January 2022

This journal records my actual 10,000 hours deliberate practice studying art photography. 

Hours 6,037 to 6,144.

(February 2022)

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31^st January

Hours 6,142 to 6,144

(1h) shooting first thing in the morning in Lincoln.

(2h) Amersham Photographic Society – external competition with Raheny Camera Club.

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30^th January

Hours 6,140 to 6,141

(1h) shooting first thing in the morning, then later in the day, in Lincoln.

(1h) culling and initial processing of the day’s images ion CaptureOne.

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29^th January

Hour 6,139

(1h) visiting the Usher art museum in Lincoln. Nature Photography exhibition and L.S. Lowry paintings.

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28^th January

Hour 6,138

(1h) finding new image for a revised A Panel.

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27^th January

Hours 6,135 to 6,137

(½h) updating this journal.

(½h) revising yesterday’s images.

Updated Image	…..	Original

(1h) YouTube:

• Clifford Still Museum:
  • “Virtual Tour of The Late Works: Clyfford Still in Maryland“
  • “Into the Vaults with Clyfford Still Museum Director Dean Sobel“
  • “Shade: Clyfford Still / Mark Bradford“
• Sotheby’s: “Clyfford Still Fused Form, Color and Texture for a Radical New Language of Abstraction“

(½h) updating my Artists Timeline Spreadsheet

(½h) updating the following image to lighten and add texture to the overly dark and dominant land triangles in the scene.

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26^th January

Hours 6,131 to 6,134

(1h) YouTube: MoMo Lecture – “Joan Miró“

• Born on the 20^th April (1893)
• “I make no distinction between painting and poetry”
• The Farm was purchased by Ernest Hemmingway well before Miro was famous
• Picasso introduced him to Paris and purchased one of his paintings
• Walter Gropius (founder of the Bauhaus) commissioned him to paint a mural for the dinning room.

(1h) YouTube:

• Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth: “Robert Motherwell – Being There: Slow Art“
• Sotheby’s: “From Picasso to Motherwell: A Singular Vision of 20th Century Artistic Innovation“

(2h) Amersham Colour Group

Image	…..	Comments/ suggestions from the Group
		“Golden Streets York” Crop the top to reduce the dominance of the black sky. Reduce the cool the colour tone to make the image feel colder.
		“Dark Street York” Make signs clearer. Crop the bottom
		“December Evening York” Doesn’t really work: – eye is drawn to the only thing that’s in focus; part of the wall – strange that the foreground woman is not in focus Try, cropping the bottom half way through the woman so that nothing is in focus, and perhaps do something with the over bight light.

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25^th January

Hours 6,127 to 6,130

(½h) journal.

(½h) artist timeline spreadsheet.

(1h) revising the following images

Original	…..	Revised

(2h) Stoke Poges Photographic Club – PDI competition – Abstract and Open my entries below:

Image	…..	Comments
		“Composition in Green and Magenta” 16 The right side is fairly light which tends to lead the eye in. Which is a little unnatural. Too dark in the middle.
		“Homage to Barnett Newman” 18 Judge did not know who Barnett Newman was. Pleasing.
		“Hungerford Biomorphic II” 18 Pleasing composition into which one can read whatever one likes.
		“The Moon Last Monday” 18 Sharp image of the moon – unusual composition. Obviously not a single shot. [Stars bottom left looked a little red when projected.]

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24^th January

Hours 6,122 to 6,126

(1h) YouTube:

• Sotheby’s: “Richard Hambleton: The Godfather of Street Art“
• Sotheby’s: “Sabine Weiss | Memories of Alberto Giacometti“
• Then & Now: “Understanding Derrida, Deconstruction & Of Grammatology“
• Contemporary Art Issue: “Conceptual Art: Definition, Characteristics & 25 Artists Who Defined Conceptual Art” – I was surprised by how many artists or thier works I recognised and have seen at the Tate Modern.

(1h) selecting and updating images for this Wednesday’s Amersham Colour Group.

(1h) Updating this journal including adding notes below.

(2h) Amersham Photographic Society – PDI competition. My entries below:

Image	…..	Comments
		“Memories of South America” 18 Good composition. Not sure about the dominating dark area in the middle. Need to be able see more texture. Good detail in the rock bottom left. May be better in black & white.
		“Lady of Corfe Castle” 15 Background off-putting. Don’t like grain on the woman’s hair. She looks as though she is squinting. Not convinced that the overlay works, if at all, it should have been more subtle. Technically weak.

