This journal records my actual ten thousand hours of deliberate practice to master photography, and this pages documents those carried out in June 2023.
Hours 7,688 to 7,766
30th June
Hour 7,766
(1h) updating this journal and the “Revised Thought on Art” post. Now nearly finished with its revised structure.
29th June
Hours 7,763 to 7,765
(1h) Revising the “Reflected Window” image below, colour balancing so add some green to the shadows and a corresponding magenta tint to the highlights. The overall effect is quite subtle but makes the blacks seem blacker and adds more punch in general.
(2h) working on the “Revised Thoughts on Art” post
28th June
Hours 7,759 to 7,762
(½h) writing up this journal.
(½h) editing and processing the images shot yesterday.
“L-O”, left.
“Hurley Abstract I”, below.
(1h) working on the “Revised Thought on Art” post.
(2h) talking to Laurie Turner about my “Hands and Face” image left – “Hidden Self-Portrait” is a better title. He suggested removing the wedding ring and retoning with greater contrast. I also tidied up around the eyes.
He thought my Tate Reflection images were a tad “obvious” and overly complicated, and suggest creating a version without any people in it.
“Reflected Window” below was my preferred version after a number of experiments.
27th June
Hours 7,756 to 7,758
(1h) Further editing and processing the grasses images from Stoke Common yesterday morning.
Image right, “Natural Jewel”, and the image below appeal due to the abstract quality of the pictures, i.e., they work as abstracts rather than as photos of a plant.
(2h) shooting and discussing photography with the Stoke Poges Photographic Club – summer walk to Hurley.
Hurley is a bit “chocolate boxy” for my taste, but I quite like the ICM above/
“Nature’s Abstract Art”
“My Fair Lady”
26th June
Hours 7,752 to 7,755
(1h) shooting at Stoke Common very early c. 5:45am.
(2h) editing and processing the morning’s images.
(1h) creating the image below and updating TATE Reflections I to have a similar amount of punch.
25th June
Hour 7,751
(1h) updating this journal, particularly the notes from yesterday’s YouTubes, and creating a revised structure for the “Revised Thoughts on Art” post.
24th June
Hours 7,749 to 7,750
(1½h) updating this journal and then structuring my draft “Revised Thoughts on Art” post.
(½h) YouTube:
- Accessible Art History: “The difference Between Impressionism and Post Impressionism”
- both styles concentrate on communicating emotion more than a realist depiction of the scene
- impressionism was to create the impression of a moment in time; post impressionisms enables the viewer to experience the emotions associated with a particular scene
- impressionists explored the role of light in a composition whereas post impressionists tended to concentrate on the use of colours in a more abstract form
- impressionist used more natural colours whereas the post impressionists used harsh jarring colours to provoke an emotional response in the viewer
- Curious Muse:
- The Conspiracy of Art:
- “Jackson Pollock: Demystifying America’s Most Influential Painter”
- Pure abstraction
- Ideas from deep in the subconscious
- Development from surrealism
- “How the CIA Secretly Used Jackson Pollock to Fight the Cold War”
- Despite the fact that many of the New York School of Abstract Expressionist had left leaning political beliefs, the CIS saw this art as a weapon in the propaganda war against the Soviet Union
- The Soviets allowed only one genre, Soviet Realism, which promoted a positive image of the Soviet working class and the society in why they lived
- Abstract Expressionism was the complete antithesis of Soviet Realism, demonstrating the freedom from constraint of a capitalist society and the artists ability to prosper even if their views conflict with those of the government
- Rather than directly funding artists, the CIA previously had a bad experience with this – discovering that they were inadvertently funding left wing organisations, they worked with wealthy individuals to set up foundations to buy and promote the art that would help its cause
- US government action undoubtedly distorted the art market.
- “Jackson Pollock: Demystifying America’s Most Influential Painter”
23rd June
Hours 7,743 to 7,748
(3h) balancing images images 11 & 15 using the techniques of yesterday; several of the others; most time spent on image 5 making this balance with image 1, where I eventually hit upon the idea of using diagonal gradients on masks of lightening and darkening, to make it light top left and dark bottom right.
