iJourneys

John Gough Photography

Cliché Photography

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Cliche Photography: Buttermere / John Gough

Cliché photography is about lack of imagination. Taking the pictures that everyone else takes. That can be location, genre, or processing. It is copying the photographs that others have taken before.

When I was in the Lake District earlier this year, I could not resist taking the lone tree at Buttermere. I had to queue, because there were other photographers in front of me, setting up their tripods. This is a very popular view. Try a search on Google, and you will see that lots of photographers have been there before you. Thousands of photographers each year take that same view. I agree all the images are different, and there are lots of different versions, but essentially they are all the same scene.

So is my version unique? I have changed the sky to one that was not there and added a texture effect to the foreground. So is it still cliche photography?

Cliché Photography: SLPOTY

Well, the Scottish Landscape Photographer of the Year competition (SLPOTY) is so fed up with receiving submissions from just a few places that they have banned images from certain locations from now on.

These are the most popular and most photographed views in Scotland. SLPOTY maintains that 80% of their submissions are just from these 19 locations!

Cliche Photography: SLOPTY

So if you want to enter their competition you will need to find a unique perspective.

Isn’t Photography About Fun

I applaud the SLPOTY in trying to promote diversity but isn’t photography about fun. It is exciting to discover beautiful landscape images, find their locations and attempt to recreate or put your own take on familiar scenes.

I am going to Scotland next month and I look forward to tracking down the nineteen locations that the SLPOTY have banned and putting my stamp on their ‘honeypot’ beauty spots.

It is now so easy to find these locations and explore the views that other photographers have taken, by using books like these. These guides include instructions about how to get there and even where to park.

and

If you are a serious photographer and want to become Scottish Landscape Photographer of the Year, then avoid the popular beauty spots, but if like me you want to come back with some cracking shots, buy the books and shoot the clichés

Christine Ellger Flower Photography

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I am constantly looking for inspirational flower photography, and recently I have been loving the work of Christine Ellger.

BIOGRAPHY
Christine Ellger was born in Germany in 1948. Her interest in photography was heightened with the advent of digital photography and the infinite possibilities it offers in terms of processing. Since she retired in 2010, Christine Ellger has been continually photographing the world she has been discovering on her travels. She collects photographs and subsequently retouches them, conferring a magical aspect to them stemming directly from her imagination. The originality of her work is thus based on its fantastical and hyperrealist rendering. At first glance, the spectator cannot make out the photographic technique used. Hyperrealist style is the identical reproduction of a photograph as a painting. This painting is often so realistic that the spectator comes to question the very nature of the work. This well and truly applies to Christine Ellger’s bewitching world. 

Christine Ellger is known mainly for her fantastical composites but she has a considerable catalogue of flower photography. I have collated her beautiful flower photography here. Like her composites, they have a dreamy ethereal quality.

The learning for my own flower photography is:

  • Usually single flowers and pairs
  • The flowers are close up and fill the frame. On some only part of the flower is shown
  • The square format usually works well
  • Dark backgrounds and use of texture and light. The backgrounds include several dark colours.
  • Plain background and textured flowers rather than textured backgrounds and plain flowers.

Brilliant

Hyper Collage Photography

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Ysabel Le May Hyper Collage Photography

Hyper collage photography has developed out of collage, which has long been a technique used in both art and photography. Man Ray was an early exponent of photography collage in the 1930s. Jump forward, and we are all aware of the images created using Photoshop layers to build composites. Often to create fantasy effects. Andrea Hargreaves is one of my favourite artists using this technique.

….but what is collage? The Museum of Modern Art defines a collage as: a “technique and resulting work of art in which fragments of paper and other materials are arranged and glued to a supporting surface”.

Hyper collage photography is a technique that combines multiple images that are manipulated using Photoshop. For example, Jim Kazanjian uses the technique to combine photographs of different architectural features to create fantastical buildings and landscapes.

However, what has grabbed my attention. Are photographers that are using natural phenomena to create fine art hyper collage images.

Fine Art Hyper Collage Photography

Ysabel Le May

I first came across Ysabel le May at the Saatchi Art. Where her work sells for upwards of $4000.

She is based in Texas and her art has been exhibited all over the world.

Ysabel Le May can be summed up simply: W.O.W. It stands for ‘Wonderful Other Worlds’, which she creates through the process of hypercollage. 

Saatchi Art

She photographs the natural world and uses collage to piece the images together to create a fantastical depiction of nature. She calls her images baroque tableaux.

The video above demonstrates the process she uses.

Lisa Frank

Lisa Frank is an American artist who describes her work as looking to communicate those momentary flashes of connectedness with nature.

She creates tapestries and still life composites using natural materials.

It is my purpose to draw the viewer into a local world as it hasn’t been seen before.

Lisa Frank

You can follow her process here.

