This journal records the details of my photography apprenticeship through 10,000 hours deliberate practice
Hours 3,779 to 3,896
30th June 2020
Hours 3,892 to 3,896
An hour writing up this journal.
Half an hour updating my “my kit” page.
Half an hour watching and practicing with the animated Godox V1 basics tutorial.
An hour shooting and another processing images from the Karl Taylor Education mock wine bottle advert – Challenge #2.
Two hours processing the above image which is a combination of 4 exposures:
- Base
- Stripe on right side of bottle
- Bottle raised to allow stripe to go to the bottom of the bottle – placing it on top a can of tuna (not easy to blend as the bottle is now at a different angle)
- lighter background.
Whilst the resultant image broadly OK in terms of fulfilling the brief, falls short in the following areas:
- The gradient lighting on the left of the bottle has stripes in it rather than being completely smooth
- lighting of the left doesn’t come down to match the stripe on the right
- The background is not as smooth as it could be
- Too much correction was done in photoshop.
A better version will be achieved with:
- More even gradient lighting – need to rewatch Karl’s video to see how he does it
- Replacing the board with the tuna can (rather than stacking them) so that the bottle remains in broadly the same position
- Wet the board to make it darker
- Use a defuser on the flash lighting the background for a more even spread from a higher position. Should give a better balance of light and show fewer wrinkles
- Clean the bottle to remove finger prints and dust.
An hour’s YouTube including:
- Nigel Danson: “How I took my best picture of the year” required returning to the same spot several times
- Sean Tucker: “Building Meaning into Pictures (My Portrait Story)“
29th June 2020
Hours 3,886 to 3,891
Half an hour updating this journal plus half an hour shooting and editing the image of the setup. Shot on my new iPhone which made me appreciate how much better a proper DSLR is in low light. Verticals auto corrected in photoshop, which worked fine. Recovering details from the shadows was horrible.
“Black, from a human psychology standpoint, is a colour in itself, and not the absence of colour, as scientists affirm.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe from his book “Theory Of Colours“.
An hour watching, and taking notes on the KTE video “7 Step to Becoming a Successful Professional Photographer”:
- Thoroughly master the basics including:
- Camera and lighting operation
- Conveying emotion
- Telling a story.
- Choose your niche – but practice widely and start with the work you enjoy
- Getting the right equipment
- Practice: “top pros are the best because they spent a lot of time experimenting and comparing their work with that of other”
- Be realistic, about:
- quality of your work
- market supply and demand
- what makes you competitive
- keep pushing to improve and up-skill
- Don’y think you know light – know light – really study this aspect of photography
- Get your work out there – curate a portfolio of only your best work – create “a portfolio of the type of work you want to do.”
Two hours working on the KTE Wine Bottle mock advertising brief – Challenge #2. This now include pretty much all the equipment I own:
- I replaced the small tin reflector around the AD600, backlighting the scrim to the left of the bottle, with a hexagonal softbox flagged with a strip of card closest to the scrim. The tin reflector, even with a cloth modifier on the front produced a strange and uneven light; much better with the larger modifier
- Using all four of my tripods (3 holding lights), plus the light stand holding the scrim. My small Godox TT350 flash is on my Manfrotto BeFree travel tripod, raised almost to the level of the table to provide a more head-on light which hides the wrinkles in the backdrop
- Big V1 flash with the modifier wrapped as a snoot, on super low power (the V1 goes down to 1/256) just to “pop” a bit of light on the label
- Use the edge of a completely white photobook box, extended with a strip of white paper, to create a hard reflection on the right hand side of the bottle.
Two hour at the Amersham Photographic Society Zoom meeting. Inspirational presentation on landscape photography by Chris Palmer.
28th June 2020
Hours 3,882 to 3,885
Two hours working on FIAP submissions including debugging the Photoshop actions that generate 1920×1080 pixel Jpegs running in Batch mode. I chose using Batch rather than creating a droplet as this enables me to direct the output to the specific folder in which I want to keep that entry’s files. Finished the submission for the Queensland Digital circuit in Australia.
Two hours working on the Wine bottle, photo brief #2 from Karl Taylor Education.
The scrim creates the requires soft gradient wrapping the left side of the bottle. Now need to work on creating a hard line down the right.
27th June 2020
Hours 3,879 to 3,881
Half an hour updating this journal
Two hours updating images from Claremont Gardens including the following:
Original image shot on the 15th.
The spot healing tool in Photoshop did a remarkably good job of removing power pylons and cables from the following:
Half an hour updating associated social media sites, i.e., Flickr.
26th June 2020
Hours 3,874 to 3,878
Half an hour shooting at Black Park using my new iPhone 11 Pro.
