24.7.12

It has finally begun... I have avoided it for long enough: reading! My daughter bought me a beautify book for Father's Day, entitled - appropriately enough - the Art of Photography. I have dived into the chapter on 'colour' and immediately feel both an inspiration and a challenge. The inspiring bit is actually being party to the author's thoughts and the challenge is being able to start glimpsing the vastness that is photography.

My tutor, in his feedback for Assignment 2, mentioned the lack of any evidence of reading in my work so far. I had stuck solely to taking photographs. I also need to record the experience and process around each exposure that I make.

The obsession with photography continues, however. It almost fills the thought-stream of my waking hours...

OK - this isn't in colour... The image is part of a collection of candid shots of people I saw at the River Festival yesterday. I'd like to post them on the 'work alongside OCA' page. I managed it once - but seem unable to achieve it any more! But for now, I enjoyed capturing these guys faces: so characterful and 'lived-in'. I wish them well.

Colour awareness...

I was out amongst the action in Bedford River Festival yesterday. I am curious how quickly one concentrates on photographic activity once the camera is in hand. I stopped gazing and began looking. The resultant images were sometimes quick 'grabs', not much more than a nod in the direction of subject, composition and - in this case - colour. They are not linked to any specific exercises from assignment 3.

The photographs I have uploaded reflect this 'point-and-shoot' style. They are more to do with getting something in the camera and onto the blog. It was the usual process of getting the shots and then working with basic editing, usually cropping. In a crowded situation, I am learning how to keep thinking - but it's early days yet. Not all the images were worth playing about with - some didn't really have any kind of story to tell.

What I did discover was a pleasure in capturing faces. Today's crop were mostly from those people in the 'third age'. Some were originally taken in black and white. During editing, I converted any remaining colour shots in this unexpected exploration into black and white. I found this to really interesting and I would like to do more in this way. It may also be linked to the whole 'street photography' thing...

Colour awareness

Colour: exercise 3 - colour relationships.

Here I'm beginning to gather images for the 'colour relationships exercise. I'm still learning to really dig down into the language of the assignment, as opposed to taking pictures in an 'assumed' manner. I guess it's an acquired taste - doing exactly what's required and not just shooting from the hip. I know this sometimes when I'm out and about with a camera and find myself in the zone of possibility... But then again, I believe that the learning here is a constant process and as long as I'm always looking and thinking and seeing potential pictures - that's the main point!

Red and green dominance: 

well, not really but I just like the expressions of my daughter and grandson and the colours gave men ab excuse to include this shot.

Blue and orange dominance: 

mostly blue but it was a lovely moment in a great day's ending. 

Yellow and green dominance: these fields are all around - they have to be photographed!

Colour: exercise 2 - primary and secondary colours

I know there's more detail and versions to add here, but I'm just putting up the basic framework for this work on 'colour'.

Black and white: the colour of a storm

A storm passed over our house the other evening. Thanks to a call from my daughter I managed to dash outside and grab some images of the angry beast that was raging in the skies above us. Staring up for longer than usual, the primal power became more dramatic moment by scary moment. 

I tried to get clever by using iPhoto's range effects - but nature had a message for me: sometimes just let things be the way they are meant to be... In this case, leave the photographs alone, after some basic cropping. So here they are...