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23^rd January

Hours 6,120 to 6,121

(1h) studying successful RPS A Panels across the various categories, particularly those with some similarity to my Stoke Common project.

(1h) drafting alternative Statements of Intent.

[Entered the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition 2022].

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22^nd January

Hours 6,116 to 6,119

(1h) creating the following version of the Butterfly Woman image – the shadow, which took a lot of work to get right, makes all the difference.

(2h) YouTube:

• New York Studio School: “Patricia Albers on Joan Mitchell“
• Tuen Tony Kwok: “Paul Klee – Surrealism Expressionism Abstract Art German” influenced fellow Bauhaus artist including in the following ways:
  • heavy lines like Piet Mondrian’s early Tree paintings (and filling in the boxes like Mondrian but in a less regular manner)
  • surrealism of Wassily Kandinsky
  • colour theory of Joseph Albers

(1h) reprocessing the old top tier of my A Panel.

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21^st January

Hours 6,113 to 6,115

(1h) updating this journal, mainly with notes from yesterday evening’s PIC Group where my prospective A Panel was extensively discussed.

(1h) creating the following image as a potential for next week’s Amersham PDI competition; giving up and submitting two other images.

Not least, the butterfly above needs a shadow.

(1h) YouTube – CaptureOne Webinar: “Using Layers (Part 1)” – top tip was Radial Masks that I had all but forgotten about.

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20^th January

Hours 6,107 to 6,112

(2h) creating a composite from the ComicCon images.

(1h) processing the following Flamingos photo that I stumbled across in Lightroom

Original	…..	Revised

(½h) updating my A Panel Statement of Intent prior to this evening’s presentation to the PIC Group.

(½h) YouTube – Film Courage: “Artists Don’t Have To Believe In Themselves To Have Success”

• “Just do the work”
• If Success is where opportunity meets preparation, make sure that you’re both prepared for when opportunities arise, and do the things that make opportunities more likely, e.g., networking with the right people
• “If you want something that you’ve never had before, you’ve go to be prepared to do something you’ve never done before.”

(2h) at the Amersham PIC Group with most of the time spent discussing my potential A Panel.

Major conclusions:

• Statement of Intent was too complicated and did not match the images
• The overall look of the images was too blue
• Processing too crude and dominant
• Need a greater variety of focal length and camera angle

Specific images:

• 2-4 need reprocessing
• 7-9 just not very good
• 9 & 10 are too similar
• 11 & 15 also too similar and have blown highlights
• 13 & 14 would be better the other way round.

Rearranged panel below:

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19^th January

Hours 6,102 to 6,106

(½h) updating this journal

(½h) creating the following moon image to submit to next week’s SPPC PDI competition

(1h) preparing images for next week’s Stoke Poges Photographic Club’s PDI competition: Abstract and Open.

(2h) working on my artist timeline spreadsheet.

(1h) assembling the prints for my prospective A panel to be shown to the Amersham PIC group on Thursday.

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18^th January

Hours 6,097 – 6,101

(1h) creating the following composite of the moon

(½h) shooting some frost image of Hastings Meadow

(1½h) processing the above images

(1h) creating my artist timeline spreadsheet

(1h) out of over 2 elapsed at the Stoke Poges Photography Club workshop on photo editing – top tip was use of the refine edge tool in selections, accessed through the Select and Mask panel. I need to practice this.

A few minutes spent shooting the full moon.

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17^th January

Hours 6,092 to 6,096

(2h) Amersham Photographic Society – Lecture by Tom Way – objectives of wildlife photography:

• personality of the animal
• simplicity
• removal of tension points, e.g., horizon through the animal
• need to see all legs of the animal.

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16^th January

Hours 6,090 to 6,091

(½h) updating this journal with the milk splash images

(1½h) YouTube: B&H Event Space: “Modern Fine Art Portraiture Inspired by the Old Masters“

• Shoot with a clean background
  • One light – high from Rembrandt lighting
  • Big softbox modifier close to subject for soft lighting
  • Ensure that shadow from nose doesn’t touch the lips.
• Fill-in the background with a texture:
  • layer texture over the entire image
  • maybe blur texture using gaussian blue
  • blend mode = Soft Light or Overlay
  • reduce opacity – slightly
• Take background structure off the subject whilst retaining overall tone & colouration, i.e., with the texture layer selected:
  • Roughly select the inside of the subject using the Lasso tool and a large feather
  • Filter – Average
• Use a second texture to unify foreground and background
  • Use a texture with less colour and a smaller, more uniform structure, e.g., linen
• Reduced texture on subject’s skin; as above:
  • Roughly select skin areas
  • Filter – Average
  • Edit – Fade Average – <Shift><Command>F
• Vignette as necessary.

