In print

As promised my photos appeared in Fancy Fowl. In addition to the poultry portraits one of two judges was also included. The portraits looked okay in print. Not quite as good as ones taken with better lighting set ups, but good enough.

A lot of hobbyist photographers, and some pros, suffer from GAS (gear acquisition syndrome), I've pretty much cured myself of that affliction having reconciled myself to the fact that there is no small camera/system that meets my needs and that I have all the lenses I'll ever need. I might even get rid of some lenses. No. My affliction is book acquisition syndrome. I keep on telling myself that enough is enough and I will only buy books of new photography and no 'must have' titles. The reissue of Alec Soth's Sleeping by the Mississippi tempted me and I have to say it didn't disappoint.

Another taboo for me was supposed to be black and white photography. Yet when Bluecoat Press announced two projects on Kickstarter I signed up. I didn't take the slightly more expensive, ego boosting option, to have my name included in the book's list of supporters though.

Small Town Inertia has had a lot of coverage for Jim Mortram. I saw an early exhibition a while back. The subject is a tough one. People with various health issues struggling to survive on benefits. All very worthy, but I do find myself wondering if such books make a difference. What coverage it has had seems to have been mainly in photography and culture circles. What might be called 'echo chambers' these days. The pictures are highly reliant on the accompanying text, in my opinion. Not that that's a negative. Photographs can't always tell the whole story. Certainly a book worth having. Although I do question why Mortram has to work using black and white film. That's just my prejudice against using old media when newer ones which can do more are available.

The late Tish Murtha didn't have the option of using digital when she was working on the photographs in Youth Unemployment. Another book I'm glad to have broken my 'rule' for. Again I wonder how much effect these pictures had when they were originally made and shown. Maybe that's not the point. Perhaps they serve as social documents to warn future generations against what can happen? Maybe they're just pictures? That's part of the difficulty with photography. Photographs are documents and they can also work on an aesthetic level.

That is something James Ravilious was aware of. Reading his widow's memoir of his life it was made clear that, when cataloguing his archive, he drew a distinction between the photographs which he considered to be well made as pictures and those which served only as records of a disappearing world.

When I ordered the memoir I also ordered the new collection of Ravilious photographs, The Recent Past. More so with rural life than the urban life depicted in Tish Murtha's work from around the same time, there is an air of nostalgia in the Ravilious pictures. Even when they depict the harshness of the farming world we inevitably see it as romantic.

This continues today. The popularity of books written by shepherding folk is, I'm sure, due to some rose tinting on behalf of the readers. Living a rural idyll sounds great when sat reading these books in a cosy sitting room. But how many of the readers could face having to get up in the predawn cold every day? No days off because the stock doesn't take holidays. Whether it's possible to depict that sort of lifestyle without the romanticism, I really don't know.

The acknowledged influence of Henri Cartier-Bresson on Ravilious is obvious. But he was far from alone in that. Most documentary photographers who followed Cartier-Bresson were similalry influenced, at least in their early years. Some broke free of the chains of his formality of composition and the decisive moment. I don't think Ravilious did. While working in one area of the country on one theme for seventeen years is a rare luxury for a documentary photographer I get the feeling it trapped Ravilious in a way.

Getting burdened with a subject matter is something that always concerns me. The poultry thing is something I need to break free of. Hence my return to the beach. The photos I took there last winter, I think, are a little different to my chickeny ones. Unfortunately I can't seem to find the same enthusiasm for the beach as I did. There haven't been many people around during my two short visits this weekend, so that might explain it. Although the nagging feeling that I should be elsewhere (although I don't know where) photographing something else (although I don't know what) kept nagging away.

It could all too easily become a case of taking different pictures of the same subjects at the beach. There are only so many ways to photograph, for example, kite boarding without resorting to the clichés. That's where the line between documentary and photojournalism lies. The latter uses tricks of the trade like wide angle close ups and flash to give their pictures impact. The pictures still record, but they don't document. Documentary photographs are more matter of fact. At least that's the way I see it.

When I saw a 4x4 drive on to the beach towing a trailer I was intrigued. Even more so when I saw that a push net for shrimps was being unloaded. Unfortunately the shrimper didn't want to be photographed, but he didn't mind me taking a couple of snaps of his gear.

Leaving the beach I went in search of livestock. Conservation grazing is a big thing these days. All very right on. Land of conservation interest has rare breed cattle and/or sheep let loose on it during the winter to, in theory, keep the scrub at bay. Luckily I didn't have to go far to find the cattle, and the lowering sun was great for making romantic pictures of them. Foolishly I had gone out with the intention of trying to love a lens I keep thinking of getting rid of. Which meant I couldn't frame shots they way I would have liked to. With livestock a zoom is always a help when they don't go where you'd like them to. So my options were limited and the rapidly setting sun didn't give me much time.

It should go without saying that when I returned today with a more suitable lens the cattle were a long way off and the light was less favourable. I didn't bother tramping through the dunes to get closer.

Again the beach was fairly deserted. There were a few horsey types around, but as someone was already taking photographs of them I kept away making just a couple of environmental pictures. All in all my sense of directionless frustration continues.

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Wet weekend

I was looking at an on-line documentary project the other day and happened to notice what gear was used. The same 'toy' camera I have. Then a few days later I saw some photos in photo magazine a friend lent me taken with the same brand of camera. That made me determined to give my toy another try out. So off I trotted only to be stumped by problem number one. I can't get it to nail focus quickly. Number two it's supposedly ace image stabilisation fails for me. Number three the battery died unexpectedly. It was showing plenty of charge when I went out but it was lying.

In focus but not exactly sharp.

Sure it can make nice looking pictures. Just as pretty much any camera can. So what you use boils down to what you find easiest to use. What you can use without thinking. maybe if all I used was the toy I'd get to that state of oneness with the thing. But it has one insurmountable problem for me. The electronic viewfinder. I have no problem with it as a viewfinder. I just don't want it to show pictures on review. The whole experience is just too frustrating. And to be honest the weight saving isn't that noticeable. I would like a smaller, less obtrusive camera though. Mainly so I don't get mistaken for a professional and asked which publication I'm working for!

The wt weather which blighted this summer continues. Yesterday I went for a look round and took some more pictures to add to my files of flooded fields and overflowing ditches. Back home I looked through all of the pictures I have labelled up. There might be scope to pull a selection together on the theme of 'Waterlogged'.

Sunday morning was wet again. Showers rolling in at regular intervals. After lunch it seemed like there might be a dry spell coming towards sunset so I went to the seaside. The sun was shining through the breaks in the clouds rapidly blowing in from the west. It's almost impossible to not make one or two pretty pictures when the weather is like that. I'm sure I could find dozens of similar pictures in my archive to those I took today.

What I didn't realise until I got the pics on the computer was that after the first few shots of the day a dust spot had arrived in the bottom left of the frame. So I had to crop it out of the frames I couldn't clone it out of. Annoying.

Also annoying was not putting my usual do-it-all lens on the camera. When the broken rainbow appeared for a short while behind where a kitesurfer was jumping I couldn't zoom in as much as I would have liked to. Again I had to resort to cropping on the computer. However, I was pleased to see that at 100% the cheap old lens had focused accurately and reasonably sharply too.

All today's pictures have been tweaked more than I usually do for my 'documentary' pictures. Landscape has that effect on me. Maybe it's because the subject isn't all that interesting and I feel the need to make the light the subject? Or maybe I'm trying to make silk purses out of sows' ears?

Once more I cropped to a square and converted to black and white. I'm not happy with the tones of theconversions I do. But I was never really happy with the tones of the black and white prints I used to make in the blacked out bathroom!

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The old standbys

It's October and time to start thinking about the beach project again. Although overcast it was warm and the beach populated by inevitable walkers, with and without dogs. Apart from three metal detectorists there wasn't much going on. As usual there always seems to be unusual things taking place when there aren't as many people around. I spent most of my time taking rather pointless photographs of junk on the beach before making the place look deserted by hiding a dog walker, and their dog, behind the boat angling club's mobile cabin.

I'd photographed a couple of balls as I walked down to the shore and passed by a few on the sands. It was literally as I got back to my car that I spotted another ball hiding by the side of the footpath. It's number 418.

On my way south I'd noticed a bigger than usual pile of sand at the sandplant so called in on my way home to have a poke around. there has been a lot of ground cleared since my last visit. So much so that it's difficult to remember  what it looked like where it meets the saltmarsh. The well trodden path around the old perimeter being the best clue.

Something I like doing at the sandplant is making pictures which mimic the tropes of what is called landscape photography. One favourite is the mountain reflected in a reedy lochan or tarn. A boulder or tree stump for foreground interest is often included for effect. I made do with a heap of sand instead of a mountain and some rubble in place of the boulders.

