Contemporaneous notes from my 10,000 hours deliberate practice art photography apprenticeship.
Hours 3,041 to 3,145
31st December 2019
Hours 3,144 to 3,145
Two hours processing images from the 23rd.
Collected my camera from the Chiswich Camera Centre where the sensor was being cleaned. Work was carried out by Andy Sands himself who is a photographer renown for extreme macro work of natural subjects. Andy agreed with my assessment that Photoshop’s focus stacking facilities are difficult to use and don’t work particularly well; he recommended Zerene Stacker which apparently provides a lot more control.
30th December 2019
Hours 3,142 to 3,143
Half an hour writing an analysis of the “Impressions of Kings Cross Concourse” image processed yesterday, which prompted me to update my Statement of Intent for my potential ARPS submission, to introduce the concept of time.
An hour and a half editing images from the 23rd.
29th December 2019
Hours 3,137 to 3,141
An hour shooting and processing the following domestic abstract.
An hour producing the following image, shot on the 23rd.
Pictorial analysis of the above image:
Subject (what is it of? Is the main actor clear?): Kings Cross station in the evening, people waiting. Maybe needs somebody highlighted just waiting for their train information.
Form (visual elements of the image? Line, shape, texture and colour):
Intricate framework of the station roof. Contrasting orange-yellow magenta-blue dominant colours. Leading lines from the foreground. Focal point is the base of the roof framework. Shadows of railway passengers.
Content (what is the picture about? Any story, meaning or symbolism?): Anticipation, people poised for action, the station as a facilitator.
Two hours processing other, less successful, images from the 23rd.
Half an hour updating this journal.
Half an hour planning our forthcoming trip; notes on landscape photography will be particularly relevant.
28th December 2019
Hours 3,133 to 3,136
Half an hour updating this journal and associated Flickr site.
An hour and a half research for forthcoming trip.
Two hours watching and writing up notes for the following YouTubes:
- Nigel Danson: “7 Tips for Wide-Angle Landscape Photography“
- Powerful Foreground –
- Make this the star of the image
- Often more foreground than sky, up to 2/3rds of the image
- Find something exciting
- Connecting Mid-ground
- Leads the eye through the frame
- Often finding a higher camera angle reveals more mid-ground
- Distance – A nice sky accentuates mountains that might otherwise look small in the frame of a wide-angle lens
- Movements – look for better separation between elements or compositional improvements by moving a little up, down, right or left
- Avoid dead space by either re-cropping or finding something to fill it
- remember, sometimes it’s better to use a longer lens to avoid distractions or to achieve a simpler composition
- People – can add drama to an image or create a visual anchor.
- Powerful Foreground –
- Adorama: “3 Things most people don’t know about flash photography“
- Inverse Square rule
- Soft light vs diffuse light: former achieved from a large softbox but can still give specular highlights if not softened with a cloth covering
- Flash duration – not instantaneous and a half poor flash is quicker than full power. Manufacturers quote a T1 time which is the time to discharge 90% of the flash power. (Godox AD600 T1 is about 1/180 s at full power, 1/745 s at half power and 1/1,500 s at a quarter power.)
- Robin Whalley: “Photoshop Blend If Command”
- accessed through the layer styles button (“fx”) at the bottom of the layer panel (or by double clicking to the right of the layer name) and selecting “Blending Options” in the panel that appears, as below.
- Serge Ramelli: “From Boring Afternoon Photos to Fine Art Black & White“
27th December 2019
Hour 3,132
An hour creating aligned versions the Canary Wharf underground multiple exposure composites, as follows:
 | ….. |  |
| Unaligned Image | Unaligned Image | |
 |  | |
| Aligned Image | Aligned Image |
The aligned images are simpler and direct the eye to a point of focus, giving it “a place to rest”.
Discovered the work of Canan Tolon an American semi-abstract urban photographer using multiple exposure techniques in some ways similar to my own.
26th December 2019
Hour 3,131
An hour working on images from the last few days and updating this journal.
