iJourneys

John Gough Photography

An Evening with Martin Parr

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Martin Parr

Last night I went along to the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol, to hear Martin Parr talk about his life in photography.

These are just a few of the notes that I took away from the evening.

Obsession

His father was a fanatical bird watcher and every weekend Martin Parr would accompany him on birding trips. Parr admits that his photography is an obsession, a trait no doubt inherited from his father. However he is grateful, he believes that to be a successful photographer it has to be an obsession.

Projects

Projects I have always thought should have a beginning and an end date. Martin Parr does not always follow this rule. Although he has projects which have an end date, for example, he is currently working on a project which will be published as a book this year about people taking selfies. He also has recurring projects like the British seaside which he says he cannot resist, and keeps coming back to. This follows the success of his early book The Last Resort which was first published in 1986.

There are also longer term projects, for example, his love of photographing people dancing. This like his pertinacity to document the British class system, are continuing themes.

Colour or Black and White

Parr changed to colour in the early eighties. Even then colour was not a professional medium. Instead, it was more the domain of holiday snaps and hobbyists. I asked whether he had ever thought of returning to monochrome with the advent of digital. “I see in colour and photograph in colour” he replied, “I have no intention of going back”.

Gaining a Momentum and Eight Good Pictures a Year

Martin Parr admitted that when he arrived at a scene where he was going to take photographs, he would take lots of pictures. It is about getting into a momentum he said, so when that great opportunity happens, you are ready. He joked, that what we don’t see are the thousands of images he rejects. What was his hit rate he was asked? About one in ten thousand, or around eight really good shots a year.

Ordinary Things

In the early days, he would challenge himself to photograph things that were as boring as possible. He has always been interested in the mundane. The ordinary things later become extraordinary. He showed an example of a lady filling a car with petrol in the 80’s. Look he said the cars have changed, the pumps have changed and the fashions have changed.

Last Word

At one point during the evening, he said that it was his job to make fiction out of reality. That I think sums up his work.

Where to See His Work

He has a show Only Human at the National Portrait Gallery. There is also a book to accompany the event.

 

There is an exhibition of his photographs of in and around Manchester at the Manchester Art Gallery.

 

Before Photography there was Watercolour

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We are used to photography documenting our world. Where we are. What we do. How we do it. But what about before photography?

It was then that painters would use watercolour painting to document the world. These paintings, however, were often hidden away in archives, private collections, museums and art galleries. Now for the first time a UK based charity, Watercolour World has made it their mission to digitise watercolour painting and make it available to everyone.

We are creating a free online database of documentary watercolours painted before 1900. For the first time, you can explore these fascinating visual records on a world map, search for topics that are important to you, and compare watercolours from multiple collections in one place. We hope that this project will not simply preserve the watercolour record but revive it, sparking new conversations and revelations. By making history visible to more people, we can deepen our understanding of the world.

We may be used to watercolour landscape painting, but searching through the Watercolour World database it is revealing just how much social history is documented. Have a look, it is well worth a watercolour moment.

 

 

Don McCullin Retrospective

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Don McCullin

A major retrospective of the work of the masterful photographer Don McCullin starts at Tate Britain today. There is also an insightful documentary on BBC iPlayer for the next 27 days called Don McCullin : Looking for England. This shows the legend at work, photographing people at various locations in England, and working creating black and white prints in his dark room. The clip below is charming because he is usually so very serious and professional.

 

Travel Photography: What is It?

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Great Yarmouth / John Gough / Sony a6300

The amazing images in this years’ Travel Photographer of the Year Award, got me thinking about when is a photograph a travel photograph.

When we go on holiday, are the pictures we take travel photography or are they snapshots? When does street photography, landscape photography and any other genre of photography in a foreign location change into travel photography?

To basically understand what is travel photography, here are my notes about what it is that defines a travel photograph.

Picture or Portfolio

Travel photography is about telling a story, and however brilliant the photographer that usually means creating a portfolio of images. So travel photographs are likely to be part of a bigger piece of work.

