10/6/20

Day 1 of diary entries and my day began with waking up and listening to the birds singing. What could be better? I then though about what to do for the rest of the day, this will inevitably involve photography in some shape or form. I am quite selfish in my approach to things and my studies are undertaken in much the same manner. I am a bit of a perfectionist and I don’t mean that arrogantly, it is not a trait I am particularly keen on. I find it difficult to carry out the most mundane activities sometimes, because if I cant do it properly then largely I become frustrated. This has also impacted many things in my life, but also my photography. I do feel though that I am beginning to approach my work in a much more liberal way, and I have become less caught up in some of the more technical aspects of photography. Thankfully.

I did some work on my blog and then took an hour or so out to do an indoor cycle ride. I use Zwift which is like an online racing / social cyclist app that tracks speed, mileage amounts other things. I am trying to get into some form of routine and am training 5/6 days a week. Maybe this is to much, only time will tell.

I recently updated my blog and took the time to reflect on my tutor feedback on Assignment 2. I was happy with he comments and made some subsequent alterations to the images, which I do find improve the images. What I do find is the process of mapping out your work before approaching it really helps in achieving what you set out to do. You do need a clear vision of what you want.

I then looked at a few images from EYV and ran them through a different editing process to see creatively how they differ. I took the first image whilst working on Assignment 4 in EYV and never really liked it. I added a vertical crop and a monochrome edit and it seems to work. Well it does for me anyway. I added some shadow to the foreground to isolate the wheel and lessen the impact of the people within the frame.

I like the bottom image but in others I don’t. The perspective strikes me, but it just doesn’t seem lie it says anything. Maybe I have looked at it to much. Must be said aswell that my sensor was very dirty and took me a while to sort in process. Bad move on my part, and a real pain.

Overall a fairly relaxed day with me updating my blog and looking at the initial exercises in the next part of C&N.

11/06/20

Another day in lockdown means there is not a huge amount to report. Myself, my wife and children are all currently in the home most of the day, apart from minimal exercise and this can create some tension. On the whole though it has been ok, and I am very proud of how my children have adapted. It has been a challenging time for everyone, and the reality is that I am lucky to be in full time employment. I want long ago that I was registered as self employed, but without going into to much detail it didn’t work out, and I had to seek full time chef employment. I am now extremely thankful I did.

I recently took some images at a favourite location and took the time to blog about it in may learning log – https://danieltowellocacontextandnarrative.photo.blog/a-day-by-the-sea/.

The bulk of my day was taken up with processing images and blog work, which has been a godsend in terms of keeping me focused during lockdown. I have also done a large amount of cooking during this period and I do really enjoy cooking for my family. For the most part it is the evening entertainment and it is a pleasure for us all to share the table together. I am a little bit old fashioned in that sense, as is my wife and we both have the same family values.

After dinner the usual hour or so was spent in front of the box, although I don’t personally watch a vast amount of television. I have quite enjoyed Gangs of London recently and London Kills, both really good, gritty crime dramas. I seem to have a fascination with crime, and in particular serial killers. If I could go back in time I would have loved to have been a criminologist. Maybe I wasn’t cover enough or well enough informed in school, but I don’t think I had much idea back then what I wanted to do.

I then played around with some more images which are below.

I saw this image sprawled across my bedroom ceiling one morning as the early sunlight peeped through my curtains. My fascination with light and dark continues to grow.

I took this a good while ago whilst in Weymouth and didn’t really like it at first. I knew what I wanted but wasn’t sure I had nailed it. If I could change anything I would remove the thin blade of grass that is behind the main subject as it does distract slightly.

12/06/20

Another day in lockdown paradise and a small step closer to the weekend. It seems that the weeks fly by at the moment and I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing! I can only feel for the people on the frontline, key workers and shop workers that have had to carry on during the pandemic. It must be extremely difficult for them and I am thankful in some ways I don’t work in those sectors. To be honest I don’t really see myself as a people person, and this is perhaps emphasised in my photography. I have been known to take a few street style shots, but for the most part I seem to avoid scenes with people in them. I don’t feel this is always necessarily intentional, but my empathy seems to lie elsewhere. Most probably in the landscape, judging and reflecting on my work.

