Seasonal review of 10,000 hours deliberate practice mastering photography Summer 2023. To see the above photos in more details, click on the image above, to read about them click below, and in either case please follow me on the social media links to the right.
Top Image
“The Pleasure Principle”
Based on René Magritte’s, 1937, “Le Principe du Plaisir”, commissioned by and essentially a portrait of his English patron, Edward James. (Ditto the mirror painting “La réproduction Interdite” which he commissioned in the same year). James was introduced to Magritte by Salvador Dali, and the painting “Le Principe du Plaisir” is actually based on a photograph taken for this purpose by Man Ray.
Other Images
Other Surrealist images
“Magritte Hat Pipe Flower and Cloud”
Did well in competition in the Stoke Poges Photographic Club’s Print competition on the 21st November, where it was declared the clear winner in the open section.
I like the way the elements work together, particularly the cloud coming out of the flower like smoke from the pipe!
“False Mirror”
Based on Magritte’s, 1928, painting of the same name. It is intended to unsettle the viewer and challenge them to think about what the eye is seeing.
“Moving Clouds”
This is a fun image that was created for the Stoke Poges Photographic Club’s “Big Sky” PDI competition on the 17th October (which it went on to win).
Bryan’s Grandfather
“Bryan and Grandfather”
This was a project to create a photograph of a friend’s 93 year old step-father in the same pose, in front of the same bureau, as this grandfather photographed c. 70 years ago. Shot on 4th November, a lot of effort went into ensuring that the mood of the composition matched as much as the physical arrangement of the subject. Then post-processing to make a photo shot with the latest equipment look as bad as an old film camera! Not perfect, but not bad.
Seascape Composites
The idea was to combine sea wall images shot in October 2021 with seascapes shot in October 2023 to create more interesting semi-abstracts of the decaying sea wall overlayed by the cause of the decay.
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Other other
“The Jester”
Shot at ComicCon London ExCel 2023 on 29th October
“Four Reeds, One Broken”
A return to Stoke Common for this clean and simple image.
Did well in the PDI competition at the Amersham Photographic Society on 27th November.
Distinctions
ARPS in Landscape Photography awarded on the 11th October
My successful panel was presented to the Wycombe Photographic Club on 8th November and, together with the version that failed, the Amersham PiC Group on the 16th November.
New Artists
3rd October: John Martin – the sublime through his paintings of the apocalypse
- Zhang Daqian (1899-1983) – Chinese abstract impressionist and expressionist painter
- John Seed’s, Art writer, author of “Disrupted Realism” and creator of the “Monday Morning Modernism” YouTube series
- Bay Area Figuration:
- David Park
- Richard Diebenkorn
- Elmer Bischoff
- Mark Rothko’s transition from Surrealism to Abstract Expressionism through his 1944 painting “Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea“
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| Untitles (three nudes), 1933/34 | Untitles 1944/45 | No. 8 |
Notes:
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