of Japan and Brassai’s Paris photos.</p> <p>Some of the photos are hard to look at – McCullin’s war photos are the most obvious example, but there are similar scattered through the book. In contrast some are just delightful – Hamaya’s photo of Japanese kids walking through the snow in straw snow coats is perhaps my favourite in the whole book although Cartier-Bresson’s little boy with a large bottle of wine in each arm runs it a close second.</p> <p><strong>Masters of Photography: Ed. Reuel Golden 2008</strong></p> <p>A much smaller book than the previous one although picture quality is still pretty good. This one contains small portfolios (4-6 photos each) representing around 50 rather more contemporary, but still ‘classic’ photographers, together with some short biographical notes. A few of the pictures are spoiled by being printed over two pages, but the book does contain some almost iconic images – Moonrise over Hernandez (Adams), some shots from Steve McCurry’s Monsoon series, and Migrant Mother (Lange) being obvious examples. The downside of books of this type is that you get very little feel for an overall style from the photographers, but that is set against the sheer range of material on display. I doubt I’d have come across the work of Bert Hardy without it for example, and Nick Knight’s ‘Susie Smoking’ was completely new to me, but is now one of my favourite photos.</p> <p>The range of artists and the tie period covered also throws up some interesting contrasts and comparisons – for example the street photography of Doisneau or Atget  and Martin Parr, or the rather tawdry-feeling implicit sexuality of some Nan Goldin material with the rather glossy, sanitised Helmut Newton version. These kind of comparisons abound and make the book worth regular visits. It’s also quite a source of inspiration and ideas for development, or simply for playing with.</p> <p><strong>Art Photography Now: Susan Bright (Revised and Expanded 2011)</strong></p> <p>According to the blurb this book presents the work of 80 of the ‘most important and best loved artist-photographers in the world today’. Unlike the two above it is divided by broad subject area rather than photographer, and there is very little overlap in terms of photographers with those books – Sherman, Goldin and Gursky being the most obvious exceptions. The portraiture section is big on the ‘snap-shot’ ethic of modern practice – not intended as a denigration – merely a description. Tina Barney’s work is an excellent example of the contradiction this poses – with the work apparently being captured on a large format (4x5) camera, while retaining the feel of genuine family photos. The introduction to the Landscape section makes the following observation which had not really occurred to me before: “<em>The complexities of landscape, which can at first seem the most straightforward of artistic genres, are not to be underestimated…..landscape photography offers the space to explore ever-present artistic and philosophical concerns about our place in the worlds</em>.” The <a href="http://www.prixpictet.com/2009/view/670" target="_blank">Gursky</a> and <a href="http://www.artnet.com/usernet/awc/awc_workdetail.asp?aid=424216474&gid=424216474&cid=157761&wid=424341041&page=2" target="_blank">Misrach</a> examples provided are to my mind classic cases of those concerns. I was also taken by the <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Aitken+Opposition&hl=en&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&sa=X&ei=nrbcT-rJN-PX0QWcgoX6Cg&ved=0CBAQ_AUoAA&biw=1920&bih=955#hl=en&q=Doug+Aitken+new+opposition&revid=288802269&sa=X&ei=UbfcT7K6I8q50QWryMD4Cg&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ1QIoAQ&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=4a65a196da3cebfa&biw=1920&bih=955" target="_blank">New Opposition</a> series from Doug Aitken – something to explore in Landscape 2.</p> <p>There were further sections on Object, Narrative, Document, FAshion, City and Transitions, all of which are worth exploring – although I’ve concentrated here on the two sections which seemed to have most relevance for this module.</p> <p><strong>Summary</strong></p> <p>It’s clearly difficult to do real justice to the work of any photographer in no more than a dozen shots, and no matter how good the reproduction it is not always possible to get the true impact of an image in book format (Holdsworth’s Iceland shots in Art photography Now are a good case in point). However, if, like me, you live in a relatively remote country area where a visit to a gallery is a full day’s outing, this type of collection is something of a life-line, as valuable as tracking down a photographers website, and one of the few ways to get a reasonably structured insight into the relationship between photographers and their practises.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-54214123218082796302012-06-11T21:43:00.001+01:002012-06-11T21:45:46.109+01:00Assessment in the post<p>Title says it all – everything I can think of has now gone off for the July assessment. </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-34600956753830836742012-05-24T22:15:00.001+01:002012-05-24T22:15:03.606+01:00Time to pull my finger out…<p>..as I’ve just received confirmation of my place in the July Assessment event.</p> <p>Think I’ve decided to go for a CD submission of my assignments supported by selected prints from each. My blog will be supported by a clippings file and a written log book this time as well (although the latter is a little less padded than it could be because I cottoned on to its value a bit late in the day).