Back from Borneo

It is good to be back writing my blog.

May was only the second month since September 2009 that I did not post an update to one of my OCA blogs.  2 weeks traveling and then a couple of weeks extra time away from the OCA have recharged my batteries and renewed enthusiasm that was beginning to flag.  The OCA has transformed my life, providing an all consuming hobby and a sense of purpose outside of my career.  However, it is hard work, I have to keep reminding myself that I am studying for a degree not a simple correspondence course in Photographic technique.  I am doing as much or sometimes more work each week than I did when studying for my first degree in Mathematical Physics, granted I was a lazy git back then.  The big difference was that I had a 3 month break each year when in full time study, a luxury I no longer enjoy.  I have contemplated taking a break from the course for June-September, but the truth is I wouldn't know what to do with myself.  In the end a 1 month break was just the ticket and something I need to do once a year around my vacation.

Back to that vacation, how did it go and what did I achieve.  When I set out this year I was very conscious of wanting to apply artistic thought to my underwater photography, but at the same time try and kick back a little and enjoy the holiday.  In previous years I would spend 8 hours a day preparing for and completing 4 dives, then spend at least 2 hours downloading 300-400 frames to evaluate and edit.   This year I abandoned my laptop and took instead an image tank that connected to my iPad.  Instead of 4 dives we did 3 and typically shot 50 frames versus 100 per dive.  Downloading and a brief look took place in the bar over a chilled beer.  MUCH BETTER!

Another reason for taking fewer shots was that I spent far more time underwater thinking about what I wanted to shoot and how I was going to shoot it.  I went from being reactive to proactive.  This is nature photography, so chance played a large part, however, I still could predict from the dive site what I would encounter and prepare accordingly.  I had two overriding objectives, the first to portray the underwater environment as I see it and to place the animals I found in their environment.  Much underwater photography is highly stylistic and formulaic, photographers have adopted a small number of popular shot styles and then done them to death.  It is a little like an underwater camera club session, cliches abound. There are two current trends:

1. Use of a fisheye for wide angle, distorting reality, but allowing very close up shooting
2. Extreme macro, producing ever more detailed images of the strange animals that inhabit the reef.

Both have their place, but are being done to death.  I consciously tried to step away from this and do my own thing, not always successfully, but on the whole I am pretty happy with what I achieved.

My first goal was to capture the reef and the incredible beauty of Sipadan.  This is very much harder than it looks as the dynamic range of the scenes can be immense especially when the surface is present.  I balance this by using flash guns to provide some fill light, however, it is very easy to blow out the highlights.  The challenge is a maximum sync speed on the flash of 1/250s.  Typically I shoot in Aperture priority, however, when including the surface I had to move to Shutter Speed priority which risked a very small aperture and then losing the flash - I could go on, it is hard to do, but when it works...

Another priority this time was to portray the act of diving

Turning to the animals I encountered, their environment was key, I wanted the viewer to have a sense of where they lived and the threat they faced.  This is not always so easy, most of the following shots use a 60mm macro lens, which does not have a terribly large field of view when shooting at 50cm from the subject (pretty much the maximum effective working distance for the strobes in water).  A further challenge is that I wanted the world to look real, which meant blue backgrounds, i.e. what you expect to see underwater.  This means a wide aperture, much beyond f/8 and the background would render nearly black, precisely the type of stylized imagery I wanted to avoid.  Again keeping the shutter speed below 1/250s became a challenge, but with a macro lens a much more workable one.  Low apertures bring other problems such as making focus far more critical and also the flashes illuminate more of the water and also the crap that is in the water. Thank goodness for the spot removal tool, tedious but essential.

Having said that close up was not my thing, I could not resist a few goes at portrait shots:

On the whole I feel I met my brief and have around 150 good images that now need to slim down to around 100 shots that will become part of the book of the trip.  One reason all of the aspect ratios are the same in this post is that I plan a very strict format for the book retaining a horizontal 3:2 aspect ratio for the included photographs...