25th December 2019
Hour 3,130
A few minutes shooting in Gray’s Field including a multiple exposure of a tree in interesting late afternoon light.
An hour processing images from this morning and Monday in London.
24th December 2019
Hours 3,128 to 3,129
Half an hour shooting in the rain at Stoke Common first thing in the morning followed my another half importing and processing those images in Capture One Pro 12 (Sony) and updating this journal.
An hour editing the multiple exposure images shot yesterday.
23rd December 2019
Hours 3,123 to 3,127
Three hours in London shooting multiple exposure mainly in the Paddington Basin, and Paddington, Kings Cross and St Pancrass Stations.
An hour updating this journal with the images from Hastings Meadow shot and processed yesterday.
An hour processing images shot today.
22nd December 2019
Hours 3,118 to 3,122
An hour finishing editing the image below. Throwing away all edits done over a two hour period yesterday and starting again with a tighter selection of the girder on the bridge to be removed, and use of content aware fill. Then lots of manual cloning to make the bright area of pavement look more realistic.
 | ….. |  |
| Original image – distraction to the top and left of the image. Goal is to simply the image. | Better crop with the distracting girder removed – editing of the bright pavement more difficult than originally anticipated. |
Eileen Rafferty style analysis of the above image:
Subject: Healthy, happy and prosperous people framed by a bridge girder covered in grime and pollution.
Form: Bold colours of the woman’s red dress and the man’s blue running top demand attention.What are the visual elements of the image? Line, shape, texture and colour.
Content: Voyeuristic glimpse of an idealised lifestyle from a
An hour and a half re-watching Eileen Rafferty’s “Learn the Language of Photography Through Critique“. This must rank as the most useful YouTube I have ever watched, today was at least my third viewing. I have created the above analysis as a standard block to insert in this blog, to help me analyse my own images.
An hour and a half shooting the monthly shots of Hastings Meadow as follows:
| West | ….. | North | ….. | East | ….. | South |
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| 6am 16mm f/9 | 6am 16mm f/9 | 6am 16mm f/9 | 6am 16mm f/9 | |||
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| 6am 35mm f/9 | 6am 35mm f/9 | 6am 35mm f/9 | 6am 35mm f/9 | |||
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| 9am 16mm f/9 | 9am 16mm f/9 | 9am 16mm f/9 | 9am 16mm f/9 | |||
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| 9am 35mm f/9 | 9am 35mm f/9 | 9am 35mm f/9 | 9am 35mm f/9 | |||
 |  |  |  | |||
| 12 noon 16mm f/9 | 12 noon 16mm f/9 | 12 noon 16mm f/9 | 12 noon 16mm f/9 | |||
 |  |  |  | |||
| 12 noon 35mm f/9 | 12 noon 35mm f/9 | 12 noon 35mm f/9 | 12 noon 35mm f/9 | |||
 |  |  |  | |||
| 3pm 16mm f/9 | 3pm 16mm f/9 | 3pm 16mm f/9 | 3pm 16mm f/9 | |||
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| 3pm 35mm f/9 | 3pm 35mm f/9 | 3pm 35mm f/9 | 3pm 35mm f/9 | |||
 |  |  |  | |||
| 6pm 16mm f/9 | 6pm 16mm f/9 | 6pm 16mm f/9 | 6pm 16mm f/9 | |||
 |  |  |  | |||
| 6pm 35mm f/9 | 6pm 35mm f/9 | 6pm 35mm f/9 | 6pm 35mm f/9 |
An hour processing today’s images and populating the above table.
21st December 2019
Hours 3,116 to 3,127
An hour updating this journal mainly with thoughts and comments from the PIC group on the 19th.
An hour editing a potential “From Another Angle” competition entry for the Stoke Poges Photography Club. Lots of experimentation using the new Content Aware Fill capability in Photoshop and the Vanishing Point filter. More success with the former than the latter.
