This journal records my actual ten thousand hours deliberate practice mastering fine art photography, and this page records those hours performed in December 2023
Hours 8,235 to 8,316
31st December 2023
Hours 8,315 to 8,316
(½h) reshooting the Dystopian Chess Dream
(1h) processing the new chess images, plus yesterday’s orb photos
(½h) researching Magritte’s “Memory” image and writing up
30th December 2023
Hours 8,312 to 8,314
(½h) preparing and ordering prints for next week’s Wednesday coffee meeting in Amersham – 14 lots of recent work
(1½h) Research into Marc Chagall who I have overlooked for far too long and is definitely on of my top 10 artists with his painting “I and the Village”. Born in the same year as Marcel Duchamp, 1887 but lived much longer (1985 vs 1967).
YouTubes:
- Art History School: “Marc Chagall the Painter of Love and Light“
- Behind the Masterpiece: “Marc Chagall’s Childhood Memories That Led Him to Create His Masterpiece“
- Columbus Museum of Art: “Susan Goodman Marc Chagall Lecture 11.30 2017“
(½h) shooting the very strange orb-like bird feeder we were given as a Christmas present that looks remarkably similar to the bell that Magritte features in paintings such as the, 1948, “Memory”, below.
“… the painting is not illustrating the following ideas: when we utter the word memory, we see that it corresponds to the image of a human head. If the memory can occupy a place in the space, it can be inside the head. Then, the task of blood can awaken in us the assumption that the person whose face we see has been the victim of a fatal accident. Finally, it ‘s acts of a past event, which remains present in our mind with the memory”
As always, Magritte says everything and nothing
(½h) writing up this journal
29th December 2023
Hour 8,311
(½h) updating this journal
(½h) shooting the Dystopian Chess Dream – shooting angle too high
28th December 2023
Hours 8,308 to 8,310
(1½h) YouTube:
- Language and Ideas: “What is Structuralism?“
- Travis Lee Clarke: “Early Modernism, Abstraction and Surrealism before World War II”
The Armory Show of 1913 was pivotal in introducing European Surrealism and other modern art to the American public
The main thesis of Darwent’s “Surrealists in New York” book is that the European Surrealists emigrating to New York at the end of the Second World War laid the basis for Abstract Expressionism (the “New York School”). Claude Levi-Strauss suggests that art is always the interaction of the conscious and sub or preconscious mind
(1½h) creating “Magritte Enters Happiness Expo” from the original image shot on the 14th December
The tricky thing in the shot, right, is blending the projected light onto the man’s suit and managing the reflection in his glasses and shoes
Sense of unease generated by a man in formal business attire in a frivolous art installation
27th December 2023
Hours 8,306 to 8,307
(1h) creating the following triptych – “RGB Surrealism”
(1h) researching Claude Levi Strauss who is heavily referenced in the book I’m reading “Surrealists in New York: Atelier 17 and the Birth of Abstract Expressionism” by Charles Darwent. Levi Strauss:
- “structuralist anthropologist”
- believed that behaviour, perception, etc. were driven by a deeper set of rules that just needed uncovering
- most famous for his study of myths – in particular the idea that myths are made up of elements, “mythemes” which are common across cultures, e.g., heros, gods
- film, or photography, genres are made up of a similar set of components which are arranged in a standard pattern for that genre
Structuralism was a European philosophy of the 1960s which bridged the gap between existentialism and post-modernism. YouTubes:
- The Living Philosophy: “What is Structuralism? Levi-Strauss, Barthes and Lacan“
- Irene Francis: “Claude Levi- Strauss | Myths | Mythemes | Binary Opposition | Kinship | Structuralism“
26th December 2023
Hours 8,304 to 8,305
(2h) experimenting with the “Magritte Light Room” image, right.
Balancing the colours and creating the reflections (particularly the shoes at the bottom) were very tricky.
Tried using a colour look-up table – decided that this would be good for the “Magritte Poster” image as I can make the poster look as thought it were shot on Fuji film.