Art and Photography

Yesterday I took a positive step to further my understanding of the art world, I bought an annual pass to the 5 major Munich art museums.  This was not overly expensive, I'll need to visit about 10 times to get value from the investment.  What it does is give me freedom to visit whenever and as often as I wish.  Munich has some of the great art collections in Europe, the 5 museums covering art from the 15th century onward, with traditional and avant garde well represented. Clearly there is a bias towards German artists, but the scope is pretty global.

http://www.pinakothek.de/en/pinakothek-der-moderne

My rationale for this is to deepen my understanding and exposure to non-photographic work with a view to letting this slowly seep into my own photographic practice.  My recent study of Andreas Gursky deepened a suspicion that much modern Art photography is influenced by all of the other visual arts.  To someone better educated in photographic art this is probably not rocket science, but for me it is pretty new ground.  To date almost all of my historical reference has been to photographers, however, it is noticeable that many of the greats of photography either worked alongside other artists or were themselves notable artists.  Man Ray was well know as a painter and Alfred Stieglitz spent the better part of his life in the company of one of America's greatest artists.

I have to admit that I am not at sure where this will take me or indeed how much value I will get out of the endeavor, but at the very least I will be able to spend many an afternoon enjoying the study of real works of art versus material in books.  I have a further motivation, photography is permitted in all of Munich's museums, making for good opportunities to study peoples interactions with art and one another - I plan to use this as a source for material in the upcoming Social Documentary course.

Yesterday I visited parts of the modern art exhibit at the Pinakothek der Moderne and the studied some late 19th century work at the Neue Pinakothek.  My interest was in the degree of realism within modern art work and in particular the use of colour.  More and more I see discussion about sharpness, colour accuracy, detail, being applied to cameras and photographs, the sense being that the technology will somehow make the photograph and that we must strive for 100% accuracy in our rendition of the world.  This applies very strongly to landscape or at least representations of the environment we live in, and yet it is all ultimately very subjective.  The correct colour is a matter of taste and even if there was an absolute standard, the prerogative of art is to interpret the world and present it shaped by the mind of the artist.  Simply reproducing a world is an act of recording not art.

From recent reading it is clear that around 100-150 years ago the art world experienced a significant change in direction and motivation.  For 100's of years painters had been seeking to reproduce the world they saw as accurately as possible, the discovery of perspective being a major step.  However, suddenly rather than becoming more detailed and more representative art became "fuzzy", artists were changing from painting what they saw to painting what they felt.  Van Gogh is possibly the best example of this, his paintings are emotional responses to the landscape, we can see what he is painting, but it is far from a literal description.  I believe that photography was a major influence in this process, perhaps an enabler of the new art.  With a photograph able to "accurately" describe a scene, what more was a painter to do to better this.  The response was a deeper study of colour and again the emotional impact of the scene.  As photographers we obsess with accuracy, perhaps we took over this mantle from the painters and struggle to let it go.

Anyway, enough of the theoretical ramblings, while walking around the galleries I used my camera to record some paintings that illustrate my feelings about this transition.

This painting from 1860 by Johann Wilhelm Schirmer is typical of art just before this transition:

When I saw this I immediately thought about landscape photography, this painting is an accurate view of stormy skies on a sunlit landscape, the kind of scene that would have us reaching for our grad filters.  It is moody, full of depth and the colour rendition is fine, he clearly got his White Balance right.  However, within 40 years all changed, the Impressionists threw away the rule book, then the neo-impressionists started to play with perception of colour through pointillism, the work of Paul Signac below showing how colour impression can be built from combinations of colour.  The scene is still recognizable, but the treatment is radically different

Another few years and the colours ramp up, the experiments of the impressionists in accurately representing colour are dropped and an expression of colour is delivered.

I included the first of these, partly because it is an example of an artist painting what he experiences, but also as it is one of the few cheerful paintings I have seen by Edvard Munch (not that I have seen very many).  The second by August Macke takes the colours much further, however, representation is still there.  This is a personal favorite, I love the interplay of colour and form in this painting.  One of Macke's contemporaries in the Blaue Reiter group (very active in Munich) was Franz Marc.

In this painting by Marc, realism is gone, expressionism is what it is all about, the colours are magnificent.  However with Marc I can still make out what is there, the following by Willem de Koonig has passed into pure abstraction, but still a very beautiful sensuous painting.

The last work that caught my attention also escaped my memory of the artist, however, here almost all form has been lost, this is an exploration of colour.

What I have tried to show here through my experience of art yesterday is the progressive movement of painted work away from a literal representation of the world into pure abstract expressionism, a movement that paralleled the increasing sophistication of photography.  As a photography student I am encouraged to search for accurate rendition of what I see, as a painting student I would expect a very different motivation.  Should photographers care about accuracy and sharpness or should we also be looking for an expression of our inner feelings and understanding of the contemporary world.  And if we did, how would that express as a photograph?  Once more food for thought.  This has been something of a brain dump of recent thoughts, I hope it made sense.

