Salt Mills...

It has taken me a few days to fully process the impact of Salts Mill on me - there was so much to take in. Where to start? Well first of all the negative. It has a lot in common with Walt Disney World - there is every opportunity to spend a lot of money of things you may well never use again but seem like such a good idea at the time. The second similarity is all pervasive character where ever you go with the mill. David Hockney is all around. His works are on display through out the public areas of the mill - whether it is in Gallery 1853 or in the restaurant or gift shop and so on. There is just no getting away from the man.

Now that is the negative here is the positive - well actually it is the same as above. I cannot think of any living artist who could carry such a display of his work and personality. Hockney can. His work's enlighten the drab, dark Yorkshire day like no other. The art work on display at 1853 is wondrous. The photo montage, the main reason for my visit, were even better than expected. You have to stand close to them to realise what acts of virtuoso they are. In an age of digital cameras it is so easy to ensure that photographs marry together if you are shooting a montage - how Hockney's were recorded on film so he had to shoot them from memory - yet they work so well.

Beyond the main gallery perhaps the most intense and rewarding experience is on the top floor. Here we have Hockney's stage designs displayed in a blacked out section of the mill floor sandwiched between another restaurant and an antique and cloths store - yet none of this distracts you from the power of the work on display and indeed the way they are displayed adds to the power.

What a great day out, great art well presented in a magnificent building which, when you consider the size of the place, somehow seems so intimate and yet is the size of a super tanker. One final note - the food is excellent as well. What more could you want?

A change of pace...

I know I have been banging on about Hockney over the past week or so but would you believe I have not really given him any great thought. Instead of photographic matters I have been using the more analytical part of my brain. I have been doing some historical research. This is not the first time I have done this - my old website is still on line - this was completed in 1996 - almost as old in WWW terms as the subject matter!

Anyway back to the present. I have been working a map of the village showing all the historical/archaeological sites/information I have discovered. It has been really enjoyable and at same time so frustrating. You always seem to take two steps forward and one back. You develop a theory based on the information at hand and then discover new information that blows it out of the water. Sometimes I just want to scream but it is very absorbing. So the photography has had to take a back seat. This may change as I am off to the Salt Mill gallery tomorrow to see more Hockney - so I suspect I may well be back to photography over the next day or so!

Some developments....

Hockney montage seem to be a very cliché photograph. So I am thinking about how to use the ideas and take them a bit further - I am not suggesting that what I might be doing is 'good' or 'better' than anyone else's work. I am just using this as a means of experimenting with photography.

Titchwell...

Grey Plover - Titchwell

Finally have got round to working on the Titchwell shoot. I was not too happy with them at the time but after a few days the photographs are not too bad. Phew.

Curlew

Redshank

Common Gull

One step forward....

What a strange day but also an interesting one. I have been working on the Hockney idea and frankly not getting so far. However, this is the point of experimentation - one step forward one back until you do find a way forward. As part of the , what I laughingly call, research I have used Google images and to my suprise there is a whole world out there doing the same as me. Interestingly there seems to be a trend, perhaps it is part of the curriculum, in American schools to produce this type of work. The good thing is that most of the stuff produced was ok but nothing special - so this encourages me to work at the idea further. Still at the moment it is one step forward and one back.

Where does inspiration come from?....

So where does inspiration come from? It is something you eat, see or something else, something you can't taste but it just happens. Well in my case it is David Hockney or to be more precise his photography. I have just been watching a sky arts programme about Hockney's photography and something fired off in my mind - so I came and made this photograph. Whether it is any good or note is not the point I have just started to think about things a different way and that is really good.

I have been in doldrums for the past few days about my photography. I suspect it had something to to do with the ARPS process and realisation that I may well be good enough to get a ARPS for my wildlife photography but it is something of a dead end. Anyway, whatever the reason I have been spending some time away from photography - well three days which is not long but I have been doing other things and then bang all the blood started rushing again and I am off on a new journey. Where this leads me to goodness only knows but it will be fun - I hope!

Early start ... again

Bar Tailed Godwit - Limosa lapponica - Brancaster

Another early start tomorrow - weather looks like it is going to be fine so off to Norfolk for another session on the ARPS project. I am hoping to capture Godwits & Oystercatchers - however you just never know until you get there - so here's hoping.

Hockney...

A wonderful day was had by all, apart from a bit of a cock up on my part, when my good friend David and I hit the galleries in London. The plan was to go and see the Turner and the Masters at the Tate and then work our way up to the National Portrait Gallery for the Portrait Photographer of the Year exhibition. The rest of the day we would fill as we saw fit. Well we did the Turner exhibition and I have to say it left me somewhat cold. The idea was to show Turner's work alongside his influences. The problem for me was that in many respects Turner did not come out very well - all it demonstrated to me was that Turner had his limitations and that whilst much of his work is of the highest standards he is mortal. Still it is worth while going to see but expect crowds.