Inspired by the following quote, I used the same new phone to shoot half a grapefruit being eaten for breakfast, the peel of which having been used as drinks garnish.
“There are pictures everywhere, it’s just a matter of noticing things and organising them.”
Elliot Erwitt – as quoted on a coffee mug I was given for Christmas.
Two hours preparing prints for the Salao Jauense in Brazil.
An hour creating a Photoshop Droplet that implements the ideas of the 21st to automate the creation of JPEGS for PDI competitions – works wonderfully and created the following, which I will use for the Amersham Beyond meeting next week, and send to the person who gave us the flower.
Half an hour watching and taking notes on Nigel Danson’s video about how they judged the World Landscape Photographer of the Year competition. Plus another half hour reviewing the winning and 50 commended images. Outstanding.
Half an hour updating this journal, including answering a question in the comments of my recent “LAB Colour” post.
25th June 2020
Hours 3,871 to 3,873
Three hours preparing prints for the Sonar Bagal exhibition and creating new actions to create 15×10 inch prints for the Salao Jauense in Brazil which maddest prints slightly smaller than A3.
24th June 2020
Hours 3,869 to 3,870
An hour planning the wine bottle shoot; no. 2 Working to a Brief challenge from Karl Taylor Education.
An hour watching the KTE workshop on Jewellery photography following my attempt on my goddaughter’s snakeskin pendant necklace last week.
Initially Karl’s lighting set-up was very similar to mine with a simple bare light behind a scrim to create a smooth gradient. Karl then added some point lights to add sparkle, although he admitted that more would need to be added in photoshop.
Idea: The reason jewels don’t look as sparkly in a photo as they are perceived is that we a see them subject to moving light. My idea is to try using a hard light moving during a longer exposure, to give genuine in-camera sparkle. Light painting the gem for sparkle. Will probably need a 2-5 second exposure.
23rd June 2020
Hour 3,868
An hour updating this journal, mainly with notes from yesterday’s lecture on Astrophotography.
22nd June 2020
Hours 3,863 to 3,867
An hour finishing the submissions to the Jauense and Sonar Bangla FIAP print salons in Brazil and India respectively.
An hour and a half at the Amersham Photographic Society’s virtual lecture by Alyn Wallace on Astrophotography.
Recommended locations:
- Brecon Beacons in Wales
- La Palma, a small island west of Tenerrif in the Canary Islands, where it is possible to get above the clouds early in the mornings or at night
- Karadeniz in Turkey
He is an ambassador for Move-Shoot-Move star tracker.
Two and a half hours wordsmithing a page or two of Kevin Day’s website. This counts as deliberate practice learning the art of photography as it is understanding and communicating his differential skills in portrait and event photography.
21st June 2020
Hour 3,862
Had an idea for completely automating the production of 1920×1080 JPEGs; simplifying the process and merely adding a 1 pixel grey key line as an inside stroke. Thus making the process totally automatic.Half an hour updating this journal.
Half an hour watching more of the Karl Taylor live workshop of wine bottle photography.
20th June 2020
Hours 3,857 to 3,861
An hour debugging yesterday’s actions and creating two new droplets. Now seems to work. Produced Landscape and Portrait mock mounts of top 24 potential images for the ARPS panel and set to SIMlab for printing.
Three hour entering two FIAP Salons with mixed prints and PDIs.
An hour implementing an action to automate the production of the most popular 1920×1080 JPEGs for FIAP salons regardless of the original shape if the image. Uses the resizing trick developed yesterday for the mock mounts. The Batch Automate process would then enable images to be directed towards the required folder and named as necessary.
19th June 2020
Hours 3,851 to 3,856
An hour finishing the photoshop actions to produce mock mounted prints of potential ARPS panel images.
Five further hours working with Photoshop automation of the above, including an hour rewatching the excellent YouTube from Terry White “How to Automate Adobe Photoshop“.
Ultimately producing two Photoshop Droplets that produce 10×8 inch jpegs ready for printing in landscape or portrait respectively, representing horizontal or vertical mounts.
The tricky bit was sorting the four cases of image size:
- Wide landscape
- Squat Landscape
- Squat Portrait (or Square)
- Tall Portrait
which need identifying and resizing differently. Given that Photoshop Action Conditional Statements are limited to “Is the document Landscape?”, identification of the above is a multi-step process:
- landscape/ portrait?
- reduce width/ height by 71% and retest landscape/ portrait?
- finally ensure that the first step in the ultimately selected action is Revert to ensure that the image goes back to its correct shape.
18th June 2020
Hours 3,845 to 3,850
Three hours shooting the Snakeskin necklace pendant made by my goddaughter. Proof that product photography can be made massively complicated if one tries hard enough.