Travel Photography has a Purpose

Travel photography is about place, and will describe either the land, the people or culture.  The purpose describes which, e.g.  ‘to capture the vivid street scenes and the simplistic yet diverse lifestyle of Cuba’.

People

Photographs that include people should place the subject in the specific travel location. These should either include people going about their everyday business or be environmental portraits, which record details of an individual within their environment. The people should contribute to the story.

Nothing Taken Out

A travel photograph is meant to be an accurate record of a place and a time. So however tempting it may be to clone out a rubbish bin, it should stay, even if removing it would have made a better image. Post processing can add warmth and impact but should not change the reality and truth of the original scene.

Travel Photography is Not All Foreign

Travel photography does not have to be taken in far flung places, often completing a portfolio at a location you can easily revisit is a big advantage. The variety of weather and seasons makes it look as though the pictures were not taken on your annual vacation.  Slough or Singapore both are compelling destinations.

Travel photography is all about capturing a time and place, a location or event. Portraying a feeling about the land, people or culture. Most of all though it is about telling a story.

Where I Buy

I buy my equipment from Wex because of their exceptional customer service. I once returned a camera after 30 days, and the next day they called to return my money to my account. Their prices are always competitive and they offer good prices on the trade in of your used gear



Street Photography Post Processing

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James Dean / Henri Cartier-Bresson

 

I was really interested to see these images online which show the post processing that Henri Cartier-Bresson requested for his iconic photograph of James Dean. The feel you have with his images are that they are straight out of his Leica. Not so apparently. This is so refreshing.

I do get a crick in the neck looking up at the moral high ground inhabited by photographers who never go anywhere near Photoshop preferring to compose ‘in camera’.

Planning Landscape Photography

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Stripe of Light / John Gough / Canon 6D (Fleetwith Pike taken from Buttermere Lake. See below to see how the photograph came about)

I listened to a talk by Justin Minns recently. Justin is a fabulous landscape photographer as you can see from his site. The talk was an inspiration. I was particularly motivated as I was just about to leave the following morning for a few days photography in the Lake District.

Planning Landscape Photography

Justin Minns described the research and preparation that he puts into a photo shoot. Planning the route, the parking, the weather, the time of day (usually dusk or dawn), and the position of the sun on that day. He will then walk the site prior to the shoot looking for that killer composition.

NB Subscribe to Ordnance Survey maps here

NB Calculate the direction of the sun here

Like other great landscapists like Charlie Waite and Joe Cornish, Justin will envisage the image that he would want to achieve. Plan to achieve it and then set up his camera and tripod and wait for the light. In landscape photography, it is all about composition and light.

The Lake District: Buttermere

The Lake District is a location with dramatic scenery. When it is not raining and the light is right, there is probably no location in the world that is better for landscape photographs. The Lake District is quite a compact only 912 square miles, so it can be traversed several times in a day. However, it does have 16 million visitors a year so try to visit off season so that you can park to get that shot.

It helps to have some guidance about where to find great pictures. So I use the following guidebooks:

On this visit, I decided to take Justin’s advice and plan in advance. I would catch the sun traversing Fleetwith Pike at the southern end of Buttermere Lake. There is a pebble beach on the road side of the lake. I would wait there until the sun broke through the clouds and lit up the mountain, profiling the trees on the shore of the lake.

 

I stayed there for about an hour waiting for the sun and suddenly there it was. The shot I had planned was in front of me.

I love street photography because you arrive at a location not knowing what is going to happen, so I was sceptical that I would enjoy this structured approach. However, there is some satisfaction in seeing a plan come to fruition.

Where I Buy

I buy my equipment from Wex because of their exceptional customer service. I once returned a camera after 30 days, and the next day they called to return my money to my account. Their prices are always competitive and they offer good prices on the trade in of your used gear



 

This Image was Taken on a Canon

 

 

 

 

Remembrance

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Remembering / John Gough / Sony 6300

It was the Remembrance Ceremony in Bedford this morning.

