May 2022

This journal records my actual ten thousand hours deliberately studying the art of photography

Hours 6,428 to 6,528

(June 2022)

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31^st May

Hours 6,525 to 6,528

(2h) creating images from the street photography and surrealist series, including the following:

(2h) at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club’s Open PDI finals

Image	…..	Comments
		“Maison Lumières de Rene Magritte” 16 Judge didn’t know who Rene Magritte was or understand the image. [I have a revised version of this image where the day/ night distinction is even more clear.]
		“Smoking Mountain Patagonia” 16 Perhaps too light …
		“Moon Last Monday”/ “Wolf Moon” 15 OK

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30^th May

Hours 6,520 to 6,524

(3h) processing images from the Soho Street Photography course last Thursday.

(2h) Amersham Photographic Club – presentation by Vic Attfield.

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29^th May

Hours 6,517 to 6,519

(2h) processing the Street photography course including creating the following diptych.

(1h) updating this journal and associate social media.

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28^th May

Hours 6,515 to 6,516

(1h) processing the Street Photography Images

(1h) final steps processing the Queen’s Jubilee exhibition photos.

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27^th May

Hours 6,514

(1h) processing the Street Photography Images

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26^th May

Hours 6,509 to 6,513

(5h) Street photography course with Simon Ellingworth in Soho.

[in street photography] “Sharpness is a bourgeois concept.”

Simon Ellingworth

“The photographer’s job is to show people thing they don’t usually see.”

Simon Ellingworth

There are 3 things that make a photograph:

1. Moment
2. Composition
3. Light.

(1h) uploading and first cull of the 1149 exposures.

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25^th May

Hours 6,507 to 6,508

(1h) photoshop work on the Queen’s Jubilee exhibition images

(1h) Amersham Colour Group – comments on my Magritte series images below:

Image	…..	Comments
		“Not Magritte’s Pipe” A good copy of the Magritte original but not much more.
		“Lens ball portrait” This was considered very creative.
		“Man in Clouds” The simplicity makes this a stronger image than the following version with the Patagonian backdrop. Perhaps remove the shadow. [Clouds too dark].
		“Man in Patagonian Clouds” This was considered a bit cluttered

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24^th May

Hours 6,503 to 6,506

(½h) updating this journal

(½h) revising yesterday’s Magritte images:

		Still needs some work.

(1h) creating a new man in clouds image.

(2h) Stoke Poges Photographic Club – Open Print Finals, my entries below:

Image	…..	Comments
		“Queuing for ComicCon” 16 Flat due to on-camera flash
		“Decline During Lockdown” Held back -19 and Commended – joint 7th place Good
		“Moody Equine” 18 Didn’t like the hair in front of the horse’s eye.

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23^rd May

Hours 6,496 to 6,502

(1h) shooting Rene Magritte’s pipe. The tricky part is getting the lighting to match the painting.

(2h) reprocessing the potential Woodland A Panel to create the following:

(1h) further work on Magritte’s pipe below:

(2h) at the Amersham Photographic Club – print competition; no skin in the game.

Tips from the judge, Leo Rich, about submitting images for PAGB distinctions:

• Larger prints, i.e., A3, as these have more impact – runs directly counter to the advice of Chris Palmer and Steve Smith who believe, inter alia, that larger prints provide a greater opportunity for judges to spot errors
• be careful who you get mentoring from

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22^nd May

Hour 6,495

(1h) processing the Trees of Stoke Common images; experimenting with just desaturating the blues. This, obviously, removes the blue colour cast which cursed the previous panel, and I quite like the effect. Perhaps scaling back some of the transformations for a more natural effect.

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21^th May

Hours 6,490 to 6,494

(1h) creating a new Stoke Common A Panel, which in Lightroom looks like the following:

The yellow surround is my code for “Yellow/Blue Impressionistic Version of the Image”.

(1h) planning images for my Homage to Magritte series:

• “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” – pipe ordered from amazon
• Version of the above being photographed (rather than painted)
• Portrait of back of head in front of mirror
• Man at desk with head blown out
• Girl kissing invisible man in bowler hat

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20^th May

Hours 6,488 to 6,489

(½h) updating this journal.

