November 2017
1 to 117, starting 10,000 hours photography.
30 November 2017
Hour 117
7:30am Morning shoot at Stoke Park Club. Very cold. Hoping to get some frosty shots – none of the shots of the frozen lake were particularly interesting. However, fairly happy with one image of silhouetted copse of trees across the lake.
29 November 2017
Hour 116
Sometimes other events prevent progress. One hour watching Sky Arts Landscape Painter of the Year.
28 November 2017
Hours 112 to 115
Gray’s field at first light. Light completely flat and uninspiring, although ironically, steadily improved as I left. I shall go out again later in the day.
Two hours work on the First 100 Hours – Review at 1% post.
One hour of qualifying activity at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club: “Three of a Kind” competition; reviewing other members’ entries.
Black Park
27 November 2017
Hours 109 to 111
What I thought was an unpromising walk around Black Park for an hour in light drizzle produced some interesting images post-processing. In particular I applied some of the colour themes discussed in my post Colour Theory – First Learnings. To achieve the effects that follow I used the Color Toning Panel (third down under Basic and Tone Curve in the Develop tab in Lightroom Classic CC) maximizing the saturation in the colours I wanted to emphasise and minimising the saturation for all others.
I think it has a Japanese feel about it.
My first Black & White since starting this project. After trying all alternatives, I selected the Lightroom B&W Preset: B&W Contrast Low, and then adjusted levels to fill the spectrum.
26 November 2017
Hours 105 to 108
Two hours finishing and publishing “Colour Theory – First Learning” post
Two hours working on a new post: “The First 100 Hours – Review at 1%”
25 November 2017
Hours 101 to 104
Two hours processing yesterday’s shots from the South Bank. In particular I was pleased with the following transformation:
After Processing
First I straightened and cropped the image to provide a more pleasing aspect ratio whilst losing the unwanted excess of dull river. Then flipped the image horizontally, which I think improves the composition of the shot. I know this is heresy from a reportage perspective, but I’m about making beautiful images, not recording reality. (To ensure that this trickery is not too obvious, I flipped the wording on the “City of London School” sign, immediately below the dome, back the right way!)
Compositionally, I like the lead in from the bridge to the main focus of the cathedral dome which is all of the following:
- the element which is most immediately recognisable
- the point of highest contrast
- positioned exactly on both the vertical and horizontal thirds.
The spire, now to the right, provides a point of recession.
Then spent 2 hours watching YouTube about Mark Rothko, before writing yesterday’s entry in this journal. Very interesting lecture by his son Christopher Rothko: “Mark Rothko and the Inner World” given at the Saint Louis Art Museum. I shall return to the Tate Modern with a greater understanding, to see if my appreciation increases!
24 November 2017
Hours 96 to 100
One hour early morning photography walk in Hastings Meadow and the Big Field, plus an hour post processing the results. Attempted to take some semi-abstract shots with limited success. Quite pleased with the image, right, of the big tree illuminated with first light.
Spent two hours in the Tate Modern, particularly looking at the artists working with colour theory, with a view to providing content for the Colour Theory – First Learnings post I’m writing. The Tate Modern has improved enormously in recent years, and in November at least is not heaving with tourists.
by Ellsworth Kelly 1996
The psychology of colour is amply demonstrated in some of the exhibits. For example, the “Yellow Curve” by Ellsworth Kelly is just a big yellow triangle about 8 feet by 5 feet (I guess, it looks huge). And it certainly looks curved!
Also lots of other exibits in the Op Art genre.
I spent quite a bit of time in the famous Rothko room really trying but failing to get it. Apparently Rothko’s art communicates directly with the subconscious; there is no subject, and most of the works are purposefully untitled to avoid the risk of introducing any figurative reference. The painting are an aid to meditation and the later works in particular, are intended as “a mirror to one’s own soul.” They require participation by the viewer. So what you get out of it, very much depends upon what you put in. Apparently.
Then an hour taking some cityscape and street shots from the South Bank and then over the Millennium Bridge to St Paul’s Cathedral, down the Strand to Trafalgar Square.
Burnham Beeches
23 November 2017
Hours 94 to 95
An hour at Burnham Beeches 8-9am nice light.
Concentrating on roots and fallen tree-truncks.
An hour processing and completing this journal – not much today.
22 November 2017
Hours 88 to 93
An hour at Black Park
An hour processing.
Three hours working on the Colour Theory First Learnings post.
An hour updating this journal, not least with the results of yesterday’s competition.
21 November 2017
Hours 83 to 87
7:30 to 8:30am early morning photography at Stoke Common
Image on the right was quite fun. I thought the path looked quite interesting. It just lacked a bit of human and perhaps canine interest. Set the shutter to 10 second delay, sprinted down path, turned and tried to look calm. Harley thought it was great fun.