Where I Buy

I buy my equipment from Wex because of their exceptional customer service. I once returned a camera after 30 days, and the next day they called to return my money to my account. Their prices are always competitive and they offer good prices on the trade in of your used gear



 

This Image was Taken on a Sony

V&A Photography Centre

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V&A Photography Gallery

When I visited the Photography Centre at the V&A. I was looking forward to something different and exciting. A real celebration of photography. A national treasure trove of the very best images. However, I was disappointed. The V&A Photography Centre is just a museum space with photographs.

The Photography Centre

The V&A Photography Centre was opened earlier this month to celebrate the Royal Photography Society collection of photographs, joining the V&A’s national collection. Both these archives are massive, and it is very sad that this national collection is not available to view. So it is some consolation then, that the V&A have rescued around 600 objects, and they are on view at the gallery.

The V&A blurb boasts that the new galleries revolutionise the way photography is presented. So I was expecting more than two rooms in the corner of the V&A with pictures on the wall and cameras in glass cases. A lost opportunity, to be more off the wall.

I know the V&A is a museum, but does it have to devote so much of its’ limited space to the first hundred and fifty years of photography. The last 70 years of photography are when cameras became more portable, and new genres of photography were let loose. Although there was some extraordinary recent photography, Martin Parr and Linda McCartney included. There were walls devoted to early photographs, but no mention of a smartphone camera or social media. Lots of Brownies, but no Huawei or Instagram

The Future

This exhibition at least recognises the importance of photography, and the V&A Photography Centre is to be extended to twice the size by 2022. So it has time to change, and space to grow into.

Around 1.8 billion images are captured each day. So every two minutes we take more pictures than ever existed 150 years ago. Essentially that is the V&A’s dilemma.

 

Where I Buy

I buy my equipment from Wex because I have genuinely found that they offer great advice and customer service.

 

Multiple Exposure

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Primitive Multiple Exposure / John Gough /Canon 6D

 

A week or so ago I attended a Bailey Chinnery workshop in Hastings. The workshop was run by Valda Bailey and Doug Chinnery. It concentrated more on the creative process of photography rather than technical information, and traditional composition etc.

This paragraph from their website sums up their approach:

So it is our goal that these new Creative Growth workshops will have a more intense focus on artistic development. We want to help you open your mind to think with greater freedom, develop your own style, forge your own path. It is our hope that they will facilitate your progress as an artist and you will come away creatively invigorated and inspired.

The workshop I attended was for one day and concentrated on creating abstract images in camera using multiple exposures, and Intentional Camera Movement (ICM). I was interested in using multiple exposures to create background layers in Photoshop. However, I was quickly impressed with the possibilities of creating multiple exposure images as pictures that stood upon their own.

How It Works

I don’t want to go into the technical bits. However, if like me you did not know if your camera even had multiple exposure functionality. Then follow this video:

Multiple exposure photography lays one image on top of another in camera. The camera software averages out the exposure values so that all layers are visible. It requires considerable skill to turn a set of random shots into a meaningful image.

The Creative Possibilities

There are endless possibilities to create shapes, abstracts and impressionist art, as this work by Valda Bailey illustrates.

There is a wonderful ‘in the moment’ quality about photographing a location in this way. Valda Bailey told us that she will spend at least an hour before she picks up her camera. I can understand why. It requires intense concentration to take several images in a sequence that will work together to form a finished photograph.

I have only been experimenting for a few days as you can see from the example at the top of the page. There is more work to do.

London Nights Exhibition

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I mentioned recently that I had visited the London Nights exhibition at the Museum of London. Some of the images on show are amazing and encourage you to walk around your neighbourhood at night to see just what your camera can see.

This article in the British Journal of Photography showcases the exhibition, and a new FullBleed film produced in association with British Journal of Photography and the Museum of London, which explores the exhibition through the eyes of its curator and a selection of exhibiting photographers.

I, of course, loved the 50’s images with men in gaberdine macks, smoking on street corners under gas lights, but with over two hundred and fifty images from over sixty photographers, there is something for everyone.