Next Steps

I find myself rapidly approaching the end of Landscape, a year has nearly passed and it now seems a long time ago, in June last year, that I first starting typing into this blog. The last weekend has been a time of trying a few new things, looking at some great art and thinking about the next steps in my path towards a degree.

In May we head off on vacation, another 2 weeks in Borneo, taking underwater photographs on some of the greatest dive sites in the world. This is as much a phototography trip as anything else, but this year will not be tied into my course work. But, it still needs much preparation and the publication of a book chronicling the trip will take up much time on returning to Germany.

Taking this all in, I realized now was a time for a little introspection and planning. I am not going to get my 5th assignment done before the end of April, so am going to push it out into June/July, when I am back. Between now and the end of April will be a good time to finalize my portfolio. I still have Spring photos to take. Currently the weather is fine, but the trees have yet to leaf, leading to a landscape that still gives the impression of winter, albeit a bright warm sunny winter. Easter weekend is 10 days away, those 4 days should be enough to finalize my portfolio, good weather will be nice, otherwise, it'll be April showers. Then editing and selection of the final 12+4 images and off to my tutor for comment.

In the mean time I also plan to complete the remaining projects, those in chapter 5 look interesting and quite challenging, will be a welcome change from grad and polar filters - quick aside, but what are these doing in a Level 2 course. By this stage you either use them or have rejected them, I love this course, but I do wonder on occasion. Hopefully on return from vacation all that will need to be done will be to shoot assignment 5. Although, when I say "all" this is a big all, I suspect that this will need several weeks of planning, shooting and image preparation. I already have in mind that each image will be an individual created work of art, not simply a photograph. My theme is plain, the chaos of urban life, however, getting there in a way that works for me and channels Gursky will be a great challenge.

So, that will be the end of Landscape, another 2-3 months work and it should be in the bag. What next? This more than anything else has been preying on my mind. It always does as I near the end of a course, decisions made now affect a whole year of my life. All I seem to do these days is work for my company and then work again on my courses. When I embarked on Landscape it was with Social Documentary in mind as a 2nd course, ind fact SocDoc was the firm choice, I only elected for Landscape becuase the PWDP course looked so dire. The update to PWDP has caught me in a quandry. This is now the course I would have done rather than Landscape, it addresses many topics that I am fascinated by, type setting, book making, writing about photography. However, as my tutor suggests SocDoc would be a better development pathway right now. It also offers me the chance to continue my study of Munich and it's inhabitants. Although, so would the new PWDP, as I can pretty much choose what to shoot during that course.

No decision yet, but I feel my head and my heart are now firmly towards SocDoc, pity about PWDP. Maybe I should do both, after all there is nothing to say you cannot do 3 courses rather than 2. I enjoy the work and it would provide a better foundation for my final year studies. Question, questions. In any case I plan to enroll when I return from Borneo, I will have plenty of time to think and should be much clearer by then.

Now where is that damn Polar filter...

Looking at Photographs

As I progress through the courses one aspect of visual education that has eluded me is exposure to the everyday deliver of a newspaper. When I lived in England I was a regular subscriber to the Independent, looking forward each day to the thunk of the paper as it arrived through the letter box. Living in Germany the earliest I can get a copy of an English paper is late afternoon and that involves a trek to the main railway station. It is Sunday when this loss really hits home. My ritual was to put on a pot of coffee, walk to the newsagent for a Sunday broadsheet and arrive home to the smell of fresh coffee to spend a blissful hour or two quietly reading the paper.

The Internet has provided access to the news at least, I am able to keep myself informed about the daily happenings of my home country. But somehow this is a soulless experience too like what I do all week long, staring at a computer screen, scrolling with a mouse, and not sitting in a nice comfy chair.

So why the comment about photography? Internet websites do illustrate their news columns with photographs, but they are small and seem to lack visual impact. The result is that I rarely see photographs other than in photographic books, often away from their original context and also in a place I really have to actively go and look at. So photographs I see generally fall into four groups, art, my own work, the work of fellow students, and social images posted by friends/colleagues on networking sites. I have very limited exposure to photojournalism, social documentary, or illustrative work.

