Ten Thousand Hours Photography

10,000 Hours Deliberate Practice Learning the Art of Photography

March 2024

Ten thousand hours mastering fine art photography through deliberate practice
Ten thousand hours deliberate practice mastering the art of photography

This journal records my actual ten thousand hours mastering fine art photography through deliberate practice.

Hour 8,476 to 8,561

(April 2024)

31st March 2024

Hours 8,559 to 8,561

(½h) updating this post

(1h) discovered the Belgian surrealist painters Paul Delvaux and Marcel Marien, respectively a contemporary and protégé of Magritte

(½h) creating a draft “Spring 2024” mainly to hold notes about the above artists

(1h) YouTube:

30th March 2024

Hour 8,558

(1h) reading Desmond Morris’s “The Lives of the Surrealist” where in particular he defines five basic types of surrealism:

  1. Paradoxical surrealism: the realistic depiction of irrationally juxtaposed element, e.g., Magritte
  2. Atmospheric surrealism: realistic compositions but with a strange intensity and dreamlike quality, e.g., Paul Delvaux, 1944, “Sleeping Venus” right
  3. Metamorphic surrealism: recognisable elements that have been distorted in shape and/ or colour, sometimes to extremes where the elements become little more than symbolic hieroglyphs as in the work of Joan Miró
  4. Biomorphic surrealism: the artist creates new figures that cannot be traced to a specific source but are still organic, e.g. Tyves Tanguy
  5. Abstract surrealism: organic abstract shapes with sufficient differentiation to make them more than merely a visual pattern – Arshile Gorky
Ten thousand hours mastering surreal fine art photography

Key to the above distinctions is when the surrealist creativity occurs, i.e., the connection with the artist’s subconscious. In the first two categories the creative surrealism occurs with the idea for the painting; in the latter three the surrealism is at work during the actual painting process. Magritte apparently described the process of applying paint to canvas as the “boring part”, whereas Miro said he has no idea what is going to happen when he sat in front of his easel and nobody was surprised than him at the eventual outcome.

Notes about Magritte:

  • he fell out with André Breton when the latter took offence at Magritte’s wife wearing a silver cross necklace to a dinner at his house and thereby inadvertently(?) insulting his anti-religious sentiments
  • during WWII he made more money by forging work of Picasso, Max Ernst and other contemporaries – interesting thought, how would a gallery price a Picasso painted by Magritte?
  • he was ridiculed by the surrealists for the commercial manner in which he produced paintings, i.e., painting to order, essentially previous works, to whatever size or colour the patron requested – hardly in line with the surrealists’ left-wing political aims

29th March 2024

Hours 8,556 to 8,557

(½h) YouTube from Anthony Morganti “The Orton Effect – Applied to portraits and Wedding Photos” – process as follows:

  • copy background layer and convert to smart object and blur with Gaussian Blur c. 10 pixels
  • dramatically increase the contrast with a clipped Levels adjustment layer which clips the blacks and brings the whites down to about the half way point
  • reduce the opacity of this new layer to c. 20-25% – sometimes less

Sometimes apply selectively using a mask.

(½h) Anthony Morganti “Adamski Effect” – bluring the background behind the subject. Good tips on selecting the subject:

  • use Photoshop’s “Select Subject for a first selection
  • click on Select and Mask
    • Refine Hair
    • Decontaminate Colors – tick box
    • make minor additions or deletions

Remember to remove the subject from the background and refilling will generative fill, before blurring

(1h) updating this journal particularly with regard to the above techniques

28th March 2024

Hours 8,554 to 8,555

(½h) updating this journal, mainly with regard to comments from yesterday evening’s Amersham Colour group meeting

(½h) learning about the Dragan Effect:

  1. Add contrast with both Levels and Curves layers
  2. Desaturate c. -40, using a Hue Saturation Adjustment layer
  3. Add High Pass Sharpening, radius c. 4, with Overlay blend mode
  4. Dodge and Burn
  5. Adjust

(1h) Stoke Poges vs Gerrards Cross annual photographic “Battle” which is a team game requiring fast response of one of the club’s 80 images from last season to a random title suggested by the judge. One point for each of:

  • first club to display an image (any image)
  • best fit to title
  • best quality image

After about 60 images, so a total of 180 points, Stoke Poges won by 2 points

27th March 2024

Hours 8,550 to 8,553

(1h) Amersham Coffee Club – discussion of the “Dragan Effect” which compresses dynamic range in an image to dramatic effect

(1h) updating this journal and associated Flickr sit

(2h) Amersham Colour Group – comments on my Son of Man image below:

