Learning photography during the Coronavirus Lockdown.
Jamaica
The strangest season started in the most calm and pleasant way with a family holiday to Jamaica. This provided the opportunity to shoot daily Seascapes and Riverscapes in a normal vacation environment.
The risk of the Coronavirus was in the public conscience as we left for Jamaica on the 6th March; there was less traffic on the road but unlike some other European countries the UK was not at this point restricting the movements of its citizens.
I entered the “Driving Mary Jane” image in a Stoke Poges competition; I don’t think the judge understood the Mary Jane reference to the marijuana being conspicuously smoked by the boatman.
Lockdown
On the 23rd March the country was locked down and international travel was stopped. This meant I missed by Skiing holiday to France and the week-long residential photography course in Guernsey with Karl Taylor and Tim Flack. The course was delayed and in the meantime Karl gave us complementary access to his on-line training program which is aimed at jobbing professional photographers. The weekly challenges are to create advertising standard images. The following is my entry to a challenge to shoot to a brief for a mock cider advert (bottle to be inserted later):
Under the UK lockdown rules people were allowed out of their homes for essential shopping and daily exercise, and even then keeping a 2m distance from others. The following was shot at about 6am (social distancing well complied with) whilst exercising both myself and dog at Stoke Common.
The following was suggested to me by my friend and mentor Yin Wong from the APS who had seen something similar do well in a FIAP competition.
The challenge with the above was keeping the subject in place and looking interested.
Revision of some Older Images
Whilst looking through Lightroom on 18th April with the gaol of assembling a set of images for future composites, I stumbled upon an old image which caught my imagination. I like the arrangement of elements and thought it might make an interesting mono composition. Several discussions with members of the Amersham Photographic Society including Laurie Turner and Vic Attfield resulted in the following:
Well received by the Amersham Mono group on 14th May were it was agreed that it is unlikely to do well in competition.
Progress of the Multiple Exposures Project
On 17th March a friend gave me a copy of Liam Wong’s “TO:KY:OO” in the belief that it is “my sort of photography” – absolutely right. This together with the recommendation of Tim Flack for the Dan Margulis Colour Management Workflow piqued my interest in LAB colour. Which resulted in my post “LAB Colour” and the following revisions to my multiple exposure images of London. Note, I started experimenting with structured multiple exposures in an urban setting around this time last year.
The following was created by happy accident on the 23rd May and produced an extreme version my applying the technique twice.
Spirit of the Season
The above was created for an Amersham Beyond Challenge #14Joiners/ Collages where it was generally well received in that it meets Hockney’s criteria of having multiple vanishing points in a single image and presenting an more interesting overall perspective than that seen by a “paralysed cyclops.”
Notes: