Great British - John Blakemore

 

There are probably few living photographers who have been as influential as John Blakemore over the years. Yet his star does not burn as brightly as Bailey, McCullin or Parr, whom most people would name immediately. 

Blakemore was born in 1936 and discovered photography while on national service with the RAF in Aden. Self-taught, as most people were at that time, he returned to his hometown of Coventry determined to record the re-construction of the city. He had become inspired by Edward Steichen's "The Family of Man" which he had seen in a copy of Picture Post sent by his mother while abroad.

He worked as a photographer initially for Black Star agency and then in a number of studios producing portraits and commercial work. He also became a printer of black and white photographs - of which he has become a master over the years learning, and using, the Zone System made famous by Ansel Adams

After a spell as a photographer at Courtaulds he left Coventry and joined his friend Richard Sadler as a lecturer of creative photography at Derby College of Art, later becoming Emeritus Professor of Photography at Derby University where he taught from 1970 until 2001.

Landscapes and still life are his main subjects and he is known for his handmade books, many of which are now in his archive in the Library of Birmingham. He has consistently championed the British countryside and landscape, working in the same small areas for many years to develop a close relationship and understanding of them. Working mainly in black and white he says that "the silver print is my chosen and primary means of expression". His book, "John Blakemore's Black and White Photography Workshop" is still held as a masterclass in landscape work. His landscape work has been described as richly nuanced which comes, at least aprtly from his printing techniques.

He is also famous for photographing tulips for over a decade of which he says "The tulip journey, then, was ultimately a visual journey, an investigation and discovery of visual possibilities. The tulip became an object of attention and fascination. It became both text and pretext for an activity of picture-making. The photographs are not finally, or not primarily, about tulips: they contain tulips. To say this is not to diminish the role of the tulip. Had the vase of flowers on the table when I made the first tentative exposures exploring the space of my kitchen been, let’s say daffodils, then the journey, if it had ever begun, would in all probability have been shorter. The daffodil, although it is a delightful flower, exhibits a stubborn rigidity of form; it lives and dies at attention. The tulip, however, is a flower of constant metamorphosis; it stretches towards the light and gestures to occupy the space." And that observation, perhaps, say what all photography is about.

You can visit his website here :- https://www.johnblakemore.co.uk/ 

There is also a recorded talk by him presenting his work from 1955 - 2016 at the Meeting of Minds conference in 2017 here;- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa8woJC-0lg

Autumn Colours - an alternative approach

 

Autumn colours are everywhere at present and photographers will travel miles for a killer picture. New England in The Fall is on many a photographer's bucket list. But in the days of a pandemic and limited travel we may have to look closer to home. 

I am lucky in living near the edge of the Wolds as they start to reach out north from the banks of the Humber. The trails which lead through Welton, Brantingham and South Cave before running up towards Market Weighton through the Drewton Estate are heavily wooded and a delight to walk through in October and early November. So I set myself a challenge to walk up Brantingham Dale Road and cut off through the woodland path to South Cave and create some less than usual photographs of autumn colours yesterday. I limited myself to an hour as part of the challenge and as the weather was very variable. I also made a decison to take standard photographs, such as that above, but also to use both multiple exposure and intentional camera movement (ICM) to gain some more abstract records of my walk.

Anyone using these techniques will know that there is a degree of luck involved although you can reduce that by really thinking about the colours you are wanting in the frame, the exposure times you are allowing and the number of frames you are stacking. The greater the number of frames the more critical the exposure time and this usually needs a bit of tweaking as you see the results. I started with a stack of four frames eventually reducing this to two. The less frames you stack the more definition you may get in the picture (see the next frame below). My exposure times varied from half a second when I decided to use ICM to 1/160 when I took single frame, standard pictures.

As I always shoot in RAW I post-process in Lightroom and the images nearly all benefitted from some manipulation of the texture and colour to deepen the tones and vibrancy. Sometimes that was quickly achieved by using the overall saturation and vibrancy tools but others I achieved through working on the hue, saturation and luminance of individual colours.

Whether or not you like this type of photograph it is always interesting to see the results. The pictures here are a selection from the 129 pictures I took in the hour available. The time in post production is probably twice that of the walk at least! Comments on blogs are always welcomed whether they are constructive criticism or questions raised so do leave a comment if you wish and I will always respond.