20th December 2019
Hours 3,112 to 3,115
Two hours research into street photography opportunities in
Half an hour YouTube: Art of Photography – “Is your lens really in focus?” where the issue of focus drift its discussed, i.e., the curvature of the focal plane particularly towards the edge of the frame. Not something I was aware of before.
One and a half hours of on-line studio lighting tutorial: “Sculpting Light – OnSet with Daniel Norton“
- Need shadows to show contours and add drama to an image
- Sometimes move the model rather than the lights
- Experiment with variations
- Background gels, from the floor upwards.
19th December 2019
Hours 3,108 to 3,111
An hour selecting five images for this evening’s mini panel as a precursor to an ARPS submission. Need to find out what I need to do to move from where I am now to a submittable panel.
 | ….. |  | ….. |  | ….. |  | ….. |  |
| Bright centre and top right quarter overwhelming and take the eye away from the interesting detail | Too much sky. Crop to lower section | Sky and blue canoe overwhelm the image, | Line across the bottom | “Too much sky” |
An hour working on this journal
Two hours at the PIC group in Amersham.
18th December 2019
Hours 3,103 to 3,107
An hour shooting in the early morning fog of Stoke Common.
An hour processing this morning’s images and updating this journal.
An hour watching and writing up notes on lighting YouTube: “Create High Contrast Portraits: Exploring Photography with Mark Wallace“
Two lights:
- Keylight at 90 degrees
- Strong hairlight or background light
- Uses f/8 to ensure all the subject is sharp
Two hours at the Cafe Africa meeting in Amersham. Interesting discussion about astro photography, in particular shooting the milkyway:
- obviously use a tripod
- keep exposures to 20-30 seconds to avoid too much movement
- reduce noise by staking multiple shots, at ISO c. 3200, in Photoshop, using autoalign and a darken blend mode
- blend in a foreground shot from the same location during the blue hour.
17th December 2019
Hours 3,098 to 3,102
First two hours updating this journal and cross-referencing notes from yesterday.
An hour working on CPAGB candidate images, mainly dodging and burning the Rat Catcher portrait below. Portrait also re-cropped to put eyes on the thirds vertically; second eye central in the frame vertically.
 | ….. |  |
| Before – eyes too low in frame. | After – less about the hat. |
An hour YouTube:
- Nigel Danson: “3 NEW CAMERA TRICKS I learnt trying WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY” essentially set-up camera for fast access to the features you’re going to use – life is much easier with a mirrorless camera
- Capture One: “Smart Exporting with Process Recipes” including one for Instagram.
Another hour updating candidate CPAGB images.
 | ….. |  |
| Before | After – ear darkened, highlights at lop of cap muted, global burn to vignette. |
More subtle changes this time.
16th December 2019
Hours 3,095 to 3,097
An hour processing images from yesterday of which only the one below was considered worthy of saving.
An hour analysing this image in the notes below.
An hour watching and making notes from Sean Tucker’s “Shaping Light with Dodge and Burn” photoshop tutorial where he looks at two different techniques for dodging and burning:
- masked curves layer, paint white on a black mask with a 5% flow
- 50% grey layer with either a Multiply or Screen blend mode, make alterations using the dodge or burn tools set at about 50% exposure.
In both cases build up slowly to achieve a painterly effect and ultimately dial-down the opacity a little for safety, so that the adjustment is less obvious.
Use the above contour map as a guide to dodging (lightening), shown by white marks, and burning (darkening), shown by dark marks.
Notes and video references for:
Sean Tucker’s colour toning to cool shadows and warm mid-tones and highlights:
| Shadows | Mid-tones | Highlights | |
| Cyan/ Red | -3 | 3 | 0 |
| Magenta/ Green | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Yellow/ Blue | 3 | -3 | -3 |
White balance should be in the following ratio:
- One part Cyan
- Two parts Magenta
- Two and a half parts Yellow.
15th December 2019
Hour 3,094
An hour updating this journal mainly with further thoughts about the books “Mastery” and “Creativity“, and writing reviews on amazon.
