January 2018
194 to 284 of my 10,000 hours learning the art of photography.
31 January 2018
Hours 279 to 284
An hour shooting in Cliveden in the morning, before it officially opens, including an attempt to shoot the snowdrop from 3 different angles (as recommended from the talk last week). Two hours processing these images and uploading to social media.
Learning point: depth of field is very narrow when shooting close up. So one often needs a much higher aperture F-number than one might have originally guessed.
Some prep for shooting the Super Moon:
- Identified Coombe Hill, that I’ve shot from before, as an ideal location that will provide an uninterrupted view to the horizon. I will be able to position myself slightly down the hill so that my subject appears on the brow
- Used the web version of the Photographers’ Ephemeris to identify the direction and time of the moon rise
- Ideal shot: Fran and Harley silhouetted against the rising moon
- Equipment: 70-300mm
Followed by a very cold half hour on top of Coombe Hill shooting in a freezing wind.
Learning points:
- Even with a 300mm lens the moon (even a super-moon) is still quite small
- Taking somebody silhouetted against the moon is almost impossible due to perspective issues. One would have to be about a mile away from the subject, whilst keeping them perfectly in line with the rising moon both horizontal and vertically
- The mobile version on the Photographers’ Ephemeris is probably a good investment as it is difficult to orientate one’s self when actually on site.
Then a somewhat warmer half hour shooting a snowdrop silhouetted against the moon from our bedroom, and an hour having a first look at these images.
30 January 2018
Hours 277 to 278
2 hours at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club – gave a presentation on this project. This resulted in my Instagram following quadrupeling to 4, and getting my first Twitter follower!
29 January 2018
Hour 276
Finalized all images for the forthcoming Stoke Poges Photographic Club competition on both “Food” and Open, and dropped off the images to be printed and mounted at GS Photos in Gerrards Cross.
28 January 2018
Hours 274 to 275
Further iteration of the self-peeling orange. This time photo taken of an actual orange rather than a grapefruit or pink grapefruit. All in focus, separation between knife and orange. So ready for printing and submission.
27 January 2018
Hour 273
Spent a lot of time writing a presentation on this project for the Stoke Poges Photographic Club, but decided that this doesn’t actually count as hours of deliberate practice learning the art of photography.
Did though spend at least an hour sorting and processing images and watching a YouTube from Sege Ramelli on adding Friggin Amazing Detail with Photoshop.
26 January 2018
Hours 270 to 272
Learned that “Sfumato” is the technique of oil painters to represent changes in contour with gradual changes in shading rather than distinct lines. A technique apparently developed by Leonardo Da Vinci according to the biography I’m reading by Walter Isaacson.
Spent 3 hours creating the image to the right for the forthcoming competition at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club.
25 January 2018
Hours 266 to 270
Filtered and selected the best shots from Canada; Vancouver & Chilliwack for inclusion in Flickr albums.
Updated the Instagram Feed.
Lots of work sorting best images from the last 150 hours (250 hours minus the first 100) and completed the “First 250 Hours – Review at 2.5%” post.
24 January 2018
Hours 264 to 265
Taking an update shot of The Big Field, from the third post along the footpath. The goal is to collect a series of similar images taken at different times during the year. So far the field doesn’t seem to have changed at all since the beginning of November!
Created the Vancouver Cityscape “joiner” right. This is a 2-D panorama where photoshop has stitched together 9 overlapping images to create a single composite. I like the fact that this is a modern equivalent of what David Hockney was doing in the 60’s with his Polaroid “joiners”. I also marvel at the technical complexity of actually doing this, given that the shots didn’t even align. However, it did take my computer upwards to 15 minutes to achieve and the resultant file was over seven and a half gigabytes! I then reduced the size from 32,000 pixels wide to 8,000 (still more than enough for most purposes) and flattened the image so that it could be saved as a .psd file and loaded into Lightroom.
Started work on the “First 250 Hours – Review at 2.5%” post.
23 January 2018
Hours 262 to 263
Two hours at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club; lecture by David Boag on Creative Wildlife photography which, as the title suggested, concentrated on producing more interesting wildlife images, primarily by using different lenses and camera angles.
Take home message: find 3 different shots of every subject being photographed.
22 January 2018
Hours 260 to 261
Experimenting with Larsen shoot photos in Black and White.
21 January 2018
Hours 255 to 259
4 hours editing the images from yesterday’s shooting the shoot with Kevin Larsen at Macaroni Farm.