</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-48768164697315913292012-05-23T21:51:00.001+01:002012-05-23T21:52:13.107+01:00Stretton: Space and Place<p>A couple of people on Flickr have recently asked me where I’m going with my night time shots – both the black and whites and the sodium/tungsten lighting shots. In all honesty I’m not fully sure – there seems to be something there that’s a bit beyond my grasp at the moment. My response has been to keep taking the shots and as I said in response to one of the comments try to extract a thread.</p> <p>I think the following quote in the Hockney book is one of those threads – it’s certainly worthy of some investigation and experiment:</p> <blockquote> <p>“..a photograph sees it all at once, in one click of the lens from a single point of view, but we don’t. And it’s the fact that it takes us time to see it that makes the space.”</p> </blockquote> <p>I take this to mean that our perception of space is related to our memory – we’re seeing lots of individual “shots” of the scene and our brain/memory is piecing them together to make a whole. It was this he was pursuing in his multi-point perspective ‘joiners’ when he was experimenting with photography.</p> <p>To me there feels to be more to it than this. When I remember a place – or the sense of a place – I don’t remember it as a single image – even if it’s really remarkable. Of all the places I’ve visited Uluru is my favourite – but I don’t remember a single image of it – more a collection of images that build up to form my memory. So where does that take me? How do we use photography to create both a sense of space, and a permanent ‘memory’ (as opposed to image) of a place – in other words a genuine sense of space and place?</p> <p>I’m a bit of a literal soul at times, so the place to start seems to be to replicate the building process I perceive in my memory – take several shots and view them together. The key point here is it is not about building a multi-shot panorama – it’s about combining images that not only serve to give you a sense of place, but that also work together to give a sense of space.  The six shots I chose for this first attempt are in <a href="http://flic.kr/s/aHsjzyZNxh" target="_blank">this set on Flickr</a> together with a couple of others I rejected while working out the final result. They are not all taken from the same place – in fact they are not all visible at once from any location - but they are things that trigger memories for me, and they are all of Stretton – near Warrington. Combining them in a reasonably logical way – sky at the top, roadways at the bottom etc. - produces this final composite image:</p> <a title="Stretton Composite by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7256870998/"><img alt="Stretton Composite" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8011/7256870998_d1815199c0_z.jpg" width="640" height="543" /></a> <p> For the record all the shots were taken at ISO1600 on an an E-P1 with a 17mm lens. Post processing was generally limited to the crop although in a couple I adjusted the contrast with curves in Lightroom to deepen the blacks, one (the car park) had a sight colour balance adjustment and a in a couple I brightened the red and orange channels a little to bring the colours back after the contrast adjustment.</p> <p>As a first attempt this feels to work quite well – the lines leading into the picture combine with the ‘flatter’ images to to provide a sense of volume, and the pictures work reasonably well together to give an idea of what you might find there and the sense of otherworldly lighting from the multiple artificial light sources is conveyed fairly well. The absence of a shot across the bottom also seems to emphasise a sense of being ‘under the trees’.</p> <p>This has me wondering if I shouldn’t investigate the images of Uluru in my computer memory to see if I can produce a similar image to match my real memory. I’d be interested to know what anyone else thinks.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-28386121911340146762012-05-14T19:32:00.001+01:002012-05-24T22:30:59.978+01:00A Bigger Message – Conversations with David Hockney: Martin Gayford<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7001896526/" title="1000/802: 01 May 2012: A really good book by nmonckton, on Flickr"><img alt="1000/802: 01 May 2012: A really good book" height="640" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8165/7001896526_b77b9787bd_z.jpg" width="480" /></a> <br />
Martin Gayford is an art critic and, on the basis of this book, appears to be quite a close friend of David Hockney’s. In this book he has captured a series of conversations with Hockney about many different aspects of art – including photography. I picked it up because I’ve had an interest in Hockney’s stuff since seeing ‘Bigger Trees near Warter’ at the <a href="http://nmoncktonland.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/art-in-yorkshire-exhibitions-david.html" target="_blank">art museum in York about a year ago</a>.<br />
The subjects range quite widely, and the book is going to bear multiple readings. Hockney is extremely articulate and clearly very well informed about the history and philosophy of art in general – and he has some very interesting views about photography in particular. For example: “We live in an age when vast numbers of images are made that do not claim to be art. They claim something much more dubious. They claim to be reality.” and “I’ve always assumed that the photograph is nearly right, but that little bit by which it misses makes it miss by a mile.”<br />
