July 2018 – Contribution to my 10,000 Hours Photography
Purpose of Journal
This Journal is intended to document the actual 10,000 hours spent learning the art of photography. In particular, these journal pages will contain references to:
- Images as they are taken
- References to source materials
- Thoughts that might, or might not, later form part of a full post.
Hours 888 to 1,023
31 July 2018
Hours 1,021 to 1,023
Half an hour updating this journal page.
Two and a half hours shooting my Study using Mike Kelly’s techniques:
- Shot tethered, direct to Capture One
- Exposed for the view through the windows then compensated for the dark interior by using a pair of flashed
- Took ambient shots with various exposures
- Blended in photoshop
- 50% converted to black and white + RGB linear contrast in curves, to provide a more contemporary look.
30 July 2018
Hours 1,018 to 1,020
Half an hour updating this journal.
An hour processing images and researching the mechanics of an 18 month Time Lapse.
Half an hour shooting the ext in the series “View from the Third Post” in the Big Field Stoke Poges.
Two hours watching the second Chapter of Mike Kelly’s “Art and Architecture.”
One hour updating this journal, including images shot earlier today.
29 July 2018
Hours 1,011 to 1,017
Seven hours Photoshopping the 120 images from Saturday’s Flower show, producing JPegs, emailing and creating a Flickr Album.
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28 July 2018
Hours 1,006 to 1,010
At the Stoke Poges Annual Show for about 6 hours – half of which probably constitutes deliberate practice since I was the official photographer.
Two hours processing images from the show and updating this journal.
27 July 2018
Hours 1,004 to 1,005
Purchased the Mike Kelly “Where Art Meets Architecture” course from FStoppers.
Two hours spent watching the first chapter.
- Overall approach for interiors: take images of individual areas lit optimally and combine in photoshop
- Align layers: use Shift-Click to drag a layer on top of another for automatic alignment
- Combine the majority of images by using the polygonal tool to select the rough area and then use the “lighten” blend mode
- Use the pen tool to trace the edge of specific areas – “get good at doing this – it’s an important skill”
26 July 2018
Hours 1,001 to 1,003
An hour shooting portraits at my goddaughter’s graduation.
Two hours processing those images.
25 July 2018
Hours 998 to 1,000
An hour updating the first 1,000 hours post.
An hour practicing using flash.
An hour working on the Lange/ Winship post.
24 July 2018
Hours 993 to 997
An hour following up all the photographers that were exhibited at the 3StreetGallery visited yesterday.
Three and a half hours Finishing and publishing “The First 1,000 Hours – Review at 10%” post.
Half an hour updating this journal and social media to promote the above post.
23 July 2018
Hours 991 to 992
Half an hour at the 3 Carnaby Street – Street photography exhibition. Spent a long time talking with Joshua K Jackson who was one of the main photographers exhibited and, I think, the event organiser. Featured artists:
- Brandon Wong
- Craig Whitehead
- Ed Robson
- Harry W. Edmonds
- Joshua K Jackson (link as above)
- Mavis CW
- Mo Barzegar
- Sean Tucker
- Sean Welch
- Stuart Paton
- Toby Ziff
- Valerie Six
An hour shooting around the city.
Half an hour updating this page.
22 July 2018
Hours 988 to 990
Worked on first 1,000 post – selecting top images
Worked on the Lange Winship post
Watched the following YouTubes in preparation for using the Flash at the Graduation later this week, and updated this page:
21 July 2018
Hours 985 to 987
One hour editing yesterday’s images.
40 minutes watching the following YouTubes + 20 minutes on this journal entry.
Ted Forbes:
- “The ONE thing every photographer should be doing :: Calibration with the Datacolor Spyder5” has made me feel guilt about not having calibrated my monitors since starting this 10,000 hour project – I will do so this evening – promise
Sean Tucker:
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“Finding Good Natural Light for Portraits (‘Good Light’ Series)“
- overcast skys are like a large overhead beauty dish
- if you’re standing in an alleyway, the buildings on either side are like black panels at either side which absorb the light and emphasise shadows and the shape of the face
- panda eyes can be avoided by using any white material acting as a reflector under the sitter’s chin.
- “How to deal with creative jealousy… and get back to work” comparing one’s self to others is a dangerous thing to do. Far more important, is to do what you set out to do in the first place.
- “My Social Media Philosophy: Some thoughts for Fellow Creators“
Another hour editing yesterday’s images and loading a few onto social media.
20 July 2018
Hours 976 to 984
6 hours on the excellent RPS Street Photography Course Spitalfields Market run by Simon Ellingworth.
3 hours starting to cull then process images taken during the day – first cull: 486 images down to 86.
[Actually: 10am to past 4pm on the course, which was pretty full-on, plus editing almost solidly between 6 and 10:30pm. However, some time taken to eat and think about other things, so 9, rather than 10 1/2, is a best assessment of the number of hours of deliberate practice.]
