Ten Thousand Hours Photography

10,000 Hours Deliberate Practice Learning the Art of Photography

November 2022

studying art photography through 10,000 hours deliberate practice

This journal records the detail of my studying art photography through 10,000 hours deliberate practice.

Hours 7,011 to 7,126

(December 2022)

30th November

Hours 7,122 to 7,126

Street Photography studying art photography through 10,000 hours deliberate practice

(½h) updating the image left, “God’s Light, St. Paul’s”

(1h) Amersham Coffee club

(1½h) YouTube from:

(½h) updating this journal

(1½h) Amersham Colour Group my entries below:

Image…..Comments
“Acer Impressions IV”

The blue lines are the key element showing the overlay. Some people thought that this was distracting.

Not one for a club competition.
“Dungeness Sunrise”

Liked the dystopian, surrealist feel to the image.

Drip overlay, perhaps too subtle.
“Pomegranate Plate”

Perhaps a bit tight to the edge on the right hand side.

Good background, works well with the red of the pomegranate.

29th November

Hours 7,119 to 7,121

(1h) working on this journal

(1h) YouTube: Blind Dweller – “The Bewitching Art of Laurie Lipton” modern surrealism https://www.laurielipton.com/

  • much motivation results from her having been sexually assulted as a child/ young adult
  • declared that the secret to becomming a great artist is to do a lot of it.

(1h) Night Photography workshop with the Stoke Poges Photographic Club.

28th November

Hours 7,115 to 7,118

(1h) creating the “Little Knavesmire” image left, first as the LAB color image displayed on the day shot below and the converting to RGB mono.

It seems a good deal of information was lost in the transition between color spaces as there was visible banding in the mono which required careful balancing of the channels to smooth out.

(1h) updating this journal and the associated Flickr site.

(2h) Amersham Photographic Society – PDI competition, no skin in the game.

27th November

Hours 7,113 to 7,114

(1h) preparing prints for Wednesday’s Amersham coffee and PDIs for Thursday’s Amersham Beyond meetings

(1h) processing the images left and below as potential entries for Stoke Poges “Buildings” competition.

Left: “God’s Light, St Paul’s” LAB colored to emphasise the blue-yellow contrast

Below: “Fourteen Hundred Work Units” which aims to show how people are commodities in the modern office environment.

Architectural studying art photography through 10,000 hours deliberate practice
“Fourteen Hundred Work Units”

26th November

Hours 7,111 to 7,112

creative studying art photography through 10,000 hours deliberate practice

(1h) processing images from York

(1h) creating a couple of pictures, including the image to the left, in the style of Lucio Fontana’s slash paintings

25th November

Hours 7,106 to 7,110

Landscape studying art photography through 10,000 hours deliberate practice

(½h) early morning photography on York Racecourse

The image left of Little Knavesmire has been converted to LAB color and had contrast increased on the blue-yellow channel

(3h) YouTube:

(½h) updating this journal

(1h) evening street photography in York.

Performance of ROMA by Anthony Lo-Giudice, modern dance theatre.

24th November

Hours 7,104 to 7,105

(½h) York Art Exhibition – “Sin”; including work by Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin

(½h) updating this journal

(½h) YouTube:

(½h) Reading about Wolfgang Tillmans in this month’s edition of Wallpaper magazine.

Wolfgang Tillmans in interview with Wallpaper magazine, November 2022

23rd November

Hours 7,101 to 7,103

(2h) processing images from yesterday. “Shard Abstract”, right, processed in LAB color to accentuate the blue-yellow contrast.

(1h) updating this journal and the associated Flickr site.

The shard studying art photography through 10,000 hours deliberate practice

22nd November

Hours 7,095 to 7,100

(1h) shooting in Stoke Common

(3h) shooting on the Shutter Stock, London Night Photography course

London bridge studying art photography through 10,000 hours deliberate practice
“London Bridge”

(2h) Stoke Poges Photographic Club – Print Competition, my entries below.

Image…..Comments
“Burford Peril”

20

Joint winner of the Advanced “Still Life” print competition.
“Game Over”

17
“The Dark Side of the Rose”

Held back – 18

Image left, good lead in; centre very strong; right perhaps a bit confusing, not clear that it was underwater. Perhaps a better title would have helped.

