A favourite photograph

 

Sometimes people ask me if I have a favourite photograph among all those I have taken. Of course I have many. I recall ones of my children and especially one taken in Normandy around 1994, them walking ahead of me aged 2 and four holding hands as the sun cast a wonderful glow on the summer lane that evening. I have pictures of friends, some now passed away and of places which help me recall events. I also have photographs which were challenging in one way or another or required a lot of planning or else happened right in front of me that I captured out of good luck rather than any skill. It is surprising to me how much I can recall about the circumstances of photographs taken many years ago when all else about the circumstance or place has been forgotten.

 

But if pressed then I always come back to this picture which was taken in Liverpool around 2010. It is fairly nondescript although as an architectural picture it has some merit in balance, compositional terms and colour. The reflective surface helps, but it has a more significant memory and a holds a metaphor for me as well.

Not only is Liverpool a sea-faring city but my father was a seaman, working for Shell all his life. This building, which rears like the prow of a massive ship with a seagull flying past in the glowing clouds, reminds me of that. It stands at the edge of an old graving dock next to Albert Dock, much gentrified in recent years and certainly an improvement on when I used to crawl under fencing to access the old warehouses with my camera in my late teens. 

The area is called Mann Island and in the late 1960's a prefabricated hut stood on the site which served as the offices of the British Shipping Federation. This was a sort of benevolent society which paid seaman an allowance when they were "between ships" and waiting to go to sea again. For whatever reason their pay was allowed alongside any unemployment benefit they could claim for being out of work. So in a corner of the BSF office was a small area which served as an office of The Ministry of Labour - as it was still called then - and I worked there with a couple of other people calculating and making the weekly benefit payments to the around 200 or so seaman each week. I was 17 and it was a fun time. Poetry and music abounded in the pubs and clubs, Penny Lane became famous, and All You Need Is Love was all you needed at a party along with a Party Seven of Worthington Special. Alan Ginsberg had even declared the city the centre of the universe in a recent visit!

   It might be offices now (and house the lovely Open Eye photography gallery) but for me it is the prow of that proud ship, reflecting a past as well as the noisy seagull of my youth and with its open windows looking like portholes, It reminds me that time sails on. 

I had a great time that year and it helped make me who I am and yet, it is an ordinary photograph which no-one else might look at more than once or twice........

Five of the best - World Photography Day

August 19 is World Photography Day, a day to pay homage to the history of photography, celebrate the present and leave a positive trail for the future. World Photography Day originates from the invention of the daguerreotype, a photographic processes developed by Louis Daguerre. It is arguable as to whether Louis Daguerre got there first but he was certainly a very early bird in the photography stakes.

By now it is estimated that over 20 billion photographs are taken every year throughout the world. That is a lot. In fact if you looked at each one for a second it would take you 636 years (less a couple of days) to see them all. We don't have that much time of course which means we will only be able to see a fraction of the photographs taken.

So to celebrate I have decided to help you and show you five photogrpahs that have caught me eye this year. I hope that you like them. 

The one at the top by the way was taken by Amdad Hossain and was a winner in the photojournalist stakes, of a homeless woman in Bangladesh and reminded me of how lucky I was.

Russian photographer Oleg Ershov took this picture which was a winner of the International Landscape Photographer of the year recently. He took it in Cumbria, which shows that us Britons don't have to go far to find winning pictures - we just have to see them...

British photographer Sam Rowley captured these squabbling mice on the London Underground to win the Lumix wildlife prize...again showing that what is around us can be a winner.

This architectural phot by Hazel Parreno of Hintze Hall at the Natural History Museum also caught my eye. It's simplicity belies the detail within the picture.

Last but not least is this picture which won the Birdlife section of the British Photography Awards. It was taken by Kathryn Cooper. It may not be obvious what it is a picture of so here is what Kathryn says of it :- 

"A small group of starlings lead the way as the entire flock surges overhead. In a new take on long exposure photography, I capture short bursts of frames and use my own simple algorithm to flatten them into a single image in post processing. I find that insights emerge from the resulting images that traditional long exposure techniques are not sharp enough to capture. I studied the mathematics of natural phenomena such as murmurations and avalanches during my doctorate and have found the process of turning this flock behaviour into art quite fascinating. This image was taken at RSPB Old Moor in Yorkshire, UK. I visited the reserve several times during the winter of 2018/19 to refine this technique and capture the fluid motion of the starlings. Visitors are lucky enough to be able to stand directly underneath the starlings' flight path and the noise of so many birds moving as one is phenomenal."

All pictures used in this Blog are copyright of the photographers who took them.

The wood carver

In a small and anonymous town in Italy where I and three other photographers stopped for a coffee we found a curious little shop on the main road. It was small but stuffed with beautiful wood carvings.