Cas Slagboon

Cas Slagboom is a Dutch artist. Again he uses natural objects but often combined with human figures to create a fantasy feel.

For me, photography is more than capturing the perfect moment. Every time I try to capture my astonishment with a single photo, I am disappointed. This was not what I want to see and feel. It is larger, more complex, more diffuse. I have to bring all those fragments together. In compositions in which they together tell a story that transcends my understanding. So, that every time I look at it, I can be surprised again.

Cas Slagboon

All the photographic technology we have to capture our world in images may give us idea that we really see it. ………I use modern technology to find a language that exceeds the photographic moment, so there is sufficient room for the complexity of what we call reality.

Cas Slagboon

Summary

I included the two quotes from Cas Slagboon because they sum up my own feelings. That it is difficult to capture the reality of the moment with just one photograph. I have been experimenting with the Pep Ventosa style of photography and mixing abstract and reality to capture what we really see and feel.

Hyper collage photography is just one more technique on that journey.

Pete Souza: The Way I See It

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The Way I See It, is a documentary about former Chief Official White House Photographer Pete Souza. Recording his personal journey as an image maker, with top secret clearance and total access to President Obama.

As a photographer, the film is interesting because it shows the way Pete Souza worked. It is accompanied by hundreds of examples of his work, which are wonderfully clear and compassionate.

Shade

On another level, the documentary is a comparison of the Obama presidency with that of his successor Donald Trump. Souza was apolitical and photographed four presidents including both the Reagans and the Obamas. What changed was what he saw as Trump’s total disregard for the Office of President.

His book Shade documents why he considered Trump unfit for office.

Pete Souza Photography

It is his however his photography that I find spellbinding. The photographs are more than just a record of the Presidency. OK, the Obama’s are undoubtedly photogenic, but the intimacy he has been allowed to capture shows a trusting and valued relationship between President and photographer.

His range is impressive, from formal group portraits with a medium format camera and studio lights. To press photography with flash and long and wide lenses. To intimate portraits indoors using just available light.

You can view his work in his book, Obama an Intimate Portrait, which contains over 300 pages of his Obama photographs

Precious historical documents . . . vividly human and often funny . . . these images tell the true story of a presidency that words have failed’ Jonathan Jones, Guardian

The Way I See It: Video

Watch, The Way I see It on Prime Video either rent for £1.99 or buy.

Post on Instagram from a PC

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How to post on Instagram from a PC

How can I post on Instagram from a PC? I like to share my work on social media, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. On Facebook and Twitter, I can log into my account on a PC and upload my photographs. That is not possible on Instagram. So how can I post my images to Instagram from a laptop or a desktop?

Instagram started as primarily a social network for mobile users. However, it is now an important platform for business, influencers, artists, writers, bloggers, and vloggers. For many of these users, it is a tedious process to upload content to Instagram from a PC. It is especially tortuous for photographers who will have images stored on computer hard drives, external drives and in the cloud. For them, it is a lengthy workflow to download images from these drives, upload to a cell phone and then post to Instagram.

Fortunately, the solution is simple, whether you use a Chrome browser or Microsoft Edge. You can easily transfer photographs from a PC directly to Instagram. No additional software is required.

If you use a Chrome browser this is how to post on Instagram from a PC in a few easy steps.

How to Upload Pictures to Instagram from a Laptop or PC Using a Chrome Browser

1 Profile …..(re How to share to Instagram from a PC)

Log into Instagram by signing in, and go to Profile (see Illustration 1)

How to post to Instagram from a PC
Illustration 1 How to post to Instagram from a PC

2 Inspect …..(re How to transfer content to Instagram from a PC)

Right click the mouse anywhere on the page, and a drop down menu will appear. On the drop down menu go to Inspect. Mouse left click to reveal the HTML code for that page. (See Illustration 2)

Illustration 2 How to post to Instagram from a PC

3 Toggle …..(re How to transfer photographs to Instagram from a PC)

On the top left in the header area of the code are icons for desktop and mobile. Toggle from desktop to mobile which is the second one in. Click on Mobile. (See Illustration 2). The page will now reproduce how your mobile device shows Instagram. Do not click off the HTML code using X

Illustration 3 How to Post on Instagram from a PC

4 Refresh …..(re How to post images from a PC to Instagram)

Refresh the page. Either by clicking the Refresh icon. See illustration 4 or pressing F5. The page will now reproduce exactly how your mobile device shows Instagram with the + icon displayed.

Illustration 4 How to Post on Instagram from a PC

5 Post ……(re How to upload content from a desktop or laptop to Instagram)

Use the + to upload your photographs to Instagram just as you would on your mobile. See Illustration 5

Illustration 5 How to post on Instagram from a PC

How to Upload Pictures to Instagram from a Laptop or PC Using Microsoft Edge / Explorer

In Microsoft Edge / Explorer the process of loading content from a PC to Instagram is exactly the same as in Chrome.

