Having worked in the corporate world of Finance and IT for 25+ years I have decided to try and earn a living from my passion – photography. I am a landscape and abstract photographer predominantly working in black and white. I started this transformation in July 2012. This blog will be my observations on making this transition and comments on photography as I make my journey.
It’s been some time..
Since my last post. All my exhibitions have finished and I have gathered up all my work and it is stacked in the studio. So that’s the reason for the lull in activity as I received stuff back. I am now ready to start on the next phase which is trying to sell some stuff at Art and Maker fairs in the coming months. I have been busy applying and generally being accepted for selected fairs in the North West of England so hopefully there will be some return for this outlay.
Last week I went out and started photographing my next body of work. This will be around Morecombe Bay. The aim is to try and convey the sheer size of the bay and the amount of water that is shifted during the tidal ebb and flow. With a slight haze on the horizon it was virtually impossible to spot the far shore sometimes. It will not be easy to capture the scale of the place but you have got to start somewhere.
Transition
A bit more success. The Green Door Art Group based in Kendal has an exhibition at The Brewery Arts centre in town. The theme was Transition and I submitted 3 pieces and they were all selected for the show. So that was great news, more recognition. These pieces were a departure for me and I have called them digital prints rather than digital photographs as they involved a lot of processing from the original photograph. I started with 3 of my seascape photos and then turned them in to Black & White. Then I began to selectively add back some colour, play with the hue and saturation and finally some selected blurring. I called the series Fluxus and they will be one off original prints.
So I now have 22 photographs out in exhibitions around the UK. I can see from Google Analytics that my web traffic is increasing and based on geography the exhibitions are helping to build exposure. So the next big question is – when will somebody buy one of the things!!
Just received a couple of new books from Beyond Words – will look at them over the weekend and let you know about them next week.
It’s been a couple of weeks since my last post and I have been absorbed by working on Transitions my entries for the Green Door group show at the Brewery Arts Centre here in Kendal. It’s been the first time that I have worked to a theme and it has allowed me to explore the boundaries of photography and digital art. It was a challenge at first but after googling for a couple of hours around the word ‘Transition’ some ideas began to come together. Since I am a B & W photographer I came to the idea of tracing a journey from colour to B & W. The first idea was quite literal and was a series of photos where I would desaturate a colour at a time until I got to a B & W picture. It was a bit too linear. So the next idea was to put them into a collage, non linear and resizing the pictures, putting some into a vertical format and others in a landscape format. But that looked too fussy and busy so another rethink was required. I finally came up with the idea of transforming existing photos into a new photo and at the same time converting to B & W and then selectively adding back some of the colour. A lot simpler but more effective, I started work on one of my seascapes, I converted it to B & W and then began to choose areas of the picture and selectively add the colour back. As a final touch I then began to use other filters to create another element of movement or flux. A few days later and I had three pieces that I was happy with. There at the framers now so I can relax and enjoy the next 10 days with some friends from California. I’ll let you know whether I get selected in February.
Something different
Exhibition activity has gone quiet so I am turning my hand to a submission for the Green Door ‘Transitions’ show. I have decided to ‘play’ with my photographs on the theme of transition. I could have gone out to look for a straight photograph on the theme of Transitions. However I have decided to explore some of the more artistic elements of the software I use in my photography. I have selected 6 photographs that I have previously taken and am exploring the theme by using filters, frames, blending effects that I would never use in my usual practice. I have spent about 3 days on this so far and I have found it quite liberating. It is more digital art than digital photography it is also in colour which is new as well. I am making collages out of several photos and playing with finishes, paper and generally going where mu ‘mojo’ takes me.
Something different 2
Thinking about how to show my exhibition to my friends scattered across the globe, well Belgium and US. Having just upgraded to Lightroom 4 you can export slideshows as video. So I had a go, messed about with transitions but ended up going back to a simple fade. Then had more fun going through my music collection to select a track that I felt would work. Spent about a day on it in all. Then stuck it onto Facebook and YouTube.
Tried to load it on this blog but it did not appear to work – so here is the link if you are interested.
I have been interested in photography for most of my life. I have owned a variety of cameras since I was a teenager. In the last five years I have switched to digital photography and begun to take it more seriously. Since July of 2012 I have decided to try and turn this passion into a business and earn a living from my photography.
I am mainly self-taught. In 2008 I went on a landscape photography course with Jonathan Chritchley in the south of France. In July 2011 I took a 6 month distance learning course also with Jonathan.
I am passionate about Fine Art Landscape and Abstract photography based around the sea, coast, mountains, rivers and lakes. Although I originally started working in colour, through my tuition with Jonathan Chritchley and inspired by the work of Michael Kenna, I have now moved to working predominantly in black and white. I am attracted to the patterns of light in the sea, land and sky. I often use a long exposure to soften and blur the boundaries between sea and sky and bring the focus on the play of light in these areas. Using long exposure and camera panning techniques I have begun to create abstract images based on the differences in light and shade in the sea and sky. With my landscape photography I like to work with dramatic skies or grey skies where you get the light providing a variety of shades to work with in the finished picture.
Since December 2011 I have been living and working in Kendal, Cumbria. This gives me a great opportunity to explore the surrounding hills, mountains and coastal landscapes. In July 2012 I moved into my studio as part of the Green Door Studios based in Kendal.

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