A new international photography magazine - FRAMES

 

We live in a digital age. In fact, photography has undergone a dramatic transformation in the last few decades.The overwhelming majority of photographs now are captured digitally. Additionally, we use our computers and mobile phones to consume photographs most of the time.

But… how about paper?  Enter FRAMES.

Friday, September 18th 2020 marks quite a special day on the contemporary photography publishing scene. My good photography friend Tomasz Trzebiatowski, is launching a quarterly printed photography magazine. Yes, printed. On paper. And it is looking wonderful.

What is pretty unique about this publication is that FRAMES Magazine embraces all possible photography genres and formats. Each quarterly edition will feature the work of photographers using digital and analogue cameras, mobile phones, even pinhole cameras.

“Excellent photography belongs on paper” - is Tomasz’ motto. The common denominator connecting all the images being printed in FRAMES is simply their visual quality and inspiring, thought-provoking character.

The magazine itself is looks gorgeous. In essence, it is a top-notch, quarterly photography book, printed the wonderful 140gsm uncoated Edixion Challenger offset paper manufactured using 100% ECF pulp. Each edition consists of 108 pages (!).

In the first edition you can see the work of such acclaimed artists as Michael Kenna and Phil Penman as well as some great photography by emerging photographers such as Robert Atwater, Olga Karlovac, Yalim Vural, and Curtis Salonick. What’s more, the first issue also includes two in-depth exclusive interviews with Magda Keaney (Senior Curator, Photographs, National Portrait Gallery in London) and Richard Tsong-Taatarii (photojournalist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune).

But that is not all. When you become a FRAMES subscriber, you automatically get access to the entire suite of their digital offerings: FRAMES Digital companions, online Photography Masterclasses and the insider FRAMES Photo Community. It seems like FRAMES is set to become an impressive blend of printed and digital photography assets through the creation of a passionate international photography community with the magazine and its additional digital components as its hub.

You can become the member of FRAMES today for a monthly fee of $14 USD, (Just under £11 a month). This is an early bird offer which you can access through the link at the end of the blog. 

Your membership will secure you annual access to 4 printed editions of FRAMES Magazine, 8 editions of FRAMES Digital Companions, 4 Photography Masterclasses and the private community and forums. This is exceptional value and allows you the opportunity to help build the community too. It is also a comparatively cheap method of collecting some excellent work with print being the best method of collection these days.

If you would like to start your FRAMES Magazine collection from its very first issue, ensure you become a FRAMES member by October 15th 2020. I am acting as the representative of FRAMES in the North of England and you can follow this link to check out their wonderful site and subscribe today. Using this link ensures you will receive the best deal available: http//:joinframes.com/nigel 

Intentional Camera Movement (ICM)

Humber Fish Co., Humber Street

ICM is not new in photography and has often been used in the past to create more complex, dreamlike and painterly images to counter-balance some of the increasing sharply focussed work often on display.

Intentional Camera Movement is what it says and involves the photographer moving the camera during a long exposure to create something slightly other worldly. The impact can be very boring and look like a slightly out of focussed amateur attempt, very abstract or stunningly beautiful and Turneresque. There are some very experienced experts out there who, by their own admission, may take hundreds of shots to get the one or two they are looking for.

I have had my interest renewed in the nature and practie of ICM following a conversation with another photographer, Iain Cairns when we met for a coffee recently and a link he sent me to the work of Andrew S Gray in Northumberland whose work you can see here :- https://andrewsgray.photography/ . Very atmospheric!!

I am miles away from anything like having the skill of Andrew but I also think that increasing my repertoir is as essential as using the full facilities of my camera. So I have set out to practice with ICM and these pictures are the first taken over the last week.  I have a long way to go. 

I have not attempted to do very much post editing with them as I wish to get the balance right first between what can be seen and what can be hinted at. This essentially means how much or how little movement I get into the shot and that is practice and good luck. The greater the movement the more abstracted the picture. I have certainly learned that having some point of focus helps and that usually minimal movement makes a more understandable picture. Equally a lot of movement can give a very pleasing abstract effect and result in unpredicatble colour swatches in the final photo.