(1h) creating the new panel below
(2h) finding a couple of other “Extra”s processing; then resizing everything for sending to Paul Mitchell for review.
22nd June
Hours 7,739 to 7,742
(1h) finding and creating an alternative for image 10.
(1h) selecting and processing potential alternative images.
(1½h) balancing images 1 & 5 – critical was getting similar levels of contrast as well as overall tonality and colouration.
- Tonality can be measured by creating a averaged layer and measuring that
- Contrast is shown my having similar histogram shapes
- Colouration can be done partially by the averaged layer but needs to be finessed by eye having the images next to each other in photoshop.
(½h) Sean Tucker YouTube: “Developing my Street Photography (in Rome)” – when stuck in a rut or feeling as though things are not moving forward, try the following:
- Broaden your work
- Transcend your tricks – don’t reply on past techniques to make interesting images
- Find beauty in the ordinary
- Try new techniques
- Post less/ play more
- Create bodies of work.
21st June
Hours 7,735 to 7,738
(½h) updating this journal
(1h) reprocessing image 5 from my A panel (all the way from the RAW file) to make it less “crunchy”.
(1h) reprocessing images 11 & 15 to lighten up a bit – panel will still need balancing later.
(1h) updating images 12 & 14 where the colours were deemed “a bit muddy”.
(½h) shooting and processing the Comma butterfly, left.
20th June
Hours 7,733 to 7,734
(½h) updating this journal and my “Revised Thoughts on Art” post, whilst on the train going into London. The post needs a new structure, so needs effectively rewriting to convey its message more clearly.
(½h) reworking my “Tate Reflections” image, right, to make the verticals vertical and to change the format to square.
(1) working on image 5 of my A panel.
19th June
Hours 7,731 to 7,732
(½h) updating this journal.
(1½h) updating image 5 of my potential RPS Associateship panel that I promised to send to Paul Mitchell by the end of this week, prior to us having a formal one-2-one session. I need to make this less “crunchy”. By which I presume Joe Cornish meant that it looked over sharpened, which is the case at least in some parts.
18th June
Hour 7,730
(1h) publishing the “Spring 2023” post, updating all journal pages, and a bit of work on the Flickr site.
17th June
Hours 7,728 to 7,729
(2h) updating this journal, finishing the “Spring 2023” review post, updating the “Revised Thought on Art” post, various other journal pages and the associated Flickr site.
16th June
Hours 7,726 to 7,727
(½h) updating the “Yellow T-Shirt, Shades and Fire Hydrant” image, left, removing the car which was considered a distraction when reviewed by members of the Amersham coffee group on 7th of this month.
(1h) updating the Flickr site associated with this journal, mainly the Spring 2023 and Utah and Colorado images.
(½h) updating the “Spring 2023” post with the above images
15th June
Hour 7,725
(1h) updating my “Hands and Face Self Portrait” to make the hands more distinct and the eyes slightly clearer. Then sending to Laurie Turner for comment.
14th June
Hours 7,723 to 7,724
(½h) updating this journal
(1h) creating various experimental alternatives for the “Leaving the Tate Modern” shot yesterday.
“Tate Reflections” right is an inverted reflection of the reflected part of the original image.
I like the colour balance and graphic nature of the image.
(½h) updating this journal
13th June
Hours 7,718 to 7,722
(1h) updating the “Hands and Face Self Portrait” to enhance the colour of the eyes and remove some distracting line around the nose. Then creating the mono version left.
(1h) updating the “Revised Thoughts on Art” post
(2h) at the Tate Modern:
- “Hilma af Klint & Piet Mondrian – Roads to Abstraction”
- “Capturing the Moment – A Journey Though Painting an Photography”, super interesting exhibition featuring many of my favourite painters and photographers, including:
- Cilcily Brown – Trouble in Paradise
- Gerhard Richter
- Paula Rego
- Hiroshi Sugimoto – Seascapes
- Andreas Gursky
- General exhibition
(½h) street photography, in and around the Tate Modern, including the image below.
(½h) editing and processing the day’s images.
