ORDINARY BEAUTY: THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF EDWIN SMITH

Edwin Smith is one of the relatively unsung heroes of photography. His images were always beautiful, evocative, emotional and so hard to copy. Now there is a retrospective exhibition planned.

Edwin Smith (1912-1971) was the most significant British photographer of architecture and landscape in the mid twentieth century. For twenty years, his images graced many notable books and helped redefine notions of Britishness for the post-war generation. His achingly beautiful interpretations of characteristic buildings from cathedrals to cottages, and terrains from beach to bog, convey an unparalleled sense of place.

Hailed by Sir John Betjeman as a ‘genius at photography’ and by Cecil Beaton as ‘an understanding and loving connoisseur of his subject’, Edwin Smith captured the essence of the places, landscapes and buildings he photographed.

Ordinary Beauty: The Photography of Edwin Smith will display 100 extraordinary black and white photographs from a collection of over 60,000 negatives given by Olive Cook, Smith’s widow and collaborator, to the RIBA Library. From urban scenes documenting British social history to evocative landscape images and atmospheric interiors, the images displayed reveal the genius and breadth of his work. Alongside his images of Britain the exhibition will show photographs taken on his travels to Europe as well as his published books and photographic equipment.

In September 2014, RIBA’s new Architecture Gallery will present the first major retrospective of Edwin Smith (1912 – 1971), one of Britain’s foremost 20th century photographers. Full details here

Sea of Steps Wells Cathedral

Roofscape, Whitby, North Yorkshire, 1959.
© Edwin Smith / RIBA Library Photographs Collection

CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, KENT, 1955 CRYPT by SMITH, EDWIN (1912-1971)

Edwin Smith at the Fry

Tulip Staircase, Queen’s House, Greenwich. 1970.  by Edwin Smith.

another excellent link is here and here

Travel Photographer of the Year

The TPOTY award is now open for entries for 2014, where have you been, what images have you captured that tell the story of your travels or of a place?

2014 awards now open for entries

The premier travel photography awards. Your showcase to the world

The Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY) photo contest is run by photographers for photographers. Whether you are amateur or professional, beginner or expert, young or old, wherever you live in the world, TPOTY is for you!

2014 is TPOTY’s 12th award with new categories and new opportunities to showcase the best travel photography.

You can view the last year’s winners in the 2013 Winners Gallery see them in person this summer at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in London. This exhibition opens on 11th July and runs until August 17th. And soon you’ll be able to buy our latest book, Journey Six, featuring the 2013 winning images.

Last year our UK exhibition welcomed over 48,000 visitors – will you be visiting us in 2014? Or perhaps you’ll enter TPOTY this year – and you could see your images exhibited at the RGS in 2015!

Why enter TPOTY?

And TPOTY is about even more than (really great) prizes – it’s about incredible exposure for your work. Photographers who’ve had TPOTY success have had their work showcased around the world. Established photographic careers have received a huge boost, new careers have been started, and people who never thought they’d see their photographs in print have had a lovely surprise!

The awards are judged by leading photography experts, whose knowledge and integrity adds hugely to the kudos that comes with being amongst our winners. And, thanks to our partnership with the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), the winning images are exhibited each year in a magnificent, historical location.

But whether you’re a winner or not, it’s also about fun – the fun of challenging yourself to shoot to a theme, to look at your images with fresh eyes, to be a part of the TPOTY experience

Full details are here

12 Hugely Important Moments in the History of Photography

By Jason D. Little on Lightstalking we bring you this very interesting article which briefly sums up a history of photography. Fascinating.

As humans we seem to have an insatiable need to document life — our actions, the actions of other species of animals, anything and everything around us. While the ever present, universally accessible nature of the camera in the modern world makes this all too easy, the drive to produce a permanent record of life’s meaningful — and not so meaningful — events is not at all a concept borne of recent technological achievement. Consider, for example, cave paintings dating back to 40,000 years ago, commonly depicting scenes involving wild animals and outlines of human hands. And you only have to go back to about the 4th and 5th centuries BCE to realize that the great ancient Chinese and Greek minds had already grasped the basic principles of optics and were quite familiar with the pinhole camera, or camera obscura. Unbeknownst to the ancients, their simple device would eventually give rise to what is arguably the single most compelling means of documenting our lives — photography.