*** Try the above with some of my ComicCon images.

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15^th January

Hours 6,086 to 6,089

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14^th January

Hours 6,084 to 6,085

(1h) updating the seascapes from yesterday’s mono group.

Revised Image	…..	Original

(1h) Chappaqua Library Art Talk: “Joan Mitchell” – second generation abstract expressionist.

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13^th January

Hours 6,080 to 6,083

(2h) Amersham Mono Group. My skin in the game below:

Image	…..	Comments
		“Kefalonia Seafront” Like the inclusion of the beach shower during a rain storm. Crop the left, to or past the first telegraph pole, and perhaps a bit off the right. More upright aspect ratio, more dynamic. Generally darken to create greater drama.
		“Path to the Harbour” Ask the question: what is the photo about?
		“Kefalonia Harbour” More interesting that the image above. Steps add to the image.
		“Grim Outlook” The best of my 4 images. Particularly the images right and left, plus the line that goes through the second.

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12^th January

Hours 6,076 to 6,079

11^th January

Hours 6,071 to 6,075

(½h) updating this journal

(2h) trying to shoot a milk splash for the KTE challenge, using the Pluto laser trigger.

(2½h) hosting round 3 of the Rosebowl, external competition for the Stoke Poges Photographic Club against, inter alia, Amersham.

Image	…..	Comments
		Iced Triptych 17 – which was a respectable score on the night individual images ver good and following a theme However, colours don’t work together well Pink rose too dominant and doesn’t point towards the middle, might have been better flipped horizontally

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10^th January

Hours 6,067 to 6,070

(2h) Amersham Photographic Society – Print Competition by entries below

Image	…..	Comments
		“Milky Way Over Kefalonia” Held Back – 17 Generally a good composition Bottom left triangle too dark Sky looks a bit grainy and over processed. [Probably a problem with the printing, may do better as a PDI.]
		“Pixie Princess” Held back – 18 – Highly Commended Praised for: – skin tones – controlling the whites on her shirt – general sharpness – good even lighting Judge didn’t like: – her right arm being cut off – would have been more dramatic without the amputation – could have made her face a little brighter.

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9^th January

Hours 6,066

(½h) updating this journal

(½h) processing some of the normal, i.e., non-wall, photos from Kefalonia.

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8^th January

Hours 6,064 to 6,065

(1h) having another go at the KTE challenge.

(½h) researching mile splash photography – Elmer’s Glue is considered one of the best alternatives to real milk.

(½h) updating this journal.

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7^th January

Hours 6,062 to 6,063

(2h) shooting the Karl Taylor Milk Pour challenge.

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6^th January

Hours 6,059 to 6,061

(1h) YouTube: Sotheby’s Contemporary Conversations: “Becoming Andy Warhol”, things I didn’t know:

• the extent to which Warhol was a successful commercial artist, i.e., earning the equivalent of $500,000 PA before producing anything for the “art market”

(2h) Amersham Beyond Group:

• I need to retitle my images if I submit them to the RA Summer Exhibition to be less prescriptive, e.g., “Waterboarding a Blind Person” doesn’t do the image any favours
• Paddington Pre Pandemic could become “Sunrise”
• Waterboarding a Blind Person – “Unspoken”.

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5^th January

Hours 6,054 to 6,058

(½h) updating this journal

(1h) processing images for printing my A Panel, this involved creating a new Photoshop Action (then taking them to the printers).

(2h) YouTube initially interested in Adolph Gottleib then diverging:

• Pace Gallery: “Adolph Gottlieb: Classic Paintings“
• Sotheby’s: “From Picasso to Motherwell: A Singular Vision of 20th Century Artistic Innovation“
• Sotheby’s: “Lee Krasner from the Depths of Despair to the Height of her Career“
• Doyle New York: “Video Essay: A 1965 “Burst” Painting by Adolph Gottlieb“
• Aurelio Salvador: “Adolph Gottleib“
• Intuit: “Revisiting Jean Dubuffet’s 1951 “Anti-cultural Positions” Lecture“
• Sotheby’s: “Kate Bryan’s Contemporary Art Exhibition Tour“

(1½h) Amersham Photographic Society romping through the semi-finals of the North West Fed.

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4^th January

Hours 6,051 to 6,053

(1h) reediting the Pixie Princess image for next week’s print competition at Amersham.