  • Open Profile
  • Mouse click right to open Inspect
Illustration 6 How to post on Instagram from a PC using Microsoft Edge
  • Toggle & Click the mobile icon.
  • Refresh the page
  • Post the picture

This workaround has saved me so much time. I can now easily interact with 1 billion Instagram users.

December Image of the Month

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Lockdown at Trinity College / John Gough / Canon EOS R

I took this image in Cambridge mid December. It all seems to have got a lot worse since then. It sums up 2020. What with Brexit and Covid it has not been a good year for the UK.

Misty Autumn Photography

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Shining Tree / John Gough / Canon EOS R

One of my big obsessions with photography is to try to photograph how the mind interprets what we see rather than what the camera is pointing at. Misty Autumn photography is about looking at Autumn leaves, trees and landscapes through an ethereal, golden, opaque lens.

I wrote about photographing the Autumn colours before the season began. I was looking forward to the season and trying to get an impression of Autumn perhaps through multiple exposures. Due to the lockdowns, we are having here in the UK, I think we are seeing the seasons so much more vividly. Walking through nature has certainly maintained my sanity during these worrying months.

Glenys Garnett

My mentor through this time has been Glenys Garnett. I recently watched an RPS talk she gave about her photography. She talked about how she will frequently photograph the same patch of woodland behind her house in the pursuit of wonderful dreamy images.

As she says, working in a familiar space will force your creativity. Encouraging you to make images about how you feel, and embracing abstraction. She suggests looking at the muted colours of work by American painter, Andrew Wyeth.

Looking for soft light and a subdued palette has led me to the work of Jo Stephen.

Jo Stephen

I am drawn to using creative photographic techniques as they enable me to explore my connection to nature in a way that representational photography does not always allow. … Jo Stephen

I agree, that statement sums up so simply my view that seeing is believing but believing is what we see.

These are some of her Autumn images and some of her woodland images.

Processing Misty Autumn Photography

With thanks to Jo Stephen, this is a simple technique to get that wonderful soft lighting.

Lightroom

  • Expose as you would normally, bringing down the highlights and increasing shadows etc
  • Decrease the vibrance, clarity and saturation especially green and cyan.
  • Increase the saturation of key colours e.g. reds and oranges in Autumn
  • Add a slight vignette
  • Transfer to Photoshop: Photo>Edit in>Photoshop

Photoshop

  • Open in PS
  • Make a duplicate layer: Ctrl J
  • Add Gaussian blur to the duplicate layer: Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Move slider about half way. Apply.
  • Add a curves adjustment layer and just lift and tweak the top of the graph.
  • Add a clipping mask. Rt click the adjustment layer and select clipping mask
  • Move the opacity slider to around 15-30%
  • File>Save

Lightroom

  • Open in LR
  • Adjust to suit your style. you may want to try a profile

This is one I tried earlier………….

Autumn Mists / John Gough / Canon EOS R

This is a beautiful effect which I am also going to experiment using with my Pep Ventosa and multiple exposure images.

The Man in Black

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The Man in Black / John Gough / Canon EOS R

This is my October 2020 image of the month. I have been developing my Pep Ventosa style, by adding some static items to the swirl of confusion created by the multiple images.

I am fascinated by the way the technique creates a view closer to how we see. Or at least how I think we see!

Rankin’s 2020: Sky Arts

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Rankin's 2020
Rankin’s 2020 Sky Arts

Rankin has a new show on Sky Arts, which reviews the results of a photography challenge launched in the summer to document life in 2020. In the programme, (Rankin’s 2020) Rankin demonstrates how he would tackle each assignment and with two guests reviews his images and their images.

Sky Arts is now a free-to-air channel on Freeview Channel 11.

There are six parts to the series. Each episode will focus on a different category – family, fun, self, beauty, empathy and nature.

Rankin is a renowned portrait photographer, who has now diversified into fashion, advertising and film. He is best known for working with models Kate Moss and Heidi Klum as well as photographing celebrities like Madonna, David Bowie and the Queen.

Rankin describes this project:

“Photography is my life and passion and I truly believe it has the power to reveal and connect. Now we all have cameras in our pockets, I think it’s time to use them. Rankin’s 2020 is an open call to anybody who thinks they can take a great picture. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve never taken a photograph before or you’re a professional, I want to see your view of our world. Together we can document this crazy year and make something positive out of it.”

There are now two photography based programmes on Sky Arts. I have reviewed Master of Photography, and I have watched the first episode of Rankin’s 2020. I enjoyed Rankin’s interpretation of empathy and seeing how he worked. The images submitted were also refreshing, in that they did not look like traditional photography competition entries. Many had been captured on a smartphone. They were alive, immediate and compelling.