21st November

Hours 7,092 to 7,094

(1h) updating this journal mainly with notes and ideas from yesterday’s lecture from Ann Miles at the Thames Valley DIG.

(1h) researching Lucio Fontana with the idea of creating slashed photos, perhaps digitally manipulated using the darker area of the slash as a displacement map. Including the following YouTube:

(1h) creating the Dungeness images below

Creative Dungeness studying art photography through 10,000 hours deliberate practice
“Dungeness Bricks”

20th November

Hours 7,088 to 7,091

(4h) Thames Valley RPS DIG – Lecture my Ann Miles FRPS: “Nature, Macro and Creative Photography”

Ideas/ thoughts:

  • polarising backlighting to achieve a black background
    • an iPad directly emits polarised light which is blacked out almost entirely by a polarising lens on the camera set to 90⁰
    • the above will also sort out the pixelation of the light source where the display resolution of the iPad is less than that of the camera (nearly always)
    • polarising a hairlight in portraiture will eliminate lens flare
  • combining street photos as multiple exposures
    • use a blue abstract as a sky
    • example substitute the sky in the Dungeness image, below, to make it less “done to death”
Creative Dungeness studying art photography through 10,000 hours deliberate practice
“Dungeness Sunrise”

19th November

Hours 7,085 to 7,087

(2h) processing the images shot in and around the Tate Modern yesterday, including the pigeon right.

Image right is out of focus, further blurred through motion and had blocked shadows. However, redeemed by the sense of motion and the fact that it is shot directly into the sun giving it a good composition vs the clouds, which also make for a dramatic sky.

Moody monochrome studying art photography through 10,000 hours deliberate practice

(1h) researching the work of Pat Steir as discovered yesterday at the Tate Modern.

Pat Steir at the Tate Modern

18th November

Hours 7,081 to 7,084

(½h) Researching the work of the Hodders [potential contact through the Forum group in NYC]:

(1h) private tour of Sothebys showroom

(1h) Phillips auctioneers: “A Classic Vision: Photographs from a private European collection.” work from:

  • Richard Avedon
  • Wolfgang Tillmans
  • Henri Cartier-Bresson
  • Hiroshi Sugimoto
  • Edward Burtynsky

(½h) Shooting at the Tate Modern

(1h) Live Zoom, FIAP Academy: “The Fine Art of Nature with Chris Fallows”

17th November

Hour 7,080

Surrealist studying art photography through 10,000 hours deliberate practice

(½h) updating this journal.

(½h) further updates to the “Magritte Stole Corfe Castle” image, left, to address the issues raised by Amanda Wright, Judge at the Amersham competition on Monday.

Introduced to Frederick Hodder, a New York based photographer.

16th November

Hours 7,078 to 7,079

(1h) Amersham Coffee Club

(½h) researching the Polish/ American surrealist painter, Rafal Olbinski, who was recommended to me this morning, and updating my Artistic Timelines spreadsheet. Many interesting ideas for where Magritte left off.

(½h) further work on the Stoke Common A Panel; horizontally flipping image 11 so that it “leans into the panel” and better mirrors image 15 on the righthand side.

Paperwork submitted to the Royal Photographic Society for an Assessment of the above panel on the 12th April 2023.

15th November

Hours 7,073 to 7,077

(1h) editing and processing the images shot at Stoke Common yesterday.

(1h) producing the following new versions of my Woodland A Panel as a potential submission for an RPS Landscape Associateship.

(1h) working on a further revised version of “Magritte Stoke Corfe Castle” image.

(2h) Stoke Poges Photographic Club – Photoshop demonstration by Ken Grant.

14th November

Hours 7,069 to 7,072

(1h) shooting at Stoke Common

(½h) producing the following mono versions of the Still Life shot over the last couple of days.

(½h) updating this journal.