(1½h) YouTube:

• CaptureOne: “Shooting and Stitching Panoramas“
  • at sunset, shoot from lightest part of sky to darkest for greater consistency; at sunrise, go from lightest to darkest
  • max overlap 30%
  • nodal point parallax an issue only in relation to close foreground objects and the background
  • of the various stitching modes:
    • spherical – only useful for multi-layer panos
    • cylindrical – basic
    • perspective – gives a truer, flater image
    • panini – often the best but very computer intensive.
• Contemporary Art Issue: “Top 23 Greatest Female Artists Who Defined Contemporary Art“

(½h) updating this journal.

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3^rd January

Hours 6,047 to 6,050

(1h) creating prints for next week’s competition at Amersham.

(1½h) YouTube on the relationship between the painter, Francis Bacon and Photographer, Peter Beard:

• Apollo Magazine: “Wild Life: Francis Bacon and Peter Beard – an online discussion“
• Lars Bruun: “A study of Peter Beard“

Remarkable single-mindedness of each artist. Mutual respect as intellectuals – Bacon apparently said: “Peter Beard is about 5% smarter than anybody else he’s in the room with.” Both artists also borrowed extensively from other artist and were each big fans of Picasso.

(1h) selecting images for a panel of Kefalonia Wall images.

(½h) updating this journal.

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2^nd January

Hours 6,042 to 6,046

“After the Trees – Stoke Common”

Statement of Intent

Stoke Common is an 80 hectare site of special scientific interest, 2 miles north of Slough.  Much of the common was covered in dense, unmanaged forest; predominantly birch and pine.

A recent programme undertook to clear the majority of this woodland and return the centre of the common to natural heathland, considered rare in the UK.

I visit the common frequently, often early in the morning, in cold foggy conditions.  I was alarmed by the brutality of this programme, leaving:

• desolate spaces with only isolated trees saved
• increased flooding in already boggy areas.

However, where the clearance stopped:

• a clean slice of previously unmanaged woodland was revealed
• the natural structure, previously at the heart of the forest, became visible
• the trees, now at the edge, thrived from the increased light.

This panel reflects my mixed emotions about this programme.

(147 words.)

(1½h) YouTube: “Ben Street – Mark Rothko seeing Red” – describes Rothko’s influences including Roman and medieval art, and his influence on contemporary artists including the following minimalists who use light directly as their medium:

• Dan Flavin – uses florescent light bulbs in combination or alone to highlight the structure of the gallery in which they are placed, e.g., squares in the corner
• James Turrell – works on a monumental scale, including lighting a series of huge inverted cones with the Guggenheim museum, or in an extinct volcano!

“Red is the medium through which Rothko was able to collapse time.”

Ben Street

(1½h) preparing images for the Amersham Beyond meeting later this week.

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1^st January

Hours 6,037 to 6,041

(1h) updating this journal, including all the new month and new year admin

(1h) YouTube:

• The Photographer’s Eye: “Reboot Your Photography in 2022“
  • have goals – things you would like to achieve, e.g., produce 3 photos I’m proud of per month, or learn to shoot using on-camera flash
  • don’t compare yourself to other people
  • look at lots of photos (paintings and other art works)
• The Canvas: “Abstract Expressionism: Who were the Irascible 18” – The New York School (1950) of eclectic modern style, i.e., the abstract expressionists. Open letter to the Metropolitan Museum of Arts signed by:
  1. Jimmy Ernst (son of Max Ernst)
  2. Adolph Gottlieb
  3. Robert Motherwell
  4. William Baziotes
  5. Hans Hofmann
  6. Barnett Newman
  7. Clyfford Still
  8. Richard Pousette-Dart
  9. Theodoros Stamos
  10. Ad Reinhardt
  11. Jackson Pollock
  12. Mark Rothko
  13. Bradley Walker Tomlin
  14. Willem de Kooning
  15. Hedda Serne
  16. James Brooks
  17. Weldon Kees
  18. Fritz Bultman.
• MoMA: “How to See: Sophie Taeuber-Arp” – seen at the Tate Modern 29^th September 2021
• Sotheby’s “Mark Rothko’s Mirrors of the Soul“

(1h) finish and publish “Autumn 2021” post

(1h) reprocess image I05 from my potential A panel so that it balances better with image I01.

Revised Image: Base too dark Background again feels too dark, worse than original		Original: Tree didn’t stand out from the background Base too light & background too dark relative to image #1

(1h) consider a better way of balancing the colour and tonality of images, as moving the mid-point of the curve for each variable is not always ideal.

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(December 2021)