A key theme is perspective and the creation of space in images. He clearly feels that the single point perspective of a camera does not do this very effectively – his collages of the late ‘70s/early ‘80s are a testament to his experiments with this – he regards them as more akin to drawing than photography because they do not restrict the artist to a single viewpoint. On a related note his ‘non-panorama’ of 25 trees which he has joined using painting/drawing techniques reflects his take on scrolls as a stationary movie, and there is an interesting section on the use of isometric (rather than vanishing point) perspective in Chinese scrolls. He feels that it’s not possible to take a good photo of the Grand Canyon because you lose the sense of space – it might be interesting to review some of Ansel Adam’s shots with this thought in mind.<br />
Another key theme is the importance of seeing, rather than just looking , in art. Chunks of this were about draughtsmanship and the benefit of painting from memory after properly studying a subject.<br />
On a more philosophical bent, there were interesting discussions on photography and their perception as reality – which they aren’t. As he observed – this is not an issue for painting.<br />
There’s lots more – he has some interesting views, with solid, if circumstantial evidence, on the use of pinhole cameras/camera obscura in Renaissance art, based in part on the odd perspectives we find in some of these images. <br />
He also has an interesting chapter or two on using the i-phone/i-pad for drawing. In particular , because it is always with him it provides opportunities for quick ‘paintings’ of almost anything – his feet, an ashtray, his cap, whatever takes his fancy. He feels this to be a new development – although I can see some parallels with small cameras and photo-a-day.<br />
Some of these discussions are cut down versions of some of the stuff in Sontag, and to a lesser extent, Barthes, but to me they have the real advantage that they are discussed in the light of experience.<br />
All in all I can’t recommend this book highly enough. I suspect it will be a regular colleague as I move on to Landscape 2.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-45551421166244250262012-05-09T19:00:00.001+01:002012-05-09T19:00:41.927+01:00The Village Hall<p>My last week has been absorbed with stage crewing for a production of Cinderella at the local community centre/village hall. Under other circumstances I guess it might have provided lots of opportunities for theatre photography, but if you’ve never done it stage crewing requires a bit of concentration so I didn’t really want the distraction. HOWEVER – I did take my camera along to the dress rehearsal and just before kick-off I took this shot.</p> <a title="E5042501.jpg by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7147985611/"><img alt="E5042501.jpg" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7104/7147985611_a9df0122af_z.jpg" width="640" height="283" /></a> <p>I was trying to catch something of the sense of anticipation – which hopefully I’ve achieved. Why post it here? Because for me it exemplifies some of the things that I have taken from this (and the previous) course. I’ve chosen the view point and crop deliberately to emphasise the importance of the stage, in a way that I don’t believe I would have done before – and I’ve included a person. Even if I had chosen to do this shot previously, prior to this course I would have asked the guy on stage to move – or waited for him to step out of shot. I considered this time, but then decided to leave him in because without a person the shot is just empty. As it is I think it raises a number of questions about what is actually happening. What is he doing? Why are all the seats empty? </p> <p>To me this feels like a step in the right direction.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-73904971618576006902012-05-09T18:44:00.001+01:002012-05-09T19:01:05.777+01:00Assignment 5 feedback<p>Just realised I have not posted anything in response to this.</p> <p>In summary my tutor said:</p> <blockquote> <p><em>In this assignment, you have shown you can adapt your technique to suit the occasion. Mixed lighting is always a challenge and you have approached this task very sensibly by careful planning, the choice of equipment, the best angle of view to adopt and the types of shots to record to fulfil the brief given.</em></p> <p><em>I believe you have approached and fulfilled the assignment given in a competent manner and provided your client with some telling and expressive images that are strong in colour and content. </em></p> </blockquote> <p>This is obviously a pleasing result for me, especially coupled with the feedback from Assignment 4 which suggests I’ve learned the lessons from Assignment 3. I put a lot of additional effort into preparing the submission for this, and the previous two assignments. This is perhaps a key learning point for me through this course – I need to explain what I am doing and why. Ultimately the end result must speak for itself, but I need to be able to demonstrate that it was not achieved by luck, and that the course is having some impact on the way in which I am developing – indeed that I am actually developing.</p> <p>My tutor did have some reservations about the draft design of the brochures. I am comfortable with this – I will be submitting them to support the assignment, rather than as the outcome. The primary submission will be the dozen shots that I sent to my tutor.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-38518798135864484192012-05-03T22:16:00.001+01:002012-05-03T22:18:45.926+01:00International Garden Photographer of the Year - Competition 5 Winners<a href="http://www.igpoty.com/competition05/winners.asp?parent=winners">International Garden Photographer of the Year - Competition 5 Winners</a>: <br />