In addition I decided to experiment with a technique I have been using for some time now and utilising my camera's ability to take up to twelve photographs and merge them in-camera to gain an overlayed result. Again I have learned so far to work with two imposed images and ICM but not more.

The basic camera set-up varies depending on the weather. A very bright and sunny day will allow much more play than a dark and stormy one and the colour palette on the final photos will be very different. In order to reduce the light entering the camera you also need a variable Neutral Density Filter. These allow you to make speedy changes to the light entering the lense. I have usually set the ISO on the camera to 100 (which in itself can require a longer exposure) and set the timer to anything from half a second to considerably longer. I can then marginally adjust the ND filter, the timing or the ISO to improve results...but it is hit and miss to some degree although if you stand in one place and take a number of photographs it is likely you will get nearer to the result you want with each picture taken - unless the sun goes in or pops out again!

My experiments have taken me into the city and countryside over the last ten days and you can decide which you like best from these shots below. I will post again on this topic in the coming months as I learn more and use increasingly different methods to achieve my results. Comments are welcomed - and remember if you don't wish to miss any of my blogs you can always pop your email into the top right hand box and then you will get a reminder when I post ! You can also reverse that process if you get fed-up with me!

Sky and wall

Spurn Lightship, Hull Marina

Path near South Cave

Family outing to the woods

Landscape with single tree near Elloughton

Calla Lillies

Every year I grow Calla Lillies in pots in my garden. They are now taking over and I need to re-pot at the end of this summer. Some have a purplish tinge to their veins and interior and others are deep orange.

Each year I pick one to photograph always looking for new angles or lighting. This year I use a 100mm lense which is often the one I use for portraits. It enables me to take shots pretty close up, the only drawback being the extremely narrow depth of field. This means that I then have to decide where I lay the emphasis on the focus for the flower.

Whilst I love the colour of this particular lilly I also happen to enjoy them being reduced to mono so there is always a debate inside my head about which might look best left in colour and which converted to mono. 

I usually use a single low light source from one side and slightly about the flower - a classic Rembrandt lighting technique in portraits. I don't feel that I have pushed this as far as I might yet but I'll keep trying. After all John Blakemore has been photographing tulips for over 24 years... 

Context - Dan Kitchener graffiti

Context

There is some great graffiti about these days all over the world and some artists move between cultures and cities easily. It was therefore a pleasure to see that Dan Kitchener, a world renowned street artist, was in Hull and painting the side of the King Billy pub. This is a freehand spray painting. The position is perfect and can be seen by all the traffic passing by on the A63. 

So it was inevitable that I would go and take some pictures there. This presented a couple of challenges. Firstly there is a large advertising hoarding/fence which separates the mural from the pavement. This makes it impossible to gain a top to bottom view. However I can quite understand the desire to protect this lovely work from passing oiks. 

The second challenge, which is linked to the first, is to give the picture context within the photograph. By that I mean that to only replicate the work seems like using some else's graft to make a photograph and claim the credit. Showing the scale and surroundings gives far more context to the finished work.

The first challenge was partially overcome by a couple of grey metal boxes which (I assume) carry some electrical equipment for the nearby traffic control lights. Standing on them meant that I could achieve some sense of the whole while also squeezing in the statue of King Billy on the far right of the picture as well as giving a sense of scale with the street light. A conversion of this particular picture to mono served it well.

The next two pictures I left in colour, saturating them slightly as the day had been very grey. In one I show the tower of Hull Minster which I hope gives both a sense of place and a sense of old and new. The second favours a shot which again gives context through including the pub frontage. In both the hoarding is inevitably present as is the phenomenal amount of road signage and furniture. I would have liked to have some people gazing up at it but having hung about for half an hour there was no-one about. I'll have to return at a busier time...

You can see more of Dan Kitchener's work here :- https://www.dankitchener.com/

Harvest - continuing a series

The Harvest 

At this time of year I start to look seriously for pictures related to harvest time. The genesis of this lies with the artist Peter Watson whose work I first came across and showed some years ago when I still had Creation Fine Arts gallery.

Peter was born in Beverley and attended school locally before going to art college in Liverpool. He has been a succesful artist over the years and there is a link to his work below which has a quality of graphic design which I like and admire.