25th December 2023
Hour 8,303
(½h) usual Christmas day activity, updating this journal 🙂
(½h) processing other, almost abstract images from the Brussels Happiness Expo, including “Magritte in Purple Mist”, left
24th December 2023
Hours 8,301 to 8,302
(2h) updating the “Magritte Poster” right
- adding contrast, “presence” to the background
- better blending of the two bowler hats
- showing the impact on the tiling lines on the poster (slightly) – very subtle
- lots of work on the detail of the image
23rd December 2023
Hours 8,299 to 8,300
(1½h) creating a first draft of the “Magritte Poster”, right
(½h) updating this journal, including the associated Flickr sites
22nd December 2023
Hours 8,297 to 8,298
(2h) processing further images from Brussels including “Brussels Midi at 8:23am”, left
21st December 2023
Hours 8,292 to 8,296
(1h) updating this journal including all the notes from yesterday’s YouTubes and social media relating to the image below
(1h) creating “Magritte in Brussels” below, which is a composite of a Magritte style self-portrait replacing my self-portrait taken at Happiness Expo in Brussels on the 14th December:
(1h) creating other images from Brussels including “Rush Hour Spaghetti” and “Bruxelles Central” below:
(2h) Amersham PiC Group
20th December 2023
Hours 8,290 to 8,291
(½h) updating this journal
(1h) preparing images for January’s Rosebowl competition in
(½h) YouTube from the Canvas including:
- “Hopper’s Last Painting” – “Two Comedians” considered, by The Canvas, to be the most heartbreaking painting in art history as it is a tribute to his wife
- “Contemporary Art can be Good Actually” – paintings about abortion and in particular the illegality of abortion in some US states, including Juanita McNeely’ “Is it Real? Yes, it is!” and “States Rights” by Anne Harrero in 2022
- “Why Egon Schiele was Jailed” – borderline pornography involving the sexualisation of underage children that would probably not now be deemed acceptable were they made by anybody other than Egon Schiele
- “Painting the Most Honest Nude” – Lucian Freud’s “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” including an interview with the model
19th December 2023
Hour 8,289
(1h) creating a quiz for tonight’s social at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club, this has involved modifying some of my own images, selecting other club members’ images along with a few from famous photographers (that might be mistaken for our own)
“Edinburgh Street at Dusk”, right, updated but not used [originally shot and processed before the start of this project and I couldn’t help but reprocess it]
“Tractor and Seagulls”, below, updated slightly and used as this scored 12 when entered into competition on 30th November 2021
18th December 2023
Hour 8,288
(½h) working on a “Director’s Cut” version of the Croft Family Portrait which is a more fun version in monochrome on the basis that whereas colour shows the clothes, monochrome show the sole
(½h) working on other Croft Family portraits
17th December 2023
Hour 8,287
(1h) working on alternative Croft family portraits
16th December 2023
Hours 8,284 to 8,286
(1h) editing and processing the images from Brussels
(1h) updating this journal, including the comments (reported second-hand) about the PDI competition at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club last Tuesday. Managing the images on Flickr also resulted in several amendments to the May 23 page
(1h) working on alternative versions of the Croft Family Portrait
15th December 2023
Hour 8,283
(½h) moving the Brussels photos from laptop to PC and editing
(½h) updating this journal
14th December 2023
Hours 8,280 to 8,282
(½h) street photography around Brussels Midi Station
(½h) editing the morning’s images
(½h) further street and architectural photography in Brussels and around the art galleries
(1h) Happiness Expo – a series of immersive light installations, which were fantastic and made all the better by the fact that almost nobody else was there. We almost literally walked around the exhibition on our own
(½h) editing the day’s 278 images
13rd December 2023
Hours 8,277 to 8,279
(½h) street photography around Brussels Midi Station
(1½h) Magritte Museum
(1h) processing images shot earlier
12th December 2023
Hour 8,276
(1h) producing an alternative version of the Croft Family portrait
On the Eurostar to Brussels, so missed the “Days Out” PDI competition at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club where all images must have been shot on a camera phone. My entries below with comments relayed curtesy of another member
11th December 2023
Hours 8,271 to 8,275
(2½h) prep and conducting the Croft family shoot
(½h) updating this journal
(2h) Amersham Photographic Society – print competition my entries below:
10th December 2023
Hours 8,268 to 8,270
(1h) finishing and publishing the “Autumn 2023” post
(1h) lighting test for tomorrow’s Croft family shoot
(½h) researching family posing for c. 5 people by watching YouTubes
(½h) updating this journal
9th December 2023
Hours 8,264 to 8,267
(4h) drafting the “Autumn 2023” post, including researching the background to some of the top images
YouTube, TateShots: “Storm Thorgerson on Magritte“
8th December 2023
Hour 8,263
(1h) Updating this journal and associated Flickr site
7th December 2023
Hours 8,258 to 8,262
(1h) YouTube about René Magritte and the museum in Brussels – literary influence below:
“As beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table”
1868, Comte de Lautréamont, “The Songs of Maldoror”
(1h) at the Tate Modern Capturing the Moment and Philip Guston exhibitions.
