Tag Archives: journal

The beauty of the Jurassic

07 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by in courses, Learning, Practice

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In the Photography 101 course for this weekend there were no themes, but the task was to capture some wide angle shots, what could be better than landscapes. After shooting it was suggested we create a gallery of our photos (see above). I do not usually upload my photos to WordPress, instead choosing to link to my Flickr account where I have unlimited storage, so I am not sure I will do that many galleries on my blog due to the limited storage on the free accounts.

I just love the Jurassic Coastline in Dorset and East Devon it is England’s first natural World Heritage Site. It is a unique stretch of coastline which sits amongst the ranks of the Great Barrier Reef and the Grand Canyon as one of the wonders of the natural world! The site was granted its status for its outstanding geology, which represents 185 million years of earth history in just 95 miles, covering from Exmouth in East Devon to Old Harry Rocks at Studland Bay on the Dorset coast. Over the many years that I have visited I have walked much of this coastline now though I am going to start photographing it too. Whilst visiting this time we walked from Burton Bradstock to West Bay along the beach and then back along the cliffs. Burton Bradstock acts as one of the main gateways to the Jurassic Coast and the South West Coastal Path. Hive Beach and the famous Hive Beach Cafe (if you like fish or ice-creams it is a wonderful place to have a rest), is a hugely popular family destination, made up of shingle, surrounded by spectacular sandstone cliffs. It forms part of the larger Chesil Beach; which is the largest shingle ridge in the world. Burton Cliffs offer one of the finest examples of the distinctive, alternate hard and soft layered geology of this Bridport Sands area, which make it appear to glow bright gold in the sunlight. Regular rock falls often expose some important and fascinating fossils, such as ammonites, recognised by their ribbed spiral-formed shell, my kids have found a few ammonites and sharks teeth here during our many visits, although the best ones and most well preserved can be found at Charmouth. (They just love the kids playground at West Bay after the long walk too!). There is a faultline at Hive Beach and the cliffs to the east of the fault change to the grey cliffs made up of clay and Fullers Earth. Burton Cliff though is similar to East Cliff at West Bay and the central part the Bridport Sands are topped by Inferior Oolite which is capped with a layer of Fuller’s Earth. The beach at Burton Bradstock is near the western end of the Chesil Beach and is made up of fine shingle. There has though been substantial loss of beach at Burton Cliffs as the fine shingle is moved from west to east by the long shore drift as a result of the prevailing south westerly winds and tides. Unfortunately and renewal of the beach shingle from the west is prevented by the harbour piers at West Bay, Bridport. The coastal sea level of central southern England is rising at an increased rate and in general the low water mark is moving higher inland causing beach narrowing or beach steepening. Because of this, there is no longer the large quantity of fine shingle that there used to be in front of Burton Cliff. Geologists think that over time the beach at Burton Cliff will eventually disappear and it will therefore become a rocky coast with the sea breaking onto the cliffs.

For any of you that have watched the TV show “Broadchurch” with David Tennant and Olivia Coleman, this was filmed here (I saw parts of both of these being filmed on visits to the coastline).

All of the photos above were edited in Lightroom and I then added my watermark in Photoshop CC.

The art of visualisation

07 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by in Practice

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Going down

Photography is a creative medium. One fundamental that’s not often talked about is the “Art of Visualization”… A concept that originated from one of my favourite photographers the well-known landscape photographer Ansel Adams.

Ansel Adams is well known for his use of visualisation.  He would look at a scene and then visualise  in “his minds eye” the image before making the photograph.  This process can be harder than it seems. To do do this with a scene you need to be in-tune with your inner emotions and how you feel about a scene.  Then you need to know how to manipulate your camera to show your emotional response of the scene in the image on your film or sensor.  Once that is done the next step is to bring that out in your image in post processing.

I am far from being a great photographer, I am just a hobbyist, who enjoys the art and creativity that photography allows me. I do know though that all my favourite images and the ones that get the most positive responses from others have been ones that I have visualised prior to taking and now I do try to do this with most of my shots, although some days especially when I feel I have to take a shot for my 365, I know I slack and it definitely shows!

I found this video on youtube of Ansel Adams talking briefly about the subject.

So next time your out and about with your camera, before you press the shutter, visualise the photo, you might just be surprised with the results.

5 minutes: on the PS4

05 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by in 5 Minute Project, Children, Five minute project, Five minutes in time, Practice, Projects

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As long as there are games to play it is not over. – Alex Ferguson

In control

My kids tend to be outside playing more than they are inside so I do not mind if they have the odd 30 minutes or so on computers or game consoles. My sons favourites at the moment are FIFA 15 on the PS4 (what he is playing here) or Minecraft on the iPad.

Team selection

Selecting his players, making transfers, planning his tactics, he loves managing his team just as much as playing the game itself.

Serious moments

It can be serious business waiting to see if your transfer bids have been successful!

Concentration

Then it is time to concentrate on a game, at this point I was told my time was running out, 2 minutes and counting.

In the distance

Above and beyond

Intense moments

He started to get fidgety as the game was nearing an end and seconds later after a good win for his team he jumped up and headed outside to practice his kick ups in the garden.

