Thinking about a theme

A number of people have said that I need to make the next project about more than 'flash photography'.   I have been somewhat resistant to this suggestion as I don't feel that either I am not explaining myself too well - not unknown - or that other people have not got what I have been saying.  I am not sure whether this is helping or not so I have decided to modify what I am doing.   Instead of just ploughing on regardless I am now going to slightly change my approach.  It is still going to be around flash photography or painting with light but instead it will be in support of the 4 project I have on the go at the moment.   These are:

Leicestershire Landmarks - an exploration of the landmarks that have a significant impact on Leicestershire

Park and Ride - Documenting the building of a new park and ride at Enderby

Jubilee Park - Documenting a local park

Varsity - Documenting my life at University

Very Long Exposure - Michael Wesely

Michael Wesely is a photographer that was suggested by Nick Lockett.  Apparently, the work involves extreme exposure times - measured in months rather than seconds.  His most famous exhibition to date has been at the MOMA in New York in 2004.

Not just long exposure of buildings - 

this one took from the 26th October to 6th November

New York - from the Open Shutter exhibition at MOMA

Michael Wesely

Michael Weseley - very long exposure

Flickr - this link shows the contents of the catalogue from the MOMA exhibition in 2004

Michael Weseley website - this is in German

Google Images Search

New York Times

26th September 2004 - By JEFFREY KASTNER

22nd August 1999 - By WILLIAM ZIMMER - Mentioned when discussing portraying flowers

Experimentation

An Experiment - Frankenstein's Monster?

One of the things we are trying to be doing in this module is to experiment; push the envelope;go beyond our comfort zone.   This weekend has certainly done that for me.   I started trying to work with different settings with the flash gun.  I used my own magnificent??? features as the subject.  As with all experiments there were some successes and some failures.

After this I decided to try some different outdoor shots.  Near where I live there is a small shrine set up to two young lads who died in a car accident.   One is very formal, with a plaque and tree planted.  The second is a road sign next to where the accident was.   They both offer great opportunities for experimenting with flash and painting with light.   Unfortunately when I got around to photographing them the snow was falling and I didn't feel like freezing my...off again.   Perhaps this is the reason why the photographs were not very good.  I'm not sure but it has got me thinking about how I could do the shot better and in the end this is what the module is all about.

More interesting flash links

[No Image - the images address will no copy]

This link was suggested by Kate Luck.  It is the work of Night Photographer.   His work appears to be centred around very long exposure and then painting with light.  Still some interesting images - especially those on the railway line! (Sorry I can't include this in the post as for reasons beyond me the image address won't work??)

Reflections on Painting with Light

I have now been through the photographs I made last night and a few things need to be said.  The first is that they were not that good.  This is not a bad thing as you tend to learn more things from failures than success.  Indeed the road to success is usually built on the broken bodies of your failures.  So why were the photographs failures?  Well, the first things was that I wasn't clear what I wanted to do.  

I set out to record the snow and the strange night light caused by an exotic mix of snow and neon lights.  Halfway through this I decide to try out some ideas that I had about painting with light.  The idea was to illuminate one area of the photograph with flash whilst leaving the rest to burn in by a very long exposure.  Now this may have worked if it hadn't been for the excessive light caused by the snow.  Just to give you an idea of the amount of light around I was able to shoot at f8 for as little as 4 seconds with an ISO of 200.  This was in the middle of the night in the middle of a park with no lighting!

The second was the weather.   This might seem a strange thing to say but I forgot it was snowing!   It wasn't a problem when I shot with the snow on my back as I didn't get any snow on the lens.   However, when I shot into the snow well guess what - I got snow on my lens - Dohh!  I didn't notice this until I got home.

The final thing was the otter.  As soon as I had my encounter I sort of lost interest in photography and so my photographs started to show this.   So what to make of this?   Well, it was a very positive experience in the sense that I learnt a great deal about what I want to do.  I also learnt that I need to be more single minded and plan what I want to achieve and then go for it.  I just hope I don't encounter another otter as this will blow all my plans out of the water (if you don't mind the pun!)

Otters and Flash Photography

Night Time by the River Soar

So there I was standing in deep snow at night trying to work out how to paint with light when this strange sound came from the river.  I look around and wonder what on earth the noise was.  Was it bird?  It certainly wasn't any bird call I had heard before.   I looked again and there in water not 10 feet away from me was a dog otter barking and calling.  At first I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  As I stood there the otter disappeared under water then reappeared and kept barking in my direction.   Normally, I wouldn't have been able to see what was causing such a noise as it would have been very dark.  However, with all the snow on the ground it gave the area a strange, luminous glow which was the reason I was standing by the river in the first place.   So there I was looking down on one of Britain's shyest wild creature and still it kept barking at me.  Eventually, the otter swam off leaving me to wonder what this was all about.

Otter Tracks in the Snow

I continued to make photographs.  As this was night I had plenty of time to look around between takes and I soon found tracks in the deep snow that were not made by the local dogs being walked in the park.   I followed the tracks and soon discovered that there hadn't been one but three otters near to where I had been standing.  This put a whole new completion on the matter and suddenly the dog otter's barking became all the clearer.  Instead of an act of aggression of a lone male this was probably the call of a frightened mother looking after her youngsters.  She was in fact telling her young to stay put whilst the threat, i.e. me, passed.  

Whether this was actually the reason or something totally different I doubt I will ever know but it was a real privilege to stand there so close to a truly wild animal.  Truly truly wonderful.

As for the photography this was a mixed.  I wanted to capture the strange light of night in the deep snow.  This I did.  I also wanted to start to practice 'painting with light'.   I had mixed results but then this is part of a larger experimental project for my Master's Course.  The most interesting thing I learnt this evening was that it is actually more difficult than it looks and I will have to think a lot harder about the set up etc.  Over the next day or so I will work on the images and see what they look like.  I will then be in a better position to judge how successful the evening's photographic exertions were.   However, they will never beat the nocturanl encounter with the otter.

Painting with light - some more links

Interesting search on Flickr - painting with light