An hour’s “last light” at Burnham Beeches.
I quite like the shot to the right. Colours are good and I feel that it has fairly strong composition. However, I feel it lacks the uniqueness and interest level to make it a worthy entrant to a competition.
I aim to take further shots from the same position throughout the year and perhaps construct a composite.
Photography Club – Rivers and Waterways Competition
Somewhat severe judge who only awarded two 20, one each to the Advances Set Subject and Advanced Open. Sometimes one needs a thick skin. My results were as follows:
Set Subject
Actually the judge quite liked this.
It was one of 2 held back but was marked down to a 19 on the basis that the illuminated window was too bright and washed out, at least when projected on the screen at the club.
This problem is a result of my monitors being too dark, I have experienced a similar issue before. MUST CALIBRATE, I have a Spyder 4, just need to use it!
Open
In the individual opinion of that evening’s judge, this image would have benefited from somebody standing amongst the trees.
Probably this theme is getting a little tired and the image is hardly unique.
18.
Open
Disappointed that this did not score better as we were amongst the first in the park that day, it was foggy as anything so took a while to be able to get this shot, and it literally took hours to clone out all the tourists.
Criticism included failure to show the dramatic positioning of the settlement at the top of the mountain or the immensity of its scale.
“Good record shot!” 17
20 November 2017
Hours 79 to 82
7 to 8am drizzly morning with flat light – totally the reverse of yesterday. Walk with dog in Hastings Meadow and the Big Field looking for opportunities. Half an hour our of an hour’s walking about spent on photography.
Half an hour processing images.
Red-Green Split-toning
Three hours learning about colour theory and applications in Lightroom and Photoshop CC. The images to the right were shot in this morning’s shockingly bad weather/ light, and enhanced using split toning with complementary colours in Lightroom. I noticed that the toning colour is given a number 0-360, which means you can find the complementary colour by either adding or subtracting 180 from this. In the Big Field image I used Red (0) for the highlights, i.e., the sky and green (180) for the shadows, i.e., ground. For the Hastings Meadow shot, highlights blue (219), shadows orange (39).
Having read and watched further video’s on this topic, it seems that the warmer colours, i.e., oranges (green to red) are usually used to enhance highlights and the cooler colours, i.e., blues (aqua to purple) for the shadows.
Trying to get to grips with the Adobe Color Themes Extension in Photoshop, (not easy). Watched a useful YouTube on the Eyedropper tool.
Started working on a post (“Colour Theory – First Learning”) to cover what I’m learning.
Image enhanced using Split-toning.
19 November 2017
Hours 73 to 78
7 to 8:30am Langley Park, crisp cold, slightly misty and beautiful light.
9 to 10am read “What is Art?” by John Canaday chapter on Expresionism.
2 hours processing the great crop of images for the morning.
Half hour at Stoke Common pre-sunset, followed by an hour processing those images.
18 November 2017
Hours 68 to 72
The day started with the whole Photo10KH team running the Black Park Parkrun (see image right).
Recovery from the above, an hour watching Landscape Artist of the Year.
Then an hour’s youtube Lecture by David Joselit: “Beyond Repetition: Marcel Duchamp’s Readymades” which related to the exhibition visited on the 16th Nov. The two key things I learnt from this were:
-
The Large Glass “The Fountain” was submitted by Duchamp under the pseudonym of R. Mutt to the 1917 New York exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, where it was rejected. It was then famously photographed, still with it’s submission ticket attached, for the Dada journal, “The Blind Man”, after which it was lost. All versions on display including the one currently at the Royal Academy are official replicas.
It was rejected on the basis that it was “not art”. This in and of itself, made it a seminal work in the Dada “anti-art” movement. - Joselit confirmed that it is impossible to understand “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, even (The Large Glass)” without reference to the extensive notes left by Duchamp. But apparently:
- The upper half of the work represents The Bride
- The lower half, the bachelors who are stuck in an “onanistic cycle” from which they cannot escape
- The whole thing depicts an unconsummated relationship.
Apparently!
2 hours implementing a signature watermark in Lightroom using a technique learnt from KellbyTV which combines a logo with a signature on the basis that “the difference between a picture and art is, a signature.” Then updating this journal.
An hour updating this Journal, including time spent on further research.
17 November 2017
Hours 67
An hour’s attempt at Street Photography in Hyde Park.
This was and felt very unstructured; I had no clear view of what I was hoping to achieve or how to go about getting anything at all.
This is a low point providing plenty of scopefor improvement.