After a bit of breakfast and helping my children with their schoolwork, I took a bit of time out and went for a run. I am trying to get some form of fitness back, but my motivation seems to fluctuate greatly. I achieved a number of gaols with my running over the last few years, including a sub 20min 5k, sub 1hr30 half marathon, and competing Bournemouth Marathon, albeit not in the time I had hoped for. For me running is not just a mental release but it is something that has led me to find out much about myself. I find this the most interesting part, as someone who has kind of struggle to know exactly who they are. Anyhow a nice run in the sun was had and a valuable step in the fitness direction.

By this now it was lunchtime and I made some wraps etc for me, the wife and the kids. My wife is continuing to work from home and I must say it has been difficult for her, she works in admin for the NHS in occupational health. But she has coped admirably and has adapted well to her new situation although it hasn’t been without its ups and downs.

I feel that my diary is becoming a little photography based, but due to being in lockdown and not having a place of work as such, my days are pretty much the same. I am trying to find other things to discuss and put into context but I seem to do little else. I spend most time reading, researching, looking, dissecting, and digesting photography. Like most tings in my life when interest takes hold it can become a bit of an obsession.

Below are a couple of images I revisited before the day was out.

This was taken at my local skate park and I quite like how the two landscapes collide in the frame. The boy on the skateboard was simply there at the time.

I am not sure where I took this, but I quite like the minimal appearance and thin slice of skyline. I took this image on my phone.

I took this image whilst in Nodes Point, Isle of Wight, and there is something I like. It doesn’t really work though, perhaps not enough contrast and I don’t like the way the background is not level. If I could change anything I remove some of the trees to the left of the frame to level it out. I think this would help to isolate the tree and give a better sense of depth.

13/06/20

Another weekend in lockdown arrives and my wife is working this weekend. The normal weekend activities of football training for any son and dancing for my daughter have all rather abruptly stopped unfortunately. My daughters dance class are doing an online meet up so she partakes in that every Saturday morning. It is good to keep some level of routine flowing in amongst all the madness.

After breakfast and dance I took my children to the park to run off some steam and have a kick about. It didn’t take long for them to get bored so we were only out for a short time. I am lucky enough to live by a local park which has a couple of play areas and a set of goalposts. It is a lovely area of Totton, but does have its ups and downs with antisocial teenage/ adult behaviour. Overall though it is like anywhere I guess, and we are perfectly situated to watch the children grow up.

After the kick about it was lunchtime, and after a bit if a rest I did a bit of reading. Pretty much everything I read at the moment is photography related, and I am slowly working through the Genius of Photography by Stephen Shore. It is a fascinating read and one that I find is easily digestible. My memory these days doesn’t seem to hold information we’ll I am afraid and often find myself re-reading pages, to make sure I get the picture so to speak.

Saturday night in my house is generally curry night and tonight was no different. Washed down with a couple of glasses of red I decided to process a couple of images. Nothing interests me about Saturday night television, in fact I despise most of it, so this makes for some quality me time! Images below..

This image of a park bench was taken on a rainy walk with my children when we took shelter under a large tree. At first I didn’t like it, but then I cropped it horizontally and played with it in photoshop. I played with tomes and filters and am not overly disappointed in the results.

I saw an image similar to this somewhere and simply wanted to recreate it. I used my 1.8g 50mm lens to take this a few days ago.

This was also taken in Nodes Point (obviously) and I like the way the image draws on the depth of the scene and the sign becomes the main subject in the frame.

After this it was time to hit the hay and I start to digest initial thoughts for my images in the next assignment.

14/06/20

Sunday Bloody Sunday!!!

I am afraid I am not religious in any shape or form, although I do love architecture and in particular churches. I have also been reading my work in EYV for assessment, which has ben a really enjoyable experience. During this I have had to contextualise my work amongst other things and today I revisited an assignment (collecting) where I photographed churches. I decided to rework the images in black and white, although this was not the feel I initially wanted, I thought it would make for good practice and further digestion. Below are a couple of shots from the set.

I also took the time to reflect on the course and how I was feeling about where I had come etc. This was an extremely valuable exercise and one that I found very easy to engage with. I also made a short video to discuss this but unfortunately I cannot upload the video to this site, and I am not a premium wordpress subscriber. I found doing a video very productive and it great for me to reflect on may work in this manner. This is definitely something I will be continuing throughout my coursework.

Sunday lunch the followed and a time for us as a family to stop and take stock for a while. There is something about the Sunday roast at lunchtime that I find quite special, perhaps the feelings are linked to my childhood memories. We generally have roast chicken but today we had leg of lamb! I have to say it was delicious and slow cooked for a number of hours. Good news is that there is some left for sandwiches tomorrow, pass the mint sauce!