A few minutes at Cliveden including taking the following shot:
Critique according to Terry Barrett:
- What is the photo of?
Three silver birch tree trunks; one dominant and the other two in recession. - What is it about?
The barrenness of winter; succession; regeneration; optimism - What does it mean?
One tree followed by the others suggests succession.
Dominant elements in a barren landscape: survival.
Strong sunlight and green shoots: rebirth. - Into which genre of photography does it fit?
Woodland or landscape where according to Mellissa Brown, the goal is to find the “jewels of abstract art.” - Is it giving us anything new?
More commonly shown as individual trees or in groups of more than three.
Eileen Rafferty’s pictorial analysis:
- Subject: Three silver birch tree trunks in winter; resilience, succession and renewal
- Form: Three vertical blocks, shadows and distance show by the subsequent trees being successively more out-of-focus. Limited colour palette.
- Content: barren earth, three threes as main subject, greet shoots of grass hinting at regrowth and renewal.
14th December 2019
Hours 3,088 to 3,093
Two hour revisiting Robert Greene’s “Mastery” and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s “Creativity” for the “Time Analysis at 3,000 Hours” post.
An hour shooting birds on the bird feeder in the garden using the Pluto remote trigger and my Godox AD600BM outdoor flash off-camera (obviously!) 135mm Zeiss lens at 1/160 sec, f/4.5 which could possibly have been a bit smaller to get a greater depth of focus.
An hour processing today’s images.
An hour watching and taking notes on PHLEARN: “10 Tips for Powerful Landscape Photos | with Joshua Cripps“:
- Get rid of expectations – shoot even if the light isn’t what you hoped for
- Foreground, Midground, Background:
- Foreground:
- Sense of immediate connection, make the view feel like they’re part of the scene
- Impact through contrast: tone, colour or texture
- Right scale; ideally filling about a third of the lower portion of the image
- Midground:
- Sense of environment
- Provide a connection between the foreground and background
- Avoid blocking elements
- Background:
- Object that is the key element
- Sense of place
- What it’s all about
- Foreground:
- Best light often in bad weather or immediately thereafter when their is a break in the clouds
- Shoot with a telephoto – find the “jewels of abstract art” as Melissa Brown would say (see my notes from 3rd December 2018)
- Spend some time shooting only in portrait orientation – out of comfort-zone but can make more interesting images
- Let your emotions guide your technical settings, e.g., calm = long exposure, happy = high key, gloomy = low key, etc.
- Add a twist to standard tourist shots by walking to a slightly different location
- Emulate classical painting by creating an even tone across the image with either a graduated filter or in post-production
- To get the streaky effect of water on the shore, shutter speed between 1/2 and 2 Sec., and start the exposure just as the wave is about to flow back into the sea.
Waterfalls need some detail, so experiment - Fill the frame with the story you are telling – remove all distraction.
An hour watching YouTubes about Charles Baudelaire, see inspirational quotes from a couple of days ago.
13th December 2019
Hour 3,087
An hour processing yesterday’s images and updating this journal and associated Flickr Site.
12th December 2019
Hours 3,083 to 3,086
An hour working on the ” Review of Autumn 2019″ post.
An hour reading and YouTube, including Nigel Danson: “How to take better Photos through Observation“
“Art requires something of the impalpable and the imaginary to operate effectively.”
Charles Baudelaire
The above quote struck a chord with me with regard to the comment earlier this week by Chris Palmer, FRPS and judge at the CPAGB assessment, who said my “Iced Fish” image was “Factual.”
also …
“Strangeness is the indispensable condiment of all beauty.”
and
“The unexpected, surprise and astonishment, are an essential part and characteristic of beauty.”
Both Charles Baudelaire
The above strike me a truisms for art photography.
A few minutes shooting some birds in the garden.
Two hours at the Amersham Photographic Society’s Mono Group.
11th December 2019
Hours 3,081 to 2,082
An hour starting the “Review of Autumn 2019” and working on the “Time Analysis at 3,000 Hours” posts.
