This journal records my actual time spent mastering fine art photography after 10,000 hours of deliberate practice
Hours 10,950 to 11,027
31st August 2026
Hours 11,026 to 11,027
(2h) creating “the”portal Triptych II”, above, with subtle revisions to the interface between the top layer and mid-layer, particularly at the edged with the diagonal slice
30th August 2026
Hours 11,024 to 11,025
(1h) processing the Sculpture ICM images shot on the 24th
(1h) creating a first version of the “Portal Triptych I” above
29th August 2026
Hour 11,023
(1h) Drafting the
28th August 2026
Hour 11,022
(1h) creating “London Skyline Dystopian Mono”, left, a dark mono version of the original shot on the 16th
27th August 2026
Hours 11,020 to 11,021
(1h) Stewarding at the Amersham annual exhibition
(1h) updating this journal
26th August 2026
Hours 11,016 to 11,019
(1h) Amersham Coffee club discussing potential issues/ improvements to the “Magritte’s Lost Jockey”. Also my London ICM Abstracts of which, surprisingly, the St Paul’s image was the consensus favourite
(1h) Stewarding at the Amersham annual exhibition
(2h) creating updates of:
- “Magritte’s Lost Jockey”, above, with:
- the Jockey’s saddle and boots completed
- stronger lighting on the face & back of the horse, and particularly the bit
- more realistic shadow of the arms of the third grinder
- recessed mount version of “St Paul’s Abstract”, below, with a similar idea of the image flowing of our the frame as in the Blackfriars Bridge image created yesterday
25th August 2026
Hours 11,013 to 11,015
(½h) creating the above version of “Blackfriars Bridge Abstract” which has the effect of the blur moving out of the image and onto the recessed mount. Subtle effect, which I think pairs with the inclusion of colour in the bottom left-hand corner
(1h) stewarding at the Amersham Photographic Club’s annual exhibition. Time spent explaining my Magritte images
(1h) 3rd part of the HENI Talks YouTube: “Vincent van Gogh – Disaster in Arles – Part 3“
(½h) having reviewed the Magritte’s Lost Jockey print, and felt disappointed by the blandness of the colour, I created the revised version below:
24th August 2026
Hours 11,011 to 11,012
(½h) drafting a “One Year Later” post
(1h) YouTube: Will Young talking about “Rene Magritte: The Man in the Hat | Exploring the Mind of a Surrealist“
- Magritte’s commission from Edward James to create 3 paintings was worth £250 (in today’s money c. £15,000)
(½h) shooting some ICM images of our sculpture in the evening
23rd August 2026
Hours 11,009 to 11,010
(1h) creating and ordering prints for this Wednesday’s coffee meeting
(1h) watching, further researching and writing up the Creative Deep Dents YouTube: “Philip Guston and his shocking style shift“
- Style shifts:
- 1930s: politically motivated, figurative murals; influenced by Diego Rivera, creating large scale work often paid for by the Federal Art Project
- 1940s: FAP wound up and Guston was employed in academia, rented a studio in the same area as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko. He became known as one of the great Abstract Expressionists
- 1960s: return to recognisable imagery with an almost cartoonish style – abandoning the style that made him famous and financially successful
- Motivation: consistently political and increasingly confronting the viewer with their own culpability in how they look at the world
22nd August 2026
Hours 11,007 to 11,008
(1h) creating a presentation about the Colour Group for the Amersham Photographic Society meeting on the 7th Sept
(1h) updating this journal
21st August 2026
Hours 11,004 to 11,006
(2h) creating the abstracts from ICM images including:
- St Paul’s Cathedral – above
- Blackfriar’s Bridge – below
(1h) YouTube from Abstract_Steve “Remembering the Future ~ Anselm Kiefer Painter & Sculptor“
20th August 2026
Hours 11,001 to 11,003
(½h) shooting new pepper-grinder shadows
(1½h) reworking the horse and pepper-grinder/tree shadows on the “Magritte’s Lost Jockey” image above
(1h) HENI Talks YouTube “Vincent van Gogh – Becoming Vincent – Part 2“
19th August 2026
Hour 11,000
(1h) HENI Talks YouTube “Vincent van Gogh – The Outcast – Part 1“
18th August 2026
Hour 10,999
(1h) updating this journal
17th August 2026
Hours 10,997 to 10,998
(1h) editing and processing yesterday street photography
(1h) creating the the triptych above
16th August 2026
Hours 10,994 to 10,996
(1h) researching and preparing for today’s tour. particularly:
- Hans Bellmer: Peg-Top, despite the fact that this was painted during the surrealist period, I would suggest that the style is more cubist
- Max Ernst’s: The Entire City, where he used a scraping technique to introduce an element of chance into the image. An idea later developed by Gerhard Richter
Leading a photo walk around the St Paul’s and the Tate Modern
(1h) street photography, including “London Skyline”, right which is a single shot reprocessed with horizontal motion blur on the old foreground buildings, whilst the city skyscrapers have been stretched with vertical motion blur
(1h) explaining the art, particularly in the International Surrealism and Rothko rooms
15th August 2026
Hours 10,992 to 10,993
(½h) creating “Summer at St Paul’s” above
(1½h) doing research, particularly of the paintings in the International Surrealism Room, for tomorrow’s tour
14th August 2026
Hours 10,987 to 10,991
(½h) adding recent images to this journal
(4½h) doing research and planning for the Photo Tour in and around the Tate Modern on Sunday
13th August 2026
Hours 10,982 to 10,986
(1h) updating this journal and Flickr site
(4h) editing and processing images from the run-through Tate Modern photo walk on Tuesday including, left, “Hipster Descending a Staircase after Marcel Duchamp”
12th August 2026
Hour 10,981