A chilled afternoon followed, and after letting the lunch go down I decided add some more work to the G Dive for assessment.

A quiet evening in front of the tv was followed by some contemplation on some my images I had on my phone. See below.

The two images below were both taken on my iPhone, one was a good couple of years ago and the other as more recent. As much as I agree than sunrises and sunsets are overdone, there is something that is quite mesmerising about them in the right setting.

This was a snapshot I took while out on a run, and edited in lightroom. I personally prefer the cropped square edit that I used on instagram. I don’t really think colour adds anything to the image or this feeling of this particular scene. Maybe it is the lack of apparent subject matter.

A hazy wintery morning in the forest, and taken on my iPhone and reworked for my instagram feed. I like both images equally here but think the sun is less harsh in the black and white version, which is better suited to the scene.

15/06/20

As is the case of most days now (I am still furloughed) I tend to spend most of them thinking about, researching or practicing photography. I have spent quite a bit of time recently updating my instagram page for a number of reasons. Firstly and most importantly because I enjoy it. I have struggled for a while with documenting my photography well on social media, and portraying myself as a “photographer”. I have dabbled in Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr but could never really settle into a coherent routine or medium if you like. So I decided to focus on instagram, I have heard many say that you should do one area of social media well rather than three or four badly. I plan to focus my creative energy into this medium alongside my OCA blogs.

I took some images today of flowers in my garden (images below) and took some time to edit them on Lightroom using various techniques. I feel like my editing skills are improving but I still don’t use photoshop much. I can’t relate to it whole heartedly, maybe I am not intelligent enough, or technically proficient, but Lightroom seems to do everything I need. I am still in a quandary about this. On Saturday I did some high key photography with flowers, overall it was quite successful, and used a two light setup (see below).

I had a SB 700 speed light to the right of the setup which was focused on the white background. Unfortunately I don’t think it was direct enough and the white card perhaps could have been “whiter” for that high key look. I wanted a slightly ethereal look to the images so I reduced the texture and clarity a bit. Some images worked better than other, but in general I think I need to plan better. I genuinely feel this is why I make more mistakes, I am to often a little gung ho. Couple of images below.

Relatively happy with the results but more work needed. But a useful play with light and a worthy experiment. I also played with the editing of these images and some monochrome looks. I think I lost some detail due to blowing out highlights with the fill light. When I revisit this I will be setting the fill light directly on the card at the back of the subject. It can be seen from the above images that both seem to have a different tone in the backdrop. May be worth noting I used an aperture of around f/13 and f/16 for detail.

The images I took today (of flowers in my garden) were experimenting with perspective and the editing process. I am drawn to faded film look at the moment, some in sepia and some not. I also love adding some grain to the images where appropriate to my mental model. These were shot in natural light in my garden.

The above image was edited into a square format and some editing techniques used for a more aged feel. I am not sure if I like the leaf to the top left of the frame. But in some ways how it seems to be almost kissing the flower head is quite nice.

Other than this it was a rest day from exercise so nice in that respect. I have two new books, one which arrived today “The making of landscape photographs” by Charlie Waite, which looks great so will be reading this evening. The other book is “The Photographers eye” by John Szwakorski, again which is providing a valuable read and I am making good progress with it. Besides this I am slowly digesting “Camera Lucida” by Roland Barthes which I am enjoying and quite happy to take my time with. I almost approaching it as if I were reading poetry, a paragraph or so at a time, I am enjoying it this way.

I have also revisited some of my landscape work and played with infrared filters in process. Some really nice results and again very interesting.

I am trying to keep this brief with bullet point type paragraphs. I quite like the 2nd image, if an image could sum up my present state of mind with my photography, this would be it.

I have also spent a lot of time watching some YouTube documentaries and in particular looking at Faye Godwin and Francesca Woodman. Both intriguing photographers and I can see some similarities with train of thought with both artists, in particular Godwin. I love her landscape work and intend to draw inspiration from her work in my final images for assignment 3. I have a real empathy with her style of work and could see my style being very similar to hers, I love the way she portrays the British landscape. Woodman was certainly an enigma and I watched with great interest a documentary about her family, which leaves some quite disturbing thoughts with why she ended her life so abruptly and in such an awful way. Ultimately she was an amazing photographer and I have always had great interest with characters such as hers, I will be continuing my research with her also.