(2h) Amersham Photographic Society – Print Competition, my entry below:

Image…..Comments
“A Surrealist Stole Corfe Castle”
(Named so as to avoid the issue that a judge may not know René Magritte)

18

The castle didn’t seem to have the crisp detail of the rock.
The Sea also didn’t match the rest of the image “too dark” [Dark it should be, but it probably needs to match a little better].

13th November

Hour 7,068

(½h) listening to Sean Tucker’s “The Meaning in the Making” Logos – Truth as expressed by are which transcends factual evidence.

(½h) updating this journal.

12th November

Hours 7,063 to 7,067

(2h) shooting lots of combinations of pomegranate based still life images

(2h) processing these images and preparing for printing.

11th November

Hours 7,061 to 7,063

(½h) updating this journal.

(½h) shooting the “Burford Peril” image right

(1h) processing the above.

(1h) YouTube:

Still life studying art photography through 10,000 hours deliberate practice

10th November

Hours 7,057 to 7,060

(1h) processing and focus stacking the Still Life images shot yesterday. I’m quite happy with some of these images, but for a print competition, high key images work better.

“Five a Day”

(2h) Amersham Mono Group my images as follows:

Image…..Comments
Although Vic Attfield liked this as it is, when he say it yesterday, the group suggested several potential improvements including cropping out the block on the left and generally straightening it up.
Suggested that I include/ build up more of the arch on the left of the picture.
Potentially “remove” the railing behind the woman as this is distracting.

(1h) updating this journal.

9th November

Hours 7,052 to 7,056

(1h) Amersham Coffee Club. Vic Attfield made a point of complementing me on my “Captured Souls” image below

(1h) YouTube: “Genius of the Modern World – Friedrich Nietzsche“

  • God is Dead
  • What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger
  • Ideas misinterpreted, became the philosophy behind the Nazi party.

(1h) creating a JPeg for a print for Monday’s competition at Amersham. This was tricky as I have to reuse a mount so sizing was critical.

(2h) shooting Still life compositions for next weeks competition at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club.

“Connected Fruit” – I like the interaction between the elements

8th November

Hours 7,046 to 7,051

(2h) creating the following variants of the Castle of the Pyrenees images

…..
Corfe Castle Visiting Camber SandsMagritte Stole Corfe Castle

(½h) updating this journal

(½h) discussing the above images with Laurie Turner and the revising

(½h) preparing Mono photographs for Thursdays Amersham Zoom meeting

(½h) YouTube on the new release of Capture One – excellent new import function which auto-groups images for fast selection and ranking.

(2h) Stoke Poges Photographic Club – Zoom Lecture: Ric Gillams “Self-Drive Safari in Namibia”

7th November

Hours 7,040 to 7,045

(4h) working on 3 further versions of Magritte’s The Castle of the Pyrenees including using Corfe Castle which should be much more obvious.

I reviewed this image with Laurie Turner who suggested that although the later versions showed the castle more clearly, the clouds were more iconically surrealist in my first attempts.

Based on Rene Magritte's 1959 The Castle of the Pyrenees

(2h) Amersham Photographic Society – Lecture Damien Demolder “Building a Street Picture”

  • Look for frames for the image: shoot through windows, doors or gaps in people’s arms or legs. or merely position people in a patch of light
  • Add depth by using reflections.

6th November

Hours 7,035 to 7,039

(1h) updating this journal including updating all the images and social media connections for the London Wetland Centre images and notes for the YouTube videos.

(3h) producing the image left which is inspired by René Magritte’s 1959 “The Castle of the Pyrenees”.

According to Whitewalls Magazine the painting “symbolizes isolation, detachment, and escape”.

(1h) processing other images and preparing prints for the Coffee Club meeting this week.

5th November

Hours 7,030 to 7,034

(½h) updating this journal

“Shame it’s a Duck”

(3½h) processing the images shot yesterday.