About three years ago we met at an opening and he suggested that we might collaborate on a series of paintings and photographs. After some thought and discussion we decided that the theme of harvest was a very suitable one for the East and North Yorkshire area (Peter now lives near Scarborough) and that it could make an interesting juxtaposition if my photographs were in mono against his colour paintings.

So for the last three years we have been slowly gathering material. We still don't know when it will be finished or if we will ever find a space to show it in but we live in hope.

So if you see me standing near a field looking at the work of harvesting getting done, or the fields ripen and the tracks across them slowly disappear you'll understand it is all part of a bigger plan.

This picture is a new one which may or may not be used eventually. I happened upon the combine harvester as I drove out of York and the dust, the position of the trees and the darker sky all seemed perfect for a shot.

Below is a painting showing Peter's style and a link so you can see more if you wish. You may have already seen a series of his pictures if you have visited the coalmining museum near Doncaster from commissions he undertook for the NCB before the mines closed in the 70's and 80's.

http://peterwatsonpaintings.co.uk/ 

Re-editing

Use your back-catalogue to the full

When you have taken the photographs and edited those you deem fit there are several things that can happen to them. Some get immediately shared on Facebook and Instagram or whatever other media you use. A few may get used for exhibitions, something quite common with a number of mine as they are shot in related sequences with that in mind. 

A few may get printed as I have had outlets in the past (local cafes or exhibitions etc) who have been happy to have their walls decorated and sell them if there is the interest. It always strokes the ego to know that someone else likes your work. One or two might even make it into print somewhere if you are lucky too. Most however end up stagnating in your hard drive's back catalogue and will rarely see the light of day.

If lockdown has taught me anything it is that back catalogues can hide some pictures which you may have missed first time round. It could also be that your post production techniques have improved or changed since the first edition of your photograph was made. Improvements and additions to the tools you use can also make modifications more accessible or just add differences. So looking at older pictures with a view to seeing what you might be able to alter is always worthwhile when you have some time to spare.

The two pictures here are both re-edits of photogroaphs that are at least a couple of years old and which I missed in some way the first time round. So instead of always feeling the need to get out and take new pictures use your rainy days or lazy days to have a backward glance and see if you have something that might be worth a second glance and give you the first sight of a new old photograph!

Brimham Rocks

When I woke up yesterday I realised that if I didn't make it to Brimham Rocks before the weekend  then the school holidays would probably make it a challenge to find space. I had meant to go for some time but the weather had been awful and the skies leaden so I had put it off. In fact the weather wasn't that great yesterday either but in the spirit of adventure I set off. As I drove down the motorway and up the A1 into North Yorkshire the clouds shifted into manageable cottonwool balls and the rain disappeared. Arriving shortly after the car park opened I was pleased to see few cars.

Underfoot was damp but with my super waterproof boots it didn't matter. Two and a bit hours later I was back in the car and heading south and home for an afternoon of editing as it started to rain again. Perfect timing as it happened.

Somehow the moodiness of this 184 hectare site calls for mono treatment in my eye. The rock formations, left behind when the ice melted 18,000 years ago, are striking and have been weathered by wind, rain and ice ever since. A bit of scrambling around by children and (largely) dads wanting to show off has helped as well. Now a site of Special Scientific Interest as well as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty I was lucky to have it largely to myself for a while.

A first sight

From time to time I will publish new photographs on my blog - a first sight for those who might be wondering what I am doing.

The last few stormy days coupled with the continued virus alerts have meant that I have not ventured far. Luckily I live in a part of the country where it is easy to escape to solitude, as was the case when I took to the Transpennine Trail two days ago. The trail starts on the East Coast at Hornsea and ends in Southport or Liverpool depending on which spur you take. The big skies of the flat Eastern section are notable and amazing when stormy weather has gathered.

This section follows the Humber from Brough to Crabley Creek along a raised embankment which does nothing to shelter you from the wind. The Humber is a wide river which deposits 25% of all rainwater falling on England into the North Sea. It's tributaries run from the Wolds either side of the river as well as the Pennines, North Yorkshire Moors and Peak District. The river can be seen as the silver ribbon at the bottom of this picture while the clouds build towards a storm. I was concious that the day before the wind had blown a similar set of clouds across the river in less than five minutes which sent me from admiring their formations to sheltering beneath some trees (to little avail - I was soaked with five minutes). This time I made it back to the car without a drenching...