What follows is a list of 12 events (out of, perhaps, thousands) that mark the technological, social, and cultural path of photography’s evolution. READ MORE HERE

Louis Daguerre: Boulevard du Temple, with unicorn by topquark22, on Flickr

‘Ur-Leica (Original Leica)’

Read this article here

Photography Project with a Cat an old masters

I always say to my students, ‘work to a theme’ get an idea and follow it through, explore your subject and see where it leads you

Svetlana Petrova has done just that, here from the BBC website

Russian artist Svetlana Petrova has become known for her online artwork of famous portraits featuring her big ginger cat Zarathustra.

Ahead of a new exhibition bringing the internet meme into a physical setting, the artist tells the BBC why she first created the artwork and how digital technology is helping to create new art forms.

“I lost my mother in 2008 and she left me Zarathustra. I got horrible depression after her death and for two years I was unable to do something creative. By chance a friend asked me ‘why don’t you make an art project with your cat because he’s so funny’

Mona Lisa true version, based on Leonardo da Vinci

Venus of Urbino happily ever after, based on Titian

Portrait of an Unknown Woman in Russian Costume and a Very Known Cat in a Vet Collar, based on Ivan Argunov

You should see more of these brilliantly funny images that show great photographic skill and wonderful wit, go here

So what will be your next project, what will you do that has a theme, that engages you, it doesn’t have to be humorous but please do not use Lego figures, it’s been over done, is not clever or funny

How to look like a pro photographer

Yes this is a joke but it is very funny, and in many ways oh so true

How to Look Like A Pro Photographer

10 Cool Photography Freebies That Include E-Books, Courses and Presets

Why would you ignore something for nothing, well perhaps because it was never worth having having in the first place. However these freebies include ebooks by National Geographic, have a look at this

Ultimate Field Guide to Photography, by National Geographic

This guide by National Geographic can be a serious resource for a beginner in photography as it covers almost every aspect of the basics of photography. From explaining camera settings to tips on composition and perspective, everything is nicely explained.

See the rest of the free ebooks here

After The Apology – Photographer Aletheia Casey

Phil Coomes, picture editor, on the BBC usually has excellent article and this about Australian photographer Aletheia Casey is another.

Photographer Aletheia Casey recently returned to Australia after living abroad for five years and began work on a project looking at the process of reconciliation and apology to indigenous Australians. To mark National Sorry Day in Australia, Casey writes about the work.

Shortly before I left Australia in 2008, the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology to the First Peoples of Australia and recognised the ongoing trauma and dislocation that the colonisation of Australia has had on the Indigenous Peoples of this land. He also made a specific formal apology for the forcible removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their homes which occurred from the 1920s until well into the 1970s in Australia.

I was struck by what an important statement it had been for the government of Australia to recognise the trauma that it had directly inflicted in the past. I did wonder, however, was it, as many people felt, simply an acknowledgment of ‘White Guilt’? And did this Apology have long-term healing effects on the people who had been directly affected by the laws of the past?

Photographer Aletheia Casey recently returned to Australia after living abroad for five years and began work on a project looking at the process of reconciliation and apology to indigenous Australians. To mark National Sorry Day in Australia, Casey writes about the work.

Shortly before I left Australia in 2008, the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology to the First Peoples of Australia and recognised the ongoing trauma and dislocation that the colonisation of Australia has had on the Indigenous Peoples of this land. He also made a specific formal apology for the forcible removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their homes which occurred from the 1920s until well into the 1970s in Australia.

I was struck by what an important statement it had been for the government of Australia to recognise the trauma that it had directly inflicted in the past. I did wonder, however, was it, as many people felt, simply an acknowledgment of ‘White Guilt’? And did this Apology have long-term healing effects on the people who had been directly affected by the laws of the past?

Kim Hill

Eliza Pross

Jenny Moylan Coombes

Jasmine Haby-Atkinson

Caroline Glass-Pattison

I would recommend you go to Aletheia’s website here and see more of her work

Phil Coomes

 

10 landscape photography mistakes every photographer makes

If only it were 10! This article on Digital Camera World will certainly help you to improve your landscape photography

Landscape photography is one of the most popular photographic subjects and there are superb images everywhere to inspire us. But there are a few pitfalls that can trouble even experienced photographers.