19 July 2018
Hours 968 to 975
Half an hour shooting at Stoke Common then three hours processing images from Monday (particularly the one below) and updating this journal.
Sean Tucker YouTube: “Protect your Highlights: A lesson in Light and Life” half an hour. Exposing to the right looks classy.
Watched the videos in prep for tomorrow’s RPS course on Street Photography. One hour including getting the Auto ISO on my a99ii to work properly (both max and min ISO were set to 100!).
Four hours researching and writing the review post of the Lange and Winship exhibition at the Barbican attended on Monday.
18 July 2018
Hours 963 to 967
An hour and a half watching Sean Tucker’s YouTubes:
- “Planning and Shooting a Portrait Project (featuring the Godox AD200)” – male portrait
- Have a plan as this respects people’s time
- Mood board of portraits to emulate. Identify on each the aspect admired: i.e., one or more of: lighting, pose, expression or processing
- Single light for Rembrandt lighting 45 degrees up 45 degrees forward
- Solid black background.
- “How to Edit Dramatic Portraits in Photoshop” Lots of tip and workflow for editing portrait of a man:
- Crop: Top third on eyebrows, bottom third on chin (for close ups) or below, side thirds should frame the face
- Remove distractions by cloning to a blank layer with the Healing brush (more sophisticated than the clone brush), Sample: “Current & Below”
- Alt-click the bottom layer (which never changes – golden rule of photoshop) makes only that layer visible
- Use a highpass filter on a Stamped new layer, radius c. 1.5, and Overlay blend mode to selectively paint in sharpness (eyes, lips, teeth, etc.)
- Eyes:
- Curves layer – “Colour Dodge” blend mode to paint over higher areas of the iris
- Curves layer – “Screen” blend mode to sweep lower part of the iris
- Empasise shape of face by burning the shadows: Curves layer – “Multiply” blend mode, soft brush with low flow
- Add impact by enhancing (dodging) highlights: Forehead, Cheeks, bottom lip, etc, : Curves layer – “Screen” blend mode, soft brush with low flow
- Add a textured background to give the effect of some back lighting – convert texture to black and white, us a “Soft light” blend mode and add Gaussian Blur to make it look appropriately out of focus
- Colour Balance to cool shadows, and warm mid-tones and highlights. Formula as follows:
Shadows Mid-tones Highlights C -3 3 0 M 0 0 0 Y 3 -3 -3 - Increase saturation a tad if necessary and use the curves tool to increase contrast
- Reduce extreme highlights: Levels tool, bar underneath has the reverse effect of bringing the highlights point down and black point up, which expands the dynamic range. This bar reduces the dynamic range. So can be used to either give an antique look to the shadows, by greying the blacks, or bringing down the highlights.
- Black and White conversion: Reduce the reds, increase the yellows. Then add a bit more contrast with a new curves layer.
- “Portrait Photography: Why Empathy makes you Better” (feat. Tommy Reynolds) having your portrait taken yourself by someone you respect, helps you understand the vulnerabilities of the sitter.
Half an hour shooting skys in Hasting Meadow. There was a lot of texture in the sky with about 50% cloud cover, i.e., half blue half white. The aim was to capture clouds that I could “drop” into other images. So shot in all four directions, (i.e., directly towards the sun, 90 degrees to the right, directly away from the sun and 90 degrees to the left), at both 24mm and 70mm.
Watched a very technical YouTube on Colour Management by Mark Galer (who just happens to be the Sony Imaging Ambassador for Australia).
Two hours working on images from Monday. updating this site and adding to the social media channels.
17 July 2018
Hours 961 to 962
Booked myself onto the RPS “Two day Portraiture Workshop” in London on the 6-7 September.
Started processing some of yesterday’s images – there are a lot.
Half an hour’s shooting at Stoke Common at sunset-ish.
Watched the last in the current series of Sky Arts’ “Master of Photography.”
16 July 2018
Hours 953 to 960
Two hours at the Dorothea Lange and Vanessa Winship exhibition at the Barbican Art Centre.
Started writing a blog review of this exhibition.
Three hours of street photography, two generally around the city, really good clouds that set off the modern architecture, and one at St. Pancras and Kings Cross Station.
An hour watching the Capture One “Layers Masterclass” YouTube. Key learning points as follows:
- G is the shortcut for the gradient tool (B=brush, E=erase, M=view mask)
- Also fill mask is a useful tool for ensuring that there aren’t any holes
- Greyscale mask shows just the mask rather than M which shows red on top of the image. So is clearer
- “Refine edge” is a more sophisticated than “Auto Mask” apparently Photoshop also works the same way (the later is OK for getting a first attempt, the new inner circle shows the selection area)
- Styles can be applied selectively by: Right Click: Apply to New/ Existing Layer
- Individual colours can be edited by:
- selecting the colour using the picker in the colour tool
- Create Mask from Selection option in the Layers mask
- Selective noise reduction is possible using a layer so noise can be reduced in shadows or blocks of colour, without affecting the overall sharpness of the image.