(1½h) working on my trees of Stoke Common panel – redesigning the elements.

[Comment, made by a friend on an entirely different subject, about an irrelevant third party, made me think that I need to reignite my enthusiasm and natural optimism for this project. Stick to my mantra that the world makes way for a man who knows where he’s going.]

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19^th May

Hours 6,483 to 6,487

(½h) updating this journal

(2h) writing new photo layout actions for the Queen’s Jubillee exhibition using pixel measurements rather than mm in an attempt to overcome the problem of different image resolutions. Very frustrating as still not working properly.

(½h) YouTube:

• PIXimperfect: “Frequency Separation In-Depth with Mixer Brush in Photoshop” – high end skin retouching technique. Mixer brush seems to be a more flexible version of the blur tool.

(2h) Amersham PIC group meeting – last of the season – included work from the following 3 FRPSs:

• Roger Wotton: mini panel of 4 impressionist images shot with a slow shutter speed on an iPhone.
• Steve Hunter – showing the progression of his style in landscape photography from the fairly conventional to the calm minimalism of his F panel
• Chris Palmer – presented a few mini panels.

Kick up the backside to myself to get moving with my ARPS submission and my current 3 projects:

1. Trees of Stoke Poges
2. Kefalonia abstracts
3. Surrealist images

… and perhaps my multiple exposures of London.

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18^th May

Hours 6,481 to 6,482

(1h) YouTube:

• Psych Tutorial: “Gestalt Laws of Perception” useful for analysing visual composition”Whole ≄ sum of the parts
  1. Closure – brain fills in missing information
  2. Proximity – objects that are close together are perceived as a group
  3. Similarity – similar objects, e.g., the same colour, are seen as a group
  4. Continuity – visual elements are assumed to continue unless the end is actually seen
  5. Simplicity – the brain tends to generate simplest explanation of what its looking at
  6. Common fate – items moving in the same direction or otherwise behaving in a similar manner are perceived as a group.
• Eustace Photography: “How to smooth skin using frequency separation on Photoshop“

(1h) planning and processing images for the Queen’s Jubilee exhibition.

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17^th May

Hours 6,476 to 6,480

(1h) writing then giving up on the photoshop actions to process the Queen’s Jubilee images.

(1h) YouTube:

• The Photographic Eye: “How to break out of a photographic rut“
• PBS News: “‘Philip Guston Now’ portrays art of controversial and confrontation
• Sotheby’s:
  • “A Bridge Between Worlds: Virgil Abloh in Art, Design, and Everything Else“
  • “Modigliani’s Madame Dorival“

(1h) creating the following based on the information in the above videos:

(2) Stoke Poges Photographic Club – Set Subject PDI competition

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16^th May

Hours 6,471 to 6,475

(3h) writing photoshop actions to process the images for the Queen’s Jubilee.

(2h) Amersham Photographic Society – Members’ evening: Chris Palmer reviewing the images entered into the PAGB national competition comparing Amersham’s offering with the national standard.

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15^th May

Hours 6,469 to 6,470

(2h) processing images for the Queen’s Jubilee Exhibition.

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14^th May

Hours 6,467 to 6,468

(1h) creating the following versions of my man on Kefalonia seashore images using, in particular, better rain (going straight down, rather than across, and therefore matching the background).

(1h) processing images for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Exhibition organised by the Stoke Poges Photographic Club.

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13^th May

Hour 6,466

(1h) new version of my “Memories of Man” image below.

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12^th May

Hours 6,461 to 6,465

(½h) updating this journal.

(1h) creating the following composite of the Magritte character at Slough Station:

(1½h) YouTube:

• PTC:
  • using the puppet warp filter for more effective shadows
• PIXimperfect:
  • using the tilt-shift filter to blur shadows (not sure about the benefit of this over merely reducing the impact of a gaussian blur and a gradient mask on the effect.

(2h) Amersham Mono Group – main comments on my image below.

Suggestions:

• Remove distracting debris on beach
• Remove transparency on man
• reduce the impact of the rain by lowering the opacity of that layer.

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11^th May

Hours 6,459 to 6,460

(1½h) updating this journal.