One hour editing this journal and updating social media sites
20 January 2018
Hours 251 to 254
Shooting the Shoot with Kevin Larsen at Macaroni Farm in Gloucestershire.
A very cold and wet day with continuous light rain producing very different conditions for photography than the previous week.
19 January 2018
Hours 248 to 250
An hour at the Tate Modern revisiting the Ilya and Emelia Kabakov, then the Modigliani exhibitions. The narative for the Kabakov exhibition reminds me of the Julian Barnes book “The noise of time” which is about Shostakovich’s struggle to survive on the edge of official recognition in Soviet Russia. I enjoyed the exhibition more than I did when I visited on the 11th (last week) as I have done some research in the meantime. I particularly like the following:
Then an hour street photography walking west along the south bank from the Tate Modern to Waterloo, across the bridge to Embankment.
An hour processing images and updating this journal.
London Southbank
18 January 2018
Hours 243 to 247
Finally completed my “Composition – First Thoughts” post. This has taken far longer than I had hoped or anticipated.
Experimented using of the “Auto” and “Vertical” options in the Transform development panel of Lightroom Classic CC to straighten the Canadian window shot processed on the 10 January using the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter in Photoshop CC. The applied the “Old Polar” preset to finish. I think Lightroom does a better job, the window edges look straighter, and it is certainly easier to use.
17 January 2018
Hour 242
Working on the “Composition – First Thoughts” post; needs significant simplification.
Great YouTube by Serge Ramelli on “How to Improve Your Photo Composition” which concentrates on use of the Radial Filter in Lightroom to add focus and drama.
16 January 2018
Hours 237 to 241
An hour processing the London Street images taken last week
An hour working on the Composition First Thoughts post
Two hours at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club – Monthly competition on “Retro” + Open. Images as follows.
17/ 20
“Not really retro”
“Left hand side of his face too dark and losing detail.” I, however, like the fact that this is completely in shadow and contrasts against the slightly lighter brickwork in the background.
Liked the fact that you could see his eye through the Aviators though.
18/20
“Old not retro.”
“Bright spots to the right of the image are unnecessary and distracting.” I need to calibrate my monitors this didn’t look bad to me but I see his point on the big screen
But quite dramatic
The Kiss
18/20
“Would have worked better as a print rather than an PDI. A unique positioning of the sea lions and there is lots of detail in the sand.”
Point to ponder: Do darker images do better as PDIs and lighter ones as prints?
17/ 20
“Too many elements – lose the bottom half.”
I’m not convinced, I think the darker flowers at the bottom provide a base; and three groups are better than just two. However, the intrusion of the white flowers in the background is perhaps distracting.
One hour updating this Journal and Social Media sites.
15 January 2018
Hours 234 to 236
Two hours processing images from Shooting the Shoot with Kevin Larsen.
A few minutes shooting the amazing light both at home and at Burnham Beeches then about an hour updating this journal and social media sites.
14 January 2018
Hours 232 to 233
Two hours selecting and processing images from yesterday’s Shooting the Shoot with Kevin Larsen.
13 January 2018
Hours 227 to 231
Four hours Shooting the Shoot with Kevin Larsen’s shoot syndicate at Binning Farm, West Oxfordshire.
Some good “Character Shots” of both beaters and guns.
An hour processing and updatng this journal
12 January 2018
Hours 223 to 226
Two hours working on the image to the right, mainly removing the wires which were suspending the saucepans, more difficult than one first at first think due to the soft nature of the background.
Half an hour watching the YouTube on Ilya and Emilia Kabakov – “The Viewer is the Same as the Artist” with a view to understanding more about my new favourite artistic duo.
An hour watching the David Hockney “The Art of Seeing” which describes his exhibition of large scale paintings and iPad images at the RSA.
11 January 2018
Hours 220 to 222
Two hours at the Tate Modern including the Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, “Not Everyone will be taken into the Future”, and Modilgliani exhibitions.
An hour’s street photography in London. It was low tide and I was able to get onto the south bank of the Thames and get some interesting river shots.
10 January 2018
Hours 217 to 219
2 hours working on images from Canada. Including the following shot of it snowing outside the window. This needed straightening up using the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter in Photoshop cc. This was then sharpened by adding a copied layer, converted to black & white, the filtered using the High Pass Filter with setting somewhere in the middle, c. 20, changing the blend mode of this new layer to “Overlay”.
An hour reading the widely acclaimed “Geometry of Design” by Kimberly Elam.
9 January 2018
Hours 213 to 216
Morning shooting at Langley Park.
