Found Imagery

I was looking at a photo competition the other day – and the more ‘interesting’ categories that were there – and amongst the more obvious ones of portraiture, environmental etc, there were two that struck me as unusual.  One was ‘appropriation’, and the other was ‘found imagery’.

I did a search as to what ‘found imagery’ was, and was led to this article which referred to “Unfortunate Views of Google Street View” 

Do click on the link (it’s safe) and have a read.  The photographer is using Google street view, and photographing what he sees on his computer screen. The German photographer Michael Wolf received an honorable mention for a set of images taken in this way in this year’s World Press Photo Contest.

Is this photojournalism though?  I’d question it.

I used to be an agency photographer, and was not allowed to change anything in an image – it had to reflect exactly what was happening at the time, so I’m not sure that a photograph of a photograph qualifies.

Britain’s Got Talent, Manchester

Then there is ‘appropriation’ art…. the term seems to have come into use specifically in relation to certain American artists in the 1980s.  For example Sherrie Levine reproduced as her own work other works of art, including paintings by Claude Monet. Her aim was to create a new situation, and therefore a new meaning or set of meanings, for a familiar image.

Take a look at this link researching into ‘appropriation’

Incorporating Photography into Art History, Starting with August Sander

Ice Hockey..

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to an Ice Hockey match……  something I’ve only done once before – but this time I was given access to the team tunnel, and the ice.  An amazing experience.  The game was fast, the light was poor, the ISO I was shooting at was incredibly high – so a lot of the images had noise.   I had blurred pictures, over exposed pictures, underexposed pictures, and was generally not a happy bunny.

So, I sat and thought about what I was seeing.

The players faces as they waited their turn on the ice.  The concentration, and the shouting of the team manager taking players off, and putting new ones on the ice was constant.

I moved more slowly, more deliberately, and almost forgot about the frantic movements out on the rink.  I started to enjoy what was presented right in front of me.

I realised that you have to change your attitude to fit what’s going on around you, and not the other way around.

I took a LOT of pictures, and afterwards decided that they would all look better in monochrome.  It somehow fitted the scene better, and in addition disposed of the pretty awful colour cast caused by the lights.

One thing I’ve learned is, that if you are given the opportunity to shoot something new – do it – if you never even use the photographs again, it doesn’t matter – you had the experience.  If you don’t, you will end up kicking yourself for the lost opportunity.  Do not let fear get the better of you, and never ever worry about not getting that ‘winning’ image.  It’s about the learning, the experience, and the test.  Go for it.

Photo Impressionism – Part 2

In my last blog post, I talked about my re-discovery of multiple exposure images.

Since then, I’ve worked on a good number of new photographs using this style, and a refined viewpoint.  I’m also starting to fully understand what works and what doesn’t.

My starting point was the artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and his impressionistic painting “Sea and Rain” – The dreamy effect of the lone man, walking along a foggy beach was remincent of views I see fairly regularly along the East Coast of England. It was paintings similar to this that encouraged me on my way to try and re-create photographically this style of art.

There is a book that I’m keen to get a copy of – it’s entitled “The Lens of Impressionism: Photography and Painting Along the Normandy Coast, 1850-1874″ and includes the beautiful mid-19^th century photography of Gustave Le Gray, Henri Le Secq, and others.  The Normandy Coast is where Whistler spent time painting, and it is also the time when painters and photographers were trying to capture motion.  Whistler was trying to move away from conventional art, and experimenting with a softer style.

In the time following the invention of photography, there was controversy about whether art could be photographic, or whether photographs were merely recording a scene.  I would say that the photograph of the French Fleet, Cherbourg, taken by Gustave Le Gray in 1858, shows great artistic quality.

So photography became the ‘new painting’. Did photography influence the painters, or did the painters influence the photography…….?  I don’t know the answer..

A trip to the Science and Media Museum in Bradford revealed images by Frank Eugene (whom I remember from my college days) who scratched his negatives, to give a softer feel.  As far as I know, no-one before him had tried this, and even the ‘purists’ of the day were said to admire his work.

Nude Man by Frank Eugene

Eugene was one of the founding members of “The Linked Ring” – Also known as “The Brotherhood of the Ring”, a photographic society created to propose and defend that photography was just as much an art as it was a science.

You can access the Linked Ring exhibition catalogues HERE (It can take a while to load even with a fast internet connection, so be careful) – Sadly the photographs themselves are not reproduced, but you can access all the Salon members, and search for their photography.  You can also see many adverts for the various processing labs, and cameras that were available in 1903.

I did try searching for some of the images in the catalogue but without success.

So – to go back to the start, you can find more of my impressionistic images on Flickr, by checking the link on the right hand side of the blog, I do hope you enjoy them.

More to come on this topic.

 

The Pixelstick

I think that unless you have not had anything to do with lightpainting – you will have heard of the Pixelstick.

In case you haven’t, the Pixelstick received over 6 times it’s kickstarter funding goal in 2013.  I got hold of one in early 2015, and though I’ve taken it out to various camera clubs, and demonstrated just what can be done with it, I have to confess, that I’ve not used it myself really very much in anger.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, the Pixelstick is an array of 200 addressable RGB LEDs. This means each LED can produce almost any colour, and each one can be instructed to flash on and off at a particular speed and colour sequence. With the right set of instructions, the LEDs can be used to mimic the pixels of a bitmapped image, so as the Pixelstick is moved through space, the LEDs effectively ‘draw’ the bitmap in midair and can be captured during a long exposure photograph.  It works a bit like an ink jet printer.  As you see a print coming out, one line of ink at a time, so the Pixelstick works in much the same way, but with light.  BMP files are saved to an SD card which sits in the control panel, and allows you to replay any image saved on there in the correct format.

