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Friday 29 June 2012

366 update!


 This weeks 266 theme, 'decay derelict and abandoned' offered plenty of scope for some fun images!

so a walk down to Pembrey, a little stroll around some ideal first time buyers properties and a dusting off, of some cut flowers!


great theme!

Steve

The new idea

Alice in wonderland has been great fun and still is. It is great that we have an ongoing project and theme to keep us busy and excited. But occasionally we have been getting ideas for shots that may not fit in to that category but good all the same.
After a in-depth chat an idea for a project that we could run along side the Alice theme was thought of. What if we were to go with a title of 'Dirty Thought in a Clean Mind', now this is a topic that can be interpreted as many things. The idea that something can be so out of place that it would change a simple image into something totally different, like a seed being planted in a thought so that it would inevitably overgrow that thought creating something new.
So lots of fun, bizarre and creative shots to come hopefully.

Jenny xx

I love the idea that thought can travel in a mind, something you see can work its way through your psyche. 'A dirty thought in a clean mind' is a notion that to me signifies a lot of imagery, perhaps because it might be taken to be sexual or deviant, but I think the beauty is deeper than these simple analogies. I think a dirty thought is any thing which challenges the clean 'status quo' that we surround and protect ourselves with, there the Ivy that slowly break through the structure of the walls we build to protect us. So quite simply to me it's the things which challenge and disturb us, not because there so graphic that we can't remove the anguish of seeing them, but because they slowly infiltrate our thoughts, slowly we might learn and change through them. 'A dirty thought in a clean mind' is anything that isn't on our minds guest list!

Steve

Thursday 21 June 2012

always a bridesmaid never a bride!

Well, not quite.. But anyhow a second place for me with the 'unspoken word' print last night and nothing for the 'long wait' image! the critique was great, artistically minded not simply photographically minded and an emotional response as much as a technical one. I really enjoyed this kinda approach (but then both my images had pleasant feedback so that helped! :)
of course theres always new things to learn and rules to be applied and any artist brings a few of there own or a few of there own approaches to theses rules, some thing quite different to take into consideration. I also had some interesting advice about how to help make the prints 'pop' more so have been keen to play with that..

In the meantime heres a taster of this weeks 366 black and white theme!


Steve


As for mine, it didnt come in the top 6 but i am not disapointed. As Steve has said the critique was great and a lovely change from the techical critique we usually have. So here is my image from this comp
Jennyxx

Monday 18 June 2012

Competition critique!

Well Wednesday's the big day for the open print competition and a chance to see the standard in the club, I'm very nervous i have two pieces in, both of which I'm very proud of. The judge this time is a local artist, she paints with strong vivid colours and makes fairy tales of places to my eye. Great stuff. It will certinally be interesting to see what she makes of photography and how she takes her knowledge as an artist and applies it to her eye as a photography judge. Anyhow we will see Wednesday and I'll will let you all know may thoughts as i do! :)

Reflection from the weekend

The first Alice in Wonderland shoot did not go to plan as the equipment we were meant to borrow was not available and our model was sick. But after all the prep we put in we decided to go ahead and shoot each other, this was to be a learning practice as well as a project that we have taken on.

The first lesson that we learnt was that for a shoot we need the extra pair of hands (seeing as we were both models we didnt have that). Lesson number two, flash guns are a good source of light to boost or help enhance the light you have, but are NOT good as a primary sources of light. Lesson three, white background is hard to knock out if you dont have the required strength of light from your flash.

But after all that I think that we have both got good shots... maybe not as good as we had hoped ,but good all the same. So here are some shots form the weekend and the start of a little collection (we will still have our day with our lovely model).

Jennyxx




Sunday 10 June 2012

Thursday 7 June 2012

the summer of discontent

well a little rant from me today!

Rules, what are the purpose of rules in photography? there there to help us maintain a quality, a standard as such. There there to help us keep interest and to direct the viewer around the photo. There there to keep things safe? some would say there there to help us be better photographers and that you must understand rules fully before you can break them.. Really? do we need to understand rules before we break them?

Lets understand the child the free minded exploritive liberal mind of a child! they do little for rules, they don't care much for time and place and whens and wheres they care little for what a monster really looks like or in fact asks if monsters really exist, but they draw them, with skies in the air and suns in the corner! We educate the child to accept rules, for who's benefit the child or societies and ours? OK big question I know, but look as photographers or artists we need to challenge rules we need to say 'I like that' 'I want this to happen' and the results are no worse or no better, but yet the rules dictate so to us. We are fooled to belong to a set of tried and tested rules, rules which keep us safe and keep others safe from missing something with in! I'm not sure I like these rules, I'm not sure I want to look at a picture as an artist and say thats not acceptable because the tops cropped of or the colour isn't accurate, (did Monet fail because he saw a wider spectrum of colour than we do) I'm not sure that I want the image to be focused on every shot or the rule of thirds to apply. I want to capture things with Lenses that restrict me and I want to use angles and turn the world on its head. WHY!!!! Why do I want to do this, because a picture that I can experience is a place I could have gone to a memory I could have had. Don't get me wrong I love to see others memorys or interpretations of a place, capture the game on the weekend or the view from the castle they visited, I love all of that. I am after all the worlds biggest sunset whore, I could take there picture every night. BUT... I also want to see your daydreams the places we want to go or don't perhaps your nightmares, I want to see and share my fears and my hopes my colours and shapes that excite me I want to say look at the beauty in that light bulb the amazing mechanics or the fantastic colours in the defocused blur! Why because thats what I have to offer that unique, its what makes me me! Is that wrong, is the chid wrong to dream of monsters and crazy factories full of helper robots! to imagine cars that fly or butterflies in peoples hair! Isn't that beauty and isn't that what we here to do, make day dreams real?

Happy making things real, making butterflies out of paper and a wood flooring on our beaches, happy to challenge the Status Quo, and happy to say the rules are great, I know some of them, and use some of them, but I won't live by them, that would be dull.

Steve

whats your thoughts?

Saturday 2 June 2012

a days shooting!

a very long day, but the results were worth it! early night for me, but follow the link to the finished result!
the finished result. shot 1