I think I prefer my detail of the lower slopes of the 'scree'.

It is almost a crime to include people in landscape photography but I can never understand why. I had taken a few shots of the plants growing in the puddle when a birdwatcher pushed his bike through the frame. To me that makes a more interesting picture. Not that it is all that interesting, but it's better than the frames without him!

I was glad he'd gone because his bike had been leaning against a sculpture-like pile of debris in the area I wanted to photograph. Piles of junk like this are difficult to make look right in photographs because much of their appeal is their three dimensionality.

As a continuing documentation of a gradually disappearing landscape feature these pictures have some merit, and as a body of work might eventually become more interesting in that context than they are individually. However, they're not as interesting to me as pictures of people doing things. Either to look at or to take. I need to get my finger out and sort out another people project.

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Aimless

With nothing to focus my attention on I've been at a loose end recently, resorting to either vegetating or more recently wandering around the usual places with a camera or two. Yesterday evening I forced myself to go out with two neglected lenses (the long zoom and the wide zoom) just as a thunder system was skirting the area. That was good in that it made for dramatic skies, and light when it had passed away.

My first stop was the marsh reserve, more to see what changes had taken place since I was last there than to take photographs. I shot a few frames, trying to be clever, but only managed the one below when the sun went into hiding. Too bright a sun when it is low can make things too contrasty. I much prefer a softer light for this sort of picture.

Then it was on to the beach. Again more to have a look at what was going on. The tide was well out, and there were two hours until dark so the chances of the fishing boat returning to its trailer parked on the shore without a long wait were slim. The thunder was over to the east now and the sky clearing behind it casting low, warm, sunlight on the dunes. Luck favoured me and there was someone wearing a bright yellow jacket stood looking out to sea atop one of the sandhills. The yellow contrasting nicely against the blue-grey sky. All I had to do was get the framing and the timing right.

Landscape photographers are divided as to including people in their pictures. Luckily I'm not a landscape photographer so I don't give a toss. Although on the whole I prefer pictures with people in them regardless.

There are rarely any people in the sandplant these days, except when it's being worked on. After a period of inactivity I saw the other week that more work is going on. Calling in on my way home yesterday it looks like the outermost edge is being gradually skimmed back and the rubble and other junk that was under the old surface is being separated from the sand. It'll be a long process to remove all the hardcore and scrap metal to get the place anything like back to how it was. I guess in the days when the plant was started environmental issues were less of a concern. The coast road itself was built on building and household waste. I remember my parents tipping garden rubbish there. There must be all sorts under the road.

No matter what sort of photographer you are a rainbow is always hard to resist. Even when it's behind a pile of rubbish.

The rainbow arced right over the sandplant as I left it. I almost didn't take the shot when I noticed my shadow central in the frame, but now I think that is what makes it work. It's a connection of a person with the landscape. The play of light casting a foreground shadow helps balance the picture.

What the wanderings proved to me was that the long lens is still too long at the short end. That gap between the wide and long zooms was where I wanted to be a lot of the time. I suppose that if I stuck to that combination of lenses I might begin to 'see' in ways that suited them.

This afternoon I set out on another boredom relieving drive with even less idea of where to go or what to do. This time taking a daft combination of a moderately wide compact camera and the 85mm lens on a DSLR. Again I found myself falling between two stools. The only take away from the experiment being that the compact takes good shots, as does the 85mm.

Boring though it may be, I reckon for aimless wanderings a mid range zoom is more useful than anything I've tried this weekend. Then again, my two favourite shots form the lot were taken one at 18mm and the other at 200mm. So that's that theory blown!

The lack of poultry shows has made me realise that I'm desperately in need of a project to get my brain working.

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Give it a rest?

The line of least resistance is always the easiest one to take, and going to the beach has become a habit. Even when I head that way fully intending to go elsewhere I spot something that makes me think it's worth one more visit. Seeing the lifeguard's hut in place on the sea wall on Saturday was too much temptation to resist. It'll be there all summer so I should have stuck to my guns. That said I did get to update my picture of their vehicle near the pier, and get a decent shot of the warning notice when the tide had come in. Nothing fresh and interesting though.

The original idea had been to go round town and see if I could get inspiration for a new project. All that happened was I indulged my urge to photograph traffic cones. When I am faced with bright sunshine it always strikes me the pictures I take always look like someone else had taken them. This shot of cones has the added bonuses of a bike and a pigeon. What more could I want in a photograph?