Right is a reminder of the amazing exhibitions the Tate has produced over the last few years
(½h) street photography in the Tate. Below images from El Anatsui’s installation in the Turbine Hall “Behind the Red Moon”. My pictures are about the visitors interacting with the art
(½h) editing and processing the day’s images
 |  |
(2h) Amersham Beyond Group – Zoom meeting
Challenge #42 Film Noir
6th December 2023
Hours 8,255 to 8,257
(1h) updating this journal
(1h) completing the PhotoBox book of our road trip in Nevada, Utah and Colorado; required colour toning a couple of image to make them fit “more comfortably” next to each other
(1h) collating images for the “Autumn 2023” post including lots of rearranging of Flickr albums
5th December 2023
Hours 8,248 to 8,254
(2h) re-processing, the now renamed as, “Five Photos of the Turbine Hall” image below which required a little bit of tidying up and convincing myself that the woman in the red dress appears 5 times, which she does albeit a little hidden in her 5th appearance
(2h) curating phone and other photos and creating a “Nevada, Utah & Colorado” book for Fran’s Christmas present. This involved a certain amount of Photoshopping of a couple of the images including the use of AI generative fill, which worked well in one case and hilariously badly in another
| Original Image | AI Altered Version | |
 |  | |
| Nick with Frame | Nick without Frame | |
 |  | |
| Michelle with Justin | Michelle without Justin |
(2h) Stoke Poges Photographic Club – Still Life Workshop – shooting tethered using the set-up I will probably use next Monday in Thaxted.
Tip when using flash – more reliable if using the mechanical rather than electronic shutter – I have no idea why this is and will have to investigate.
(1h) preparing PDI’s for next week’s “Days Out” competition where images must have been taken on the phone, including “Capturing the Karma” below (also in Fran’s Book):
4th December 2023
Hours 8,244 to 8,247
(2h) creating the surrealist images for this Thursday’s Amersham Beyond meeting
(2h) Amersham Photographic Society – Member’s evening: Bob Marshall – “Phone cameras come of age”
3rd December 2023
Hours 8,241 to 8,243
(2h) creating the revised versions of the Magritte’s eyes images below.
| Sunny Eye | ….. | Stormy Eye |
 |  |
(1h) experimenting with the Magritte Drinking images:
- adding a slight refection to the counter-top of the bar to make his drink look as though it’s sitting there
- adding grain to bring the image together after watching the PiXImperfect YouTube “High-Quality Compositing with Generative Fill? – Photoshop Tutorial“
2nd December 2023
Hours 8,237 to 8,240
(1h) shooting “Magritte with Pint of Guinness” self portraits
(1h) editing and processing these self portraits
(2h) creating the composites for the Amersham Beyond Surrealism challenge
1st December 2023
Hours 8,235 to 8,236
(1h) new month admin and updating this post
(1h) writing notes about surrealism in the 21st century