This journal records my actual 10,000 hours of deliberate practice mastering art photography.
Hour 8,758 to 8,844
30th June 2024
Hours 8,843 to 8,844
(2h) collecting data for the “90% Complete” post
29th June 2024
Hours 8,841 to 8,842
(½h) redrafting a Slough Diptychs Statement of Intent – finally under 150 words
(½h) first attempt at panelling the Fractured London images
(½h) creating “Letterbox Dunescape” above, which needs a better name to reflect its anthropomorphic aspect
(½h) updating this journal
28th June 2024
Hour 8,840
(½h) creating a folder of Fractured London images
(½h) preparing prints of the Slough diptychs for next Wednesday’s coffee club meeting
27th June 2024
Hours 8,836 to 8,839
(½h) creating the “Portrait of Survivors” image above
(½h) updating this journal and associated Flickr site
(2h) creating Slough Diptychs
(½h) drafting a potential Statement of intent for my Slough project
(½h) at the Saatchi Gallery “Beyond Fashion” exhibition
[Discussion: comparison between what I consider to be an hour of deliberate practice and a lawyer’s billable time; London law firms expect 1,800-2,000 billable hours per lawyer per year – I’m way under this at 1,200-1,400]
26th June 2024
Hours 8,833 to 8,835
(1½h) creating further Slough Diptychs
(1h) Amersham Coffee club – full-on discussion of my images, contrasting views of the Stutthof pictures as to whether or not to retone to achieve the full hard black to white dynamic range
(½h) editing images as a direct result of the above discussions
30 minutes telephone discussion with Amnon Bar-Tur of the BarTur Photo Awards
25th June 2024
Hours 8,831 to 8,832
(½h) updating this journal
(1½h) creating some Slough Town Centre diptychs – the challenge is matching the colour temperature and tonal range between the images as they were shot under different weather conditions and seasons. Best approach to far:
- adjust colour temperature in Photoshop’s RAW adjust filter, by selecting the same white element in each image
- adjust the overall tonality of the new image by using curves until it looks good and matches the old image
- add a gradient filter if/ where necessary
24th June 2024
Hours 8,826 to 8,830
(1h) preparing a shoot sheet for a session in Slough reshooting images from 5 years ago
(1½h) reshooting the top 21 images of Slough from 2019
(½h) researching, Caroline Walker, the third of the newly discovered British painters and adding to the notes on the 22nd
(2h) editing and processing (in Capture One) the images from this morning’s Slough reshoot, and exporting to Lightroom for the creation of a series of Diptychs
23rd June 2024
Hours 8,824 to 8,825
(1h) shooting at Laycock Abbey with the Stoke Poges Photographic Club, mainly images for use in future composites
Right is of the famous Latticed Window which was the subject of William Henry Fox Talbot’s, very first photographic negative, which in 1835 set the course of photography until the digital era
(½h) editing the above images
(½h) updating this journal
I finished listening to the audio book version of “Slow Productivity” by Cal Newport which proposed the following work habits:
- Do less
- remove distractions
- specialise
- define a single priority for each day’s activity
- Work at a natural pace
- create an environment where one can work without distraction
- have “down seasons”?
- Obsess about quality
- enhance your “good taste” by talking and working with other experts in the field
22nd June 2024
Hours 8,820 to 8,823
(1½h) producing prints for this Wednesday’s meetings at the Amersham including reprocessing “Dead Vlei Dunscape II”, with the footsteps trails removed
(½h) updating this journal
(1h) researching and writing up the female British contemporary artists I discovered when writing the “Female British Artist” post:
- Caroline Walker – Midlands Arts Centre YouTube: “Women’s Work | Artist Introduction” – 2019 Drafting, right [actually done on the 24th]
- Lynette Yiadom-Boakye – Amor Sciendi YouTube: “Portraiture is Cooler Than You Think” – imaginary subjects
(½h) Another Amor Sciendi YouTube: “Jenny Saville’s ‘Propped’ and Art History” the history of the female nude
(½h) preparation for tomorrow’s shoot
21st June 2024
Hours 8,816 to 8,819
(3h) finishing and publishing the “Female British Artist” post
(1h) processing and organising images from Poland that could form part of a future composite
20th June 2024
Hour 8,815
(1h) updating this journal
19th June 2024
Hours 8,812 to 8,814
(1h) creating a graphic for the “Revised Top 10 Painters” post and then publishing
(1h) Amersham Coffee and Lunch clubs
(1h) processing images from Poland, including “Sopot Seascape” shot on the 17th
18th June 2024
Hours 8,808 to 8,811
(½h) creating “Mono Dune I” which is the result of pure experimentation and play – it’s a top-heavy high key image
(½h) First time I’ve watched a Ted Forbes YouTube for a while, and this one is awesome “The Key to Abstract Photography“. Some pearls:
- painting is an additive process and photography is subtractive
- abstracts need a “payoff” to be more than merely patterns; the payoff may be a hint of what we are looking at
(1h) Transferring images from Poland, from my Laptop to main computer, reviewing and editing
(2h) editing a series of images from the Stutthof Concentration Camp, shot 2 days ago
17th June 2024
Hours 8,806 to 8,807
(½h) shooting first thing in the morning:
- hundreds of exposures of sea birds to be used in compositions,
- “Sopot Seascape”, above
(1½h) editing and processing images
16th June 2024
Hours 8,803 to 8,805
(½h) shooting first thing in the morning
(½h) editing images from the last couple of days
(½h) shooting a series of images whilst visiting Stutthof Concentration Camp – the wet weather helped the mood of the images
(1½h) editing and processing the day’s images
15th June 2024
Hours 8,801 to 8,802
(1h) updating the “Female British Artist“, “Revised Top 10 Painters” post, and this journal
(½h) shooting at Malbork Castle, including “Malbork Castle Grand Hall”, above