I think a result of this is that my work becomes increasingly impersonal, lacking in movement and meanings I build context through addition of a narrative, but I think struggle to impart it in a single photograph.

Recently, however, perhaps I have found a solution to these two problems in the form of an iPad based newspaper subscription. I recently bit the bullet and bought a new iPad 2, primarily to gain access to the media this device can deliver. I resisted, I nobly bought HP's doomed TouchPad, soldiered on with it for a while. It did a fine job of delivering mobile Internet and email, but the total absence of a content delivery platform such as iTunes or the new magazine subscription service on the iPad meant this was an exercise in futility.

As I write this, on my shiny new device, I am sitting on CO107 about two and a half hours out of New York. I subscribed to The Guardian iPad version to help pass the time on the flight, not expecting too much, but found that I was reading something as close to a "Paper" as I have yet experienced, without the real thing. The big surprise was the quality of presentation of the photographs, colourful, contrasts, bold, the pictures had a presence that drew me into the image in a way that no PC based web site could achieve. I also found myself looking at them as a photographer, thinking how would I do that, what could be improved, or most importantly what did that mean and could I achieve the same.

A particular photograph caught my attention because it worked in two very distinct ways. An old bent woman in black walks past an imposing yet unidentifiable building, her hand outstretched. In the foreground a blurred woman walks quickly past. At first I interpreted this as a commentary on age and youth, however, reading the caption my understanding changed. The older woman was begging, the building was a bank, and the photo was taken in Greece. A piece of street photography capturing a metaphor for a world crumbling. Looking further I then became rather fussy, the photo was clearly taken with a wide angle lens, barrel distortion was taking away the geometric cleanliness of the lines in the image. I would have corrected this. It would not change the message, however, and probably indicates my priorities still rest with the art versus the context. Perhaps it is also unethical to make such corrections to journalistic photos. I don't know.

Many other photographs caught my attention and gave rise to similar analysis. I think I have found a solution to my two problems, maybe not as I would wish, a weighty English paper dropping on my mat at 7 in the morning, but at least Ian form that is comfortable to read portable and with the ability to display beautiful photographs in manner that enables me to think about them and consider their impact on my own photographic practice.

Doldrums

This weekend passed by without any progress or sense of achievement, leaving me feeling a little down and dispirited.  This course is therapy, providing me with a sense of purpose and when I achieve something I am pleased with leaves me feeling as if I am progressing.  Whether this is real or not makes no difference, it lifts my spirits and leaves me with a good sense of well being.

The downside of this therapy program is that when things don't work or I get distracted from my studies I get very low.  This is one of those times.  I am reading a very good book right now comprising interviews with practicing photographers and am augmenting my kit with a few new toys, a Samsung NX200 mirrorless camera added into my portable outfit.  I should be feeling good, ho hum!  I think the problem is that I am in a creative gap, not working on any assignment photographs and not yet getting my teeth into Andreas Gursky.  Coupled with bad weather and the tailing off of some private projects I am not sure where to go right now.  Maybe the thought of writing an essay, attractive though it seems in theory has stopped my progress and is forming a mental block.

So to look to the bright side.  First the weather is finally picking up and I might be able to start some spring imagery and do some work in the inner city with my tilt-shift lenses (they do not like the wet).  Secondly I was passing the Haus der Kunst on Saturday and saw this:

A Thomas Ruff exhibit just opened the day before and will run for a few months.  Great, Thomas Ruff is another member of the Duesseldorf School of photographers and as I write my essay it will be important to add the context of other graduates of this influential school.  So far I have seen work by Thomas Struth and the Bechers, so seeing some original work by Ruff will be very useful.

I also managed this photographic doodle - symmetry, detail, it is a me type of photo, however boring and touristic

Hand held, low light, ISO800 and still sharp, really happy with my X100.  However, I digress!

Back to the course, I will also not make much progress now for a couple of weeks and suspect I am going to need to warn my tutor that my essay might be a little late.  BUT the reason is that next week I am nipping over to New York for 3 days of MOMA, BH Photo and some of the best street photography in the world.  Oh, and most importantly having a ball with Heidi!

So why I am feeling so down?  Who knows, guess it is just one of those things, a creative glut that has me doubting myself.  Hopefully my next blog entry, perhaps from New York will be a little more enthusiastic...