“Leaving the Tate Modern”
12th June
Hours 7,714 to 7,717
(1h) updating this journal which hasn’t been done since the 7th
(2h) shooting the “Hands and Face Self-Portrait” right which was a lot more difficult to do than I had anticipated. Keeping one’s head still as one moves one’s hands, is just not natural.
(1h) processing this image. I have created various alternatives and there will doubtless be more to come.
I’m not sure if I like it. Certainly surrealist in its eeriness.
11th June
Hours 7,712 to 7,713
(1h) working on images from Utah and Colorado, including the following which is classic road-trip Americana.
(1h) formulating the following lists which I will use to update this website:
Top photographer influences:
- Hiroshi Sugimoto
- Cindy Sherman
- Andreas Gursky
- Wolfgang Tillman
- David Hockney (really a painter – painting with photographs)
- Brook Shadden
- Fan Hoy
- Liam Wong
Favourite techniques:
- multiple exposure
- compositing
- long exposure
- intentional camera movement
Top painter influences:
- Francis Bacon
- René Magritte
- Jean-Michelle Basquiat
- Edward Hopper (Rooms by the Sea)
- Salvador Dali
- Pablo Picasso
- Jenny Saville
- Gerhard Richter
- Joan Miro
- Mark Rothko
- Jackson Pollock
10th June
Hours 7,710 to 7,711
(2h) YouTube:
- TheAIGRID: “Adobes New AI ‘FIREFLY Photoshop’ Has Everyone Stunned!“
- B&H Photo: “Color Grading in Lightroom” – reminder to do this more often, I have an action in Photoshop to do this and the same technique is easily implemented in Capture One
- Contemporary Art Issue: “A True Story Illustrating the Power of Appearances for Artists” – make your work look as though it is already being shown in major solo shows or mega galleries by photographing it in wide open spaces.
9th June
Hour 7,709
(1h) revising the London in Spring image below:
YouTube: HENI Talks: “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Post-Punk Prodigy” – an artist in the most plural sense.
8th June
Hours 7,706 to 7,708
(2h) YouTube:
- The Conspiracy of Art:
- “The Myth of Picasso“
- “How the CIA Secretly Used Jackson Pollock to Fight the Cold War” – abstract expressionism exemplified the freedom of the American way of life vs the enforced pro-Russian sentiment of Socialist Realism, the only permitted Soviet style at the time.
- The Canvas: “How To Steal From An Artist | Roy Lichtenstein” – claim is that Lichenstein pretty much litteraly copied from comic books and scaled up the drawings, turning them into art
- Amor Sciendi: “Kara Walker’s Fons Americanus: A Monument about Monuments” – saw this exhibition and at the time didn’t understand it. I wish I had seen this video at the time. The Victoria Memorial is a glorification of colonialism; Walker’s monument is to the other side of the slave trade.
(1h) reprocessing images discussed at the Amersham coffee meeting yesterday.
7th June
Hours 7,704 to 7,705
(1h) shooting the Thames Valley Heartbeat award from Bucks Council; glass so very tricky to avoid reflections. Also needed a bit of work in photoshop [probably ½ / ½ shooting processing]
(1h) Amersham coffee club, key images discussed below:
6th June
Hours 7,702 to 7,703
(1h) YouTube from Scott French on developing a project
- Stages toward developing a project “My Fine Art Journey: Creating the Photo Project that Changed Everything“:
- Deep dive into one’s own interests – the subject has to resonate with you
- Brainstorm & research: put everything down, then collect ideas in a mood board PInterest
- Mind-map: develop the more nuanced ideas
- Planning and Execution: plan from the start
- Let RAW images sit for a week or more before further editing from a session
- “Uncover Your Unique Photography Style in Just 3 Steps!”
- Collect works from other photographers that I really admire, plus non-photographic art, including films, paintings, etc.
- Study what I’ve curated is there something deeper on an emotional level? Focus most on the images I most like: what drives me? who am I? Compare my photos with those from the images I really like.
- Experiment and explore. Start a personal project, but don’t try to create exact replicas of other peoples work.
(1h) Stoke Poges Photographic Club – social but interesting conversations with a number of the members.