As it turned out I did what I usually do in town and photographed boring stuff. Then I went to the art gallery to depress myself looking round the annual open exhibition of dull and duller paintings and photographs.  Strange how the subconscious works though. When I reviewed my pics from the wandering I had a bit of a red and white thing going on and paired a couple of pictures up that I htought worked together. Someone once said that if you are going to include words in a photograph then you should intend them to be read.

I ended up back at the pier, which I always think should be a source of photographs but just doesn't get me interested. I gave up.

Sunday and I was determined to give the pier a serious look. I didn't get that far. The sandplant was bristling with twitchers, so I pulled in for a look around. It proved less interesting than I'd hoped. However, although no more work had been done to it things had changed. At least it looked like some rubbish had been dumped in it. Photographing there with blue skies and sunshine made a change, but I didn't stop long.

In the car park I saw a pick up with an empty trailer on the back. I guessed someone was out beyond the marsh on a quad. Like a fool I put my boots on and went for a look. It's a long walk, and slippy towards the end of the track. Searching my archive when I got home it surprised me how much mud has accumulated in less than five years. Where that was hardcore by the posts which mark the end of the track is now very muddy indeed.

Then:

Now:

There was indeed a quad out on the shore. Showing a vehicle going through water helps convey movement. Otherwise it can look very static. A quad is a very good idea for going far out on the shore. I was knackered when I got back to the car and couldn't face doing any more walking, so called it a day.

All that sunshine over the weekend and nothing achieved. I still can't settle on a project. The ideas I have seem like they'd make for decent photographs, but they don't have much to say or aren't the sort of subjects I want to learn more about. The beach people project keeps me interested because I have a bee in my bonnet about the beach belonging to the people and not to its self appointed custodians. Poultry keeping keeps me interested because I'm always learning something new about chicken husbandry and the fancy.

One thing's for sure. I'm going to have to drag myself away from the seaside or I'll end up fiddling about at the edges of the beach project. Time to trawl my archive and see if anything grabs my attention.

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Time for a change

Spring arrived with a vengeance this weekend. Warm sunshine did worked its magic and transformed the beach into the seaside with people tramping through mud in unsuitable footwear to reach a sandy spot to pitch their windbreaks. The traffic was prolific too, making the journey to and from the beach painful. I guess this all combines to provide me with a natural break for my beach project.

"Trudging slowly over wet sand"

Saturday was off-putting enough, but at least I had the experience of being in the middle of a swirling mass of Old English Sheepdogs! This madness resulted in one half decent picture. On the whole I took very few pictures over the weekend, deleted most of them, and got nothing to add to the project.

A short while back a mention of Adobe Spark appeared on one of my Twitter feeds. Investigation revealed that a branded version is available to use for free. So I've been giving it a try as a means of presenting short documentary projects. It's all been a bit suck it and see, but with some preplanning I'm sure I could make a decent job of it for something. What I've done so far can be found at Beach Life.

The toy camera continues to both please and annoy. The controls are frustrating in the extreme. I just can't find a combination of settings that makes it fit my way of working. If I'm not accidentally tocuhing the touch screen I'm pressing a button by mistake. The touch screen can be stopped form being touch sensitive, but then some buttons I use get switched to different functions. It's driving me nuts! And don't mention the lack of auto ISO in manual mode. Or the eye sensor that switches the screen off at inopportune moments...

The files are nice, for such a small sensor. Much better than any form the mirrorless cameras I've tried before.It's almost like having the set up I used in my old film days. One body and 28mm and 50mm equivalent leness. All of which I can get in two jacket pockets. I don't really need anything more. Apart from a couple of spare batteries. This is the biggest bugbear with mirrorless cameras. They eat batteries.

I have a project in mind for this camera where it's completely silent mode might be useful. I just have to force myself to leave the proper kit at home. Oh, and I might start using it for some video ideas. Eeek!!!

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Obsessed?

This beach project is becoming something I seem to be thinking about all the time and it keeps dragging be to the shore every time I get some spare time. Just when I think I have gone as far with it as I can for the time being a trip sees me getting a new opportunity. Sunday was looking unpromising as the sun had gone in by the time I got to the beach, earlier than usual but later than would have been ideal. Seeing the lifeguard vehicles parked up I knew they might be a chance of some pictures, but I was fully expecting them to be finishing off their training session b the time I reached them. For once luck was on my side and they weren't ready to leave, and they were happy to be photographed.

