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/ 

John Bulmer

John Bulmer - photograph by Veronika  Lavey

John Bulmer was born in 1938 and still lives in Herefordshire where his grandfather established Bulmer's Cider. He was a pioneer of colour photography in the UK and initially worked for the Daily Express but later became more associated with The Sunday Times Magazine.

Much of his early commissioned work in England covered deprived areas and his acclaimed book "The North" (Bluecoat Press 2021) contains many of his photographs from this time. Whilst much of his photogrpahy at this time focussed on provincial Britain he was also commissioned by The Sunday Times to visit Africa following Harold MacMillan's "Winds of Change" speech. Together with journalist Richard West he visited and photographed fourteen countries in two months reporting on the changing politics as colonial powers lost their grip on the continent. An entire issue of The Sunday Times Magazine was devoted to the report and his photographs. His book "Wind of Change" (Bluecoat Press 2014) recalls this and later work in countries facing challenge and change.

In the 1970's Bulmer changed course and moved into documentary and travel film making for the BBC, National Geographic Magazine and the Discovery Channel among others much of this work took him to unexplored and largely undiscovered parts of the world.

Now in his eighties he is still cataloguing his vast archives and his work has appeared in exhibitions at The Photographers Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art in New York and Bradford's National Media Museum. Recognition may have come late but if you are my age and see the photographs you will probably realise that you have known his work all along!

More here :- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bulmer

Bluecoat Press books can be viewed here :- https://bluecoatpress.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!

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/