Half an hour shooting the next in the series “View from the third post” in the Big Field – Stoke Poges.
Half an hour writing up notes from today.
15 July 2018
Hours 950 to 952
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Early morning shoot at Coombe Hill; “nice” morning, clear skys but not particularly inspiring photographically. Took a few shots, trying to avoid the “obvious” and ended up spending most time shooting Harley who was looking particularly handsome in first light. Two and a half hour processing these images and updating this journal.
14 July 2018
Hours 943 to 949
An hour shooting, and three hours culling from 611 to 324 images, and uploading to Flickr, for the Black Park Parkrun. Time for uploading dramatically reduced by both shooting in Standard format (rather than RAW or even Fine JPeg) and reducing the size on upload to maximum dimensions of 1,000 x 1,000 pixels.
Three hours updating this journal and sorting images, mainly from Lanzarote, and generally catching up.
13 July 2018
Hours 941 to 942
An hour managing images from Lanzarote, and another arranging in social media and on this journal.
12 July 2018
Hours 935 to 940
An hour and a half creating the 6-tych of wall images from the Oxo-Tower Wharf, shot on Sunday.
Then (another hour and a half) went back to the RAW files in Capture One Pro, corrected the tome-stoning, and created the following:
An hour updating the Bubble Man and Wheelie-Kid images as bookends for the above in the old Instagram Feed.
An hour updating the “First 1,000 Hours – Review at 10%” post, and various others along the way.
An hour watching the Sky Arts, Master of Photography.
11 July 2018
Hours 930 to 934
Two hours processing images from yesterday’s photo walk with the Stoke Poges Photographic Club.
Two hours updating social media and this journal, including creating and changing title images to something more appropriate than me in the snow!
One hour watching a sky arts, Master of Photography.
10 July 2018
Hours 922 to 929
Early morning, 5am, shoot at Stoke Common for an hour.
Back processing images and updating this journal for two hours before breakfast.
Three hours catching up processing images from the Boodles Tennis at Stoke Park Club, and earlier.
Two hour photo walk with the Stoke Poges Photographic Club.
09 July 2018
Hours 916 to 921
6 hours processing images from the #stwalk and posting on Instagram.
08 July 2018
Hours 911 to 915
Three hours Photo walk and hanging out with Sean Tucker; super talented, intelligent and a really nice guy to boot. Big gathering, 40-50 enthusiastic photographers following Sean through the lanes of East London as though he were the Pied Piper.
An hour and a half, or so, culling images from the #stwalk.
Half an hour shooting the next in the series “View from the third post” in The Big Field Stoke Poges.
07 July 2018
Hour 910
Early morning landscape shoot at Lanzarote, back to Club La Santa for “Wake-up Exercises” followed by “Morning Run” (if you’ve been to Club La Santa, you’ll understand; if you haven’t, think boot-camp crossed with holiday camp).
Then shot some cacti around the resort.
06 July 2018
Hours 906 to 909
An hour working on the First 1,000 hours post.
Booked onto a Photo walk with Sean Tucker for next Sunday.
Made the following image.
Three hours processing images.
05 July 2018
Hours 904 to 905
An hour processing images from yesterday – embracing the dark side.
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An hour working on the First 1,000 hours post.
04 July 2018
Hours 898 to 903
An hour working on the First 1,000 hours post.
Two hours total visiting both of the Cesar Manrique Foundation and House and Museum. The latter included a visit to the artist’s studio, which is presumably pretty much as he left it prior to his untimely death.
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Two hours Sunset photography on the beach near Club la Santa (an hour before sun down and a little less than an hour after as it was getting cold and I was only wearing a t-shirt). Was using the LEE Filters including the Big Stopper in an attempt to slow the shutter speed and get some milky images. Homage to Hiroshi Sugimoto:
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An hour processing images and updating this journal.
03 July 2018
Hours 894 to 897
Two hours processing Sunset images from yesterday together with some from the day before, and updating this journal.
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Two hours working on a first draft of the “First 1,000 Hours – Review at 10%” progress report post.
02 July 2018
Hours 890 to 893
An hour photographing out of a 3 1/2 hour island tour of Lanzarote.
One hour processing images from the morning. Including the following, which is close to my heart:
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Two hours photography out of an excellent three hour sunset photography tour with Photo Safari Lanzarote.
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01 July 2018
Hours 888 to 889
An hour updating this journal.
An hour watching YouTubes of Cesar Manrique and practicing with the LEE Filters and Pluto Trigger.