An hour watching the Karl Taylor Education “Working to a Brief #2” which is a mock wine bottle advert.
An hour finalising my entry for the Lisboa FIAP salon including three new images.
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| Maid Sweeping | Kieran | Coronavirus Paramedic |
An hour watching the first half of Karl Taylor tutorial on shooting a bottle of wine, which is the subject of challenge #2, earlier today.
17th June 2020
Hours 3,840 to 3,844
First two hours working on a Photoshop action to create mock mounted prints out of potential RPS distinction panel entries.
“To be successful at Associateship level you need to provide evidence of creative ability and the development of a personal style. You also need to be able to show that you are in complete control of the technical aspects which allows you to produce quality which is entirely ‘fit for purpose’ i.e. it suits the subject. Your work should be consistent and make a statement of a strong personal style. A high standard of presentation is expected.
RPS Advice for Associate Applicants.
An hour preparing prints for the Wojnicz FIAP Photo Print Salon in Poland.
An hour preparing PDIs for the Lisboa salon.
An hour revising my “LAB Colour” post and updating this journal.
16th June 2020
Hours 3,835 to 3,839
Two hours preparing prints for a FIAP competition in Poland. Advice from Yin Wong was to submit A3 prints which meant writing new Photoshop actions.
Two hours entering FIAP salons.
An hour’s YouTube including:
- Nigel Danson: “Why I spend Hours on One Photo“
- Art of Photography: “Lightroom update“
- Thomas Heaton: “Minimalist Photography in the Field“
15th June 2020
Hours 3,830 to 3,834
An hour working on the long exposure of my house and garden shot last night; first in Capture One then removing some reflections and other lighting mistakes in Photoshop.
Half an hour shooting landscapes and geese at Claremont Gardens (National Trust property).
An hour and a half culling and processing the above images in Capture One, then Photoshop
Two hours at the Amersham Photographic Society virtual meeting – Members’ Evening – new members.
14th June 2020
Hours 3,828 to 3,829
Half an hour shooting a background for my mock prints, plus another half processing and writing up.
Print chosen as it has plenty of pure white to help set colour balance and tone adjustments.
These are not the most inspiring images but will form the surround for the mock prints.
An hour shooting some long exposure images of the outside of my house between midnight and 1am (technically tomorrow but I’m counting it as today because that’s what my body clock thinks).
13th June 2020
Hours 3,823 to 3,827
Half an hour updating this journal.
An hour and a half shooting Fine Art Flowers, an Amersham Beyond Challenge.
An hour processing the above images in Capture One Pro 20 and focus stacking the sharp images.
An hour and a half processing the following three variants in Photoshop.
Currently preferring variants 2 & 3, or maybe the first.
Half an hour planning the light painting challenge for Karl Taylor Education, which I hope to do in the garden tomorrow night, weather should be clear.
12th June 2020
Hour 3,822
Produced the following version of my Blackfriars Bridge Multiple Exposure
and spent the rest of an hour creating a potential layout for an ARPS panel.
The thumbnail format is not dissimilar to the shape of mounted prints.
Some problems with the above, including:
- images 7 & 9 don’t “pair” very well
- lack of overall tone and colour consistency.
11th June 2020
Hours 3,817 to 3,821
Half an hour updating this journal and reviewing the “Spring 2020” post published yesterday.
Half an hour Karl Taylor education – Week 12 Challenge: Light Painting.
Videos:
An hour entering the FIAP EPIC Circuit in India.
6pm An hour at the RPS Webinar: Sarah Dow ARPS “The She Inside” her A panel. Sarah is now a professional portrait photographer using only natural light.
8pm Two hours at the Amersham virtual Mono Group.
10th June 2020
Hours 3,812 to 3,816
Half an hour updating this journal.
Two hours finishing and publishing the “Spring 2020” review post.
Half an hour watching YouTubes on Colour Management Workflow by Dan Margulis as recommended by Tim Flack. Also introduced the concept of the “halo map” when sharpening an image and observed that light halos are generally deemed more offensive than their dark halo counterpart. So it is possible to achieve a greater level of sharpening by emphasising the dark halo side.
Two hours entering 2 FIAP Salons: Taichung (Taiwan) and Mirage (Albania).
9th June 2020
Hours 3,809 to 3,811
An hour and a half working on the “Spring 2020” review post.
An hour and a half virtual meeting with my CPAGB advisor Ray Brammel and reprocessing some images in the light of his suggested improvements. He also thinks my “Man and Best Friend” image is risky.
Minor Success Note:
- Honourable mention for “Hoodie Descending a Staircase” in the Tivat salon of the Tivat 2020 circuit.