After lunch we explored the Tate and this in itself was a joy. I especially enjoyed seeing the Pre Raphaelite work after the recent excellent documentary series on the painters and the scandalously enjoyable TV drama. We walked out of this gallery and wonder a bit further into a large room and there was one of the painting I had wanted to see - the David Hockney paintings of East Yorkshire. The room has three identical paintings made up of 50 panels of a copse near to Bridlington. The first is the actual painting and the other two are digital copies on a 1:1 scale. I could wax on about these paitings for hours - just to say it made our day.

After this it was a bit of an anti climax and to an extent that is what the Portrait Photographer of the year exhibition was. I found much of the work cold and impersonal. I am not sure that using models to enact something really is a portrait but it was accepted so what do I know. Perhaps the best portrait for me was self portrait of the photographer when he had chicken pox.

So a good day out and filled me with inspiration. The journey home was entertaining as well as I got into a conversation with a young mother and her 5 month old son. She had just been to the Argentinian embassy to renew her passport as they were both travelling to Argentina in December for her brother's wedding. Good luck to her - she'll need it and what an example of the indomitable human spirit.

Chairman's day....

Fulmar - Seahouses

I spent an interesting day at the RPS Nature group's Chairmen's Day meeting at Oldbury. The day consisted of a series of talks about natural history photography. As usual with these types of days the talks were varying interest depending on you interest in the subject. So I found Martin Dyer's talk about wildlife photography on the island of Mull far more interesting than Gianpiero Ferrari's 'A Year of Wildlife'. This was nothing to do with the individual but rather their subject matter. Ferrari is very interested in moths and orchids, neither of which really do anything for me, whereas Dyer's work is more to interests.

In the afternoon Heather Angel gave a bravado presentation about her work at Kew gardens and then on her wider work. Both were fascinating but something kept going around in my head as she spoke, especially about her other work. Carbon Footprint. Her carbon footprint must be enormous. As she spoke I started to debate this - the individual talent against the greater good and I am not sure what the solution to all this is. She clearly is a hugely talented photographer but could her photographs be sourced locally, thus reducing her carbon foot print and perhaps going some small way to reducing the effects of man made climate change. I really don't have an answer to this but it kept going through my mind as she spoke. This was a shame as some of her work is simply stunning.

Ratcliffe Power Station at Dawn

Ratcliffe Power Station at Dawn

Well I suppose it was only a matter of time before one of my photographs was used by someone else in their blog - in this case Planestupid. I am not too sure what I feel about this. On the one hand it is gratifying that my work is seen as being usable by someone else to illustrate a point. However, I was never asked and I am not sure whether I want my work associated with this type of political action. Perhaps if I had been asked then this might have been a little easier - something I have done before myself and when people have objected I have removed the image straight away. There is also the question of copyright - however to an extent this becomes academic when you publish work to Flickr as anyone can copy the work with impunity.

So what to do? Well in truth I don't know. But is is a new problem for me to confront.

What an idiot...AGAIN

There are times when I really wonder what I am doing. This morning was one of them. I got up early to take some dawn shots - I wasn't really that motivated but I got up anyway. I took the shots and then got home only to find that most of the shot was ruined! The shots were long exposures using a lens with an image stabilizer fitted and guess what I did - I forgot to switch the stabilizer off. Needless to say most of the images were blurred. ARRGGHHGGHH! Luckily there was just enough images that could be salvaged to make the whole trip worth while. Note to brain - don't do this again! However, this is not the first time I have done this so perhaps I need something a bit more forceful than a note.

Hill - Stonton Wyville,

Musings....

Sheep on Peak District Hill

Donna Nook is starting to look less likely to happen. It is nearly a week since I went there and I must say I am still disturbed by the thought of working in a crowd on the beach - just doesn't seem right - after all this should be about the seals rather than some mad scramble to get a photograph. I just don't feel it is the right thing to do. However, I have not made a final decision - yet.

I was going to write about the difficulty of capturing a really interesting nude photograph - but I think I need to give this some more thought before I commit my thoughts to the either. What I have been given a lot of thought to is what to do next year - what sort of projects I should take on and how should I approach them?

This has been prompted by starting to reflect on the last twelve months. I was planning something for the 1 year anniversary of this blog but never got around to it. However, I have been musing on the whole year and what I have achieved and what I want to do next year. So what am I going to do? Well I have a plan - which I will no doubt not stick to - but as I write this it is the latest plan. I intend to work on only three projects over the next 12 months. The first is my ARPS portfolio - I hope to have this ready by the late summer for submission in the autumn. I could submit it now but I want get as many photographs as possible of the same style, lighting etc.

The second project is the Landscape Photographer of the year. This has to be submitted in the July. The final project is the Garden photographer of the year. This is in November. All three give me some time to work on them and they also allow me opportunity submit work to other competitions as they come along. Well that is the plan - goodness knows how long it will last. I will no doubt put something together in the next few days about the Nude - I just have to marshal my thoughts - more musings....

One final thing. I have just crossed the 10000 hits mark on my Flickr account.