A note to myself, this is an excellent tutorial for processing a portrait in Lightroom. Until now I had always assumed that these tools were only available in Photoshop and required masking and layers, but this portrait is handled from start to finish in Lightroom. Impressive cloning too towards the end. Well done Marc Webster.
RPS International Photography Exhibition
Shoreditch Street Art / John Gough / Canon EOS 6D
I visited the RPS International Photography Exhibition this week and there were a lot of strong images on display. So strong I wished I had taken many of them. A high level of envy on my part, is sufficient criteria for a really stunning image.
The RPS International Photography Exhibition has been held almost every year since 1854. Now in its 160th year, it is the longest running exhibition of its kind in the world.
The RPS describes the exhibition as reflecting, ‘the varying interests and vibrant aesthetics of the photographic medium today, presenting work which demonstrates photographic skill and technique, alongside images exploring ideas and narratives rich in meaning and message. It encompasses single images and series work across all genres. The work is executed in many ways from alternative processes to contemporary approaches’.
The RPS it seems is becoming more and more pompous. A prime candidate for Private Eye / Pseuds Corner.
The Awards
The gold award went to Margaret Mitchell. Her winning entry is here. Her poignant environmental portraits of her sister’s children and others is part of a larger project, In This Place .
‘In This Place’ raises questions about choice—do we have choices in life, or are some predetermined and made for us?
Margaret took pictures of her nephew and two nieces as children, growing up in Stirling for a previous work called Family. More recently Margaret started photographing them again. Her sister’s children are now adults and have kids of their own. However their living conditions are the same, and it appears that the same outcome awaits each child. It is as if there were, some sort of self fulfilling cycle.
The silver award went to R J Kern. From this it is easy the current popularity of the environmental portrait. A glimpse of his exhibition The Unchosen Ones.
The Walk to the Station
The exhibition was at the Truman Brewery in Shoreditch, which was an excuse to walk the London streets with my camera. The street art is amazing.
Documentary Photographer of the Year
Lunch Break. John Gough Canon EOS6D
The Exhibition
I went along to the 2017 Documentary Photographer of the Year exhibition at Printspace in London this week. The exhibition is organised by the RPS Documentary Group. It was a bit thin to be honest, probably twenty five images, thirty at most. However, it was interesting to see how photographers had tackled a documentary subject in just five pictures.
Particularly impressive was the winner David Fletcher who’s photographs follows Ann, a New Forest commoner, and her purchase of eight calves in December. After a few weeks the calves began to fall ill and despite her efforts, and expense of the vet, only two calves survived the winter. The photographs were very moving, in just five images you sympathised with her plight and felt in there with her. See here.
The Street Walk
The Documentary Photographer of the Year exhibition was at Printspace in Hoxton London. So it was an opportunity to walk through the east end of London, down through the City to Blackfriars to catch the train home. The image above is just one of two keepers, from the 200+ shots taken on the trip with my Canon 6D. Still that 1% rule. If I take 100 pictures I am lucky to get one that is worth sharing.
Last night I listened to a talk by Tom Way a truly amazing wildlife photographer. His pictures were fabulous, because in my opinion he was not a naturalist taking pictures, but a photographer taking pictures of nature. He advocated putting your photographs away for two months and coming back to them to critique them. He put critiquing your own work as the number one photography skill. He looks for just twelve images a year! If I did that however I would probably be down to just 0.01%.
( Tom Way sells his work as fine art prints. This is just a note to myself about the paper and frame he uses)
Street Photography Portraits
The Reader John Gough Canon EOS6D
Ever wondered how to take photography portraits of strangers in the street? You could be furtive and point a long lens in their direction, or you could be cheeky and like Dougie Wallace point a camera in their face and quickly walk on. It is one of the dilemmas of street photography.
I have to admit to discretely taking this picture, by pointing my camera to the left as I sat on the next bench. By the look on his face, I think he guessed that there is something going on!
The other alternative is to be like street photographer Kevin Gilper. This is a man who is on a mission, to take one thousand portraits a year. He calmly walks up to his victim and asks politely, “Excuse me, may I take a picture of you for my portfolio?”. A few say no but the majority say yes.
Kevin is not out to make money, he just feels that everyone deserves a good picture of themselves. He share his pictures on Instagram (@kgilper).