Death and Photography

A couple of evenings ago I watched the documentary "Four Beats to the Bar" chronicling the life and art of David Bailey.  The hour long documentary covered his emergence as the trendy celebrity photographer of the swinging sixties, his relationships, and his many high profile friends.  However, it was his recent still life work and sculpture that struck a chord with some of my own thoughts about photography.  The recent still life images take dead flowers and bones, particularly skulls, which are then set against an almost blown out white background.

BJP Article on David Bailey

Whilst very dramatic and beautiful the images are also terrible.  As Bailey states: "Flowers are the first civilised thing in a way, when we started to grow things not to eat but to look at. Skulls are natural sculptures in a way and they’re our legacy, all that’s left in the end".  This work clearly references the temporary nature of life represented by the flowers and the finality of death, the end point for all of us.

In the documentary he echoes a thought that has been with me ever since I started to think about seriously about photography.  Photography is about death!  Unlike any other medium a photograph captures a moment in time and freezes that point for ever.  As time passes the people in the photograph die, the places crumble, the flowers decay, but the photograph persists; the fragile photograph has a longevity that far outlasts those elements that make up the scene it captures.  Although I rarely do still life these days, one of the reasons I like to photograph flowers is to capture that fleeting moment of bloom and through a print on my wall preserve it for years to come. The flower is long dead, but its beauty persists.

When my father died, he left a void in my life, one that I still struggle to fill, gone is the man who argued with almost everyone about almost everything, I miss that critical voice on the phone that I could share ideas with and receive sage advice. In Autumn 2007 a vital seemingly healthy man went into hospital to have a tumor removed, a mistake was made and 6 moths later after a painful struggle, he was no more.

Since then I have not been able to look at photographs of him, they signify death.  Although usually captured at times of happiness, generally after a few glasses of wine, these seemingly cheerful photographs now have a completely different meaning to me.  I am trying to force myself to deal with this, 4 years on, but it is a struggle and I suspect always will be.  His memory cheers me, his art work is carefully preserved, but photographs...  They capture an instant and then remain as a record of what was and will never be again!

This is the last photograph I have taken two months before the operation after that I could not photograph him, he was so diminished - I think I did not want that memory.  That last Christmas was the first time I took no photographs of the celebration.

When he died I tried to preserve another portrait of him, this is his shed, a space he had transformed into a workshop in which he built marvelous sculptures of zeppelins and cities made of wax with LED lighting.  After retiring as a particle physicist he was studying sculpture at the local art college.

A day or two before the funeral I could not sleep and waking early I went for a walk to clear my head.  I had my Dad's 35-350mm zoom on my camera, not ideal for early morning, but somehow right.  This photo and many like it captured my mood at the time.  Dark despair, but a hint of light slowly creeping into the sky.

Photographs are powerful objects, they contain huge emotion and experience in ephemeral packages.  They can gladden the heart, but will ultimately signify death.

X100 Low Light Tests

In my last blog entry I used my new Fujifilm X100 to shoot a series of photographs with strong silhouettes and reflections.  I also used the camera to extend my dawn light extended project.  In both of these cases the available light was quite strong and most of the photographs were made between ISO200 and 400, ISO200 being the lowest "normal" ISO setting for the camera.  As expected the image quality was good and noise non existent.

A good start, but fairly benign testing conditions. Last night I tried a few shots in far more testing conditions, shooting after sun set and in completely artificial street lighting.  My goal was to understand the image quality in low light and how well I could hand hold the camera in these conditions.  I set the ISO to Auto with a minimum shutter speed of 1/60s.  In these conditions the camera will set the ISO to the lowest possible level, but maintain a minimum shutter speed.  As the lens is a 35mm equivalent, 1/60s gives a good level of security to minimize hand shake.  The upper limit is set to ISO3200 at which point the camera will permit a shutter speed longer than 1/60s.  I commonly adopt a similar strategy on the 5D2 as I can trust the higher ISO image quality, floating the ISO permits concentration on composition, not technical issues.

My first example is a straightforward test of the noise at high ISO.  I shot the following in dusk light at f/5.6, ISO3200 and 1/10s, so at the extreme end of handheld capabilities.  As a reduced size JPG (with no processing), the image looks fine if a little flat due to the lighting.

However, what really impressed me was the following 100% enlargement.  Clearly this shows some noise, but very tolerable and well within the processing capabilities that Lightroom could provide for noise reduction.