16 November 2017
Hours 63 to 66
Two hours researching then attending the Dali/ Duchamp Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. Although I am fairly familiar with many of the surrealist works by Salvador Dali, I knew little about Marcel Duchamp other than his controversial, “Fountain” urinal.
I was struck by the powerful colour pallet used by Dali which doesn’t always transfer to reproductions or illustrations in books or on the web.
I could appreciate the impact of many of Duchamps paintings such as the “The King and Queen Surrounded by Swift Nudes” which apparently related to the chess pieces and makes some reference to the invisible forces of quantum physics by way of the Swift Nudes which are even less obvious than the King and Queen.
The Large Glass “The Bride Striped Bare by her Bachelors, Even” may be an important work, but unexplained as it was it the exhibition, is completely inaccessible.
[Photography idea: use chess pieces in my own work including still life and depictions of actual games.]
15 November 2017
Hours 59 to 62
An hour reading “What is Art?” by John Canaday. Canaday defines art, particularly paintings, as having visual, emotional and intellectual dimensions. (Not entirely counter to my definition as emotional communication.)
2 hours processing yesterday’s images from Burnham Beeches and comparing them with those from the same area taken by Paul Mitchell. Even though Paul explained, at his presentation last Sunday, how he shot and processed his images, I feel mine still lack his focus, minimalism, vibrancy and a certain compositional je ne sais quoi.
One hour on the train reviewing my top photography blog sites with a view to posting about this later.
14 November 2017
Hours 51 to 58
Not a good start to the day leave home 7:00am: camera, tripod, cable-release, lens cloth, spare battery and dog. Arrive Burham Beeches 7:15am: beautiful light, no memory card! Very pleasant walk with dog, scouting opportunities for shooting, but no time towards the 10,000 hour goal.
4 hours working on the Post Processing Workflow post now completed.
3pm back at Burnham Beeches trying to take shots like Paul Mitchell, for one hour. Light not as great as it was in the morning but still good. Now see why Paul uses a longer lens than the 24-70 that I had taken with me.
4pm one hour processing shots from the Beeches and preparing images for the “Rivers and Waterways” competition that need to be in this evening.
2 hours at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club – first round of the CACC Rosebowl competition. 3 of my images were entered:
- Complementary Markings scored 17 – “Distracting colours in the background, as so often a problem with Street Photography”
- Fire and Ice scored 17 – “Would have expected to see the fire actually lapping over the ice.”
- Swimmingpool in the Rain scored 15 – “Underwater photo of a swimming pool; so what?” – thing is, it wasn’t!
13 November 2017
Hours 47 to 50
6:45am An hour at Denham Park took a number of shots including the basis of the image which is used as an example in the Post-Processing Workflow post. Then worked on that post for 3 hours.
[The image right was entered into the Rivers and Waterways competition at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club. However, due to the large number of entries this was not shown. The competition was stiff and the judging ruthless, so I doubt I would have fared well in any case.]
12 November 2017
Hours 42 to 46
All day event with the RPS Thames Valley Digital Imaging Group: Presentation by Paul Mitchell on Woodland Photography, then in the afternoon the Pinhole works that gained him his Fellowship.
Most of Paul’s woodland images were taken either in Burnham Beeches or Stoke Common, both being places I visit regularly.
His images are characterised by by a limited colour palette and very strong composition; which combine to produce a magical effect.
An hour was spend on post-processing in both lightroom and photoshop. Some interesting points and techniques which I will include in the post I’m writing on workflow, including:
- Split-toning; of which Mark Littlejohn, from the Lake District, is apparently the master
- The Orton Effect – Michael Orton an Abstract Landscape photographer
3:30 rush home as light was beautiful; grab camera and run to the field to catch the last fading rays of the day. Plus post processing, an hour in total.
Other photographers referenced include:
- Lizzy Shepherd – North Yorkshire based Landscape and Travel Photographer
- Eliot Porter – early US- based Landscape and Nature photographer
Post-processing guru’s and Adobe Evangelists:
11 November 2017
Hours 34 to 41
8:30 to 10:00am – second Saturday of an odd month, so I get to do the photography at the Black Park Parkrun.
This is followed by 3 hours of editing before uploading the photos to my Flickr site and then on to the main Parkrun Group
3:30pm ish took Harley to Stoke Common to capture the last light of the day. One “OK” shot to the right.
Half an hour’s processing of the Stoke Common images.
(Looking at it now – I like the square crop of the thumbnail as much or more than the full image)
At least 3 hours spent writing the Photographing Parkrun and other Running Events blog post (even though I had drafted some of this already).
10 November 2017
Hours 30 to 33
7:00 to 8:00am – Gray’s Field
Again the forecast said light rain, when it in fact turned out clear. I was looking to create minimalist images of trees, plants, etc.