5th June
Hours 7,700 to 7,701
(1h) updating a couple of the images I have been working on recently including the following which needed reprocessing the RAW file to extract some detail from the server and otherwise overbearing and dominant blacks in the foreground subject.
“Dystopian Woodland” – Mesa Verde, Colorado, 28th May 2023
(1h) YouTube from Amor Sciendi:
- “Keith Haring: Graffiti in the Cave” – simple images that are open to interpretation, and as such are the absolute opposite of the advertisements that officially occupy the wall space where his drawings interject
- “O’Keeffe’s Flowers From Her Perspective” – not at all the depictions of genitalia that is supposed; fiercely independent with a dislike for cities, her paintings are an expression of her personal emotion
- “The End of Art: Arthur Danto’s Influential Art Theory” (again) –
4th June
Hours 7,697 to 7,699
(½h) updating this journal.
(1h) draft “Spring 2023” review post
(1h) at the immersive Hockney experience in London
(½h) print images for Wednesday’s Amersham Coffee meeting.
Image right: “Surprise Arch – Fiery Furnace” shot 27th May in Arches National Park, Utah. [Needed some work in photoshop to remove the halo caused by the iPhone’s sharpening.]
3rd June
Hours 7,694 – 7,696
(½h) researching and updating the Artistic Timelines spreadsheet, mainly with info. regarding Cecily Brown.
(1h) collating the top ten images for the “Spring 2023” review post
(1h) YouTube:
- Imitative Photography: “Olga Karlovac: The Female Street Photographer Who Only Takes Blurry Photos”
- Olga Karlovac’s site: https://www.olga-karlovac-photography…
- Combines long exposure movement within the scene with ICM
- Shoots only in mono
- Scott French: “My Fine Art Journey: Creating the Photo Project that Changed Everything”
(½h) creating new versions of the images presented to the Amersham coffee group a few weeks ago. I think these are interesting and a real improvement.
2nd June
Hours 7,692 to 7,693
(1h) updating this journal, mainly with regard to the YouTubes watched yesterday.
(1h) processing a number of images from the recent trip to the USA plus reprocessing the “Black Tulip” image right. Lightened to extract detail from the bulb head as suggested by Steve Brabner, definite improvement.
1st June
Hours 7,688 to 7,691
(1h) updating this journal, including all the new month admin.
(2h) YouTube:
- Amor Sciendi: “The Many Meanings of Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergère”
- one of his last works
- far from photorealistic
- elements shown in the mirror, perhaps the barmaid’s imagination
- Listening In: “What links Rothko and Mozart?”
- Rothko was a great fan of Mozart and listened to him whilst painting
- Rothko’s goal to raise painting to the level of poignancy of music and poetry”
- Both artists worked within a strict structural framework and created innovative work within this
- Listening In: “What’s the Sound of Colour? Kandinsky and Music”
- Kandinsky has Synesthesia and literally saw colour
- Green is the most restful colour – the placid middle notes of a violin
- White is the harmony of silence, pauses that break the melody
- Black is profound, in music the final pause
- Yellow is a bright trumpet – also bright red, strong harsh and ringing
- Soft red is the sad middle tone of a cello
- Orange an old violin
- Violet an English horn or deep tones of a wood instrument
- Blue is the heavenly colour
- Light blue a flute
- Dark Blue a cello
- Darker blue a thunderous double base
- The darkest blue of all, an organ
- PiXimperfect: “Photoshop Generative Fill – 20 EPIC Uses, SUPERFAST” – exploring possibilities with the AI in Photoshop
- Ted Forbes: “The Compositional Key to Improve Your Photography” the compositional challenge of photobooks
- Imitative Photography: “How To Photograph Crowds Like Alexey Titarenko”
- Find a composition with a static foreground subject, static background but a moving crowd inbetween
- Shoot with a medium wide angle lens (35mm?) on a tripod
- Exposure c. 5 seconds
- Using infrared adds an extra element.
(1h) transferring the Utah and Colorado images from the laptop to main PC and editing in Capture One Pro.
(May 2023)