Following are a sequence taken within 30 minutes of each other walking into the city, with differing low lighting.  All have been processed for colour with noise reduction applied as needed.

 f/5.6, 1/105s, ISO200

 f/2, 1/60s, ISO200

 f/2, 1/60s, ISO1600

 f/2, 1/60s, ISO1000

f/2, 1/60s, ISO800

From this exercise my confidence in the cameras capabilities is increasing, high ISO is relatively noise free and colour management is good.  The 35mm viewpoint is still growing on me, I have long enjoyed using a 35mm equivalent prime, I have a 30mm for my Samsung NX100 and a 35mm for my Canon 5D2.  Another aspect of the camera that has surprised me is the hand hold capability.  The camera has no image stabilization (something I think would have been an enhancement), however, the camera is very solid in the hand, plus the shooting poise of bringing the camera to the eye provides stability.  The lower weight versus the 5D2 also reduces camera shake, but is not so low.

I now have full confidence that this little throwback of a camera can deliver results in line with far larger DSLRs and be a serious part of my photographic tool kit.  In particular walking long distances without the weight of a full size DSLR is a great boon.

DPP Results and Reading

Good news and bad.  I passed DPP with a decent grade, 71%, technically a 1st, but a grade that hid some issues.  Looking at the individual marks:

• Skills 16/20
• Knowledge 16/20
• Invention 15/20
• Communication 12/20
• Judgement (as demonstrated in Learning Logs) 12/20

The first 3 marks are very encouraging, however, the final two 12's are not where I want to be, and I need to consider how to improve my performance in those areas.  The comment from the examiner points to the problem:

"You can progress by continuing to deepen your understanding of the culture and history of photography; in order for you to locate your work within it and aid the discovery of developmental pathways"

I have been aware for some time, that whilst I am deeply engaged in the conceptual development and execution of assignments, I am not spending enough time looking around me at what other photographers are doing and why they are doing it.  I subscribe to BJP and Aperture, but am still immediately drawn to the technical side of the content.  I also have shelves full of photography books awaiting a critical appraisal and write up in my blog.  The outcome is that I am growing technically and am very satisfied with my own capabilities, however, I am not contextualizing what I am doing

Turning back to the examiners feedback, I think I am getting to grips with communication in my work, the last two assignments have been much stronger from a narrative standpoint.  I have consciously developed more robust written content in my assignment submissions and within the photography have very specifically tried to communicate rather than simply illustrate.  There is more to do, and in particular assignment 3 will challenge me with its more abstract content.

This leaves the issue of Judgement and how I develop my learning log.  Part of the challenge I face are typically long working weeks, 50-60 hours of demanding mental work that does not leave a great deal of energy on the weekends other than a growing enthusiasm to relax with a few beers or a bottle of wine.  Typical middle aged trap, too little time to think, just get on with life and dull the pain.  OK, melodramatic, but it is a real challenge to avoid falling into.  When I started the course I read nothing but history and philosophy of photography for 2 years.  Perhaps this was too obsessive and now I am essentially saturated with the subject.  Equally, Sontag or Barthes make poor bedtime reading.

So, what to do.  First of all I need to become more aware of the cultural heritage of photography through the work of the giants of the medium, looking backwards, not just forwards.  I have Godwin, Rowell, Porter,, Stieglitz, and many others sitting on my shelves gathering dust.  Over Christmas I am resolved to review at least 2 major photographers each week and write a brief commentary on what they mean to me - then keep that going into the new year.  When I started the course this was going to be a big part of my working practice, I have let it slip.

The second element must be to look at photography around me, how it is used, where, when, what impact.  I do not see much printed press, living abroad I do not get the Sunday glossies, however, there is a huge amount of interesting work on the internet. Perhaps what I need to do is maintain a weekly diary entry about photographs and photographers that interest me.

Why blog this?  I internalize too much, I think about photography all the time, but rarely write about it.  I need to spend more time communicating my reaction to other peoples work, not simply commentate on my own work.  Writing this entry is a beginning on that path.  Time will tell, I am a fundamentally lazy person, but am very determined to get the most out of this course that I can.

Books

Trying to avoid the usual cliched Christmas presents, this year I am making several of my own, a couple of calendars, some framed prints, but most importantly two books that build out a couple of Assignments that I have either completed or am working on.