(½h) YouTube:

• Sean Tucker: “Finding a Direction for your Photography (feat. Rachael Talibart)” – I’ve watched this before and certainly benefitted from rewatching
  • https://www.rachaeltalibart.com/
  • gentle landscape photography
• Peter Tush: “Surrealism, The Big Ideas“

“The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine”

Andre Breton on the derivation of the Exquisite Corpse game played at the initial meeting of the surrealists.

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10^th May

Hours 6,456 to 6,458

(1h) preparing images for this week’s Amersham Mono Group.

(2h) Stoke Poges Photographic Club Print Finals – my images below:

Image	…..	Comments
		“Halloween Face” 15 Background too dark and dominating especially against black clothes. Face should probably been turned more towards the camera.
		“Combined Age 193” 17 Good, but the gloved hand is distracting.
		“Moai at Sunrise Easter Island” 18 Good composition and lighting. Moon should either have been larger or completely removed.

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9^th May

Hours 6,451 to 6,455

(1h) creating a cloud brush from a panorama of shots taken two days ago.

My intention is to use the above stamp just once over a surrealist image.

(1½h) Karl Taylor Review of the Honey Pour images.

Main criticism:

1. Table doesn’t look flat relative to the background, it looks tilted upwards as though the honey is about to fall towards us. I needed to shoot from a lower angle
2. Honey pour, too dark and treacly making it look less appetising
3. top of the honey pot doesn’t blend believably with the background in terms of colour balance.

(½h) Karl Taylor, Working to a Brief Challenge 9: Saw Blade.

(2h) Amersham Photographic Society – PDI Final – no skin in the game.

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8^th May

Hours 6,449 to 6,450

(½h) processing and distributing yesterday’s running photos.

(½h) updating this journal.

(½h) producing a couple of mono pictures from the recent street shoot in London.

(½h) shooting, mainly clouds, at Denbies vineyard.

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7^th May

Hours 6,445 to 6,448

(1h) processing the London street photography images shot on the 5th.

(1h) creating the following triptychs:

(1h) processing the following colour-popped images

Problem is, the three images don’t work well next to each other.

(1h) shooting the “Cliveden Steps” 10K race.

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6^th May

Hours 6,443 to 6,444

(½h) selecting images for the Stoke Poges competition finals for the 2021/22 season.

(½h) updating this journal

(1h) processing yesterday’s images

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5^th May

Hours 6,439 to 6,442

(1h) Street photography in London; Tate Modern, South Bank and West End.

(1½h) Amersham Beyond meeting. There is a Photoshop action that make reflections more realistic.

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4^th May

Hours 6,436 to 6,438

(½h) updating this journal.

(1½h) YouTube:

• Manufacturing Intellect: “Dada and Surrealism: Europe After the Rain documentary (1978)“
• PIXimperfect: “Add  Clouds and Dramatic Colours to Landscapes in Photoshop“
• Theresa Jackson: “Create a Photoshop Cloud Brush“

“Ideas are like shirts; to keep them fresh you need to change them regularly.”

Andre Breton, when explaining the demise of Dada and the birth of Surrealism.

(1h) minor updates to the following images combining self-portraits with seascapes from Kefalonia.

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3^rd May

Hours 6,435

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2^nd May

Hours 6,433 to 6,434

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1^st May

Hours 6,428 to 6,432

(1h) updating the image above. In particular adding rain by:

1. extend canvas to allow motion blue to work properly later
2. create a new solid black layer
3. convert for Smart Filters (allows me to change my mind)
4. add noise
5. add a bit of gaussian blur – determines the size of the rain, c. 3-5 pixels, too much makes snow
6. add Motion Blur, c. 70º and 50 pixels
7. use a Levels adjustment layer applied only to the rain layer to reduce the number of spots
8. change the blending mode to Screen
9. re-crop back to the original size.

Adding Rain To A Photo With Photoshop

(1h) YouTube:

• Teo Crawford: “Photography on a rainy day in April – Lumix GX80“
• PIXimperfect: “Create Realistic Puddles in Photoshop“, uses:
  • Puddle Maps – available online – some free
  • Vanishing point planes.

(2h) shooting more self portraits for use in Magritte style surrealist images.

(1h) updating this journal, including all the new month admin.

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(April 2022)