John Gough Photography
I am enjoying the work of Jessica Meyer. Especially the blending of old and new in the image above. It is a hand printed Cyanotype, partially bleached with Borax substitute.
This was created for a project in @icmphotomag challenging the creative ways in which we can combine both the fast digital world of ICM photography with the slow manual printing process of #cyanotypes, invented 180 years ago.
How to work with Topaz Studio 2 to create impressionist painterly effects
Art writer Waldemar Januszczak series on BBC 4 ‘The Impressionists Painting and Revolution’ has been a visual feast. Whilst gorging myself on Van Gogh and Monet. I was thinking about how I could get similar painterly effects in photography.
Impressionist photography, uses Pep Ventosa’s techniques, multiple exposures. and ICM (Intentional Camera Movement), to create blur and emotion.
One of the masters of the genre is Eva Polak:
I become enchanted with the beautiful images created by this style of photography. Impressionist photography is a perfect tool which allows me to communicate with the world and share my vision. It results from the need to express my feelings through images. It is a way to connect my creative vision with the world.
For myself, it is about capturing the ephemeral.
Roxanne Bouche’ Overton describes it best in her book ‘Catching My Peripheral Vision: Finding Clarity in Blur’
lurking there in my peripheral vision, I see more. Sometimes I see snippets of the whole – abstracts, shapes and shadows. Other times I see motion – that fourth dimension.
Roxanne Bouche’ Overton
One of the reasons the Impressionist Movement started, was that in 1874 the camera could already capture realistic images. Impressionism was a move away from trying to reproduce reality.
It is asking a lot of the camera not to capture the world as it is. The camera is designed to capture sharp detail and lifelike colours. However, post processing can deconstruct the image the camera captures.
Recently, I have been experimenting with Topaz Studio 2.
Editing images in Topaz Studio 2 is much like Lightroom or Photoshop. There are useful filters and presets which are an excellent place to start, and then sliders that change the look.
The master of the effect using Topaz Studio 2 is Dave Kelly.
I will not be using Topaz Studio 2 in isolation. I think I will be using this technique with others to create that dreamy, painterly, impressionistic look I am always striving to achieve, but never quite realise.
A couple of my wildflower images are on display at an exhibition at the Willow Tree in Walthamstow, London.
Details of the exhibition are:
We delve deep into Biophilic design and explore our innate connection (kinship) to the natural world. We celebrate the magic of this home on the edge of the Wetlands, with the River Lea and Epping Forest on our doorstep.
The artists featured in the collection find an abundance of inspiration within their environment. They are artists who pay attention to the delicate patterns on leaves and the way sunlight dances upon water. These are artworks for adventurers, stargazers, escapists, foragers and birdwatchers. For the explorers who love the wind in their hair and the crunch of leaves underfoot. Artworks to bring the urban wilderness of Walthamstow into our homes and onto our walls.
My wildflower artwork can be purchased at Artsnug
Velvet Lensbaby Lenses create glowing ethereal effects in camera, which are often difficult to reproduce in Photoshop. By changing the aperture the effect can be controlled from pin sharp to very soft.
Lensbaby was started in 2004 by Craig Strong & Sam Price in Portland, Oregon. The Lensbaby Velvet 56 arrived on the market in 2015, followed by the Velvet 85 and the Velvet 28. The series is available for multiple camera mounts: Nikon, Canon, Sony, Pentax, and Fuji cameras.
Soft focus was once considered a technical flaw. However, it has now become a creative tool for photographers. In the past, it was only possible to achieve this by putting Vaseline on a UV filter! Lensbaby changed all that.
Many photographers also experiment with vintage lenses to attain a charming dreamy look. Velvet lenses do the same thing. The more you open the aperture the dreamier the effect becomes. Starting at the edges and working into the centre, the blur becomes more exaggerated with each aperture ring click. As the aperture is opened, the depth of focus also decreases and at ƒ/2.8, the whole image is a gentle mist.
At these wide apertures, it can look as though the image was painted. Lensbaby advocates insist this look cannot be created in Photoshop. However competent you are with layers and Gaussian blur. This unique effect may be down to the glow the lens will impart in some lighting conditions.
These are some examples collated on this Pinterest board.
When using a Lensbaby lens it is back to basics, because your camera will not recognize the lens. The lens has no electronic coupling. As a result, the aperture cannot be changed using the aperture control on the camera. To change the aperture it is back to using the aperture ring on the lens.
The lens works best in manual mode, although aperture priority can work on some cameras.
The focus is also manual. This is easiest with a mirrorless camera or using live view on a traditional DSLR. Note that the camera will not store camera settings with the metadata.
The Velvet also does not have an automatic diaphragm, which on modern cameras opens the aperture to its widest setting once the lens is mounted on the camera. As a result, the lens aperture closes as you stop down, and the view gets increasingly dark.
Although this is primarily a portraiture lens, the lens is a ‘nifty fifty’ with glowing ethereal characteristics. It has a 1:2 macro ratio, making it perfect for misty flower photography.
A short telephoto portrait lens, capable of 1:2 macro photography with a minimum focusing distance of just 24cm. So ideal for nature close ups.
A wide angle lens ideal for landscapes and travel, but with a 1:2 macro facility.
There is a movement back to simpler photography. Creating effects that can be created in camera, and which do not need layers of Photoshop in post production. Techniques like ICM, multiple exposure and vintage lenses.
The Lensbaby range is right on trend. If occasionally we do not always want to see our world with hard, sharp, twenty twenty vision, then the Velvet Lensbaby takes us back to a more gentle era.
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.
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 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 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
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.
This is my image of the month for September 2020. A message in a bottle. I am currently experimenting with a bolder oil painting style to try and achieve an image which is an oil and light hybrid.
I like to shoot flowers backlit. Like the buttercups in the image above. This was achieved using natural light through a window lightbox.
Now that we are all restricted from roaming around with our camera, the spring flowers in our gardens make fascinating subjects. With a little post-processing in Lightroom and Photoshop, simple blooms can blossom into fine art.
Over the next few blogs, I will be explaining just how I approach flower photography, starting with how to build a simple window lightbox.
The simplest way to create a uniform lighting effect is to simply stick a piece of tracing paper or baking parchment on a window. Mount, the flower in front of it and take a photograph. Job done.
I use oasis to mount the flower, which can be purchased from Amazon.
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As my flower photography has evolved I have created a more elaborate window lighting setup, but it still uses natural light.
As I will explain in a later episode. Cutting the flower from its background in Photoshop is best achieved with as white a background as possible. So I now use a white diffusion fabric which I clip to a window using studio clips.
Both items can be bought quite cheaply from a photography store or Amazon.
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I usually pick flowers from my garden, or purchase them from a florist. I certainly avoid picking flowers from the wild. Bringing flowers indoors and photographing in a ‘studio’ environment gives ultimate control over the image.
Over the next few weeks I will be working through the process I use to create fine art flower images. This is episode 1.
I have avoided dropping my camera so many times using a simple inexpensive wrist strap like this one. Cameras and expensive lenses do not bounce!
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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.
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.
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.