As I have discussed previously, I find the photography book to be the most satisfying way of enjoying the work of photographers and owning something that is quite special.  My own practice is increasingly looking at the printed book as the end point of my work.  Starting with simple books documenting holidays and diving trips, I progressed into production of wedding albums for friends whose weddings I had shot.  Wedding books have a very specific and pre-defined narrative flow, not always easy to capture, but not difficult to sequence.

More recently I have started to think about how I could present my "Art" as a book, stepping beyond simple recording of events, towards a thematically consistent body of work that has its own narrative.  The first of these books is an extension of Assignment 5 from People and Place, a study of the Munich subway. Putting this book together I had two goals, to explore the sequencing of more abstract photographs and to build a personal style statement in terms of the typography and the layout.  Layout was simple, photographs on facing pages, with a small number of layouts depending on the aspect ratio of the photograph.  As I was using facing pages, I had to ensure that each pair of photographs harmonized with each other.  Clearly this is not necessary, contrast might suit in some cases, but for this subject it was a given.  Each page has the station name and line number as a caption, the line numbers in the colour coding used by the system.  I used a san serif font for the names, choosing something that I thought created a contemporary and clean look to the pages.

Sequencing was a challenge, there is no story in this book, simply a series of brightly coloured personal interpretations of this space.  I started very geometrically with strong vanishing points formed by the platforms, moved into other spaces within the system and finished with shots involving more people.  This created a thematic flow, but not really a narrative.  I completed the shots for the book in no more than 5 separate shoots, I know that more visits would have yielded a better set of photographs, but the goal for this exercise was the book as an art form, the photos I had were enough.  Additionally it is illegal to shoot in the subway, so I have already pushed my luck far enough.

Here is the result:

U

By

Book Preview

My other book project, became an assignment, rather than originating from one.  I had the idea to build a very personal present for close friends and family, using a set of sequenced images taken within a small space in the park.  This developed into an obsession, with multiple dawn visits each week to capture differing light.  I terminated the book project once Autumn really gave over to winter and the light changed.  I also wanted to ensure that I had enough time for the publication process.


Transient Light is a visual exploration of dawn light and its interaction with the autumn mist.  Unlike the previous book, every photograph is identically framed in a 2x1 ratio and there are no captions, however, I did pen an introduction.  I also put my name on the book, something I omitted for the more abstract U.  The photo sequence is designed to bring the viewer from the abstract whiteness of dense fog through to the sharp clear light of day, with contrast and colour gradually building through the set.  I printed the photos on a heavy matte paper, a better medium for the soft tonality of Transient Light than the semi-gloss used for the brightly coloured U.

Transient Light

By Shaun Clarke

Book Preview

Both books are an early attempt at building the skills needed to sequence photographs in a book format.  The 8-12 photograph sequences needed for the assignments have the extra challenge of working towards such a small set of photos, the books permit far more expression.  It is not my plan to submit these as part of the course, but looking towards the next level, I expect that the photo book will be my medium of expression.

Finally my tutor shared these links with the head of the college, the very kind words in response encourage me to think this is the right direction for me.

Technology

As already mentioned this weekend brought a small success in publishing a photo in a national paper, bucked my spirits up, but was not as significant as my other achievement, sending Assignment 2 into my tutor.  Glad to be finished with that work and now turning my mind seriously towards the third assignment.  At this stage I am beginning to notice a couple of differences between this and earlier lower level courses.  First of all the assignments are a very much larger aspect of the program, previously I would probably divide my time 50:50 between assignments and other work, now it is very much 80:20, the assignments virtually are the course.  The second observation is that the assignments are beginning to interrelate   Although I have by choice thematically linked the first 2, I am also finding that one activity leads naturally to the next, and that the follow on assignment is very much decided upon in wake of the previous one.  Although, at present, I am undecided whether to continue my legacy theme or to branch sideways into something quite different.  I'll return to that thought in future posts.

Having completed the assignment, a number of technical issues came up that needed attention and deserve a mention here in my blog.  The first is camera cleanliness, my 5D2 is nearly 3 years old, and has shot nearly 36,000 frames, an average rate of just over 3 per day, or if I had been shooting film I would have gotten through 1,000 rolls of 36 exposure films at a rate of just under 1 per day.  Scary thought and why a DSLR ultimately can save money.  Ignoring the film saving this usage rate has led to a very dirty sensor, so for the first time ever I cleaned it.