Pideon’s Eye, right was enhanced using Topaz Gigapixel to increasefile size by a factor of 6

“Wetland Grasses II” – image extended vertically with Content Aware Fill

(1h) YouTube:

  • photoshopCAFE:
  • Contemporary Art Issue:
    • “Top 5 Most Expensive Abstract Artworks & Why?”
      • 1. $300 million USD: Interchange (1955) by Willem de Kooning
      • 2. $200 million USD: Number 17A (1948) by Jackson Pollock
      • 3. $186 million USD: No. 6 (Violet, Green and Red) (1951) by Mark Rothko
      • 4. $105.7 million USD: Anna’s Light (1968) by Barnett Newman
      • 5.$85.8 million USD: Suprematist Composition (1916) by Kazimir Malevich
      • $450 million Salvator Mundi, (C. 1500) by Leonard Da Vinci – only figurative work that out prices the abstracts above.
    • “20 Most Famous Abstract Artist” – I have watched this before.

4th November

Hours 7,026 to 7,029

(½h) processing images from Kefalonia

(3h) shooting, with the Amersham Photographic Society, at the London Wetlands Centre in Barnes, lots of familiarisation with my new Sony a1, amongst other things, shooting birds in flight.

(½h) loading and editing the day’s images in Capture One.

3rd November

Hours 7,021 to 7,025

(½h) updating this journal – notes and links to last nights North West Fed competition.

(½h) updating the images from yesterday.

…..Milky Way image with a foreground shot in Langley Park
Revised darker versionOriginal, with unlikely colours at base of tree

“Those that Remain”

(½h) revising the image to the left to emphasise the misery of those mourning rather than the tribute to those that died.

(½h) working on other images to show at the Coffee Club next week and potentially enter into competition at some later point

(1h) YouTube:

(2h) Amersham Beyond Group – the group liked my discarded cigarette packet.

Challenge #34 “Light in the Dark”

2nd November

Hours 7,016 to 7,020

(½h) updating this journal – mainly with notes from yesterday.

(½h) YouTube from the photoshopCAFE:

(1h) Amersham coffee club with Vic Attfield, et al.

(½h) YouTube:

  • Contemporary Art Issue: “What Makes Abstract Art Good” value on the following criteria:
    • Technical execution – does it display technical skill
    • Overall quality – does it feel like quality work
    • Originality – is it new or merely a copy of what has gone before
    • Continuity – does it sit well within the artist’s oeuvre
    • Relevance/ Art historical importance – is it moving the genre forward
    • It strikes me that the above apply to any work of art including photography
    • Recommended book: Susie Hodge: “Why your five year old could not have done that” – which I have just bought
  • Tate: “Damien Hirst on Francis Bacon“

(½h) processing the images from Kefalonia.

(2h) representing Stoke Poges at the North West [London] Fed competition at Field End which was judged by Chris Palmer who gave very solid feedback on the images judged, but gave my Melancholy Equine print a starred 20.

Image…..Comments
Horse Photography deliberate practice 10,000 hours learning the art of photographyPrint
“Melancholy Equine”
Starred 20
Milky Way image with a foreground shot in Langley ParkSilver Birch and Milky Way
16
Stars are very good probably using some specialist technique [It is actually two images with the stars shot in Northumberland and the tree in Langley, near Slough where the Milky Way has never been seen.]
Perhaps a little too bright to give the impression of being there.
Splash of pink at the base of the tree is perhaps light from a distant town.

1st November

Hours 7,011 to 7,015

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

(½h) practicing my presentations for this evening

(½h) processing some of the RAW images from Kefalonia in Capture One Pro – in particular the rock as a potential subject for the reinterpretation of Magritte’s 1959 “The Castle of the Pyrenees”

(1h) YouTube:

  • Gagosian: “Jenny Saville” in conversation with Nicholas Cullinan, director of the National Portrait Gallery
  • The Art of Photography: “Photography as Narrative” – best done in book form
  • PIXimperfect: “Photoshop 2023” lots of cool stuff:
    • Content aware object removal
    • AI backgrounds
    • *** but beware current release is buggy and liable to crash ***

(2h) Stoke Poges Photographic Club – Charles Harding Competition which I won with my presentation “Staying in Clavell Tower” – a surprise to me as this was thrown in merely if-time-allowed. My main presentation, “The Decapitation of René Magritte” was less well received by the voting audience.

Suggestions on PhotoShop gurus to follow on YouTube:

  • photoshopCAFE
  • Idea of using frequency separation on Landscape photos

(October 2022)