The wood carver was welcoming and luckily spoke some English as our Italian had little in it that would have got us far in wood carving terms. He told us much that I won't repeat here but it included his preference to work with tools made in Sheffield where it appears his brother made (or maybe it was had made) steel and the array behind him was evidence of this attachment. He was garrulous and, while I do not want to use any stereotypes, as expressive with his hands and head movements as any Italian I have met.

As our visit drew to a close and we bought our examples and gifts to take home I asked if I may photograph him. He was happy with that and continued to talk while I snapped away for a couple of minutes. The light was great arriving as it did from the sunny street outside his workshop window lighting both him and the tools in the background. He didn't slow down and his movement, for me, adds to the portrait and my memory of him. My one regret is that I never asked his name. 

When we returned to our lodgings the owner knew the workshop. On my return to the UK I had a print made and sent it, via her, to him. Whether he ever received it or liked it I don't know...but if you ever go into a small town in Italy and see this photo on the wall of the local woodcarver you'll know where it came from :-)

The Red Dress on tour

People who know my work will already have heard of The Red Dress and may have even seen the initial exhibition last year. In case you haven't it is a series of photographs which place a red dress in situations which range from the mundane to the threatening. In the exhibition and accompanying book I challenge people to find a picture that is striking to them and tell themselves the story behind it as they imagine it. I then ask them to consider why they thought that. The reason is that I would like people to think more about the position women occupy in the world today and consider whether they themselves consider equality and respect issues they consider sufficiently. Having two daughters and growing up during the second wave of feminism in the fifties and sixties this has become very important to me as a man.

The series continues to be photographed and probably will during the rest of my life. The Red Dress often accompanies me on trips out both in this country and abroad. I continue to read about and see ways in which women are severely disadvantaged and discriminated against and there are many ways in which women are given less respect than they deserve. These things are not always intentional. In some ways this makes it worse as it indicates a lack of thought.

This photograph was taken in Italy in an earthquake damaged house. The chair had been left there and the colours and darkness of the space appealed to me, especially the crumbling plaster and dark, negative space which seeps in from the left. The vines creeping in the window which invite you into the sunlight and the spotlight of sunshine illuminating the dress draped on the chair are all an invitation to make your own story about what has/is/about to happen here.

This picture has not yet appeared within the exhibition but may well do in the future. The company Exhibitours have taken on the show and it will eventually appear in smaller galleries around the UK although this year has, of course, been a challenge for all public exhibition spaces.

The book of the show, including an essay, can be viewed online here :-https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/9402176-the-red-dress 

If you would like to know more do email me :-)

In a fjord near Kirkenes

In February 2017 my daughters and I took a cruise with Hurtigruten around the North Cape of Norway.

As we sailed down the fjord from the Arctic Circle port of Kirkenes the February sun began to set around 4.30pm. 

The snow clouds were building above the Russian border a few kilometres away and it was minus 5C outside. Floating just below the water ice sheets took in the last of the sun and gave off a mist that created a surreal spectacle, ever changing and needing to be captured then and there. Four minutes later this panoramic shot was not possible. 

It had an eerie feel then and still has when I look at it now. A few hours later we gloried in a spectacular display from the Northern Lights.

This is three photographs stiched together after minimal post production taken with an f4 400mm lense at 1/13th of a second. 

Classic Ribblehead Viaduct shot

On a week's break in the Dales last year we had already driven past Ribblehead and admired the view. I was not especially expecting to get a classic shot at any point in the holiday but when we met some rail enthusiasts the next day they were excited about this train passing through. We noted their comments and the time and day of the visitation and the fact that this train was known to put out steam as it crossed the viaduct.

On the day the weather was pretty perfect and so we arrived early and walked to what we imagined would be a good vantage point and prepared the cameras with a few introductory shots of, well, nothing really apart from the surrounding country.

In the picture it looks empty but the reality was that many people where about but mainly in the same spot as us!

We heard the train before we saw it and then, there is was. Billowing steam and fluffy clouds with that wonderful engineering feat of brick and steel gave me the perfect picture at first attempt. An hour later we were at the Ingleton water falls. Who needs to go very far in this country for some spectacular photo opportunities :-)

So if you want a shot like this find some experts to talk to and follow their advice. They know what they are talking about!

Deconstruction or a different way to shoot a sunflower...

Sunflower

Flowers are a constant source of inspiration for me. Whether in the wild or the studio there are numerous varieties, colours and shapes. Of course all have been photographed before and so the challenge I find is to try and take pictures that have something different about them. A new angle or way of seeing something.

Planning my show FLORA last year I wanted to include sunflowers because their vibrancy and colour. Their deep yellow stands out on any wall. But how to do this when so many other excellent pictures already exist? 