YouTube:
- Ted Forbes, The Art of Photography: “Capture One 20: Every new feature“. Strikes me as a minor upgrade, despite the new numbering convention.
- Pursuit of Wonder: “Don’t try. The Philosophy of Charles Bukowski“
“Don’t try.
But if the thought of life without it or never having tried it at all, terrifies you, then it is here.
Do try it, and go all the way till the end.”
Charles Bukowski
10th December 2019
Hours 3,074 to 3,080
First hour spent updating this journal mainly with notes from yesterday’s APS Prints competition and the feedback from Chris Palmer regarding my failed CPAGB submission.
An hour producing a revised version of the one of last night’s competition entries.
| Original Image | ….. | Revised Image |
 |  |
Feel that the green base is now a little too dull and the more vibrant yellow in the tree can now withstand a base with more oomph.
Half an hour producing the next version:
An hour processing yesterday’s images of Black Park.
An hour watching and writing up Sean Tucker’s “Finding a Direction for your Photography” Featuring the fabulous seascapes of Rachael Talibart see Instagram. Workflow involves a lot of temporal distance:
- Images often remain on the camera for weeks before being uploaded to a computer for editing – this allows her to be more objective when doing so
- Successful, or potentially successful, pictures are first printed and hung on the wall of her studio for a couple of months before they are released to the public on social media
- Old images are recycled on social media every 6 months.
Two hours at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club – Print Competition: Autumn Colours/ Events, and Open.
 | ….. | Folder Trees Stoke Common 18 Just a bit too tight in the frame. |
 | Three Leaves in November 17 Red leaf needs to be sharp. Whole image should ideally be sharp front-to-back. | |
 | Gormley’s Perspective Held back – 19 Whereas photography of someone else’s art is always dangerous and open to criticism for doing just that. In this case the author has given us an interesting perspective which works well. Unfortunately the mount fell apart. |
Half an hour writing up the above.
9th December 2019
Hours 3,071 to 3,073
Half an hour shooting images of Harley and, casually, at Black Park.
A quarter of an hour preparing prints for this evening’s competition at the Amersham Photographic Society.
Image titles should be short so that they are memorable; ideally no more than three words.
Sandra Cook – Print Secretary, Amersham Photographic Society.
Two hours at the APS – print Competition, results below.
 | ….. | Gormley’s Automata 17 Judge had the benefit of having recently visited the exhibition where this was shot and therefore knew that the castings were in fact suspected from the ceiling. Thought it was an interesting composition that worked quite well. |
| Late November Burnham Beeches 17 The multiple exposure technique works better on the leaves than it does on the trunk of the tree. The bright green patch of ground is a tad over powering. |
An intense quarter of an hour with Chris Palmer who was one of the judges at the PAGB assessing my C panel on 23rd November. [See: “My Failed CPAGB Submission“].
In general print smaller so that there is enough mount surrounding the image to give it presence.
my interpretation of Chris’s comment “too big – no boarder”.
Specifics:
 | ….. | Iced Fish 20 “Factual” – which is not a good thing! Might have been better presented vertically but would draw attention to the slightly blown highlights. |
 | Swimming Pool in the Rain 20 Too plain – surface of the pool quite interesting but needs something else. | |
 | Rat Catcher 17 Ragged Victorians is a theme that is a over done. Eyes too low in the image – look at showing more of his chest perhaps even at the expense of cutting off part of the hat. Could tell that the right eye had been lighten, pupil was not as dark as the other one. | |
 | Cafe at Oxo Wharf 15 This is an image that needs to be picked up to be appreciated and you just can’t see it at the distance they are judging from. Perhaps concentrate on the central part of the image but beware of the central highlight. | |
 | Wet and Sandy and Raring to Go 20 Good image but the sky prints too cyan. | |
 | Sally Lightfoot 21 Good image but the centre of the crab is too bright. | |
 | Waterman 15 Just not a good image. Printed too big and would be better remaining part of a triptych. | |
 | Impressions of St Pancras Station 17 | |
 | Fire and Ice 19 Main fault – printed too big | |
 | Victorian Road Sweeper 19 Ear too bright, face generally needs retoning. [My thought: might have been better keeping to the title used for the APS print comp: “The Scowl” shorter and more meaningful.] |
8th December 2019
Hours 3,069 to 3,070
An hour updating this journal and my Pinterest page, mainly with notes about Julius Shulman and the other Master Photographers worked on yesterday. In particular Valérie Belin whose multiple exposure images impressed me at the V&A on the 5th, last week.