16/6/20

Another of diary inserts and the day began fairly slowly with the bulk of the morning spent helping my son with his homework as he is still currently at home due to lockdown restrictions. I then spent an hour or so looking at some of my images and retouching them for my instagram feed. I also spent a short while reading some more of Charlie Waites book and also looked at his webpage and signed up to his newsletter. I really like the book and feel that I have much in terms of similarities with his way of work, I also find myself being more fascinated buy the world of landscape photography. He seems to imbue such a likeminded approach to the landscape and I am really enjoying how he is putting this into context as to how and why we find the still landscape image so intriguing. Today was also my 13th wedding anniversary so we decided to head to the beach for an evening stroll. I wanted to spec out Calshot spit as a possible location for my Assignment 3 images after taking some inspiration from both Fay Godwin and Francesca Woodman. The spit is a mile long sand and shine bank at the end of Southampton Water and is also home to Calshot Castle. I headed out with the camera also to take some shots and had an idea of doing my self portraiture in the vein of Woodman in the castle grounds. Unfortunately it just didn’t seem right for the shoot but I got some valuable images using my 24-70mm lens with my Cokin Circular polarising filter. I also got some nice images of Fawley refinery which provided a compelling subject in such a setting with the cloudy, hazy evening light. I really like working with the filter but it does make for some heavy vignetting at 24mm. This can be corrected but a little frustrating. I did take my tripod and other filters but it didn’t seem right for longer exposures and the images were more about me trying to find things within the landscape, in the way Godwin found the unusual and captivating. Upon arriving home I further read some of the book by Waite and found a superb video of a speech by him on YouTube. A really superb hour or so of him documenting his approach to landscape photography and how we relate to these still images. I find myself being more drawn to this genre of photography more and more, its almost feels like a natural pull in that direction. It just feels like it is what I should be photographing…

It also looks like I need to clean my sensor again as it still seems full of horrible dust marks and grease. This will be the third time in two weeks, I can’t seem to get it right!

17/06/20

Day 3 of my diary and I have to say I am finding this practice very useful for a number or reasons. The day began with spending a relaxing half an hour or so in bed with my son watching star war “The Phantom Menace”! I am not an avid film watcher but do enjoy various types of movie, I tend to look at them very differently now, and see that in some ways my taste has changed in what I want to watch. I currently really like the Hollywood cheese type film, easy watching stuff, which I used to hate! I watched “You’ve got Mail” with Tom Hanks about a week ago and found it fascinating. I love how they use the lighting and setting etc to create the aesthetics. I am also fascinated by the whole nature of big cities and how people live in these multi – cultural places like NYC. Maybe it is because I never did it myself….One of life’s regrets….

I then spent some time with my son with his maths homework as my wife was working. I then carried out some chores (groan) before setting a couple of tasks in the garden. I moved some wild flowers I have planted which have now developed considerably in pots, and also moved my buddleia which has also started to mature. I then deduced to look at some of my images from the shoot at Calshot Spit and do some further edits. I am still playing with ideas and wanted to create different dynamics with composition and mainly tonal range. I am recently found how important the tone curve can be when editing and feel that is helping my work. I still had to remove huge areas of grease/dust from my images. I don’t think I got cleaning the sensor right last time. Here are some images I edited into a square format.

I actually like the (unintended) flare effect here from shooting into the sun. I lost quite a lot of information in the process of converting into a square frame, but I purposely left the antenna in the bottom left of the frame. I just think it adds something to the image, a suggestion of something else almost. Something I learnt from reading Charlie Waites book, if you put your thumb over it remove it the whole nature of the image changes.

I love perspective.

Putting this into a square frame seems to add dynamism to the power station, almost pushing it to the front of the image adding a false sense of perspective. I also slightly brought up the exposure of the tower itself with an adjustment brush and I think this helps the image greatly, if only a very subtle adjustment.

I then spent a 1hr30min on Zwift, an indoor cycling app. Following that I prepared dinner and whilst doing so checked my emails on my phone. I then discovered a Zoom meeting with Andrea Norrington which I was unaware of, so decided to join at 630pm. It was highly informative and very informative as Andrea discussed how to approach creativity, assignments and coursework in general. Very, very useful and also picked up on some more fantastic resources she mentioned from books to Ted talks on YouTube.

