insights into photography
By way of support for a local Oxford gallery I bring you this notification of a photo competition. Although I do like to support any attempt to foster an interest in photography I think it is a huge mistake to allow work created before the announcement of the competition. I think they should only accept new work otherwise, as was seen at another recent exhibition, you get the same tired old photographers trotting out their same old tired photographs. Be bold make new work.
THEME: TOGETHER
colour/ film/ digital/ B & W/ experimental/ – anything!
Rummage in your negs & files, or start clicking, now the light is good and the spring advanced.
Entry fee £10 first image, £5 subsequent images.
Submit by 20th July.
PRIZES – having work hung on a gallery wall and….
Digital submission possible -disc or attached to email to: artjericho@hotmail.co.uk jpg/ tif etc
If work is selected, you will be notified, so then a print can be made & brought to the gallery, ready to hang – black or white frames only. The gallery has a small stock of black frames that may be borrowed :
external dimension is 40 x 50 cm. The mounts have an A3 (29cm x 39cm) window, but work can be in any mount that fits the external size.
©Keith Barnes
Why 7? I have no idea, this is from Lighstalking. It is mostly true and mostly entertaining but there is a bit too much whinging which given that LS is based in Australia is a bit rich thinks this pom.
“Working in the photography industry is a fantastic gig – there’s no denying it. Something about being around creative people and being able to be creative yourself is just unmatchable. But sometimes, it’s obviously difficult for others to realise that a photographer is a professional too and deserves professional respect. Here are a few common situations when that can be a little irritating for a photographer.”..…..MORE
©Keith Barnes
On the Lightstalking site an article written By Mike Panic caught my eye. I think all he says has validity but it is his last point that I would have flagged up as the most important.
“Don’t ever stop learning. One great thing the Internet has allowed us to do is continuously learn through blogs, news articles and video demonstrations. Don’t limit yourself just to the Internet though. One and two day photo workshops are becoming increasingly common in cities across the country, often hosted by a local photographer. Most are limited to only a half dozen people with the focus being on one specific niche, such as fine art nudes or macros. They are often very affordable and a great way to meet fellow photographers. Photo walks are also another way to learn and chat with other photographers, these too are becoming more popular in both urban and country settings.”
Now you may think I single this item out for special attention because I am a teacher as well as a photographer, because I run a school of photography but I have to tell you that if I had a mantra, if I knew what a mantra was, then it would be ‘always be interested, never stop learning, tell me about tomorrow’, that might be three but as I said I don’t really know what a mantra is. Some of my best friends, photographers like me, commercial, working photographers actively avoided digital for about 10 years because they didn’t want to have to learn new things. I guess they may have said, ‘when digital gets as good as film I might consider it’ but I suspect they just didn’t want to let go of the wealth of knowledge that was film photography that they had because basically it was redundant.
How do you continue to learn and be interested; finding places where your photography is fed a good dose of manure, that is not the same as bull shit, well I guess it is but there is a difference. Feed your interest, investigate photographers whose work you may not have seen before, challenge yourself to step outside your comfort zone. If you mostly take pictures of places and flowers force yourself to take pictures of people. Learning the basic technical side of photography is pretty easy, if you don’t understand exposure then make efforts to do so after which you can take control of your images but the difficult things are about understanding images. Learn a visual language that has a vocabulary others understand. Always taking the same pictures the same way will lead to boredom.
If you want to read the rest of the article By Mike Panic go here
Alhambra © Keith Barnes
Click Here: 7 Things Photographers Should Never Do
A long, very long, oh too long weekend here in the UK. Don’t get me wrong I prefer a Queen as head of state (although Graham Norton might be more fun) than some dick of a politician like say Bush or Blair, but do we have to grind to a halt and all be jolly and happy for her; basically for living a long time. I can think of so many better reasons for not going to work although for me most of them also involve visiting an airport and submitting to her majesty’s officials and being treated like a proto terrorist before being allowed to have my fun somewhere else. Admittedly this usually also requires obsequience to some other dictator’s whims.
Anyway I digress, this week’s photography links from the Toad should have been with you before the weekend but here the weekend still has days to go so maybe….
Theses come to you via Lightstalking “The Toads have been very busy the last few weeks doing shoots on location, and as a result they missed creating their weekly list last week. Thrilled to be back at it here this week, they have compiled an extensive list of links to tutorials, great photography and interesting blogs for everyone to enjoy. We really hope you enjoy viewing the images of these talented artists and reading these blogs as much as the Toads did in bringing this list to you. Without further ado, let’s hop into the great photography, shall we?”
Photographer – at the speed of light by LightStalking, on Flickr
Here are some tasters for you
TUTORIALS
HDR – Lens Correction – A Short and Simple Sample HTDS – Mark Neal delivers a concise tutorial that shows the reader how to use lens correction tools. This technique works remarkably well considering the complexity of the image being manipulated.
Showing Scale to Your Photos | Showing Scale Part II – a pair of great posts teaches the reader about the importance of adding scale to an image. Joe Baraban discusses artistic details in photography that can add a huge element of tension to an image, and in turn create a truly compelling piece.
GREAT PHOTOGRAPHY
http://justhundred.com/ – this is truly a special feature based on the great work from Ren Bostelaar. This online exhibition features a new image every 24 hours and is really a must-visit destination as each day delivers a new image to enjoy.
Special Travel Perks – this is an absolutely epic study in lines in this great post from Theaterwiz. An empty airport exposes a very compelling bit of architecture that forms incredible natural leading lines and geometries that are mesmerizing beyond proper description. If you like lines, you will love this.
Oxford School of Photography 