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!

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson

A French photographer born in 1908 it is almost impossible to consider the development of modern photography without his presence.

Originally training as an artist and attending Cambridge University to study art, literature and English (in which he was fluent), he discovering photography in the 1920's and settling into the early useage of 35mm film. He acquired a Leica camera in 1931 which he used continuously for many years, even burying it during the war (he served three years as a POW under the German Occupation of France) digging it up once the war ended.

His first exhibition was in New York in 1933 and that later transferred at Madrid. He was heavily influenced by his study of, and close contact with, surrealists during the 1920's and realised very early on the importance of candid, street photography which became his stock in trade. The informality and unexpected actions of people was important to him. Throughout his life Henri was a left leaning humanist and worked with many of the French Communist party although he never joined the party himself. This often shows in the tenderness of his approach to people in his photographs.

MOMA mounted an exhibition after the war which had originally been conceived as a posthumous show following rumours of his death but became a celebrating retrospective.

He founded the Magnum agency with four other photographers in 1947 and achieved international recognition for his reportage of Ghandi's funeral in 1948.

In 1952 his book Images à la sauvette, published as The Decisive Moment in English but actually translating as Images on the Sly, brought to the fore his idea that, having seen a composition you wait for the key moment to press the shutter. Miss it and it has gone. His photograph Rue Mouffetard (below) taken in 1954 is often used as an example of this. The triumphant look on the boy's face sealing the deal with the photographer.

In later years he travelled widely but gave up photography to concentrate on drawing apart from a few private portraits. He died in 2004 at 95 and is buried in the local cemetery at Montjustin having left a lasting legacy of work and influence.

Composition

Composition

When a photographer points their lense at something and clicks they are mounting a frame around the object. They are trying to show something to viewers as a piece of the world at one moment in time. What they are doing is making a composition. A monkey banging on a piano is composing but it is likely to be less pleasing than giving the piano to a composer. So photographers are learning to be good composers and frame something that is pleasing to look at.

Science has shown that the human brain can respond to certain mathematical patterns and so there are some basic "rules" which can be followed when learning to compose a picture. These rules will make it easier for a viewer to "read" the picture and allow the photogrpaher to lead the eye of someone looking into a picture.

The "Rule of Thirds" is one of the most commonly used by new photographers and "phi" is a Greek expression of harmony in nature and also known as "The Golden Ratio" or the "Fibonacci sequence". You can find out more about these by following the links below:-

Rule of Thirds -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GcpP-n-94I

Phi - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CiS3SU4lk0 

In some ways these rules are both helpful and misleading. To work with either can certainly help make your photograph interesting but to believe they are the only thing that will make your picture outstanding is naive. Aand anyway, rules are made to be broken! In looking through the lense the photographer also needs to consider colour, balance, action, light and shade and might even use nothing (known as negative space) or depth of field (where some of the picture is in focus and some out of focus) to accentuate the object they wish you to look at.

In the West we "read" from left to right and look at pictures in the same way. The picture of the rape field above has a patch of strong yellow leading down to a track which then sweeps up and ends near a hedge on the horizon. This automatically leads the eye towards the lone tree which stands proudly around one third of the way into the picture from the left. So the picture uses some elements of a classic rule but not all of it as the horizon cuts through the centre of the picture.

The photograph below is a completely different type of composition. Many people looking at this photo will immediately recognise the Liver Building on Liverpool's waterfront as an internationally recognised landmark. However it is dwarfed by a new office block which takes up half the photograph. Nonetheless this is a picture of the Liver Building and the new offices have been included both as a contrast and to draw attention to the older, better known building. It might also add an emotional element as we consider whether newer buildings are as elegant or iconic as older architecture. The street lights at the bottom are included to give a sense of scale and the blank blue of the sky leaves the negative space which helps focus on the Liver Buildings pinaccle. In the photograph of the rape field the clouds add a sense of the sort of day it was and also fill the sky. A blank sky in that photograph would have made it rather boring whereas clouds in the photograph below would have distracted from the main topic.

So when you take a photograph these elements should be in your mind. However remember Edward Weston's quotation - "To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk". In other words practice until you don't need to....

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. 

Photo London exhibition - 7th - 11th October 2020

Photo London   7th - 11th October 2020 

As cultural life staggers back into some sort of normality plans for this years' Photo London continue to be laid. Taking place in the largest privately owned gardens in London (Gray's Inn Gardens off Chancery Road). 

Hopefully we will still be free to travel and mingle, albeit in a socially distanced and masked sort of way, by the time it arrives. I certainly admire their faith in taking this, the sixth, forward at such an uncertain and difficult time, but the site allows for careful control over the admission and exit of visitors as well as allowing plenty of space and thus reasonably assured safety.

Galleries and publishers from across the world will be taking part and Nikon are partnering up as sponsors. Further announcements are to be made over the summer.

More information and the ability to sign up for their newletter can be found here :-

https://photolondon.org/overview/

Minimalism

Minimalism....

...is about separating something out to increase the attention paid to it. In many cases our photographs can get swamped by too much detail or colour and the reason we originally spendt time taking it gets lost.

When we look at things as a photographer it is easy to see the object you are photographing and concentrate on that. Why else so many holiday snaps where a pole sticks out of someone's head? Because we fail to consider the object as a part of the wider scene.....and that wider scene can easily distract from our intention.

There are several ways to create a minimal effect. One is to have a strong contrast of colour as in the pink flower above against the brown and khaki of the wall and tree. The khaki of the wall on the right of the picture is known as negative space. This really means that not much is happening in it but it gives the picture scale and allows our eye to be drawn to the part we would like people to see...

One is to use colour to define the difference in a space, as in the cone which looks totally out of place against the architectural stillness of the corner of this building.

A third is to use a lack of colour to emphasis the subject.  The overhead branch below encourages us to consider the branch as pretty much the only thing in the picture, apart from the clouds. We do not need the colour to explain this to us as our brain tells us that without our thinking about it. This is often used in street photography where light fills the space we want people to look at and darkness provides a contrast of emphasis.

Minimalism has a mindfulness to it which concentrates the eye on single area or object and help us to consider that without any major distractions. It is a meditation and for some the pictures may seem frivalous or bizarre. But it has its place and I like a good minimalist photograph that makes me think.

Michael Kenna - landscape photographs

Black and White landscapes

Michael Kenna was born in the North of England in 1953.

From an Irish Catholic family with five siblings he ditched his original intention of becoming a priest and graduated as a commercial photographer from the London College of Printing in 1976. He honed his craft commercially and sold prints of Cartier-Bresson, Lartigue and Riboud through John Hillelson Agency in London. 

Moving to San Francisco because of an upsurge in photogrpahic galleries he met Ruth Bernhard who hired him as her printer. Over the next eight years he learned and practiced how to creatively manipulate and translate a negative.

Since 1986 he has mainly used a Hasselblad or Holger camera and his square format pictures are accounted for by this. Shooting in early light or at night he can make 10 hour exposures which give his pictures a unique and ethereal look.

He has shot around the world but says that his favourite country is France due to the variety of landscapes. Nonetheless he was strongly influenced by visits to the Far East and especially Japan where he describes learning how to par pictures down "like a haiku". 

He has photographs in galleries around the world and has more than twenty books in print.

You can see an interview about his work and influences here :- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z66z6u3LZBc 

This second link is to a series of "minimal photography" tips learned from Michael Kenna's work :- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuK0yrRulkU