The Genius of Photography – Episode 4

Tags

art, artist, daily, Photography, street photography

copyrighted by the estate of Garry Winogrand

This episode was entitled “Paper Movies”. The American photographer Garry Winogrand said that he took photographs to “see what the world looked like photographed”.

Photographers have always had this as their mission statement, but the three decades from the late 1950’s onwards was the real golden age of the photographic journey. The Genius of Photography – Paper Movies relives the journeys that produced some of the most acclaimed paper movies. The programme looked at the golden age of street photography from the 1950s and beyond, the age of the photographic roadtrip.

Summer, The Lower East Side, 1937 by Weegee

In this episode it shows the seminal work of Robert Frank in The Americans, William Klein’s one-man assault on the sidewalks of New York, the unblinking reportage of Weegee (Arthur Fellig) the Famous, Joel Meyerowitz stalking Fifth Avenue with his Leica, the enduring wit of Garry Winogrands’ charting of the human comedy in Central Park Zoo , British photographer Tony Ray Jones’ everyday people on the beach in which he dissects the eccentricity at the English seaside. Edward Ruscha’s gas stations and finally, William Eggleston’s guide to Memphis and the American South.

Only in England: Photograph by Tony Ray-Jones

by Edward Ruscha

William Eggleston in Memphis.

It also examines the arrival of colour as a credible medium for serious photographers, as controversial at the time as Bob Dylan going electric.

This is on genre of photography that I would love to look at further as I love the candid shots I see on social networking photo sites such a Flickr, I just do not ‘yet’ have the confidence to take that many shots. I think this is one genre I need to persevere with and get the confidence to try again

The Genius of Photography – Episode 3

Tags

artist, Henri Cartier Bresson, Photography, Postaday, Robert Capa

FRANCE. Paris. Place de l’Europe. Gare Saint Lazare. 1932. – Henri Cartier-Bresson

Another good episode in my opinion, the episode was entitled “Right time, Right place”. The episode begins with delightful footage of Henri Cartier-Bresson “pouncing” at the streets of Paris in the 1940s. It was all about being in the right place at the right time, the decisive moment, getting in close — in the popular imagination this is photography at its best, a medium that makes us eyewitnesses to the moments when history is made. But just how good is photography at making sense of what it records? Is getting in close always better than standing back, and just how decisive are the moments that photographers risk their necks to capture? Set against the backdrop of the Second World War and its aftermath, The Genius of Photography – Right Place, Right Time examines how photographers dealt with dramatic and tragic events like D-Day, the Holocaust and Hiroshima, and the questions their often extraordinary pictures raise about history as seen through the viewfinder. It discussed the fact that although there were many photos of the atrocities in Europe, but where there was total devastation in Hiroshima far less were taken.

FRANCE. Normandy. June 6th, 1944. US troops assault Omaha Beach during the D-Day landings. – Robert Capa

I found this episode very moving, mainly because of the fabulous images showing the scenes from this time. Although I have seen many photos, it seems to hit me every time, such haunting images, raw with emotion.

FRANCE. Normandy. June 6th, 1944. US troops assault Omaha Beach during the D-Day landings. by Robert Capa

Texture Tuesday – the quote eDition

Tags

art, fine art, photoaday, Photography

Well what I did was as follows:

1. Transfered to Photoshop cc (I load all my photos originally into Lightroom).
2. I cloned out the flower at the bottom left and the petals at the bottom right.
3. kk_plastersquared, multiply @ 100% opacity
4. Created a layer mask to the texture and using a soft brush took the texture off the flower in focus with a brush at 50% opacity.
5. kk_enlightened, softlight @30% opacity.
6. Created a layer mask to the texture and using a soft brush took the texture off the flower in focus with a brush at 50% opacity.
7. Duplicated the background layer and run the high pass filter, hard light @ 20% opacity.
8. Flattened the image.
9. Added a hue & saturation adjustment layer and increased the saturation very slightly.
10. Text layer and watermark added.