An hour watching and writing up Nigel Danson’s: “Landscape Photographer tries WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY with Morten Hilmer“. Thoughts on cross-genre:
- Landscape aesthetic identifies the potential for a great image
- Street photographer’s approach: wait for something to walk (or fly) into the scene. Watch what is unfolding and anticipate,
Morten’s images tend to keep an element of mystery which keeps the viewer interested beyond the first glance.
7th December 2019
Hours 3,065 to 3,068
Two hours processing images from in the week.
An hour and a half YouTube including finishing “The Master Photographers: A Survey of Fine-art Photography – For Art’s Sake UIUC” which I started taking notes on 30th Nov. Here I discovered the architectural photographer Julius Shulman who coined the phrase “Visual Acoustics” a term which superbly describes what I’m trying to achieve with my multiple exposure images.
Half an hour updating this journal.
6th December 2019
Hours 3,062 to 3,064
An hour processing images from the week.
An hour watching “10 Steps Toward becoming a Great Photographer“.
An hour collating my top ten Autumn 2019 images and updating my Flickr site.
5th December 2019
Hours 3,056 to 3,061
Half an hour updating this journal and notes from the “Master Photographers” YouTube prompted summary started on the 30 November.
An hour at the Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition.
Half an hour shooting at the NHM and V&A.
An hour at the photography wing of the Victoria and Albert museum where I discovered the multiple exposure photography of Valerie Belin.
An hour processing prints for next week’s Autumnal Colours & Open competition at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club, and processing images from the last few days.
Two hours at the Amersham Beyond Group.
4th December 2019
Hours 3,051 to 3,055
An hour preparing images for next week’s print competition at the Amersham Photographic Society (APS).
One hour, out of the two spent at the Cafe Africa meeting of the APS.
An hour shooting “Still Life” for the 8th challenge of the APS Beyond Group.
Two hours processing the Still Life images and preparing for submission.
3rd December 2019
Hours 3,049 to 3,050
Half an hour shooting various multiple exposure images of the Millennium Bridge in London.
An hour at the Dora Maar exhibition at the Tate Modern.
Half an hour updating this journal; mainly with notes from yesterday’s competition.
[Two hours at the Stoke Poges Photography Club – Lecture by Professor Bob Crocker on the use of photography and imaging in the identification of metallurgical faults in railway tracks. Surprisingly engaging and very entertaining talk, but not time that qualifies as deliberate practice learning the art of photography.]
2nd December 2019
Hours 3,045 to 3,048
An hour working on the images shot in York over the weekend.
An hour further work watching and making notes on the top photographers YouTube started on the 30th November.
Two hours at the Amersham Photographic Society – PDI competition, my images were better received than expected given very strong competition.
| Image | ….. | Comments |
 | “Gold Leaves in Stoke Common” Held Back – 19 and Commended. | |
 | “Ignoring Gormley” 18 Applauded for composition. [My though: maybe, in hindsight, had I shot from a lower angle, I would have avoided the dado rail intersecting the statue on. the right.] |
1st December 2019
Hours 3,041 to 3,044
Two hours working on the notes of the top photographers YouTube I started watching yesterday.
An hour at the Van Gogh experience in York which was an immersive experience of the art, plus a virtual reality tour of “a day in his life.” All quite fun if a tad light on content.
Half an hour shooting mainly “Avenues and Alleyways” in York.
Half an hour updating this Journal including all the first day of the month admin.