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a><br />
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Visited the exhibition from Competition 5 which is at Rheged, just outside Penrith until 30 June, before moving off to Portugal and then returning to England in September time. Not sure if most of it was really garden photography - quite a lot of wildlife shots, still lifes, woodlands etc - so the title is a bit misleading.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7119660489/" title="1000/793: 22 April 2012: International Garden Photographer of the Year, Rheged, Penrith by nmonckton, on Flickr"><img alt="1000/793: 22 April 2012: International Garden Photographer of the Year, Rheged, Penrith" height="244" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7129/7119660489_cc9bf0dc99.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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The exhibition was nicely laid out, and there was plenty of space to stand and stare. They were still waiting for the catlogues when I visited , but the link to the website covers that angle.<br />
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Overall I thought the pictures were technically excellent - as you might expect - but were often quite sterile. Once you got past the 'Ooh! That's pretty/cute/funny' reaction there was nowhere else to go. A classic example was a<a href="http://www.igpoty.com/competition05/winners_wildlifehavens_fin5.asp?parent=winners" target="_blank"> grasshopper wiping dew from its forehead</a> - it is undoubtedly a very well captured moment that required some quick reactions and had a real slapstick quality to it - but where does it go after that? By way of a contrast the <a href="http://www.igpoty.com/competition05/winners_overall.asp?parent=winners" target="_blank">overall winner</a>, at least in my mind, raises all sorts of questions about the interrelationship of the various bits of the natural world and their fragility.<br />
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I'm only going to post one more link - my <a href="http://www.igpoty.com/competition05/winners_treeswoodsforests_First.asp?parent=winners" target="_blank">favourite shot </a>of the exhibition - as it's worth either visiting the website or - if you're in the Lakes this spring - getting along to see it. The web image doesn't really do justice to my favourite - in the exhibition its a very large print and the sunlight on the small patch of toadstools simply glows. To me it speaks of rebirth and the circle of life and I stood in front of it just lost for quite a while. It shows the value of really understanding the area you are photographing in and probably falls under the category of 'the harder I work the luckier I get'.<br />
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A couple of oddities worth a mention - a series of X-ray shots of seed heads featured in the prize winners, although I couldn't fathom why, and there was an eerie series of flowers/leaves slowly decaying in jars of water to produce fascinating and delicate semi-abstracts.<br />
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So my advice is - see it if you get a chance. If not, have a look on the website. As for me - I pondering an entry in the next competition.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-90559859094460004222012-05-01T17:52:00.001+01:002012-05-03T22:19:14.834+01:00Beautiful Black Space - My Modern Metropolis<a href="http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/sherif-elhage-black-space">Beautiful Black Space - My Modern Metropolis</a>: <br />
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a><br />
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Not really about People and Place, but the photos in the link show a clever use of black to provide not only a linking theme but also a clear style to a set of photos. I particularly like the way that the majority of the photo is effectively negative space - almost inverting the concept (at least as I understand it) in some ways.<br />
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The My Modern Metropolis site also looks worthy of further exploration in general.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-20689160038647531662012-04-14T17:48:00.001+01:002012-04-14T17:49:19.090+01:00Whinlatter<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/6910242240/" title="1000/778: 07 April 2012: Whinlatter"><img alt="1000/778: 07 April 2012: Whinlatter by nmonckton" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5459/6910242240_b884e1d40e.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/6910242240/">1000/778: 07 April 2012: Whinlatter</a> a photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/">nmonckton</a> on Flickr.</span></div>
