Autumn 2018

As the title of this post suggests this my second time writing a review of autumn and as such my photographic technique has hopefully advanced since I wrote the First Autumn Post a year ago.  Having reviewed this last post, I am feeling a bit of pressure as some of the images in that post are fairly good.  Learning photography autumn – game on!

Whereas Autumn 2017 only covered November 2017, when I started this project, and dealt mainly with woodland photography this post covers the full three months from September and more styles of photography including:

• Street Photography at the Tate Modern, Brick Lane and elsewhere
• Architectural Photography as a result of my first commercial assignment
• Seascapes: Bournemouth, Crosby Beach – Another Place

In terms of improving my woodland and landscape photography, I was able to attend a one day workshop with Paul Mitchell (30th October) in Burnham Beeches and Leeming and Paterson (20th November) in Great Missenden

Please help: The whole purpose of this site is to document my progress learning about photography, if you have any suggestions or comments, please post them below.

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Summer Photography

Learning photography in the summer is the last in my initial series of seasonal reviews (see previous seasons: Spring, Winter, Autumn).  These 4 posts form a base-line of my learning, so that I can compare the work that I’m doing in the future with that generated at the start of my 10,000 hour project and hopefully see some progress.

The past three months have seen a shift in focus for me away from landscapes, particularly rural, towards Street Photography and some pretty weird still life.

Less weird stuff below – click more.

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Spring Photography

This post concentrates on the particular opportunities and challenges of learning photography in the spring.

I’m trying to get into a habit of posting quarterly reviews of images created during the last season.  So this post covers the period since my Winter 2018 review.  My learning strategy of 10,000 hours of deliberate practice in the art of photography means that I should be able to compare the post I write after next spring with this one, and hopefully see the progress I’m making.

The mood of Spring is one of optimism, renewal and rebirth.  I hope I have captured this during the last few months.

See all my images from Spring 2018, I have tried to include a variety of images to include some street photography, seascapes and more interesting landscapes.

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Winter Photography

This post on winter photography follows the pattern I’m trying to implement of posting quarterly reviews of images created during the last season, this post covers the period since my Review of Autumn 2017.  The goal of 10,000 hours of deliberate practice in the art of photography means that I should be able to compare the post I write after next winter with this one, and see the progress I’m making.

The specific challenges of winter photography, particularly for the landscape photographer, include:

• overcast skies
• rain, sleet, mist or if we are very lucky snow.

These lead to flat and monochromatic light.  This is demonstrated in the image to the right where the colours are as shot and pretty much the only colour in the image is my red ski-jacket – natural colour popping only.

However, these weather conditions can be advantageous to the photographer as they provide opportunities for simplifying the scene and creating minimalist images.  The master of this being Michael Kenna, see his gallery: Hokkaido, Japan, 2002-2003 as an example.

To see my images from Winter 2017/ 18

 

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Autumn Photography

It is my intention to post quarterly reviews of shots taken during the last season.  This is the first; this is Autumn 2017.

Technically autumn is defined as the period between the September equinox  and the Winter equinox (21/22 Dec.)  However, for convenience I’m going to conduct my quarterly reviews at the start of December, March, June and September.  So I define: Autumn as September to November; Winter as December to February; Spring as March to May, Summer as June to August.  Currently, I’m feeling a little bit smug about this determination given the weather experienced on the 10th, see my Journal for that day.

The photographer I have most been influenced by during this period is Paul Mitchell.  Particularly with regard to his Woodland photography taken at Burnham Beeches and Stoke Common.  Fortunately, both these locations are very close to me.  Doubly fortunately, I was able to attend a full day workshop by Paul at the Thames Valley branch of the Royal Photographic Society’s Digital Imaging Group, where he spent a morning talking about how he creates his images.  Included in this was a working demonstration of his post-processing workflow in Lightroom and Photoshop.

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To see more posts on other photographic topics, or to follow my learning progress, please like or follow me on the social media channel of your choice to the right.

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