Taken from the OCA Blog – Paul Reas exhibition at retrospective “Daydreaming about the good times? – 1972 – 2012 shown at Impressions Gallery in December 2013
Daydreaming about the good times?
Category Archives: Research & Reflection
A collection photographers sites , articles, resources and technical tutorials which I find inspirational or useful.
Juxtapoz Magazine
My local independent newsagent in the market carries an eclectic mix of arts magazines one of which is Juxtapoz. It carries a good mix of contemporary and outsider art. I like the way it covers a lot more mixed media artists than most other periodicals.
Vice
Vice is a magazine style site featuring mainly sub-cultures and has a very eclectic photography section with features on exhibitions and photographers. Never safe for a work computer, they pull no punches.
There’s an Angel in the North…
It goes under the ground as deep at it is high… the steel is British from mills now closed.. the welders made redundant from shipyards built it… it’s actually set on the site of a closed coal pit… but it’s monumental in size and feeling. I can’t pass it in daylight without stopping. It’s Anthony Gormleys’ Angel of the North.
Food Photography
As part of the preparation work for my second assignment for The Art of Photography module I have been researching photographers specialising in food photography and others who include it in their body of work.
The first maybe seen as a bit strange , but I own the Marco Pierre White cook book, “White Heat” for the simple reason the photography is by that late great Irishman Bob Carlos Clarke. even the cutlery looks cool in this book.
I have also been looking into the work of Tim Clinch after following his column in B+W Photography magazine for several months. As a specialist food photographer it is interesting to see how he sets shots up, the use of props, contrast of texture and colour and how he also translates the techniques he uses to illustrate books to his personal monochrome work.
http://timclinch.prosite.com/54452/437117/home/food
A whole smorgasbord or cornucopia of inspiration can be found on the site for the Pink Lady food photographer of the year competition site.
http://www.pinkladyfoodphotographeroftheyear.com/
Another one for the mood board – shapes – items arranged in shapes and curves.
Minimalist
Active – movement creates shapes and forms.
Traditional – an expected still life – but still has clear shapes and lines
Some good tips here http://digital-photography-school.com/food-photography-an-introduction
I have always enjoyed how Irving Penn used food as an abstract element in images, using the shapes and colours…
Tom Woods – Landscapes
In my late teenage years I became interested in the content of a space which became the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool… I have been a keen atendee ever since, even after moving away, as it has moved from space to space around the city. But more importantly it introduced me to the work of two photographers that truly engaged the zeitgeist of Merseyside in the tail end of the 20th Century Tom Wood and Martin Parr who would forever change how I viewed the world through a view finder.
Tom Wood the “Photie Man” is not as well known as Martin Parr , he doesn’t even have his own web site which is remarkable in this media age, but his work is increasingly being seen as important in the canon of British based photography. I have seen his work show up in several exhibitions in the past two years, notably images from “Men/Women” and am overjoyed at the news that previously unseen landscape work is to exhibited. I like the idea of being able to see what is a more personal body of work than his trademark images of the public.
Landscapes is at the MOSTYN gallery in Llandudno from the 18th Jan until 6th April and will run along side another project “The Biscuit Tin Photo Archive“
The Luminous Landscape
The Luminous Landscape is a site to dip in and out of for gear reviews, tutorials and of course stunning landscape photography. It’s a great study resource and a way to lose a rainy afternoon on-line but needs a wait between visits.
Strobist.com
Strobist.com blog is a fantastic resource for anyone using portable strobes (your camera flash guns or speedlights if you own a posher camera) as their primary light source, or wants to explore their creative use.
They maintain a fantastic beginners resource document called Lighting 101 which has now been updated and is available to download from this link.
The site is very US-centric in a lot of the products they advertise or recommend , but the basic knowledge base and contributed examples make up for this. The How-To’s of lighting layout and techniques are worth the effort and the numerous examples provide endless inspiration.
Lindsay Seers – Monocular
Lndsay Seers – Monocular – Derby Quad
Not strictly a photographic exhibition, more mixed media. While the artists was in Norway studying prefabricated structures when she met a man with a rare condition genetic mosaicism . This normally manifests itself as a person having eyes of different colours, usually one blue and one brown.
The installation was a tin shack , and inside there was a projection of a short film.The unamed man above was the subject of the film , the main theme being how he deals with issues he feels are due to having a half British and half Norwegian cultural heritage and identity coupled with a belief that inside him was a twin and as the story unfolds he loses an eye which transforms his inner dialogue with his “twin”.
As an addition there were also a series of portraits of other people with the condition taken by the artist during research for the piece . All images taken in portrait format with the face being the main subject. The eyes were all aligned with the top third which reinforced the feeling that the subjects were all staring straight at you. Also this meant that all the eyes are aligned when the prints are displayed.
Interestingly there was not a common theme to how the subjects were posed, some were clearly laying on their backs, others standing or sitting, the backgrounds were invariably neutral.
To see more work go to :- http://www.lindsayseers.info/
Cropping Guide
First post for 2013 and I have stumbled on this image from a series of info-graphics on DigitalCamera.com
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2012/03/30/free-portrait-photography-cropping-guide/
It clearly shows the optimum and acceptable crop limits for different portrait shots both landscape and portrait formats. I will try and experiment with this in the coming weeks and post the results here.