Not sure if this belongs here or in Landscape 2, but this is my current blog so it's here for the moment.<br /><br />for those who've never been Whinlatter is a large Forestry Commission area, full of very tall and very straight pine trees, and with a lot of nicely laid out and signposted walks.<br /><br />I was about half way round one of thee walks when the 'verticality' of everything around me finally made contact with the old grey matter. So that's what I tried to capture in this shot.<br /><br />The original colour version was a bit too plain for it to be really obvious so I emphasised the verticals with this high contrast B/W treatment. Am tempted to try a vertical panorama treatment at some point to emphasise the effect even more - the trees were certainly tall enough to take it.<br /><br />Have been reading a series of conversations with David Hockney, which features his Bigger Trees series. Think that may have had some influence on my approach to this.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-47328521688660574012012-04-13T22:30:00.001+01:002012-05-03T22:20:08.635+01:00Assignment 5 in the post (well – Dropbox actually)A fairly rapid turn-around for assignment 5 as I shot it in parallel with assignment 4 – a corporate event waits for no man. Final submission consists of twelve shots taken from the shoot but following the brief I have also used the results of the shoot to produce designs for 6-page and 8-page sample brochures to accompany the submission. If you’re an OCA student, and sufficiently interested you can see them in my folders on the student site. The overall submission is <a href="http://db.tt/EkmvO3nA" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7064785721/" title="Assignment 5.3 by nmonckton, on Flickr"><img alt="Assignment 5.3" height="500" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5445/7064785721_503d766ab8.jpg" width="375" /></a> <br />
I would have to observe that shooting an event as the primary (only) photographer is quite hair-raising, although once I got into it it became quite enjoyable. There were a couple of ‘suck-through-the-teeth’ moments – once when one of the video techs moved my camera bag and my standard zoom went bouncing across the floor (I zipped the bag after that) and once when my flash jammed onto my camera. Apart from that, as I said, after the nerves subsided it went quite smoothly.<br />
I came away with around 2-300 usable shots, which included a decent range of portraits, stage event shots, audience shots and presentation/award shots. Some of these are now gracing the Company intranet and newsletter – although I have to be bit careful here as they are both my ultimate responsibility and I don’t want to appear to be hogging them.<br />
Anyway, with this submission under my belt I’ve just about finished the course. I have a few book reviews to write up, and I need to catch up on a couple of photographers blogs that I’ve been planning to write about. Then, assuming my tutor is happy with this assignment, it’s time to think about assessment and signing up for Landscape 2.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-23321422769392727862012-04-06T22:55:00.002+01:002012-04-06T22:55:49.481+01:00Marc Da Cunha Lopes Online Portfolio<a href="http://www.marcdacunhalopes.com/">Marc Da Cunha Lopes Online Portfolio</a>: <br />
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a><br />
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Discovered this guy while flicking through a book in Waterstones - the Photoshop work is peerless and the photos raise all sorts of interesting ideas and questions. My favourite section is 'Vertebrata' - the ape in the station waiting room towards the end captures the feel of such places to a tee.<br />
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Definitely worth a good look.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-37400794064337378642012-04-05T09:00:00.000+01:002012-06-06T21:43:53.540+01:00Assignment 4 feedback<p> Got the feedback from Assignment 4, and I’m pleased to say that it reflects my learning from Assignment 3. I’ve posted it elsewhere, but I felt the submission was a significantly more substantial piece of work than my previous attempts (second attempt at Assignment 3 excepted). As a result of setting out my initial aims more clearly I was much better able to assess what I had achieved, and was better placed to explain my choices of photos.</p> <p>My tutor described my images as ‘dramatic and telling’ which is pleasing. He does point out that I have not  “give(n) anything away in terms of the location so the reader would be relying on the text to indicate the town”. While I accept this point, I believe that my interpretation is legitimate as the brief only requires that I show the character of a specific location – not necessarily an identifiable one. In the context of this assignment I have interpreted this to mean that I should not try to illustrate small town Britain with a series of shots taken in different places. Since there is not suggestion that I need to re-shoot or add material to the set I’m hoping that this is not a major issue.</p> <p>Overall I think I’m getting the hang of this now – although I guess the assessors are the ultimate judge of that.</p> <p><strong>Further reflection</strong> (06/06/12)</p> <p>At my tutors suggestion I will be substituting this vertical crop for the original horizontal crop when it comes to my assessment submission:</p> <a title="Maryport 8 by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7007894309/"><img alt="Maryport 8" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7053/7007894309_8a933c1a13.jpg" width="375" height="500" /></a> <p> </p> <p>Similarly I will also be going with his suggestion to swap my first and second choices for the cover photo – using this next one of the steps for the cover rather than the shot of the car park (also below).</p> <img alt="Maryport 6" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7218/6861779014_caff5142d3.jpg" width="375" height="500" />     <a title="Maryport First selects-1 by nmonckton, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/npmimages/7039276553/"><img alt="Maryport First selects-1" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7054/7039276553_c249449651.jpg" width="375" height="500" /></a> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-39182050235805019602012-04-04T21:03:00.001+01:002012-04-04T21:06:47.634+01:00Assignment 5: A Corporate Conference<p> </p> <p>Assignment 5 requires that I imagine myself receiving a commercial commission of some kind, with the only proviso being that it is about the subject of this course i.e. people and/or the places they inhabit. I am interpreting ‘inhabit’ as including places where the people work.</p> <p>In real life I was recently asked by a colleague to photograph the company Innovations Conference – which supports the company suggestions scheme - to provide shots for use on the intranet and in the company newspaper. For this assignment I decided to extend this real brief to include the provision of photos for use in a promotional/celebratory brochure for use by the company and other sponsors of the event. The detailed brief, which puts me in the role of a small independent PR agency is as follows:</p> <p>“Design and produce a high-quality 6-8 page promotional/commemorative brochure covering the Annual Innovations Conference. The brief covers all aspects of production from photography through to print subject to the Company approving the design prior to final design and print.”</p> <p>For the purpose of this assignment I will obviously be stopping at the draft design phase, but the overall brief required me to pre-visualise some outline designs to inform my photography on the day, edit them down to the final selects and then use them to produce a draft brochure design. This will obviously require a range of shots, from portraits of senior staff and sponsors through group shots and facility/stage shots to details shots to help communicate the atmosphere – so as an idea it has already provided plenty to get my teeth into. </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7993315191816340505.post-75882382102276176002012-03-31T10:06:00.001+01:002012-03-31T10:41:28.160+01:00Turner and his Contemporaries: The Hickman Bacon Watercolour Collection: Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal<p> </p> <p><a href="http://www.abbothall.org.uk/current-exhibitions">Current Exhibitions | Abbot Hall Art Gallery</a>: <br /> <br />Popped along to see this exhibition yesterday, mainly out of curiosity – its not often that someone of Turner’s stature gets exhibited in Cumbria, so it would be foolish not to take the chance while I have it. There’s a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2012/jan/12/art-turner-abbothall-kendal-girtin-cotman-dewint" target="_blank">Guardian review here</a> for further info</p> <p>The Hickman Bacon collection, at least the bits of it on show here, consist of a collection of watercolour sketches by Turner, and a number of larger works by some of his less famous contemporaries (none of whom were familiar to me). They are seldom shown so they have not faded , as I am led to believe is typical of watercolours. The interpretive notes made much of the ‘brilliance’ of the colours and the ‘virtuosity’ of Turner’s technique – but I would have to say they were not as bright as I expected (to much exposure to Kodachrome/Fujichrome perhaps). I am also in no position to judge the virtuosity of the technique – watercolour painting is a black art to me – so all I can do here is give a view personal observations.</p> <ul> <li>The first is that the Turner’s were much smaller than I expected. It became clear pretty quickly that this was a collection of watercolour sketches, and there was some suggestion in the notes that Turner used these as the basis for ‘exhibition’ artworks. Not being an artist this approach to how they work had never really occurred to me – but it is obvious that he would take himself down to the beach at Margate – or wherever – whip out a sketch pad and a small selection of paints and set to work- which seems to humanise a giant of art very nicely to me.</li> <li>There were lots of cloudscapes, seascapes and sunsets – Turner was obviously a collector of sky effects. To me this emphasises a key philosophical difference between painting and photography. Turner could collect skies and water effects and marshal them into a single painting – while Photoshop makes this possible for photographs it is generally less convincing.</li> <li>The sketches were surprisingly modern – which reflects my understanding of the history of art. In my mind the time span between Turner/Constable and the Impressionists was quite significant, when in reality it was very short. Turner is contemporaneous with pre-impressionists such as Corot, and on a couple of occasions I was struck by the similarities between a Turner sketch and Corot – although as far as I have been able to discover they never met each other. I was expecting a lot of fine detail, but what I got was sweeping brushwork, clever use of the brush to produce spray effects, layers of colour and so on – in other words a move away from realism to a more impressionistic approach.</li> <li>My final observation is about my fellow gallery visitors. There seems to be a view amongst them that the best way to see a painting which is 9-10 inches across is to stand with your nose 6 inches from the glass. Why is this? And why does anyone think it’s right to do this when I am stood 3-4 feet back and am obviously already looking at the same painting as they reach it. Aaaargh!!!</li> </ul> <p>That’s it really. The exhibition was quite an eye-opener for me. I had always assumed Turner to be a bit of a fussy landscape painter – which just shows how wrong you can be.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0