Ditchtych

It hadn't been my intention to take any photos today, but after a visit to the bank I made a detour on the way home and stumbled upon a ditch that is in the process of being re-profiled. I had taken the X10 along with me just in case so grabbed a few snaps. The wind was icy and the light fading, so I couldn't do much more.

Back home I played around with a triptych as an exercise in proportion. What this revealed to me was that this sort of thing needs to be planned in advance so that the three images work together. If I'd put the digger on the right and flipped the pipe photograph the eye would have been lead towards the centre frame from both outer pictures instread of wandering from right to left and out. As this was only an experiment it doesn't matter. The format is something that I'm thinking about using seriously at some point. Having to think out something in advance will be another venture out of my comfort zone. Which keeps things interesting.

Rather more successful, but not perfect, was a panoramic shot. I like the way it shows the unworked ditch, a section that's been roughly shaped and the finished job all in one picture. A pity that this sort of thing works much better at larger than screen size. If I didn't hate most things technical I'd be more tempted to use a 'proper' camera to make panoramics from multiple shots. I suppose I could always stick the fisheye on one and chop the middle 'letterbox' out of the pictures!

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Unexpected pleasures

Today I had to take a trip to Liverpool and left enough time for a wander and a visit to the Tate.

I'd found out that there were some Keith Arnatt photographs on show in the Thresholds exhibition. The A.O.N.B series won't be to everyone's taste but it chimes with my view of the British landscape. Somehow I had missed the fact that there was other photography on show, so I was pleasantly surprised to see the work of Martin Parr and Sophie Calle exhibited.

What struck me was the different ways in which the works were presented. Arnatt's gelatin prints were mounted and framed in traditional style and hung in a row. Parr's laser prints were pinned to the wall unmounted in a grid. Calle's black and white pictures appeared to be printed as a grid on one sheet, framed behind glass, with a similar frame above of a colur picture and explanatory text. There was another work by Simryn Gill (who was new to me) consisting of 260 prints pinned to the wall in a large grid. I found that the least well presented as the prints were too small, detailed and numerous to be viewed or read easily. The lighting was also a bit dim at that end of the gallery.

None of these works seemed drastically different to viewing them in print or on the web. The image areas were no more than A3. The Arnatts a mere 8"x10". What was different was the Thomas Demand. At screen or book size the pictures of scenes recreated in card and paper look convincingly naturalistic. At the large size presented in the gallery the deception is clearly apparent. While this is no doubt a major part of the point, it made the exercise less interesting for me. I think I'd rather view the actual construction. Even so, as with much concept driven visual art, the idea is greater than the object. And when it's been done once, does it really need repeating?

The Open Eye Gallery has two new exhibitions opening on Friday, so I'll try and make longer cultural visit to the big city soon to visit that and revisit the Tate.

The rest of today's half decent stuff here.

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Web whinge (again) and a look at light

One of the biggest drawback to web display is the lack of detail available. This isn't quite the picture I was aiming for, but it makes a point. The idea is to have something small, but interesting, in a large expanse of 'nothing'. For this to work that something small has to be readable. At web size the detail isn't readable.

The crop below shows the detail better, but still not all that the full size file reveals. It also demonstrates just what you can 'get away with' when cropping for the web - something which quite a few people appear to do as a matter of course. While it might be a form of elitism there is something to be said for not cropping photos. It shows that you have an eye for a picture. If you habitually crop then it strikes me that you don't have an eye, or are bone idle!

The next two pictures are a simple example of how quickly the light can change on a windy day, and how it can change photographs.

It's subtle but noticeable. More noticeable when clicking back and forth between the two on the camera's screen. The annoying animation below demonstrates it clearly.

These two pictures have reminded me to think more about the light as part of composition. It is an aspect that I all too often neglect, concentrating on the arrangement of shapes and colours in the frame.

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Space

The more I post pictures on the internet the more it seems a poor viewing experience. These days I make prints of all the pictures I think have something about them then I frame them in cheap frames to ponder over them. What is important is to make sure there is enough space around the picture to show it at it's best. That is why computer screens are poor for viewing. There's always clutter, as the first picture proves.

When I make prints on A4 paper to go in my cheapo A4 frames I don't print right to the edge, or use the smallest border possible, I leave at least an inch between picture and paper edge. If I were to use as much of the paper as possible I'd be mounting the pictures to go in larger frames. Which I might get round to one of these days for a few choice images.

Adding a virtual frame, as in the version below (which could do with even more space for the 'mount' in my opinion), helps somewhat, but for becomes wearing when multiple images are presented in that way. Again it's down to space. They are usually too close together - as on a Flickr page for example. Space around the frame helps to define a picture even more, so I've given this one extra here.

It's not a perfect virtual frame, I made it using an on-line tool. The border could be wider, especially at the bottom. I hope it makes my point that how a picture is displayed affects how it is perceived nonetheless.

Something similar applies to books of photographs. Unless they are books of documentary pictures which work as a group I think photographs are best displayed one on each right hand page, with plenty of space around them. I dislike seeing photographs printed to the page edge and/or run over two pages. It's acceptable in a magazine, but if the book is just photographs, then it detracts from the viewing experience. That's my two bob's worth at any rate.

PS Click on the first picture for a larger (but still imperfect) comparison of the two.

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