- Only the second FIAP award I have achieved. The first being a Bronze medal for “Autumnal Diptych” in the Georgian Drag 2019 (notified 24th July 2019).
8th June 2020
Hours 3,804 to 3,808
Half an hour writing up this journal.
Half an hour submitting images for the now delayed Plovdiv Salon.
Two hours preparing images and entering the Zeta circuit of 3 FIAP Salons in Montenegro.
Two hours at the virtual Amersham Photographic Society meeting. Lecture: Chris Upton ARPS “Finding the Beauty in Nature”
7th June 2020
Hours 3,801 to 3,803
Half an hour updating this journal.
Two hours working on my potential CPAGB images trying to implement the changes recommended by Ray Brammel.
Final half hour updating my choice of candidates and sending to Ray for comment.
6th June 2020
Hours 3,798 to 3,800
An hour preparing competition prints, working on the “Spring 2020” post and updating this journal.
Two hour watching YouTubes:
- “Jean-Michel Basquiat: How A Street Artist Transcended Pop Art” – includes an introduction which places graffiti in the context of art history as fulfilling man’s basic desire for expression and to mark that he has been here. Essentially the same basic desire primitive man met with cave paintings
- Capture One Live Talks: “Edit with Joe McNally“.
5th June 2020
Hours 3,795 to 3,797
Two hours working on the review of “Spring 2020” post.
An hour in conversation with Ray Brammel, my CPAGB advisor. Lots of great ideas regarding better crops or processing of my candidate images.
4th June 2020
Hours 3,791 to 3,794
An hour writing up this journal.
An hour working on recolourising some of last summer’s multiple exposure images.
Two hours at the virtual Amersham Beyond meeting. Next challenge #15 Fina Art Flowers.
3rd June 2020
Hours 3,787 to 3,790
Two hours communicating with Ray Brammel, my newly appointed CPAGB advisor – mainly finding and preparing another set of backup images for him.
Two hours YouTube from my hero’s Nigel Danson, PIXimperfect and Sean Tucker:
- ND: “7 Simple composition tricks I use every day“
- Requirements of any image:
- Generally pleasing to look at
- Tell a story
- Have “lingering appeal” so that it retains your attention and you’re interested in looking at it at second and third time.
- 7 tricks or techniques not rules, for finding great compositions:
- Squint your eyes: or set focus on phone to close to produce an out-of-focus image/ blurred
- Look at a scene upside-down – again using phone
- Use: phone, camera hand held, and only then camera on a tripod
- Put phone in B&W mode – helps see structure
- Beware items of similar tone competing in an image
- Ensure that the bottom third of an image works with the rest – keep it simple
- Take shot – walk away – come back and reevaluate.
- Requirements of any image:
- ND: “The Magic Ingredient to Great Photography“
- Concentrate on conveying the emotion you feel at the time of taking the shot
- ND: “I only use Photoshop over Lightroom for these 5 Reasons” all obvious
- Pi: “Magically Remove Glare from Glasses in Photoshop“
- If some detail exists, use burn techniques to match the tone of the eyes without glare (working in B&W), adjust the colour, and tidy up with the healing brush – great video
- If no details exist, the only option you have is to blend in a shot taken with the glasses off
- In both of the above cases reduce the opacity of the changed image to 60-80% for a more natural look
- ST: “Chat with Matt Granger, the reality of being a photographer in 2020“
- ST: “Why Mastering Photography (or anything else) Takes Time“
2nd June 2020
Hours 3,783 to 3,786
An hour updating this journal and starting the Seasonal Review post “Spring 2020“.
Second hour selecting images for the above season review with a spot of ad hoc editing, here and there.
Two hours watching and then writing up notes from the Karl Taylor Education webinar: “Working to a Brief – Challenge Review” where my image (below), along with 153 others, was criticised as follows:
Not on brief for the following reasons:
- Wanted a landscape rather than square format (I thought providing a bit more space above was an option – not the case apparently)
- Foreground apple too big and not quite in the right position
- Lighting and mood probably OK but not as good as other entries.
1st June 2020
Hours 3,779 to 3,782
An hour updating this journal, including all the new month admin and adding images to the May’s page.
An hour and a half finishing and publishing the post on “LAB Colour“.
An hour and a half virtually at the Amersham Photographic Society – Presentation – Sue Brown FRPS (member of the Arena Group) ‘Thoughts behind being a Landscape Photographer”. Notes:
- Super abstract photographs with images from diverse locations
- To learn to see better, stop and look rather than immediately getting the camera out
- In particular, when shooting seascapes, count how long the waves take as that will be your exposure.
(May 2020)
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