Editing images from Canada. I discovered that you can in fact save images as “Original+Setting”. This means that you CAN migrate edited RAW images from Lightroom CC back into Lightroom Classic CC, although it is a somewhat convoluted process.
2 hours at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club – practical session on food photography.
Interesting discussion with Rojer Weightman about still-life composition, particularly the Dutch Vanitas genre which use objects symbolically to comment on the meaning (or emptiness) of life. Rojer’s view was that such paintings include references to all five senses (taste, sight, touch, smell, and sound) and all four elements (earth, water, air and fire) arranged (in the terms of Canaday):
- Pattern: often by using an adjacent or complementary colours
- Structurally: so that opposing elements, i.e., fire-water and earth-air are balanced on opposite sides of the image
- Narratively to convey the required message.
8 January 2018
Hours 210 to 212
3 hours preparing images to be submitted tomorrow to the SPPC “Retro” and Open competition to be judged on the 16th. The flowers to the right are for the Open section.
The image was shot in the summer (obviously), yet I did the post processing today to reduce edge flicker and remove or soften any other distracting elements. A partially masked out copy layer, with multiply blend mode, was used to create the heavy vignette which keeps the eye on the main elements of the image.
My previous entry of flowers in a competition did not do so well, and I was not there for the feedback. This time I am keen to hear the comments, positive and negative. Let’s see …
7 January 2018
Hours 208 to 209
Two hours shooting and processing the “Cliveden 10” cross country run. In particular using the 9-point dynamic area autofocus discovered yesterday. Sony calls this “Extended Spot Focus” but is exactly what was described in the Photo Basics supplement.
6 January 2018
Hours 204 to 207
An hour reading the surprisingly good “Photo Basics” supplement from the “Digital Camera World” magazine I was given at Christmas. Key insights:
- Disadvantage of small apertures. I have been unaware/ ignoring the effect of diffraction in f-stops of f/18 or over, and have probably been achieving softer images as a result. The sweet spot for most lenses is apparently between f/8 and f/11.
- Dynamic Area Autofocus – I should probably be using 9 point Dynamic Area AF-C (continuous tracking) when photographing runners at Parkrun and other events. This gives the camera a better chance to maintain focus lock on a moving subject. 21 point lock is also available for subjects that move erratically, but 9 should be enough for runners who are quite predictable! (Will try this out tomorrow.)
Half an hour taking the shot top-right inspired by the book, read last month, “Really Good Dog Photography”.
Then two hours shooting and processing a “Reto” image of my godson wearing Ray-Ban Aviators for the Tom Cruise Top Gun look.
Production of the above image was hard for me a I have like experience using off-camera lights. This was shot with my little Godox TT350 speedlite, illuminating a small white umbrella on a Manfrotto stand. The TT350 wasn’t really up to the job and I had to increase the ISO to 800 to get enough exposure. My bigger flash doesn’t work off-camera. See my kit.
5 January 2018
Hours 203
Select edit and distribute new social media image of me – mainly reading the Canaday “What is Art?” book, but me & camera both in rain gear for this site so that I am looking right to left, i.e., into the page.
4 January 2018
Hours 201 to 202
Trying to work with the images I shot in Canada and saved in Lightroom CC.
This is leading to a bit of a downer day on Adobe. Shots loaded to CC via my laptop, edited (reasonably OK, although did crash on me a couple of times). Editing definitely more limited:
– no watermarking export preset
– no links to facebook/ flickr etc.
Although, at first glance it looked as though I would be able to access these images on my main computer through CC at home, this turned out not to be completely true.
Further, as far as I can see, CC does not:
1. support operation in dual screen mode
2. permit export of edited files, via a catalog, back to Classic.
This second point is profoundly irritating and looks like Adobe is allowing only one way traffic from Classic to CC but not back again.
Although better than CC, I have noticed that the recent version of Lightroom Classic is less stable than previous versions.
3 January 2018
Hour 200
An hour updating images for entry into the RPS Review of 2017 monthly competition.
2 January 2018
Hours 198 to 199
Half an hour’s morning shoot by the Chilliwack River followed by half an hour reading the Canon of Design by Travis Leaf-Glover with particular focus on use of Arabesques and Dynamic Symmetry in composition.
Work on yesterday’s images.
1 January 2018
Hours 194 to 197
An hour’s morning shoot in Vancouver city, followed by an hour shooting the frozen landscape of the country, with particular focus on iced plants.
Two hours processing images, reviewing past entries of the Sony competition, and updating this blog site.