Today's thoughts 2

It pays to always have your camera with you, I missed a fantastic shot as I drove past a field of sheep today. There was one sheep standing onto of a mound of earth surrounded by the rest of the flock at the bottom. This would have been such a brilliant photo which I would have called either 'Queen of the flock' or 'Preaching to the flock'....sadly I drove on by without my Nikon :(

There have been some really fantastic photo's on the BBC's website this week by photographer 'Tom Wood' titled Tom Wood's Men and Women.

These pictures are taken in the 1970s (when I was just a wee child), around Merseyside and are a bit of social documentary of the time. The exhibition is currently running at the Photographer's Gallery in London.

(Photo copyright; Tom Wood)

This photo is called 'Not Miss New Brighton' from 1978/79 was shot on Kodak VPS film and slightly soft focus. I like the slightly jumbled balance and composition as it adds to the whole feel of the picture. The dated notion of 'chic' is emphasised with the colourings. 

Todays thoughts

It's been a hectic couple of weeks and I haven't done much with my camera but I have been 'absorbing' external stuff, looking at other photographers work and looking for potential photo opportunities.

Last weekend I was in Dorset and visited a small gallery 'The photographers lounge' in Swanage. Kate Cross who runs it was very friendly and showed me her current exhibition;

www.photographerslounge.co.uk

Pink Floyd 'Behind the Wall' Retrospective Exhibition
I loved this work because it was a retro view of the film making process and beautifully printed in B+W. The was a very young Bob Geldof and a shot of Dave Gilmour who happens to be my all time favourite guitarist. Some of the photo's of soldiers were very reminiscent of some of the first world war photography I have been looking at too.

This is my favourite print (sorry it's very pixillated as I screen grabbed it) by David Appleby. I love the perspective and gloom of the soldiers marching towards the front. Go to the link above to see the whole
set of images, and of course the other superb work at the Photographers Lounge

An exclusive exhibition of behind the scenes images celebrating the 30th anniversary of the motion picture 'Pink Floyd: The Wall'.

Renowned on-set stills photographerDavid Appleby is honouring the fans of the acclaimed visual rock masterpiece with this stunning collection of never before seen images and David's most classically known iconic photographs associated with the movie

More French fete pics

This post is just to show some more pics from my french trip in the summer. I was going to use them as my attempt at the sequence of composition exercise but I don't feel that they quite met the criteria. Nevertheless I really like some of the results and I've put them in a favourite's order.

 Pleased with this first shot as I had to crouch in the road until the band were almost marching over me and the band leader posed spontaneously. I would probably crop this into a wide frame losing some sky/and the distracting canopy and a small amount at the bottom too.

I like this shot but wished I'd used a larger f stop to blur the background and maybe a slower shutter speed to enhance the movement of the shaker. I'm fairly pleased with this anyway and like the colour.

 Again I like the overall colour in this photo and like the character 

full french tractor driver too.

Runners up pics....and why..........

I wish I'd got the whole of the horn in frame

 Like the stilts and umbrellas but just wish the character on the left had just been a little more in view

 Interesting woodpecker but feel I took it out of context with the framing.

 

This would be a nice photo of the 'Hotel de Ville'....if only the vehicles weren't there

Exercise - Cropping

In this exercise I have selected 3 different photographs and cropped each for differing reasons.

1.

 This first photograph of a parade at a French fete I felt that the quickly taken original had quite a few distracting features and lost the strong image of the girls marching. The blue sign and on the opposite side the roof of the stall, the foreground of tarmac wasn't of much interest either so I have cropped tightly to maximise the powerful marching, enhanced by the shadowing on the road. The impact works great and the frame is full of the action with no distraction. I think the finished result gives a strong, almost military strenght to the shot. This has inspired me to play with the version 3 and age the photo with a sepia tone effect and make it look from the 1930's...just for fun.

2.

In this second photo which was part of an audience at a small outside festival in Chepstow in the summer. The original had the chair on the righthand side which I found distracting but liked the overall composition of people together within the wider 'togetherness' of the crowd. I cropped the shot down to just one of the small sub groups to bring out this intimacy.

3.

In this 3rd photo from my recent trip to the Brecon Beacons I have cropped the original to leave just an exaggerated wide vista containing mainly the horizon and the small characters walking. I like the original but think the cropping give this a powerful and effective panorama.