(½h) editing images from the last couple of days
14th June 2024
Hours 8,799 to 8,800
(1h) morning street photography, including “A Gentleman in Gdansk”, right
(1h) updating journal and the “Revised Top 10 Painters” post
13th June 2024
Hours 8,797 to 8,798
(1½h) working on the “Revised Top 10 Painters” post
- adding the Honourable Mentions section for the artists that didn’t quite make the list but might have on another day
- post adding image attribution links
(½h) updating this journal
12th June 2024
Hours 8,794 to 8,796
(1h) drafting a “Revised Top 10 Painters” post
(1h) Amersham Coffee group
(1h) updating images on the suggestion of members of the Coffee group, including:
- erasing the distracting grass stem across the middle of the Leopard in Cover image, then adding back at about 15% opacity for realism and to support the rest of the grass elements
- changing the colour temperature of some of the dune landscapes so that the sky is more blue. This may be a good way of making the skys more uniform
11th June 2024
Hours 8,791 to 8,793
(½h) final check and publishing the “Spring 2024” post
(½h) updating this journal
(1h) drafting a “Female British Artist” post based on the article I wrote for InForum magazine
(1h) creating the “Sossusvlei Dunescape” below
10th June 2024
Hours 8,788 to 8,790
(1h) “Spring 2024” post:
- creating an overall, top 10 images, image
- updating the Flickr album
- adding links to the post
(½h) shooting at Stoke Common
(½h) editing and processing the above including converting, an otherwise very green image, to B&W. On reflection, I’m not sure which version I prefer (I think the colour image is just more interesting)
 |  | |
| Original | Mono Conversion |
(1h) creating the following high key version of “Nervous Springbok” inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Blow-Up which shows a high key silhouette of a safari scene, presumably by John Cowan, on the wall of the studio where the film is set
9th June 2024
Hours 8,786 to 8,787
(½h) shooting birds in the garden – c. 80 exposures – trying to get images to use in front of a Magritte-style self-portrait, plus a few clouds for similar purposes
(½h) editing and processing the above
(½h) experimental editing of the dune images – trying to get a consistent blue sky
(½h) updating this journal
8th June 2024
Hours 8,783 to 8,785
TheMarginalian: “Debunking the Myth of the 10,000-Hours Rule: What It Actually Takes to Reach Genius-Level Excellence“
- Danger of slipping into autopilot at the “OK” level
- Importance of the feedback loop
- Limit of about 4 hours of arduous practice per day
(1h) creating a draft panel of 21 dune images – most of time spent colour matching one image which was shot much later in the day.
(½h) shooting images of Harley to use in a Birthday card for Fran
(½h) editing and processing the above images, and producing the card
(½h) shooting potential calendar entries at the Stoke Poges Fate
(½h) editing and processing the above images
7th June 2024
Hours 8,780 to 8,782
(1h) experimenting with the “Namibian Woman” image, left, originally giving it a background of a Gerhard Richter painting (shot yesterday) but a finally decided that a blurred version of the original was best
(1h) writing an article on Women Artists for InForum magazine – which may form the basis of a blog on this site – prompted by a discussion with the editor and my observation on the 3rd of this month of Leonora Carrington breaking the record for a female British artist
(1h) adding external references to the “Spring 2024” post
6th June 2024
Hours 8,778 to 8,779
(½h) updating this journal
(½h) adding photos and text to the “Spring 2024” post
(1h) at the Tate Modern – the museum was relatively quiet so I was able to take some time with Gerhard Richter’s Cage paintings (which I also photographed, along with someone else “Appreciating Joan Mitchell”, right)
5th June 2024
Hours 8,776 to 8,777
(½h) updating this journal
(½h) Amersham coffee club
(½h) updating: “Dead Tree in Namib Basin” above and “Tree and Dune in Shadow II” below
(½h) adding images to the “Spring 2024” post
4th June 2024
Hours 8,772 to 8,775
(½h) updating this journal
(1h) editing and processing the last of the Namibian images
(½h) colour correcting the studio images for WorkAid at the BBC
(1h) YouTube, BBC Documentary “Leonora Carrington The Lost Surrealist“
(1h) Stoke Poges Photographic Club – review of the year’s top images
3rd June 2024
Hours 8,768 to 8,771
(½h) selecting prints for the Coffee meeting on Wednesday
(2½h) editing the Namibia images
(1h) updating my Surrealism presentation and notes with the fact that Leonora Carrington recently (15th May 2024) broke the record for a British female artist when her 1945 “Les Distractions de Dagobert” sold at Sotheby’s for $28.5m (£22.5)
The catalogue for the Sotheby’s sale of the above painting references the work of Hieronymus Bosch, a frequent influence on the surrealists. For example, the self-portrait in Dali’s Persistence of Memory is a striking resemblance to the fish-like object in the first panel of Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights” triptych. TGED was painted between 1490 and 1510 over 400 year before Andre Breton’s first Surrealist Manifesto in 1924. Yet Breton himself saw Bosch as the first surrealist
2nd June 2024
Hours 8,763 to 8,767
(½h) updating this journal
(1h) creating “Grasses of Damaraland II” below which is a more interesting version of the original shot on the 18th May
(3½h) editing and processing the Namibian photos, including “Etosha Salt Pan I” which I feel conveys a sense of the infinite
1st June 2024
Hours 8,758 to 8,762
(1h) updating this journal with all the new month admin
(3h) working on the Namibian images including “Storm in the Namib Desert”, right
(½h) identifying the top 10 images for the “Spring 2024” post
(½h) updating the “Lone Springbok” image below (no longer qualifies as a wildlife photo due to manipulation but might be good for a nature or open competition – more pictorial)
(May 2024)