Posts that are concerned with photography.
I have almost stopped using any on camera effects but I do occasionally take images with the Low Key selected.
Here are a few examples.
It feels a bit like cheating – but it saves some fiddling about and sometimes the images are surprising and atmospheric.
I spent a couple of hours walking in the Sussex landscape today -with the hope that it would clear my confused mind.
It was a cold afternoon – especially just after arriving from Seville – just the kind of weather where it is so tempting not to go anywhere, instead to sit at home and plan moving to somewhere with a decent climate.
But landscape is so healing. After an hour and a half of stupid thoughts and frustrations I just stopped, and carefully watched what was in front of me. I took this image, the only photo I took in the whole day.
There’s nothing special about the image, it just reminds me of how calm I felt. It was starting to sleet, I was totally alone but for the first time my mind just stilled.
It’s an amazing process. I took all of my emotional baggage into the Sussex hills and walked – I didn’t fight my mind, I just walked – and eventually something within me responded to the beauty and presence of everything around me.
So healing. I should do it more often.
Visiting Seville for the Easter Week ( Semana Santa ) is going to force anyone to confront their impressions of the power of the church here, and their influence on ordinary lives.
I worry at seeing masked children being led to the parades by devout looking parents. What kind of impact does all this have on such impressionable minds?
How wonderful to see that when the mask slips, children are still children.
I think it is always difficult to be fair and balanced as an outsider – we just have our fleeting impressions. But I can’t help feeling saddened by these dark churches sheltering anonymous, guilt-ridden people, particularly when they make signs of the cross to wax figures draped in gold..
Spent some more time in the twisting and turning streets of Seville.
I am going to post separately on the Semana Santa parades, and the general mixed up emotions the religious side of Seville causes me, so here are just a few images on reflections, thoughts, humour and music to keep things light.
After my first 24 hours here this is one of the best places I have found in which to get enjoyably lost!
The place is a maze of alleys and sights – images are everywhere. With Semana Santa starting on Sunday – street parades every day for next week – it should be a great chance to get some fascinating shots.
I will also try to get some images from my efforts to continue my beginners Tango lessons – it was great to drop in on an advanced class last night just to say hello and meet the teacher. It’s in a great urban space – I added one image to the set above – which somehow really suits the kind of Tango I would so love to dance one day – but for now it’s all about trying to find a way to learn fast enough, so I can stop laughing at myself every minute ..
I spent Saturday morning in a rainy Brighton on a street photography workshop with Natasha Lythgoe
The workshop was fun and informative – some interesting exercises were
These are some of the shots I took – despite the rain Brighton is always a source of great ideas.
Thanks very mush to Natasha for the course – I certainly plan to attend more of her workshops if I can.
Keen to practice my skills from my Lightroom course yesterday I will be posting some processing results for comment. Just simple before and after pairs.
The processing for this post is a simple 3 step sequence of white balance + pushing up the whites + sonic screwdriver – all applied to this long distance snow scene up in the Ashdown Forest during the snows of January.
Before :
After :
Much improved I think!
Spent a great couple of hours today looking to get some street shots in London.
I am quite pleased with the result, but have so much to learn. I think my biggest takeaway from today was just not to trust the small screen preview. Although on my Nikon D5100 it’s an excellent screen, you still can’t see enough details like the focusing and several times I thought I had captured exactly the image I wanted, only to be disappointed when reviewing them later in Lightroom.
I look forward to the next visit.
Some other shots from today –
More resolution options available on my Flickr.
I also learned that in winter standing around for ages on the streets is a mind numbingly cold experience, especially by the river!
Great fun!
My monthly creativity review for December 2012.
This was a great month as by the end I did get past first base with my new Nikon D5100 – just learning how I want to shoot in terms of settings. Real basics – but I am a newbie and it did take me a while to get there – largely because I decided to just go out and shoot before studying too much. So my current thoughts are that I will always set ISO myself, shoot on aperture priority as a default, set my own white balance and in general start most session on point focus. I really spent a long time fighting the camera in various auto settings – really informative but as it turns out not for me.
The only canned settings I am interested in at the moment is low key – I think this is well worth experimenting with. I would like to do a series based on this mode and have this planned for January.
I spent time in Greece – visiting Thessaloniki – this was my first trip with my camera and the start of many ideas to explore the world and my own thoughts about life.
On the writing side I completed my first creative writing course, a 10 week course with Gary Mapsted in the Evolution center Brighton. What an enjoyable time – I have already signed up for the next one. This site is now well under way and I am concentrating my writing on regular posts here on a variety of subjects. These have been a combination of factual posts on places I have visited and creative writing based on selected images I have taken.
So in general a start has been made and I look forward to a new year in so many ways!
So here are my favourite images from this month :
Higher resolution access on Flickr is here.
They are selected just based on a quick informal scan of the month. So much to learn!!
We run the streets
Darkness. A physical silence. The noise of them had passed, the sudden throbbing and pulsating pain of it – all gone. A slow drip from a broken pipe. Dark puddles on the concrete floor. Broken glass everywhere. I lay still where I had fallen then slowly turned my head. Night reflections of the city. Yellow and orange, inky black.
I close my eyes, trying to feel my body. I can taste the blood in my mouth. I see one of them again, dark shadows, fist raised.
It wasn’t personal, it wasn’t me. I just happened to be there. I raised myself up, looking around. I knew they had gone. Swept on by each other, feeling the rush, railing against the world. But I looked anyway. Pale smoke in the dark distance, there was a faint smell of petrol.
I remember parking, going to the store, picking up groceries. I had talked with him, I always do. We have talked most nights for years, I still don’t know his name. I had often though of asking, but it never seemed right.
Did I sense anything? Like those machines that pick up changes in the atmosphere, tornado warnings?
There was the usual tensions, the constant backdrop of bad news. Bad TV – riot pictures. Bad radio – interviews with nervous politicians. Nothing special.
He had seemed uneasy, fidgety. Maybe he felt something.
“You OK?”
“Tired that’s all. Just tired of it all. No energy. No business. No point.”
He looked around, scanning the street.
So did I.
Nothing.
“It’s late – you shutting shop?”
“Yes – you’re the last for today.”
“Well, good luck.”
I had paid and crossed the dark and empty road. Behind me I could hear him pull down the heavy metal shutters. The rattle of the chains. I didn’t look back.
I remembered reaching the car, putting my bag down, looking for the key. Hearing them in the distance, my heart jumping. A car alarm. Glass breaking. Seeing them running the street, yelling. Sweeping towards me, like flood waters channeled by the road. Dark clothes, so fast. Swarming. Moulded into a single presence, mindless, uncontrollable, powerful and full of malice. No chance of appeal. There had been nothing, then in a blur they were on me, brutal shocks, blackness and it was over.
Now it feels so calm. The storm has spent itself. No tension.
I stood up, slowly, wiping blood off my hand. Just scratches from the broken glass. Twisted wrist from the fall. Nothing broken. Maybe a tooth. Groceries strewn all over the place. Mindlessly I started to pick them up, put them back in the bags. I felt cold, alone. Helpless. I started to shake.
Notes from the Word Hoard
The way the exercise works is explained here.
Phrases
protest or just run
broken glass everywhere
caught up in everything
holding up the law
break in your hands
in the noise and darkness
swarming down the roads
writing on the walls
and everything breaking
to want just you
Broken glass everywhere * Selected
Thoughts
I chose ‘Broken glass everywhere’ and the short story turned out to be very close to the image. I first thought of running in the physical sense, and then in terms of ownership.