I always try to find the less obvious pictures when photographing something which has been done before. Always at the beach I like making pictures with lots of space and almost-silhouetted figures scattered across the frame. When I saw two lifeguards standing in similar poses, poses which reminded me of the Anthony Gormley statues down the coast at Crosby, I had to try to make them into a picture. The distant head and shoulders in the water was lucky, although deliberately included in the frame, as was the gas rig.

When photographing movement and gesture it doesn't always matter if the horizon slopes. Not to my mind. It can lend a sense of fluidity.

Fast moving action is difficult to express in a still image. The shape of a figure is important, but water splashes add to the effect. I didn't 'machine gun' to get this frame, it is one of just three I took. In one the shape of the figure was rubbish, in the other two it was good. This one got selected because one foot is visible, whereas in the other picture no feet can be seen.

When the training was over I was asked if I would take a team photo. Having learned a valuable lesson about group photographs a while ago I took a few shots in bursts to ensure I got at leaset one where nobody is blinking! I got the impression that they had done this sort of thing before as I didn't ask for the paddle board to be in front of the group!

I followed the lifeguards up the beach and had my lunch back at my car. Carl the kite boarder was arriving as I walked off the beach and on my return I spent a few minutes trying to get some action shots. But my heart wasn't in it. Partly because I was lacking the right lens for the job but mostly because I couldn#'t think of a use for action shots. Way down the beach, however, at the high point of the dunes there were a couple of paragliders to be seen. It would be a long walk but maybe worth it.

This was my downfall. I should have realised that a fast disappearing horizon and a wall of grey getting larger by the minute meant rain was approaching. When I was within striking distance of the paragliders they fell to earth a minute or two be fore the rain did. It goes without saying that my waterproof jacket was in the car. I trudged the mile and a half or so through the dunes like an idiot. The rain was light but it wet the marram grass, which in turn soaked my trousers, which wicked the water down into my wellies.

I must have been downhearted because instead of photographing a spectacular football in the dunes I kicked it out of my way! My camera seems to have survived as I managed to cram it into my tiny shoulder bag to keep it dry.

Monday was a brighter day than forecast. As work has returned to normal volumes I slipped out in the early afternoon, fully expecting there to be nobody at the beach and intending to take some comparison shots with my new camera and my current compact. I was pleasantly surprised to see two men putting nets out on the beach, and within walking distance.

I was still a little late to photograph the process close up, but at least I got some shots to document the activity.

While my 'big' camera has a flip down screen the focusing in live view isn't as snappy as with compacts and mirrorless cameras. The new camera also has a flip down screen. The main factor in me buying it as I want to use it for a couple of projects I have in mind in the same way as some medium format film cameras are used at waist level. Having two old and knackered knees which make squatting to get a lower viewpoint painful a flip down screen helps get the camera down low. I tried to get some different perspectives. Not all together successfully.

Today I had to go to the bank and the supermarket. With work done for the day that gave me the chance to walk around for a bit playing with the new toy. Not only did I want to use the flippy screen I also wanted to take advantage of the camera's aspect ratio choices and try to use the square format.

The square is noted to be difficult to compose pictures in. It's rarely used in painting. Yet there have been photographers who have used it well. It had crossed my mind to pick up a film camera that shoots square from waist height, but I recalled the faffing about when I tried going retro before. Maybe someday, but not right know.

I started off trying to set the camera up to suit me, but that continues to prove difficult. Although the touch screen is great for moving the focus point quickly to where I want it I keep managing to touch the screen accidentally, and move the point to where I don't want it. For casual street photography it's probably best to leave the camera to choose the focus point itself and switch the touch screen off.

The fold down screen is good for candid photography. I'm just going to have to shorten the strap and start wearing the camera round my neck instead of over my shoulder. The lower than eye-level viewpoint gives pictures a different look. And for one of the projects I have in mind it will make the pictures more engaging to the viewer.

I can't fault the quality of the images from the camera, and despite it being a Panasonic like the G2 I had some time back, the colours are much nicer to my eyes. It's not great at higher ISOs in low light conditions. Not the sort of low light I photograph in at any rate (and I am spoiled by the big camera in that respect) but if I can get used to handling the damned thing I think it might prove to be a good 'round town' tool. The silent shutter combined with a wide angle lens means you can photograph people up close without them knowing anything about it!

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