Don’t despair, though; our head of testing, Angela Nicholson, has put together a list of the most common landscape photography mistakes every photographer is guilty of at one point or another, and has some great advice to help you avoid any landscape errors in the future.

Landscape Photography Mistake No. 1: Wonky horizons

Some people seem to have a gift for holding a camera level, while others appear have the complete opposite blessing.

Getting the horizon level when you’re shooting from an unusual angle is especially tricky, and if you don’t get it right you’ll have to rotate and crop the image post-capture, especially if there’s water in it.

While it’s easy to rotate an image to level the horizon it means cropping out some of your carefully composed image so it’s best to avoid it if you can.

The easiest solution is to use a level to indicate when the camera is on an even keel.

This can be a bubble-level on your tripod or a little spirit-level that slots into your camera’s hotshoe.

Alternatively, many cameras now have a digital level built-in that can be displayed in the viewfinder or on the LCD screen.

Check if your camera has one and activate it to banish wonky horizons forever.

Landscape Photography Mistake No. 1: Wonky horizons
Landscape Photography Mistake No. 2: Foreground and/or horizon not sharp
Landscape Photography Mistake No. 3: Image blurred
Landscape Photography Mistake No. 4: Empty foreground
Landscape Photography Mistake No. 5: Flat, dull light
Landscape Photography Mistake No. 6: Strong shadows
Landscape Photography Mistake No. 7: Sky washed out or the land underexposed
Landscape Photography Mistake No. 8: Obvious graduated ND filter use
Landscape Photography Mistake No. 9: Poor composition
Landscape Photography Mistake No. 10: Soft details

Principles Of Moments: Thoughts On Street Photography

As always Faded+Blurred comes up with the goods, this article on street photography is worth your time

One of the things I’ve noticed lately is that the term “street photography” gets batted around willy nilly to describe any given scene that happens to include people in any sort of urban environment. Random people in crosswalks? Street photography. Commuters on trains? Street photography. Person drinking coffee, either walking down the street or sitting at a cafe? Definitely street photography. Oh, and umbrellas…lots of umbrellas. So, what does the term really encompass? For many photographers, if you were to ask them about iconic street shooters, one name that would inevitably make the list is Garry Winogrand, which is ironic since he actually rejected the label. “I hate the term,” Winogrand said. “I think its a stupid term, street photography. I don’t think it… tells you anything about a photographer or work.” Personally, I find nothing wrong with the term, and I completely understand the need to categorize or compartmentalize various genres of photography to provide at least some sort of context. However, we shouldn’t be so quick to label every photo of random people on a street, road, or avenue in any sort of urban setting as street photography, anymore than calling a photo of Uncle Bob or Aunt Mildred snapped just before sitting down to Christmas dinner should automatically be called a portrait. Sure, it may be, but just taking pictures of people doesn’t put you in the same category as Avedon, Penn, Karsh or countless others. Photography is a craft, an art. In my opinion, it comes down to vision and intent and whether you use a camera phone, a DSLR or a vintage film camera, there are principles (note that I didn’t say rules) that once understood, will allow you to make better, more engaging photographs.

Coincidentally – or maybe not – the guardian recently posted a feature highlighting the wonderful work of award-winning photographer Antonio Olmos. In the post, Olmos presents a gallery of images and offers tips for making better street photographs. What I find interesting is that virtually all of the things Olmos references – exposure, composition (leading lines) and light can, and should, be applied to all areas of photography. These are concepts that every serious photographer should not only learn but practice and indeed focus on. These things make the difference between snapshots and photographs.

While men carrying bed frames and riding bicycles is interesting, this photograph is all about the light. The flare from the sun anchors the scene while the dramatic long shadows drive the viewer’s eye into the image.

Rule of thirds, plain and simple. The boys’ feet off the ground implies motion and energy and the negative space at left gives our eyes somewhere to go. Wonderful.

Maybe it’s the graphic designer in me, but I love when negative space is used well. In this image, the wall becomes a canvas of sorts, bathing the subject in a beautiful warm glow.

See more here

Books We Recommend
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Street Photography Now
Vivian Maier: Street Photographer
Extraordinary Everyday Photography
Humans of New York

1939: England in Color

The pictures are not the most thrilling but on the eve of the second world war these images seem to imply the most tranquil life, found on DP Review

See all the images (23) here