The main thing I would say I took away from the meeting was how Andrea discussed approaching creativity as a “muscle” and the need to continually “flex” it. This idea seemed to make perfect sense, and something I didn’t really realise I was doing, but now I understand it I can use it to better benefit. I also loved the idea of “photo-sketching” and how Stephen Shore used this type of idea when working on American Surfaces, where he in particular photographed food, although this was more of a side project to what he was actually shooting. Andrea mentioned this is a great way to be photographing more and continually flexing the creative muscle, and it can be snapshots on a phone or another device. I do take image son my phone (iPhone 11) and it is a good camera. I have recently revisited some of my phone camera shots and ran them through Lightroom to some pleasing results, see below.

Perhaps to much grain above?

The last two images were taken in Pisa, Italy almost 4 years ago.

I digress, anyhow I am just not entirely settle on using a phone for any type of photography, I just like the feel of a real camera in my hands. So I decided to use my Canon Lumix compact camera as my “sketching” camera. I will also only photograph in black and white on this camera, as it was mentioned that you should think differently when setting out to photograph in black and white. I then started to take some images around the home that caught my eye and took some sketching shots. I am looking forward to see where this method of working takes me. I will update with some images in the coming days diary entries.

I then relaxed for a while, before finishing watching a superb Charlie Waite talk on Landscape photography on YouTube. Absolutely fascinating watch and I have taken a lot from how he approaches his work. He also referred to how Ansel Adams was so vital to the genre, and perhaps is as vital today. I aim to look more into his work.

Oh nearly forgot, I spent some time finishing my write up on Francesca Woodman on my blog, and began to formulate ideas for my shoot. After responding to my thoughts with some images (link here – https://danieltowellocacontextandnarrative.photo.blog/research-francesca-woodman/) I have this idea of doing my shoot in my garage.It has this isolated feel that could work with dramatic lighting and movement blur. I am also thinking of using a mirror and some reflections, perhaps with me holding signs or things that deliver emotional content and meaning. Food for thought.

References

Reference – (ONLINE) – Charlie Waite – Behind the Photograph https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbUmjkhjjZ0 (last accessed 17/06/20)

18/06/20

The day started with a few updates on Instagram and a bit more reading of ” The Photographers Eye” By John Szwakorski, excellent reading. I then spent some time revisiting the shoot at Calshot Spit and some more editing in different styles.

I revisited the above image with a more aged feel, using a Lightroom preset that I adjusted to my preference or vision.

The image of cruise ship is quite vernacular but I liked the way the man is kite surfing next to the ship in the frame giving a sense of scale. I had to wait a few moments before the man appeared where I wanted him.

It seems from working on this diary I am spending most of my time taking images or studying photography and to be honest that is probably the case.

I then helped my son with more homework by this point it was mid afternoon, after the morning was fluffed out with some general pottering around and about. At this stage of the day I began to work on a project I had been thinking of, using shells reflected on a mirror and and using my Polaroid camera. I wanted to take some dreamy type images, but unfortunately they just didn’t work. My Polaroid just didn’t pick up enough detail and it was a little frustrating to get the angles right etc. I wanted to use my LED torch to light the shots but they were just getting blown out. Whilst it struck me that this set of images would not work, I spotted my sunglasses to the side of me strewn on the table. I decided then to use my Canon IXUS compact camera for a project in the view of “where are my f…. glasses”, you know the feeling when you can’t remember where the hell you put them as you race around the house to get out the door on time?! It was a basic idea but I was excited to use my compact camera in this way as id never really does it previously. This was an opportunity for me to photo sketch and not worry about camera settings. I was shooting in monochrome and wanted a Daido Moriyama style feel to the images. I edited the images in Lightroom and added some grain to simulate the feel of some of Moriyama’s work. I wanted a sort of frantic feel to the images so I pushed up the highlights in the tone curve and drew down the shadows to emphasis the feeling of movement. Below is the final set of images.

Life of shades

On reflection on the images I am quite happy. It was really fun to do, and lighthearted in a way id never worked before. It was a way to flex the creative muscle and challenge myself and my way of thinking. I removed a coupe of images that I don’t feel worked with the set, and this was only after I had settled on them initially. Its very interesting to see that your frame of mind on a set can change overnight as this did.

After editing the images for “….shades” the family and I watched a light hearted movie with Steve Martin. As I mentioned earlier I am really drawn to this type of movie at the moment which seems to be completely opposite of the photography I want to produce. Interesting.

I then watched a John Szarkowski documentary that was fascinating (see reference below) and gave me much food for thought. It also provided me with some more great photographers to research such as Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, Art Shay and Lee Freidlander, amongst others. Compelling viewing.