(1h) HENI Talks YouTube: “Frida Kahlo – A Star is Born – Part 3“
11th August 2026
Hours 10,977 to 10,980
(1h) updating this journal and Flickr site
(1h) London Street Photography
(1h) Frida Khalo exhibition at the Tate Modern, London. Marcos Raya’s, 1944, “Frida the Last Portrait”, below, incorporates many elements of her self-portraits, such as the 1940 “Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird”, but with the cat replaced by a skeleton
(1h) HENI Talks YouTube: “Frida Kahlo – The Elephant and the Dove – Part 2“
10th August 2026
Hours 10,975 to 10,976
(1h) further work on the “Magritte’s Lost Jockey” image, particularly with regard to the shadows of the pepper grinder trees and the horse. Many experiments, mostly unsuccessful
(1h) HENI Talks YouTube: “Frida Kahlo – The Girl on the Bus – Part 1” her ancestors were German (she claimed, Jews escaping the Nazis, as this would have been more acceptable to the political left)
9th August 2026
Hours 10,972 to 10,974
(1h) YouTube: “Cai Guo Qiang | Painting with Explosions“
(1h) further editing and some mono conversion of Tuesday’s snake images
(1h) HENI Talks YouTube: “Alberto Giacometti – The Rise of Stick Man – Part 2” and other research on Giacometti:
- Friends with Jean-Paul Sartre, who described him as a visual existentialist
- “Existentialism” is concerned with the challenge of living an authentic life in a seemlingly hopeless environment
- “Authentic life” is defined as taking responsibility for one’s actions and the pursuit of a worthwhile life in a world devoid of religious structure
8th August 2026
Hour 10,971
(1h) HENI Talks YouTube: “Alberto Giacometti – The Boy from the Mountains – Part 1“
7th August 2026
Hours 10,969 to 10,970
(1h) updating this journal with notes and thoughts from the last few days
(1h) reconsidering the Creative Deep Dents, “5 Motivations of Abstract Artists” (in Matt’s words):
- Abstraction through visual innovation
- Abstraction through emotional directness
- Abstraction through spirituality, psychology and philosophy
- Abstraction through ideas and concepts
- Abstraction through the world around us
6th August 2026
Hours 10,965 to 10,968
(1½h) further editing and processing the Snake images from Tuesday
(½h) YouTube: “Harland Miller on North Yorkshire” who was born and brought up in York (where I went to University, probably when he was there). Large painting of spoof Penguin books with titles like “York, so good they named it once”
(1h) reading “The Documentary Impulse” by Stuart Franklin who defines “documentary” in the terms used by the Scottish film director, John Grierson, as a “creative treatment of actuality.” The 19th century critic, John Ruskin, draws a distinction between “moral truth” and “material truth.” If you want to understand what it’s like being in a small boat in a storm, J.MW. Turner’s almost completely abstract storm paintings convey a “truth of impression” that is more important than any material truth that might be captured by a camera
(1h) YouTube: “The Next 50 Years: humanity, AO, Power”, Yuval Harari in conversation with Tom Parker
There is no such thing as truth, there is only a common belief in shared stories”
5th August 2026
Hours 10,962 to 10,966
(1h) Amersham Coffee Club, discussing:
- some discussion of the merit (mainly otherwise) of my excluding the first and the fifth of the Creative Deep Dents artistic motivations from my definition of art in “Thoughts on Art:2026“
- Opinion was split as to whether “Dreamy Zebra with Slice of Sky”, above, was better with or without the blue stripe
- Some constructive comments about the version of “Magritte’s Lost Jockey” as it stood on the 2nd August:
- the left most and most foregrounded pepper grinder has a shadow that is thinner than the others. It should be thicker to support the sense of perspective
- shadows are not parallel
- the should be some shadows of the branches on the pepper grinders
- the horse shadow was the wrong shape
(1h) updating the “Magritte’s Lost Jockey” image, below, in response to the comments above
(1h) updating this journal with work from the last 3 days
4th August 2026
Hours 10,958 to 10,961
(1h) shooting my god-daughter’s snakes, very challenging as they move quickly. Made over 1,500 exposures
(3½h) editing the above down to a long-short list of about 50 images
(½h) an hour and a half’s mainly social photowalk with the Stoke Poges Photographic Club
3rd August 2026
Hours 10,956 to 10,957
(½h) editing and processing the Richard Hambling landscapes
(1½h) watching the fabulously innovate film “Loving Vincent” which is effectively a murder mystery about his death, set the year after his demise. All scenes were hand painted in Van Gogh’s style by a team of 100 artists
2nd August 2026
Hours 10,955 to 10,958
“Magritte’s Lost Jockey”, above, I think the above picture works really well.
(3h) processing the pepper grinders, shot yesterday and music displaced to the shape of the grinders, and inserting in the image such that the limbs of the dead trees (Dead Vlei, Namibia) look as though they are waving at the rider
(½h) shooting landscapes to potentially be used in a homage to Richard Hambling
(½h) updating this journal
1st August 2026
Hours 10,950 to 10,954
(1h) updating this journal with all the new month admin
(1h) shooting new pepper grinder, music and curtain images
(2h) processing the above and inserting some into the “Magritte’s Lost Jockey” image
(½h) revising how to use displacement maps from my notes of 7th December 2022
(½h) watching Salvador Dali’s notorious short silent film “Un Chien Andalou” (1929)
“Grinder I with Music”, right
Music is Poet and Peasant by Franz von Suppé, which was used by the BBC’s Grandstand and became synonymous with horse racing
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