  • there is far more subtlety in the image than the average judge is likely to be aware of, yet alone appreciate
  • apple could perhaps be a little smaller and have leaves (to match the original)
  • my hands are a bit stiff, adding tension to the image

26th March 2024

Hours 8,547 to 8,549

(1h) finishing my “Son of Man” image right which is an improvement on previous versions by virtue of:

  • improved lighting around the hands
  • genuine shadows on the wall
  • lighting on the reversed left elbow which makes it a little more prominent

(½h) YouTube – Digital Mastery: “Photoshop Info Panel Tips“

(1½h) representing Stoke Poges at the 5 Clubs competition at Marlow – my “Surrealist Dinner” below scored 20 and was a serious contender for top image of the evening

Ten thousand hours mastering fine art photography through deliberate practice
Ten thousand hours mastering fine art photography through deliberate practice

At the internal Stoke Poges “Composites” competition I, apparently, didn’t fare so well …

Image…..Comment
“René Magritte’s Dog”
“The Dogfather”
“After Magritte’s Son of Man”

The judge apparently had no idea what this was about; even after the internal competition secretary tried to help him out by showing him a picture of Magritte painting on her phone

25th March 2024

Hours 8,544 to 8,546

(1½h) processing images shot at the zoo on Friday including “Surfacing Penguin”, right

(1½h) Amersham Photographic Society – Lecture by Leigh Preston ‘The Hugh Milsom Talk’

24th March 2024

Hours 8,543

(1h) editing and processing the images shot at the zoo on Friday including,

“Diana Monkeys”, right

23rd March 2024

Hour 8,542

(1h) editing the over 500 images shot at the zoo yesterday, including the

“Babirusa”, left

22nd March 2024

Hours 8,538 to 8,541

Llama Eating

(½h) updating this journal and “Capturing the Moment” review post

(2h) shooting at London Zoo with the Amersham Photographic Society

(½h) visiting the Tate Modern’s “Capturing the Moment” exhibition, for the 7th time, and taking a few snaps for the post

(1h) finishing and publishing the “Capturing the Moment” review post

21st March 2024

Hours 8,533 to 8,537

(1h) fixing a few issues with the Dogfather image:

  • magenta colour cast
  • window frames not straight
  • sky a tad bright

(1h) Shooting

(1h) processing and preparing prints for next week’s “Composites” DPI competition at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club

(2h) Amersham PiC group meeting

20th March 2024

Hours 8,531 to 8,532

(1h) Amersham Coffee club

(1h) revising the composite images below

19th March 2024

Hours 8,525 to 8,530

(½h) updating this journal

(½h) minor updates to the “Setting Up the Sony a1” post including fixing some issues with the top photo

(1h) shooting images for the “René Magritte’s Dog”, right, and “The Dogfather”, bellow, both for next week’s “Composites” PDI competition at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club (SPPC)

(2h) creating the above images in Photoshop

(2h) SPPC lecture by Barry Webb FRPS of Gerrards Cross Photography Club on “Slime Moulds” – just amazing

18th March 2024

Hours 8,518 to 8,524

(3h) processing images from Saturday’s party

(2h) reprocessing the recently shot Son of Man images – OK but the hands don’t look great and not really happy with the variable sharpness of the apple, i.e., blurry at the edges and dead sharp in the middle

(2h) Amersham Photographic Society – PDI competition – no skin in the game but some good images from other members

17th March 2024

Hour 8,517

(1h) reshooting the Son of Man images without any lighting of the background

16th March 2024

Hours 8,516

(½h) updating this journal – and discovering that the problem with the Son of Man image below is that it was too much back lighting particularly round the hands and lower part of the body

(½h) shooting at my mother’s 90th birthday party – my now standard event set-up:

  • Sony a1 with 70-200mm lens (see My Kit)
  • Memory setting 1 (Portrait) with the following minor adjustments
    • display: reset to Standard (otherwise the default for this memory setting is B&W)
    • exposure compensation -1
  • Godox V1(s) flash bouncing off the ceiling
    • TTL mode
    • Exposure +2

See: “Setting Up the Sony a1“

15th March 2024

Hours 8,513 to 8,515

(1h) an hour updating this journal, mainly with notes and cross references from yesterday’s Contemorary Art Issue YouTubes

(2h) creating the Son of Man image, right

14th March 2024

Hours 8,510 to 8,512

(2h) shooting images self-portraits for a Son of Man image

(1h) YouTube from Contemporary Art Issue including:

  • “Top 10 Abstract Painters Today”
    1. Gerhard Richter – scrape paintings and combining photography with painting
    2. Yayoi Kusama – polka dots, infinity rooms, etc.
    3. Imi Knoebel – blocks of colour
    4. Heimo Zobernig – combining painting with sculpture nets
    5. Ugo Rondinoe – sculptures painted in blocks of colour
    6. Sean Scully – colour field painting
    7. Damien Hurst – coloured dots and biologically influenced work
    8. Julie Mehr – fabulous action painting painting
    9. Katharina Grosse – action painting that sometimes merges with installation – love it
    10. Bridget Riley – British op-art
  • “Top 10 Galleries:”
    1. Gagosian
    2. David Zwirner
    3. Pace
    4. Hauser & Wirth
    5. Thaddaeus Ropac
    6. Perrotin
    7. Galleria Continua
    8. Almine Rech
    9. Lisson Gallery
    10. White Cube
  • The Story of:

13th March 2024

Hours 8,506 to 8,509

(1h) Amersham Coffee meeting

(2h) writing a first draft “Tate Modern Review: Capturing the Moment” post based on the review for the “In:Forum” magazine

(1h) working through a problem tethering to my laptop; it transpires that one cannot be connected to a PC when Smartphone Connection is enabled. I added these to the My Menu1 on the A1 and updated the “Setting Up the Sony a1” post accordingly

12th March 2024

Hours 8,503 to 8,505

(½h) updating this journal

(½h) competing the review of the Tate Modern’s “Capturing the Moment” exhibition and sending to the editor of “In:Forum”

(2h) SPPC lecture by Peter Benson FRPS of Cambridge Camera Club: “Photography on the Dark Side, London Nights” – night images created in HDR using luma filters in photoshop – quite inspirational

11th March 2024

Hours 8,498 to 8,502

(2h) editing and processing the weekend’s images which were shot on a mixture of iPhone and my normal A1

(½h) YouTubes:

(½h) updating this journal

(2h) Amersham Photographic Society – members’ evening a tribute to Paul Keene by Yin Wong and Steve Brabner

10th March 2024

Hour 8,497

(½h) shooting in the Cotswolds first thing in the Morning, including “Single Droplet”, left

(½h) working on the review of the Tate Modern’s “Capturing the Moment” exhibition

9th March 2024

Hours 8,496

(1h) working on the review of the Tate Modern’s “Capturing the Moment” exhibition

8th March 2024

Hour 8,495

(½h) publishing the “Winter 2023/ 24” post and updating this journal

(½h) creating notes for a draft review of the Tate Modern’s “Capturing the Moment” exhibition

7th March 2024

Hours 8,492 to 8,494

(½h) updating this journal

(1h) writing the “Winter 2023/ 24” post

(1h) at the Tate Modern, mainly in the “Artists in Society” section which, although I generally visit this less frequently, has an excellent room dedicated to Joel Meyerowitz the American street and documentary photographer

(½h) starting a review of the Tate’s “Capturing the Moment” exhibition for the arts column of the “In:Forum” newsletter of the networking group of which I am a member

6th March 2024

Hours 8,490 to 8,491

(1h) Amersham Coffee

(1h) working on the “Son of Man” image – this probably needs reshooting as the lighting on the suit, particularly the backwards sleeve, causes a loss of detail in the dark areas

5th March 2024

Hours 8,486 to 8,489

(½h) updating this journal mainly with notes from yesterday’s print competition

(1h) researching James Ensor including the YouTube from the Blind Dweller: “James Ensor: A Master of Macabre Satire“

(½h) preparing prints for the “Three of a kind competition at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club (SPPC)

(2h) SPPC – competition and video by James Boag the

4th March 2024

Hours 8,481 to 8,485

(1h) adding top images to the “Winter 2023/ 24” post

(2h) shooting images for a Magritte “Son of Man” image

(2h) print competition at the Amersham Photographic Society

Image…..Judge’s Comments
Real Voice of Space“Real Voice of Space”

15

Although the smallest orb shows a reflection of the one above it, I didn’t think they were shot in situ [quite ironic since they were]

Not suitable for a photography competition [what this means I’m not sure]
“Memory”

14

The title doesn’t help and I have no idea what I’m looking at

Photographically quite straightforward [again quite ironic]

3rd March 2024

Hours 8,479 to 8,480

(½h) updating this journal

(1½h) identifying the top 10 images, above, for the “Winter 2023/ 24” post them completing some of the text

2nd March 2024

Hour 8,474

(½h) reprocessing the a photo of Naomi Arnold OBE shot during the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service Award Ceremony on 20th February 2020, for use in her memorial service

(½h) working on the “Winter 2023/ 24” post

1st March 2024

Hours 8,476 to 8,477

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

(½h) creating competitions prints for Amersham, Monday and Three-of-a-kind, Stoke Poges, Tuesday

(½h) working on the “Winter 2023/ 24” post

(February 2024)