Sufficiently pleased with what I found on processing to add them to my Instagram feed.
3pm jaunt to Denham Park, desperate to get some shots for the “Rivers/ Waterways” competition where entries have to be in by Tuesday. Also keen to identify a route of informal access so that I can avoid their restrictive opening hours and get in when there is good light.
9 November 2017
Hours 27 to 29
6:45 to 7:45am – The Memorial Gardens Stoke Poges.
The weather forecast said “light rain” so I had planned to shoot reflection in the ponds and rain jumping off the stonework. As it turned out, no rain, just flat grey light.
Looking for inspiration, I was impressed the ivy strewn columns in the cloisters which look considerably older than their 80 or so years. A shot down the length of the cloister looked to hold promise – if only there were somebody sitting in the chair at the end wearing a red jacket. Hold on – I’m wearing a red jacket, if I set the camera (already on a tripod) to a 10 second delay, surely I can sprint the fifty yards to the chair ready for when the camera fires. Well I’m sure Usain Bolt could do it, but after several pictures of my receding back, I decided to move the camera to a more realistic distance to produce the shot below.
A hour processing images – small crop today.
Discovered Mikko Lagerstedt on Flickr – wow!
His blog – “Capturing emotion of places though photographs” resonates with my view of what art is.
8 November 2017
Hours: 23 to 26
6:45 to 7:45am – Early morning photography at the Big Field, Stoke Poges. There before sunrise when the light was very poor and only improved as I was leaving about 8am.
Implemented Auto Lens Profile Correction on Import in Lightroom Classic CC as suggested by Joel Weisbrod. This will save me correcting each image individually.
Half hour processing the morning’s Big Field photos.
Two hours working on the Fireworks Blog
7 November 2017
Hours: 18 to 22
Daybreak in Cliveden (before the park is officially open) – great autumnal colours but overcast producing lacklustre light.
Two hours processing during the day
Two hours at the Stoke Poges Photographic Society where there was a practical session on using a single flash (speedlite) to light a model led by Rojer Weightman.
Reminder that I need to submit images for the PDI competition on “Rivers/ Waterways” next week, which means I need to get out and take some photos!
6 November 2017
Hours: 14 to 17
An hour and a half in Langley Park on beautiful frosty/ foggy morning – see above.
Very happy with this shot, I think the mist makes the other side of the lake look like an island.
4 hour processing mainly Kettlebell competition, including stitching together a number of small panoramas.
First run through of the Stoke Park Fireworks, looks as though I may have some abstracts with merit.
Still working on the Fireworks blog post.
5 November 2017
Hour: 13
An hour’s photography at the Stoke Park Club fireworks party, a huge event at which we were very close to the fireworks, followed by time discussing potential improvements in composition of the Thaxted Windmill image below.
The general consensus was that it was compositionally poor. Would have been better if there was a little more room between the windmill and the church spire and if the two elements were not the same height.
One would not compose a still-life in such a manner and the same principles apply to landscape photography.
4 November 2017
Hours: 11 to 12
1 hour out of the 5 spent at the British Kettlebell Sport competition in Harrogate would count as deliberate practice.
1 hour during the day visiting both the exhibitions for Ronnie Woods (at the Castle Gallery) and Andre Kohn (at the Westminster Gallery) in Harrogate. In addition to Ronnie Woods, the Castle Gallery displayed prints from other music legends, such as Bob Dylan. Whilst obviously credible works in their own right, I suspect the enormous price tags associated with these works is due mainly to memorabilia value.
Although not an artist I had previously encountered, the Andre Kohn exhibition had instant appeal.
3 November 2017
Hours: 7 to 10
6:30-7:30am Stoke Park Club – Very Misty
They say: “Fog is the photographer’s friend.” However, you have to be able to see something!
8:00-10:00 post-processing
1 hour in the evening working on the Shooting Fireworks blog post.
2 November 2017
Hours: 5 to 6
In London
Beetles+Huxley “Masters of Photography” exhibition
Great light down Lower Regent Street.
Loads of time spent grappling with WordPress and this site (but that doesn’t count towards learning photography).
One hour editing yesterday’s fireworks photos into diptychs and triptychs where the otherwise bland images became more interesting.
The image to the right reminded me of Wistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold.
1 November 2017
Hours: 1 to 4
6:30 -7:30am: Shooting in Hasting Meadow – for day 1, I am very happy with this image which is unlike anything I have shot in the past.
2 Hours Post Processing
1 Hour photography of Hayes & Harlington Running Club – Fireworks Party
Processing of the fireworks images – more to be done,
Pre-November 2017
See also: