John Gough Photography
Like many other photographers, the coronavirus pandemic was an opportunity to document what will hopefully be a unique time in our lives.
This was the third lockdown in the UK, it started in January 2021, but it is estimated that life will not be fully ‘back to normal’ until the end of June when some travel restrictions to other countries are still likely to remain.
The series of images, Life in Lockdown are here.
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!
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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