October 2023

This journal records my actual 10,000 hours deliberate practice mastering the art of photography

Hours 8,047 to 8,153

(November 2023)

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31^st October

Hours 8,150 to 8,153

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30^th October

Image	…..	Comment
		“White Bird” Held back – 19 Very cleverly done
		“Surrealist Dinner” Held back – 20 – and one of only 2 starred images.

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29^th October

Hours 8,139 to 8,143

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28^th October

Hours 8,137 to 8,138

(2h) creating a series of further Seawall and Sea composites, and sending 10 for printing to be reviewed by the Amersham Coffee Club on Wednesday

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27^th October

Hours 8,133 to 8,136

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26^th October

Hours 8,131 to 8,132

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25^th October

Hours 8,129 to 8,130

(1h) morning sea photography including a few sea wall image to use as the basis of experimental combination with sea shots such as the image below:

“Combination I”

(1h) editing, categorising and processing this morning’s images

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24^th October

Hours 8,127 to 8,128

(1h) very useful morning sea photography

(1h) editing and processing images from the last couple of days

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23^rd October

Hours 8,125 8,126

(½h) editing images from the last few days including assigning categories, i.e.:

• blue = clouds
• yellow = sea *
• red = misc specific subjects –
• green = landscape +
• purple = astro/ moonscape
• pink = sea wall

(½h) updating this journal and researching art, books, films and music to study in my remaining 1,875 hours to the end of this project – mainly with a focus towards surrealism:

• 12 Masterpieces of 21st Century Painting

Painters new to me include:

• Luc Tymans
• Julie Mehredu
• Ibrahim El-Salahi (b. 1930 Khartoum)
• Brice Marden
• Maria Lassnig
• Glen Brown
• Marlene Dumas
• Lisa Yuskavage
• Ellen Altfest
• Tomma Abts

The only people I knew from before were George Condo and Peter Doig – both currently with works displayed at the Tate Modern’s “Capturing the Moment” exhibition.

(1h) photography at sunset.

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22^nd October

Hours 8,123 to 8,124

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21^st October

Hours 8,120 to 8,122

(1h) early morning seascape photography

(2h) finishing and publishing the “After 8,000 Hours – 80% Review” post

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20^th October

Hours 8,116 to 8,119

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19^th October

Hours 8,111 to 8,115

(1h) shooting first thing in the morning

(4h) gathering time analysis data for the “After 8,000 Hours – 80% Review” post

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18^th October

Hours 8,109 to 8,110

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17^th October

Hours 8,103 to 8,108

(2h) Stoke Poges Photographic Club – “Big Sky” PDI competition my entries below:

Image	…..	Comment
		“Road Trip Americana” 15 Not “Big Sky”
		“Moving Clouds” 20 – First place No negative comments
		“Awkward Silence” 17 Distracting bright area between the two subjects and the flowers above the man on the right.
		“Homage to René Magritte” 18 May benefit from having a stormy sea background or fluffy clouds instead of pure white

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16^th October

Hours 8,098 to 8,102

(3h) working on the “After 8,000 Hours – 80% Review” and “Most Influential Photographers and Other Visual Artists” posts

(2h) Amersham Photographic Society – Lecture by Steve Varman LRPS —- ‘ Creative & Eclectic’

For the purposes of all future competitions, I have been bumped up to the Advanced Group as a result of having been awarded the RPS Associateship in Landscape Photography last week

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15^th October

Hours 8,096 to 8,097

(2h) working on the “After 8,000 Hours – 80% Review” post

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14^th October

Hour 8,095

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13^th October

Hours 8,089 to 8,094

(½h) updating this journal and associated Flickr site, mainly notes from yesterday evening’s Mono group

(5½h) finishing the “Road to an RPS Associateship in Landscape Photography” post

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12^th October

Hours 8,083 to 8,088

(4h) Drafting a “Road to an RPS Associateship in Landscape Photography” post

(2h) Amersham Mono Group discussing my images below:

Image	…..	Comment
		“Entering the Exhibition” A potential entry for the 2024 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Printed on metallic paper, which the group liked but were not wowed by. Suggestions: – maybe get rid of the dark patch top right of the image (Chris, a veteran of the RA Summer Exhibition, suggested that the selectors are unlikely to be worried about this) – bring out more detail in the marble at the base of the image
		“Migrant Mother” Liked but not loved
		“Wingnut” Liked very much – good connection between the subjects and great expression on the child’s face.