Setting up a light in the studio and then placing thick perspex on top and over that a sheet of tissue paper meant that I reduced the glare. I had already raided the kitchen for some sunflower seeds. I carefully dissected the yellow petals from the centre of the flower and arranged them on the tissue paper, scattering the sunflower seeds on top. Switch on the light and shoot away. 

The overlay of leaves produced deeper and lighter yellows. The seeds on top barred the light but they are clearly not the proper sunflower head. I allowed any natural flaw in the leaves to remain rather than edit them out as some might have done. I felt that it helped retain some of the truth of the original flower.

I did this several times over a couple of days and ended with well over two hundred shots of which I post produced about thirty, one of which is shown here.

At the time of writing FLORA is still in SALT Architects gallery in Beverley because of lockdown. Although the office is not open currently you are welcome to peer through the window and see it :-)

Incidental pictures

Sometimes you have no idea what you will see. This is what makes wandering with a camera such fun. It also teaches any photographer to not only look but to see. Looking can uncover potential but seeing how you can create a photograph from it is another skill altogether.

This photo was taken five years ago during a visit to my brother and sister-in-law in Cardiff. We went for a walk around the Cardiff Bay area, a location much improved over recent years with the erection of a barrier, the inclusion of a marina and wildlife spaces as well as the usual luxury apartments and trendy eateries and coffee bars.

The sun was shining and it was the perfect day for photography buy it was while strolling past a metal fence that I noticed the reflections on the stone. Of course as soon as I moved to take the shot the sun dimmed and the reflection disappeared. Luckily it re-appeared a few minutes later and I got this shot. Abstract in nature and of no particular place it draws the eye at least partly because of the regular lines in the top of the picture and the more chaotic wriggles in the lower half.

A lucky observation? Maybe, but if I hadn't been seeing as well as just looking I would probably have missed it.... This is what makes incidental pictures such fun. The fact you have been able to create something from a moment that is fleeting.

Post production

This picture was taken whilst driving through Holderness on my way to Sunk Island in late August 2018. The smoke caught my eye and the road leading to it curved nicely in the direction the smoke was drifting The trees either side of the bend provided a good balance to the emptiness on the right of the picture. The smoke echoed the cloud cover that day too.

The first edit was in colour and I cropped more closely (16:9) into the trees and smoke whilst darkening the exposure slightly, increasing the white so that the clouds would gain more definition and slightly saturating the colour. I also did a straightforward black and white conversion from the original without a crop or changing the exposure or contrast. This was later printed and shown in the Ferens Open.

When I recently revisited the photograph (lockdown gives plenty of time to look at improving older photos when you can't travel for new ones) I decided to see if I could enhance. The second mono photograph has been considerably sharpened (using Topaz) and I also applied a diagonal graduated filter in Lightroom starting at the top right hand corner. You can see the darker sky where I have increased the contrast and again darkened the exposure.

Whether or not it is an improvement is up to you to judge. As Ansel Adams once said " The negative is comparable to the composers score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways."

Quartered

Sometimes you see something when you are not expecting it. One aspect of photography which has alwasy interested is composition. How do you make a picture interesting as well as capturing an image that people understand. I quite like to try and make people look twice.

I was visiting Yorkshire Sculpture Park with my friend Alina. We had already done two galleries in Leeds and then travelled via Wakefiled and the Hepworth so it was time for a coffee before we made as much of the park as we could. 

I found myself alone at the table for a minute and realise that the central pillar of the window alonside the half closed blinds would provide a picture that was neatly quartered if I produced a square crop. The bend in the path led the eye towards the central point and the writing on the window identified the exact spot.

Later when I processed the picture I tried both mono and colour but the mono won as the strength of the sun had drained most of the colour away and left it looking insipid.  

I still like this picture for exactly the reasons I took it and, despite the fact Alina is not in it, it reminds me of the visits we made that day. She returned to live and work in Romania shortly afterwards.

Sunk Island road

I do live in a wonderful and fairly empty part of the UK. Apart from the City of Hull,  the East Riding of Yorkshire consists mainly of small towns and villages which lie between the North Sea, the mighty River Humber and the North Yorkshire moors. 

The Wolds, which once you escape the watery edges, are folded hills and valleys of chalkland created by glaciers in the last ice age. You can walk in them for hours and barely see anyone, much less a dwelling. 

The flat edges of the County hold a different beauty (and a threat from rising water levels) in their endless roads and fields, snooker-table flat and with huge skies . This road is in Sunk Island, a part of Holderness. It is much photographed and this picture is a stitch of three photographs with a large 400 mm lense to flatten the perspectives. The road does not, of course, end with a tree in the middle but swings left just as you approach it. Nonetheless it does make for a startling vision. In summer, of course, the view is very different as the leaf covering reaches across the road surface and throws light and shadow in different directions.