This had been worrying me for some time, I am not good with my hands, and was very concerned that I would simply generate a very large bill for a replacement sensor.  However, I was becoming heartily sick of using the dust removal tool in Lightroom so time for a clean.  Here is the sensor before the process, not at all clean:

I followed a step wise process to clean the sensor:

1. Place the camera on a small tripod at an angle good for access insert mains power into the camera and lock up the mirror
2. Blow any dust out of the mirror box
3. Use an electro-static brush, ionized by blowing air over it to lift any loose particles
4. Finally use a wet wipe to swab across the sensor

The result was, another dirty sensor, except now the dirt had moved around a bit.

I tried again, only this time with very much more swiping and blowing, with the final result:

I was quite pleased with this.  A couple of days later I shot the following test whilst out and about to see how things were, and whilst there are some visible dust spots they are very far fewer and smaller.  So I would have to argue that this was a job well done and something I should have tackled years ago.  Ah well I know how to do it now.

Another activity this weekend was testing a new lens for my second camera system a Samsung NX100 mirrorless compact.  So far I had 20mm and 30mm prime lenses for this camera, plus a couple of zooms.  The biggest problem was that the 20mm was not wide enough, only being equivalent to a 30mm on a FF camera.  This was not wide enough for work in and around the city, although very good for street work.  I subsequently bought  a 16mm f/2.5 pancake lens to add to the kit

I love these small lenses, which combined with the tiny NX100 (well compared to by 5D2) makes for a great carry anywhere system.  I took it for a walk and captured the following images

OK, it will not win architecture awards, no normal prime lens can, however, the colour and detail are quite superb, I am very pleasantly surprised.  Previously I had felt the camera a little flat in colour, perhaps that was more a feature of the lenses I was using.  I am more than satisfied with the saturation.

Continuing my walk into the area where I was shooting my newly submitted assignment, I noticed some strange reflections on the side of the synagogue, looking a little like Hebrew script, but accidental I am sure.  Once again the 16mm lens performed very well on the Samsung and I now look at this little camera in quite a different light.

My final technical discovery over the weekend came in printing my Assignment 2 images.  Prior to submitting any assignment to my tutor I print the images I plan to submit for assessment.  I feel that printing is a fundamental step in the artistic process and whilst I am happy getting my tutor's feedback on the electronic images, I want to know that they will print the way I want them to.  When I started TAOP 2 years ago I printed everything on 5x7 glossy paper, which was not great.  I moved to a semi-gloss pearl paper from Ilford and started to print at A4, finding this to be a much better size for understanding the photos and a far better medium.  For this assignment, I have moved on once more, this time using Epson Archival Matte paper.  As I was printing B&W I wanted to be able to reproduce very deep blacks and also sustain a good tonal range, matte paper seemed the way to go.  I was again impressed, the matte paper really a very deep tonal range and generates a very satisfying print.  I also printed a rich colour Autumn scene, once again with great results.

Not necessarily a major step forward, but I am trying to develop my understanding and abilities in the final set to print.  So, a great weekend, lots done, lots more to do.

Published!

A small but important milestone happened this week, when a photograph I took was published in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung,  one of Germany's largest circulation broadsheets, a paper with a similar profile to the Guardian in the UK.  A couple of years ago I shot a Gaelic Football tournament in Munich, which included a ladies competition.  A close friend helped to organize the event and asked me to come along and record it on camera.  Recently he was interviewed about the ladies game for the paper and asked if it was OK for one of my photographs to accompany the piece, no problem at all.

The original photo was:

Apart from the fact that this is the first photo I have ever had published, it also came along with a few learning points.  The first is around attribution,  Niall stated that the photo could be used, but only if I was clearly identified as the photographer.  This request was ignored and the photograph was used without any attribution.  I am disappointed, but will chalk this one up for experience, I am not planning to sue the paper, although I might write them a letter of protest and see what happens.

The second learning is around sports photography and editing.  The shot used was heavily cropped by the picture editor (quite correctly), and in the paper the quality was fine.  The key to a successful sports photograph, is capture of the moment and portrayal of the action, hence the use of fast cameras with a relatively low pixel count.  Newspaper resolution is low and a photo does not need to be 21MP to succeed, 1-2MP is probably sufficient.  Most important is good exposure and sharpness.

In any case, with a few caveats I am delighted to have a photograph that I took make it into a major national newspaper.  In the grander scheme of things this is not terribly important, but for me it was a cause for celebration.