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11^th October

Hours 8,080 to 8,082

(2h) at the Royal Photographic Society’s Landscape Assessment

(1h) processing images from yesterday’s shoot in Camden with Yin Wong

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10^th October

Hours 8,075 to 8,079

(2h) Shooting in Camden with my friend and mentor, Yin Wong

(1h) editing and processing the day’s images

(2h) Stoke Poges Photographic Club – Lecture by Dave Russell

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9^th October

Hours 8,072 to 8,074

(½h) working on the “After 8,000 Hours – 80% Review” post

(½h) updating this journal

(2h) Amersham Photographic Society PDI competition, my entries below:

Image	…..	Comment
		“Hidden Self-Portrait” Has been done many times before, and judge even had a go himself. However, this was particularly well executed. Also a good portrait in and off itself. Hence, 20 First Place
		“Homage to René Magritte” 17 Not sure about the watch or the back of the desk.

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8^th October

Hours 8,070 to 8,071

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7^th October

Hours 8,066 to 8,069

(1h) YouTube: National Gallery of Art Talks: “Exhibition Overview: Philip Guston: The Capacity of Painting” this exhibition has moved to the Tate Modern and was visited by me on the first day of it’s opening, 2 days ago.

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6^th October

Hours 8,064 to 8,065

(1h) editing both versions of the “Homage to René Magritte” image below. The preparing PDIs for next week’s competition at the Amersham Photographic Society

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5^th October

Hours 8,058 to 8,063

(1h) creating a sketch for the 3 generations of women to do with a friend, her mother and her daughter

“Three Women Sketch” [source from the web]

(2h) London, gallery & museum:

• JD Malat Gallery in Davies Street – Erdogan Zumrutoglu – “All and Nothing”
• Tate Modern:
  • “Capturing the Moment” – fabulous, forth time of visiting
  • “Philip Guston” covering the 50 years and 3 phases of his career
    1. Early work: distorted figuration
    2. Post war: purely abstract – painting from the subconscious
    3. Mature work: his own brand of surrealism where he paints automatically, perhaps on a theme, and often surprises himself with the output
  • “Art and Society” – new public exhibition.

(2h) Amersham Beyond, my images below:

Image	…..	Comment
		“Vilnius Post Soviet Realism” Definitely the best
		“Vilnius Street Experiment”
		“Cathedral Square and Neris River”
		“Vilniaus g. 10 Post SR II”

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4^th October

Hours 8,055 to 8,057

(1h) Amersham Coffee meeting – Speaker who combines detail shots with sea or landscapes to create emotive images – thought that I could do the same with my Kefalonia Rusty Bolts and Seascapes

(1h) updating this journal, mainly with notes from yesterday’s YouTubes and inter-club competition

(1h) Transferring the Antibes images from my laptop to desktop and editing

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3^rd October

Hours 8,052 to 8,054

(1h) YouTube mainly discovering John Martin as a painter of the Sublime:

• Faces of Ancient Europe: “John Martin: Painter of the Apocalypse“
• TateShots: “John Martin” – review of the Tate Britain’s 2011 exhibitions which was in part narrated and dynamically illuminated and viewed in a cinematic manner as it would have been in the 19^th century
• The Canvas: “Why This Artist Kept Painting The Apocalypse“

(2h) Stoke Poges Photographic Club – North West Federation of London clubs competition against Imagez, one of the leading clubs in the area [as a club, SPPC performed respectably, drawing in the PDI section but were slaughtered in the prints] My images, comments below (scoring 15-20):

Image	…..	Comment
		“Five a Day” 15 Lighting too harsh Colours of fruit don’t harmonise, and the fruit don’t naturally sit together, i.e., there is no reason for a banana to be next to a pomegranate Would have been better with a lighter background, maybe a folded cloth of some kind; black too severe
		“White Bird” 18 Would have been better in portrait format; the field doesn’t add much to the image

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2^nd October

Hours 8,050 to 8,051

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1^st October

Hours 8,047 to 8,049

(½h) learning how to create curled edge images like the one below (actually inspired by the images on Martin Patten’s website):

“Curled Garden of Earthly Delights” [by Hieronimos Boshe]

The above has plenty of faults, including how it finishes at the bottom. The image below is a tad more subtle:

“Curled Garden of Earthly Delights” [left panel contains the inspiration for Dali’s self-portraiture in “The Great Masturbator” and “Persistence of Memory” paintings]

(½h) evening photography, trying to capture the “Big Sky” for the forthcoming competition at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club

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(September 2023)