Flora

I have never quite understood why photographers sometimes seem to bemoan wet weather. Apart from great reflections outdoors and multiple opportunities to show the world in a different light (literally) it gives us an opportunity to turn our attention to indoor shooting, whether in a studio or at home. 

At these times I find flowers incredibly useful and have even taken enough shots to get a whole exhibition out of them.

However just taking a shot of a single flower or a bunch of them is a challenge if you want to make people look twice. Floral pictures are two a penny.  My aim is often to either shoot detail, light them differently or find an unusual way to display them.

In the case of the carnations above I was in the studio and it was wet. I'd bought the flowers on my way in determined to do something. I had a strong steady studio light and a round but shallow glass bowl. I filled the bowl with water and cut the heads off the flowers so they floated but crammed the space then placed the bowl on top of the light, correcting the strength of the light as I went along. The camera was on a boom directly over the bowl.

I was more than happy with the results and one of the sequence (not shown here) eventually won me a prize in an exhibition - so result from wet weather and a bit of thought and experimentation. 

So remember, if you want to get your work seen, think differently...

Multis

Cameras are exciting bits of kit these days. Exploring them fully takes time but one of the features I discovered which I am enjoying experimenting with is the in camera facility to merge photos. This picture (of Humber Street in Hull) is a montage of three photographs, taken within a few seconds from different angles and then merged in camera.

The facility can be used in different ways. You can take a much larger number of pictures over a longer period of time from a fixed position with the camera on a tripod. This tends to show people and other moving objects like cars and buses as a part of time. Ghostly. Passing through and impermanent. Equally it can be fixed on a single point with an object moving away to show movement. Or shots can be taken of a person in different positions, again from a tripod , to signal mood or overlap.

I am still experimenting with this and have no idea what might happen with it. No doubt however it will improve from where I am at present....

The Gran Sasso

Travel broadens the mind they say and it certainly did when I went to the Abruzzo region of Italy nearly two years ago now with three other photographers. Not only was it beautiful and almost empty of tourists but the variety of scenery from the Trabbochi coast into the national parks which ran up into the Appenines was stunning and historic. The days drive included several stops in wonderful hilltop towns, some having suffered from earthquakes in the recent past. The roads looped the loop and got higher and higher with accordingly bigger drops to the valleys below.

This shot was taken in the Gran Sasso D'Italia national park and the rock running up on the left leads to the ruins of a castle once the highest fortified building in Europe. In the distance is the Great Horn, the second highest mountain in Italy and standing where we were we only just failed to top Ben Nevis. 

On the day we arrived autumn storms swept through the valleys and we could see the rain pouring down and racing along as the sun followed and shone brilliantly where a downpour had been minutes earlier. Luckily the cloud stayed below us.

The chapel was a much later addition than the castle and we set up our tripods and cameras and watched nervously as the clouds came and went and the sun edged around the rock. We knew that it should hit the doorway of the chapel soon but whether the timing would be right was another thing. Eventually it arrived at just the right moment and, thankfully, we clicked away until it diappeared again. It had been a great day, the clouds and light played along with our needs (just) and we rushed back to the car as the large raindrops started to fall. We shouldn't have worried. The wind gusted it away very quickly.

Harvesting

Some time ago I was chatting with artist Peter Watson, whose work I had admired for some time. As both a painter and graphic designer his work has an architectural quality that appeals to me (http://peterwatsonpaintings.co.uk/) . 

We agreed to work towards a joint exhibition that featured harvesting, an activity close to the hearts of many an East Yorkshire resident as farming provides one of the key industries in the area. Peter's paintings will be in colour but my photographs will be mono. A great contrast we hope!

We have yet to complete that work but I am looking forward to getting out again over the next couple of months and isolating myself at the edge of fields to add to the many pictures I have taken over the last two summers. 

Sometimes I ask for help too. On this occasion if you hear of anyone planning to harvest at dusk with their tractor lights on I'd love to know. I haven't got any shots like that at all as yet...

A bridge, a UFO and welcome

Hello and welcome to my blog site. This site has been created to both introduce you to my work as a photographer and to keep you up-to-date with my history, thinking and developing themes.

As I mostly work in photographic sequences you may see me return to old themes previously mentioned to update them or introduce new ones. But the stories of my pictures, the inspiration for them and the actual process of taking them will be a part of the journey.

I hope you enjoy the ride....and in case you wondered the photograph above is of the UFO Observation Tower which forms part of the Novy Bridge (naturally also known as the UFO Bridge) linking the old town and Hrad Castle to a newer part of the city. It gives spectacular views of the Danube as well as providing a lookout over the Old Town.