References

Reference – (ONLINE) John Szarkowski – A life in photography – https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Szarkowski-Life-Photography/dp/B07VN9B67G/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=john+szarkowski+documentary&qid=1592564742&sr=8-2 (last accessed 18/9/20)

19/6/20

Crucial day here as it was assessment deadline day for EYV, so after breakfast and some home schooling I ran my eye over my work to make sure it was all there. I am pretty happy with what I have submitted, and there is not to much I could do to change it, I feel that in some way if would be wrong to rework every assignment now. It would not show any real development over the course itself. I then looked at some more images and reworked a couple of shots from the series I made yesterday.

I added some grain to both these images.

The bulk of my day then was researching self portraiture work for an exercise in C&N. I fund some useful videos and articles of Wearing, Mann and Brotherus as well as others such as Hockney, Friedlander and Maier. Some very interesting work and I am particularly drawn to the work of Vivian Maier, there is something about her nomadic style imagery that intrigues me. She seems to have presence within her work that is quite mysterious and this emphasised by shadows, reflection and unusual situations. She seemed to be able to turn very mundane scenes into fascinating photographs. Link here https://danieltowellocacontextandnarrative.photo.blog/exercise-1-brotherus-research-and-analysis/

Nothing much else to report today as a quiet evening with my family was the sum total of the day. Thoughts and feelings ranged from happiness to feeling a little confused about my photography. I sometimes wonder where this is all leading and what the final outcome will be. It seems very interesting to be taking images but sometimes I feel that they just don’t stand up. I feel that I am so far behind in my photography that perhaps I will never make the grade in time. Life is short.

20/6/20

Saturday consisted of more research and completion of my coursework exercise on Brotherus, Mann and Wearing. I found it quite fascinating how artists are almost obsessed with self portraiture and I had never really though of it in this manner. Today I was feeling quite optimistic about me photography and the ensuing journey, but this can be quite fluctuant, and I seem to go in peaks and troughs, largely like my frame of mind most of the time. I go back to how Elina Brotherus described herself, that she is quite a “serious” person, and her images often reflect how she feels when she is alone. I am also of this nature, some would perhaps say too serious but it is a personality trait that I don’t think I can change. My son had a party to go to which my wife took him to and I plugged away with some image work and research. I seem to do little else other than this currently! I decided to take a week off from my running and cycling training after quite a hard schedule for the last 7 weeks, give the body a bit of time for it to recover, I am nearly 45! I decided to take some images around the home with my compact camera, vernacular type imagery, mainly focusing on compositions, abstract ideas without the need to worry about camera settings. Below are some of the edited shots.

I am really enjoying this type of work and feel that it is comparable to the idea of flexing the creative muscle. I particularly like the frog image, where I purposely cropped his head from the frame, it seems to add to the weird nature of the image. The washing machine image I like because of the other side of the frame which seems to present an untold story. I quite like the blown out highlights and lack of detail, it seems to be in sharp contrast to the subject of the frame.

After dinner with the family I watched a great documentary on YouTube on Andre Kertesz, which was very interesting to here how he approached his work. It was also intriguing to see that most of his work was found in his local area, where he waited for the right moment to present itself before he took his images. He also says he absolutely sure of how the image will look before he takes it, seemed to envision the scene before hit actually happens.

Reference

Reference – (ONLINE) – Andre Kertesz – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olc_QLDPUeU (accessed 20/6/20)

21/6/20

After a rather spoilt start to the day (fathers day) we decided to pay a visit to my Father in Law to wish him a happy fathers day. Before this I was treated to some nice gifts and breakfast (weetabix) in bed with some nice black coffee. I then hit the shower and got myself freshened up. Taking some inspiration form some of the self portraits work I had seen I decided to take some images of my shadow in the back garden. The sun was quite low as it was early morning and it was very bright, ideal for these sort of shots. I took these with my canon ixus compact.

It is interesting how the reflections almost take on an identity and become almost alive. Again a simple but enjoyable process, and one which is helping me formulate my ideas for the final assignment. Due to the light being as it another image as the sun shone through may kitchen window, catching some nice shadows. Again shot with compact camera.

I also took what could be perceived as my first self portrait! This is me in deep thought whilst studying!

Not the most flattering off images but interesting nonetheless. I quite like its natural aesthetic where it doesn’t look like I am aware of my image being taken.

We then spent a rallied couple of hors with the family where a neighbour was giving away quail eggs, as the keep quails. Being a chef/cook I found this quite interesting and also quite a nice photograph.