The camera stays still, and as you move the lights along in front of the sensor, the colours are captured line by line, making up an image, or pattern.

The website is HERE if you want more information…….

It’s possible to add more than one image to overlay another, making up complex pictures.

There’s a group of lightpainters who really don’t like this kind of equipment – they much prefer to have all their lightpainting done with different techniques and self made equipment.

Personally though, I have not got the time, inclination, know-how, to  make some of the things they use – and so I use this rather wonderful Pixelstick instead.

Combine it with people, and you can make amazing silhouettes – and portraiture works well too, as you can make what ever kind of background you like.

Add a touch of inventiveness, and you can make anything you like.  I’ll be exploring this kit in more detail over the coming months.

In the meantime, I leave you with the GIF I created earlier today – don’t look at it for too long, or your eyes will most definitely go crazy……..

Happy Easter…….

 

The Conversion Continues

After my purchase recently of the Fuji X-T2 – I bought a new lens this last week – the 16-55 F2.8. My first zoom.  It’s stunning.

I had a studio shoot, and although I took along my Canon Camera, it wasn’t long before I switched over to the lightweight Fuji.

It performed beautifully, with only one menu item that had to be changed.  Shooting in manual mode, with studio lights being fired from a trigger on top of the camera, I had to turn the preview exp/WB in Manual Mode off.  This is under Tools, and Screen set up.   Other than that – it was good to go right out of the box. (Thanks to Richard Egan for giving me that information).

With the camera’s 24M pixel count, the image sizes are much larger than I’m used to – 6000×4000, leaves plenty of room to crop if you need to with no loss of image quality.

The viewfinder is different too. Mirrorless means electronic, but there’s no lag to notice, and I found I quickly got used to the look. 325 focus points means no searching for the right place to lock on to, and it’s easy to move the focus point around with the control stick.

I’ve never had a tilting display either – the Canon DSLR’s that I own don’t have it – The X-T2 display rotates up, down and pulls out sideways too for ease of use, and has a great resolution of 1.04 million dots.

I did the firmware update this week.  This allowed more options on ISO, and a very pleasing addition was the ability to record information onto files.  Useful when I have to remember how to spell names, and refer back to locations.  It’s something I used a lot with the Canon DX.

So far, I have not used their 4K video, but I’m looking forward to giving it a go.

There’s another firmware update scheduled for May!  Two inside 3 months – I think Canon had one update over a 4 year period.  Maybe they think they’ve nothing to prove, and nothing to improve on.

Ultimately the conversion so far, to Fuji has been a seamless one.  All I need now is a long lens….. and I’m set to go……

Oh, and if anyone is interested.  I’ve got a Canon 1D MK4 body for sale……..  Message me on here if you are interested, or see my Facebook page for more information and a price.

Thank you for reading…… more on this topic to follow

 

Art or Content

It’s Christmas eve, and I was sitting here reviewing images taken over the last 12 months, and thinking how fortunate I’ve been to be able to work with some amazing people – both models and photographers.

Meeting new people, models, photographers, studio owners is always a good thing.  The more people you interact with, the more ideas you can get, and the better images you can produce.

I’ve been blessed with two particularly good shoots in the last months – both have been quite artistic, and well received in the competitions that I’ve been entering.

I did think that I might print some images off and give them as gifts, but I’m not altogether sure that friends would enjoy them in the same way that I do.

I think that as photographers – we are very much emotionally involved in our images, and that the general public often appreciate the content much more than the creativity that goes into the art we make.

Show a person who likes dogs, a picture of a dog, and they may love it – even if it’s not technically perfect, because it’s a picture they can understand, and relate to.  Show them one of a subject they are not interested in, and no matter how artistic it is, they won’t necessarily like it.

Pictures are appreciated by people more when it actually pertains to their life.  Other people’s photography generally appeals to photographers simply because we ARE photographers..  A month or two back, I went to hear a photographer speak, and although it wasn’t a genre of photography I was particularly interested in, I admired the images – so much so, that at the end of the talk, I bought his book.  Each picture is exquisite, but I’d never go out and shoot that subject; but that didn’t stop me admiring the composition, textures and story that each image told.

There is a particular image that I’ve used in a number of competitions this year – an abstract – it did the rounds locally, in camera club battles – it scored highly every time – not getting less than an 18 out of 20 – and mostly getting 20.

Thinking that I’d got a winner on my hands, I entered it into a national competition – waiting eagerly for the results, I was astounded to find that it scored the lowest mark I had ever had in a National.  So what did I do?  Well, I still loved the picture, and when the print was returned to me, I mounted it, framed it, and hung it on the wall;  …….. and here it is…….

It’s a bit ‘marmite’ I understand that…..  but none the less…..

I doubt I’d offer it as a gift to anyone, but it does look great on my wall – or at least I think so.

And on that note, I’d like to wish you all a happy and peaceful Christmas, and an amazing, and artful 2017 – let’s make images to be proud of……….