The pre straight out of camera shot is here below

Macro Monday: Upside down

Tags

art, fine art, macro, photoaday, Photography

Spring has sprung

Tags

art, blossom, fine art, flowers, garden, photoaday, Photography

I love the delicate colours of spring, it is so nice seeing all the flowers starting to bloom, the weather generally getting a little warmer and the evenings not as dark. Now the clocks have gone forward for us in the UK we have lighter evenings again which is fantastic for getting out after work.

and you have to love the light shining on freshly rained on bulbs, it just makes the raindrops glisten……..happy days 🙂

Sorry I have not been around as much over the last week; we have school holidays at the moment, which means I am more hectic than usual. We are also having a new kitchen and bathroom  being installed, so have a lot of organising to do (on top of my normal work and daytime routines – we do not do anything by half!). I should hopefully be back to normal in a week or so.

WOW the fantastically nutritious Rainbow fruit!!!!

Tags

April fool, art, fine art, food, fruit, photoaday, Photography

I never thought I would ever taste a fruit with such deliciously refreshing, zesty as well as extremely complex flavours. The juice of this fruit is just so unique, it bursts with flavours as you bite into it, a real flavour sensation for your palate . I am sure you have had a fruit salad before, but how about the flavours of the whole salad which are now for the first time available in one fruit, well that is what this rainbow fruit is like. I cannot believe how nutritious it is, if you eat the whole fruit you are consuming all five of your five a day!!!

You just have to check out more about it HERE

Texture Tuesday: Schools out edition

Tags

art, childhood, photoaday, Photography, Project Life

“If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.” – Tom Stoppard

Well what I did was as follows:

1. Sharpened in Lightroom 5 slightly.

2. Transfered to Photoshop cc

3. KKbrush used colour burn @ 85% opacity.

4. Duplicated the background layer, screen @ 20% opacity

5. Duplicated the background layer, soft light @ 30% opacity

6. kk_OhMy, multiply @ 25%

7. kk_LittleThings, multiply @35% opacity.

8. kk_LittleThings, Darken @ 35% opacity.

The pre shot is here , as you can probably tell I have just brightened it slightly and added the text, I quite liked the golden tones of the straight out of camera shot and just wanted to enhance it slightly.

Macro Monday: Pencils

Tags

art, colour, fine art, photoaday, Photography

The tip of creativity

I love pencils, so many uses; my daughter uses them to create fantastic drawings, me I prefer to photograph them. Dreary weather means I turn to my indoor studio and my macro lens, happy days 🙂

Love of colour

Odd one out

Those fleeting moments when………….

Tags

art, daily, fine art, photoaday, Photography

“Substance is enduring, form is ephemeral.”- Dee Hock

Sunshine on a spring evening

The daily post theme for this week is “ephemeral” we are asked to show our interpretation.

I decided to go with the short lived definition of ephemeral, that fleeting moment when the sun hits the blossom, that moment when the sun is setting and you get that golden glow that warms everything.

That golden moment

and finally that moment before the bubble goes “pop”!

A reflection of home

Dreaming

Tags

art, backlighting, blogging101, Light, Photography, portraits

“We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won’t do harm – yes, choose a place where you won’t do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.”
― E.M. Forster, A Room with a View

Well I am already on week 6 of my Light project and in this my second week of backlighting I have decided to look at portraits. One thing you must be careful of in general is lens flare. When you are shooting into the light, as you do with backlighting, you may get flare. This occurs when strong light rays go directly into your lens, hit the front element, scatter inside it and cause excessive lens refraction. The quality of the glass and the lens width contribute to the degree of flare. You can use your lens hood to help prevent such flare. Sometimes though flare can be a great advantage. It can dress up a photo, like the one above, which adds warmth and atmosphere.

Todays task for Blogging 101 is “develop a regular feature for your blog.” Which is quite apt considering Friday is the day I have been posting my year long project posts on “light sources”. It mentions creating a menu item or widget to highlight it, well I had this in hand already, so will be making this page live too now.

Until next week……….