This was followed by dinner and some time watching the football, the Merseyside derby. A poor and uneventful game in an empty stadium led me to turn off quite quickly, where I then decided to watch another documentary. This time it was Bill Brandt, and again very interesting. I didn’t want this diary exercise to be photography driven, but most of my days at the moment, particularly still being in lockdown, is filled with practical work or research. Hence the images and reflection.

Brandt also worked in much the same vein as Kertesz and a lot of his work was taken in his locality. I liked the way that he said he didn’t plan much of his work, he just seemed to let it happen, scenes unfolding before him. He also said that the majority of his work was done in the darkroom where he manipulated the image to suit the mood or feeling he wanted to portray. He said he changed images “completely’ in the darkroom working in black and white. He said he tried colour be felt it was never very good. It was also shared that Brandt did not like to talk about his images, but his particular favourite series in his work were his nude portraits, which he also did not like to talk about. He began his work in 1929 and said that he had never really “done anything else”. A lot of his work involved long exposures, some up to twenty minutes. He also says “one must have some luck in photography”.

Reference

Reference – (ONLINE) – Bill Brandt – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3KuY0quBsk (accessed 21/6/20)

22/6/20

The day started with taking my daughter to school as it was her first day back in about 3 months. It was nice to take in some fresh air and early morning sunshine. On the walk I spotted a couple of nice scenes I would like to photograph, so I will probably take my camera tomorrow, for some reason I forgot today. The morning then didn’t really consist of much as I had a shoot planned doing some food photography for a local butcher. I took some images using a two light setup on both a wooden backdrop and a slate backdrop. The shoot went fairly well and it was nice to shoot some food, I haven’t done it for a while.

After the shoot I went on my indoor cycle (Zwift) for about an hour to do a bit of exercise. I am trying to stay motivated and working hard to get back to a level of fitness I had a couple of years ago. I had a really bad health issue in February 2020, where I basically had some form of breakdown, this took me a good few months to get over and I was mentally and physically in pretty bad shape. I have suffered from mental health issues for most of my life, many of which stem from childhood and I believe the onset of this was when my parents were divorced at the age of 13. Without going into further detail I am now happy to be back out there trying, as when I was really ill I don’t think I saw a way back to any form of fitness. I am passionate about running and it has been my therapy for quite a few years now, not to day it hasn’t had its ups and downs, I have suffered from a number of injury setbacks one the last few years. But the feeling you get from it is pretty indescribable and I cant really put it into words, it just makes you feel so free and alive.

A relatively quiet evening followed and I took a bit of time to revisit a couple of images. See below.

I am finding that different editing processes don’t necessarily work for all images and although I am kind of drawn to this dark aesthetic currently, it just didn’t seem to fit the image of the diving frame on the beach. Although it lacks contrast I quite like the more blown out feel which seems to fit the scene. I wanted it to feel stark and desolate and I think it does that. I really like the reflection image, it’s almost like a double exposure and has a street style feel in a beach setting with a bit of landscape. Very interesting how this turned out. I took this way back in early March, but had not processed it until now. The image was intentional as I was sitting in a cafe with a coffee I noticed what was quite an interesting scene being reflected by a window in the cafe.

The day need with me falling asleep watching an Ansel Adams documentary! Sad times. I will have to blog about this on another occasion as I need to watch it again!

23/6/20

The day started with breakfast with the kids and then my son and I took my daughter to school. We chose to walk today and we also took my sons scooter. On the walk I took a snapshot of one of the scenes I had looked at the day before. I am currently looking quite intensely at light and shadows, and find it quite intriguing how some quite uninteresting things become quite beautiful in the right circumstances.

Snapshot in portrait mode of me and my son after our short run, taken on iphone 11.

The bridge we cross looking beautiful in the stunning morning sunshine.

I then edited the image in Photoshop on my phone into a square format for instagram posting. I really enjoy instagram currently, not in the way of gaining followers, but its just a nice way of organising all the images I take into some form of gallery.

After going for a short 2.5 mile run/walk scooter with my son, I then worked on processing the images from the food shot from the day before, and was relatively pleased with the outcome. I also spent some more time before lunch updating my blog. We were also having our fence renewed today so me and my wife oversaw this whilst doing some home schooling with my son.