10 Steps to Becoming a Great Photographer
Photography in the Lake District
I was in my element over the last few days back in the Lake District.
Wastwater Photography
Wastwater is in my opinion just one of the most beautiful places on earth. It is almost impossible not to get a stunning photograph, which is why I keep going back. The weather is the only major challenge.
This is not a picture from this trip, but just shows how beautiful the lake can be when the weather and lighting are right.
Wastwater John Gough Canon EOS 6D
Keswick Photography
I usually stay in Keswick so that I can get up before dawn and photograph near Derwentwater. It is the golden hour, there are only a few people about and the light is magical. There are numerous opportunities for great pictures. The picture below was taken from here.
The ISO is an amazing 25600, f8 at 1/6th on a monopod rather than a tripod.
Derwentwater Before Dawn John Gough Canon EOS 6D
Another couple of locations close to Keswick are Ashness Bridge and Surprise View. There are car parks at both locations, so that you do not waste valuable photography time walking and climbing fells.
This picture was taken on this trip. Early in the morning on a grey day, but it is still a beautiful scene.
Ashness Bridge John Gough Canon EOS 6D
The next picture was also taken this trip at Surprise View
Again early, the cloud is heavy and it is barely light, but Photoshop allowed me to recover some of the shadows.
Surprise View Keswick John Gough Canon EOS 6D
Both these books are an excellent guide to photography in the Lake District, and I carry them with me every trip.
Joel Meyerowitz Photographer
Joel Meyorowitz is a contemporary of Tony Ray-Jones. His YouTube videos are both educational and inspirational.
Here he describes how his photography is not the record of a single thing, but the coming together of two different things. This is about contradictions and connections in photographs which we talk about frequently in these pages. However for Meyerowitz it is about having the scene as busy as possible so that the eye is not necessarily drawn to just one thing.
This is how he works and why it is important to photograph in colour, and not have a single thing dominate the image.
Tony Ray-Jones Photographer
My aim is to communicate something of the spirit and the mentality of the English, their habits and their way of life, the ironies that exist in the way they do things, partly through their traditions and partly through the nature of their environment and their mentality. For me there is something very special about the English ‘way of life’ and I wish to record it from my particular point of view before it becomes Americanised and disappears.
Tony Ray-Jones was a documentary photographer even before the term was coined. He studied in the US at Yale and returned to the UK in 1965, it was then whilst doing work for the Radio Times and other publications, that he decided to turn his camera on the English at leisure. At the time, his photographs were considered “exotic”.
In 1968 his attempts to publish his England by the Sea album, which served as a basis for the A Day Off (which was published after his death), came to nothing – the publishers claimed that the album would raise no interest.
He was a major influence on Martin Parr, but sadly died at the age of 31 from leukaemia.
Here Martin Parr talks about his influence on him.
The Guardian have a super collection of his work
More of his work at Lensculture
In 2004 Liz Jobey wrote a very informative article about Tony Ray-Jones
The critic Sean O’Hagan said:
in his short life he helped create a way of seeing that has shaped several generations of British photography
11 Stages That Every Photographer Goes Through
Just had to share this from the Digital Photography School, which is a great site and a valuable source of tuition and information.
I read this article thinking it was going to be rubbish. I am always very wary of articles that start, “10 things you didn’t know about………..”, but it turned out to be very true, and funny. Especially the stage about giving up all your gear and just choosing to shoot with a small camera with a prime lens. Personally I am still in that phase, but because my site is about a personal journey. Enjoy…………….
Ruddy Roye Documentary Photographer
I came across Ruddy Roye in the Fuji Spotlight Series of videos about photographers:
He is a photographer based in Brooklyn specialising in editorial and environmental portraits and photo-journalism photography. His photographs are gritty and real, this is his website
He has also been instrumental in using Instagram to showcase his interest in his community of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. He has over a quarter of a million followers on Instagram and was TIME Instagram Photographer of 2016. See here.
“My Instagram account has become a way for me to question everything around me,” said Mr Roye, who has uploaded roughly 2,000 images in the past year. “The media has a way of deleting the stories of people who society does not want to deal with. This is my humble way of putting these stories back in people’s faces — forming a real and active dialogue about these issues.”
It is inspirational to see a photographer use his camera for social activism. He takes pictures about the issues of race, deprivation and inequality, which if he were a journalist would be difficult to publish.