Photographer research: Jacques Henri Lartigue

28 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by in Learning, Photographer research

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“I take photographs with love, so I try to make them art objects. But I make them for myself first and foremost–that is important. If they are art objects at the same time, that’s fine with me.” –  – Jacques-Henri Lartigue

by Jacques Henri Lartigue

Jacques Henri Lartigue (1894 -1986) was born into a wealthy French family. He was noted for his sincere, often playful presentation of friends, family and also French society at play.

by Jacques Henri Lartigue

At the age of six, with his fathers help he began taking photos and sketching his neighbours and family in action in his diary. His father then continued to feed his passion and bought him cameras that became increasingly more and more sophisticated. This lead him to skillfully move into a period of sports photography which in turn lead to stunning images of early automobile races.

by Jacques Henri Lartigue

Although rarely seen, many of his early images were taken in stereo. He was an experimental artist and an avid painter-working with varying film sizes and development processes including some of the earliest autochromes.

His greatest achievement was his set of around 120 huge photograph albums, which compose the finest visual autobiography ever produced. While he sold a few photographs in his youth, mainly to sporting magazines such as La Vie au Grand Air, in middle age he concentrated on his painting, and it was only at the age of 29 that his early photographs were discovered by Charles Rado of Rapho Agency. Rado introduced Lartigue to John Szarkowski, the curator of the MOMA, New York, who then put on an exhibition of his work.

From this, there was a photo spread in Life magazine in 1963, which was in the issue which commemorated the death of John Kennedy, ensuring the widest possible audience for his pictures.

After this point, Lartigue was very often pursued by fashion magazines and international publications for his work, and he was commissioned in 1974 to shoot an official portrait of the newly elected president of France (May 27, 1974 – May 21, 1981), Valéry Giscard d’Estaing which later lead to his first French retrospective at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.

His influence can be seen even following his passing, in the work of American Director Wes Anderson whose film Rushmore includes shots inspired by the artist. Lartigue’s likeness was also the basis for fellow artist Lord Mandrake’s character in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

by Jacques Henri Lartigue

For me his quote about taking photos for himself resonates true as this is my sole reason for shooting, yes I have taken photos that are for sale with Getty, yes I have shot a couple of weddings and portrait sessions for friends and friends of friends, but nothing I find better and more satisfying than just shooting what I want, when I want and how I want.

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All the above images were taken from the following websites:

– At Get Photography (Accessed 23 February 2015)

– Wikipedia (Accessed 23 February 2015)

Photographer research: André Kertész

22 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by in Learning, Photographer research

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“The moment always dictates in my work…Everybody can look, but the don’t necessarily see…I see a situation and I know that it’s right.”- André Kertész

After seeing episode 1 of the documentary by the BBC called The Genius of Photography I decided to do a little more research on André Kertész as I loved the work that was mentioned in this programme.

by Andre Kertesz

André Kertész (1894–1985), born Kertész Andor, he was a Hungarian-born photographer known for his groundbreaking contributions to photographic composition and photo journalism. In the early years of his career, his then-unorthodox camera angles and style stopped his work from gaining wide recognition. He though is hailed as one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century. Working intuitively, he captured the poetry of modern urban life with its quiet, often overlooked incidents and odd, occasionally comic, or even bizarre juxtapositions. Neither a surrealist, nor a strict photojournalist, he nevertheless infused his best images with strong tenets of both. “You don’t see” the things you photograph, he explained, “you feel them.”

by Andre Kertesz

He earned his Bachelor’s Degree from the Hungarian Academy of Commerce in 1912 and soon found a job working as a clerk at the Budapest Stock Exchange. He did not enjoy his work and just saw it as being a means to an end. It allowed him to buy his first camera at the age of 18 and immediately began to make intimate portraits of his family and friends, studies of the Hungarian countryside, and he brought it with him when he was drafted into the army two years later. After his military service, photography was not paying well enough to make a leaving, so he returned to the stock exchange and remained there for the next seven years. In 1925, he immigrated to France to live the life of a bohemian artist.

by Andre Kertesz

All of his family was left behind, including his fiancé Elizabeth. As with many others at the time, Paris was an inspiration for Kertész. For the next decade he photographed the streets of the French metropolis and finally marry his fiancé.

by Andre Kertesz

In 1936, the Keyston Agency in New York City lead him to cross the Atlantic. This though proved to be a mistake for his career. A year after joining the Keyston Agency, he cancelled the contract but was left with few options of what to do next. World War II was developing and made a return to Paris at that time impossible. At the same time, the US government treated him like an enemy of the state and prevented him from publishing for many years. Once the war was over, all of Kertész’s momentum was gone. It wasn’t until 1964, when Museum of Modern Art curator John Sarkowski organised a show for André, that his career finally took off again and the art world began to appreciate his work, this continued throughout the 70s and 80s and he was exhibited across the world. Towards end of his life, he would be one of the first to experiment with Polaroid’s SX-70 cameras. In 1983, the French government awarded him the Legion of Honor, he also received numerous honorary doctorates, lifetime achievement awards, a Guggenheim fellowship and the Mayor’s Award of Honor for Arts and Culture in New York.. He died at the age of 91 in New York.