I also worked on the exercise Childhood memories and decided on the image I wanted to replicate. I chose the particular image for a number of reasons, all of which are in my blog post. It was an enjoyable exercise and the course continues to challenge the way I work and what I photograph. I would never have done this type of work previously and it feels good to work in a way where image making is an all round experience rather than just taking a shot. Link here – https://danieltowellocacontextandnarrative.photo.blog/exercise-3-childhood-memories/

A few other mundane activities followed, I had to speak to my bank, do some washing up and cook dinner! Exciting!

We then sat down in front of the tv for a few hours and watched a really bad American movie, mentioning no names, but not one of Ben Stiller’s best. I then retired to bed and watched the Ansel Adams documentary I had feel asleep watching the night before. It was interesting to here his thoughts on landscape photography and how he called Bresson the master of “anticipation”. It is also interesting that he sees photography as a creative response to seeing something that moves you in an emotional sense, how it makes you feel. Then it is a matter of interpreting that feeling into the photograph.

Before turning the lights out I did a bit more photo sketching and thought about ideas for the assignment 3. I have to say I am struck by a few things on my research, the blurry movement of Woodman, Brandt saying his favourite work was his nude pieces, the matter of fact nudity of Brotherus and the fragments of humanity displayed by Mann. I cant help but see these making some sort of influence on my final images.

I took these images a while ago but have revisited them to better clarify the edits and also my thoughts on the feelings evoked in me as a photographer when I am working in the landscape.

I love the drama of landscape in black and white. Like Adams said there is something about the way the landscape makes you feel, it is a real connection between was you see and the final photograph, I feel something unique before I take the image. These images are my response to that feeling.

Reference

Reference – Ansel Adams – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdCq-1MJmHw&t=1176s (last accessed 23/6/20)

24/6/20

The day began with getting my daughter ready for school and her packed lunch. It is nice to see her back at school again and I can see it is good for her also. It strikes me how important friends are at this age (my daughter Chloe is 10) and this shouldn’t be taken lightly. Over the years I have lost contact with most of my school friends and due to moving away and not attending Uni, I don’t have what you would call a lot of friends. I am quite happy in my own company and some would probably say I am a bit of a loner. I see myself a quite a deep thinker, quiet and reflective rather than loud and abrasive. I am not massively confident and my self esteem lacks a little, perhaps this personality does not magnetise like others. I have spent most of my life searching for something, something that sort of gives me identity, other than cooking. I feel in love with cooking at a young age and it was something I had a natural talent for, I seemed to have a natural flair. But perhaps my personality doesn’t fit with the stereotypical big loud chef, and I do feel that my lack of confidence in some areas has held me back. I don’t know if it was the right career for me, and I have always felt I could do more. Not in anyway do I think I will be anything other than a concientious photographer, but I have been yearning to find something for a number of years that I can devote myself to and study wholeheartedly. I have to say it is nice to have finally found another, perhaps even more intense passion and outlet for creativity.

On return from dropping my daughter off at school (we went on our bikes) I spent a couple of hours tidying my garage. I cant help but think this will make for an interesting setting for my assignment images. I am drawn to the feel of Woodman’s images that were take in abandoned rooms or building and the garage setting sort of replicates that feeling. I also am thinking of doing a more Brotherus style set on location in a vast landscape, perhaps having me in situations where I look small or minimal next to the grandeur of nature. I am unsure currently in which direction I will eventually take this…..

“Al fresco” lunch followed and then a little bit of updating my blog. I also revisited a few more images of when I visited Italy (twice) a few years back. These were taken on my iPhone. Again some interesting results and I am enjoying looking back on these images and running them through a very basic editing process.

I am not entirely sure where I took the last image but I liked the way the pinhole edit creates a setting sun type scene. Slightly overdone in terms of clarity and texture I believe.

Whilst having lunch I spotted a nice scene being reflected off of our glass table outside. I took a quick snap on my phone and flipped it so it doesn’t appear upside down. I added some fade and grain for a more aged look.

Following dinner of left over curry (yum) me and my sin watched the football, we both follow Liverpool, and I have done for many years, since I was a boy. I grew up when they were in the heyday, the Kenny Dalglish era, so I guess you could call me a bit of a glory hunter. Another good result as Palace were quite comprehensively beaten and Liverpool take another step to winning their first league title in 30 years.

To finalise my diary entires I really didn’t not want them to become a more coherent look at my recent studies, but what with July assessment deadline, lockdown and being furloughed, I have little else to discuss in terms of diary entry. I do hope though that they show a natural progression toward the image making process for Assignment three – Self Portraiture.