by Andre Kertesz

While searching the internet for information I stumbled across this blog which is really worth a read, in this article he discusses 10 lessons that can be learnt from studying André Kertész:

  • Always have a camera with you
  • Follow your dreams
  • Take a higher perspective
  • Focus on geometry and form
  • Experiment with different equipment
  • Feel what you photograph
  • Be patient for the right moment
  • Stay an amateur
  • Be satisfied
  • Stay hungry

by Andre Kertesz

I know I will take away quite a lot from looking at Andre Kertesz’s work and also the articles I have read about him although I personally do not like his more surreal work I do find that like with Trent Parke I could look at his street work for hours dissecting the photographs to see why they work so well and hopefully become better at seeing situations because of it, I guess only time will tell!

By Andre-Kertesz

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All the above images were taken from the following websites:

– Wikipedia (Accessed 21 February 2015)

–Erik Kim Street Photography Blog (Accessed 21 February 2015)

– At Get Photography (Accessed 22 February 2015)

– Photographers Gallery (Accessed 22 February 2015)

The Genius of Photography

21 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by in Learning, Video Research

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Image by Andre Kertesz

I decided to Google for some photography-related podcasts and Youtube videos to listen to in the car and to watch at home.  I was most interested in podcasts about photographers – so I could look for inspiration and expand my horizons in terms of understanding what I like, why and what I don’t like. I now have quite a few to listen to and will post about them with my views as I watch or listen to them.

I started by watching a BBC series that first viewed in 2007. I cannot remember seeing it the first time round, but thought it sounded like an interesting one to watch. I found a link to it here. I do not tend to look on Youtube and other video sites so was amazed at the wealth of videos that are available especially on Youtube (boy am I behind the times!).

The first episode was entitled “Fixing the Shadows” and covered the history of photography from Ancient Rome to The Great War (1914), although I thoroughly enjoyed this episode, I did find it skipped backwards and forwards a little. It highlighted that often the challenge facing the photography pioneers, was not in fact how to capture an image, but how to stop it from over-developing, or to “fix the shadows”. I found the types of photos very interesting, I had come across the term daguerreotype processing previously as another of my hobbies is family history and when searching for photographs of relatives from that period of time this came up. It was nice though to learn more about it 🙂

I now have a couple of photographers that I really like their style of work that was shown in the programme and want to look into them a bit more, namely André Kertész and Jacques Henri Lartigue, once I have finished watching this series that is!

Image by Andre Kertesz

Image by Jacques-Henri Lartigue

Image by Jacques-Henri Lartigue

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All the above images were taken from the following websites:

A Get Photography (Accessed 21 February 2015)

Jackson Fine Art (Accessed 21 February 2015)

In pursuit of a style………………………….

21 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Reflections

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Photography for me is a passion.

My name is Karen and am based in Surrey in England and I just LOVE to take pictures, capturing my family to document our lives together has been a passion of mine since my two children were born. Up until 2009 I tended to just snap shots, now I feel I am a photographer and enjoy the art of creating a photo. I love to look back and use my photography and digital scrapbooking as memories.

A camera comes around with me everywhere, if it is not my Canon 6D or 7D, it is my Canon 400D, a little Canon Ixus or my trusty iphone! I do not want to miss any of my families special moments.I love capturing them going about their normal lives, exploring, reading, playing, cooking, eating……….I think you get the idea, you name it I shoot it.

My main occupation is that of a Financial Director, but would LOVE to do more with my photography one day (probably when I retire!). At the moment I have a few stock photos available for sale through Getty and I do a few “natural light” shoots for family and close friends (basically anyone I know who asks).

I am predominantly self taught, but in 2009 I took the Open University Course T189, which luckily I passed with a very high mark. Since then I have undertaken a few courses with Kim Klassen (Photoshop & Lightroom) and a couple of Clickinmom courses. Lately though I feel that I am stuck in a rut photography wise and feel that I need to go back to basics as they say and find my way back! I have looked at undertaking a degree in photography, but as I already have a degree and a professional qualification feel that this would be a waste, especially as I never plan to pursue a career in photography.

For this blog I plan to:

1. Go back to the basics and document my progress and findings.

2.  Read a lot of photography books, go through any exercises they provide and review them, starting with the ones I already have.

3. Re visit some of the courses I have undertaken

4. Study some of the famous photographers and painters and analyse what I like about their work.

5.  Attend any photographic exhibitions that I can and review them.

I am doing all of this in the hope that this will consolidate my understanding and make my photography better and somewhere along the line it will enable me to FIND MY STYLE. This blog I have set up as my learning log to document my journey and findings. I hope that without the pressure of deadlines as on a standard course as well as being less structured or time constrained I will reach my goal no matter how long it takes, after all this is something just for me.

I recently saw this short video by the photographer David DuChemin, such inspiring words which really resonated with how I feel about photography.

I would really like some feedback, so please feel free to comment whether good or bad, as long as it is constructive that is…after all it’s the only way to get better.

Until next time…………………………………………………………