A West Pennine Night

October is a funny month. It's that part of autumn where things really begin to change. Leaves crunching under feet as they drop from the trees, the beautiful colours of September already forgotten; the first cold snap and waking to winter's jewles as the frost turns the morning dew in to green-white sticks of frozen blades of grass.

Not this year though.

October the first had come with almost every leaf still remaining on the tree.  The first frost still weeks away.  The September storms only now arriving in November.  Instead we were treat with unseasonably settled warm weather. Some nice clear cloudless skies meant that it was great time to get out with the camera.

At this point I should sort of explain something.

This night I was planning to head out to Hollinshead Hall to shoot some scary pictures of the Well House.  Normally, I'm really happy with being in the woods or on the moorlands at night on my own.   If truth be known I am more at home in the wilderness at night on my own than I am in the towns and cities.   However, this night was different.  You see, Hollinshead Hall has a a bit of a reputation for all things paranormal and the ghost stories were quietly running round my head as I was walking down the hall.  Being honest, I freaked myself out.  I really freaked myself out and aborted.  Chicken has nothing in it.

So I returned to where I had parked and noticed something really cool.  Over here in the UK we have light reflective units set in to the road known as cats' eyes.  The cool thing with the ones that were set in to this road is that they are LED lights.  They are permanently lit.  So I quickly came up with an idea.  Cats' eyes, car light trails and stars.  What more could a photographer playing with light painting ask for.  I took a few shots and quickly got bored.

So I decided I would move on.   I've had an idea of shooting Darwen Tower at night for a while.  However, on my own it would be impossible to get the shot that I want.  That being said a nice starry, clear night is something of a rarity at this time of year in Lancashire so I thought it would be a good opportunity to a few test shots.  I have to admit I love the results. It has spurred me on to create the shot that I actually want.  I just need the weather to play a bit now!!!

And then came the snow!

January had been quite warm and dry but then came the snow; and did it.  For once we had quite a decent coverage but not too much to cause havoc as it quite often does here.

I have an interest in images that are quite minimal.  I like dead space and of course I like monochrome photography.  So it was the perfect time to go out with my camera.

I drove around a bit looking for an image and couldn’t find anything I really liked.  Eventually I ended up in Barley struggling for inspiration.  I then remembered a shot that I had taken in the past at nearby Newchurch.  The shot was already done in monochrome previously but the days conditions meant that it would work well.  So I set off in that direction.

I first stopped off at a plantation near Barley Bank Farm.  I quote like the idea of something disappearing deep in to the photograph and I thought that this work well.   It does, sort of.  The image also has an appearance of being monochrome when actually it is full colour.

In the end I got to the location and it couldn’t have been more perfect.  The snow was pristine and the sky was grey.  Nice for subtle changes in colour.  Dialling in a bit of exposure compensation would mean that the snow would be almost paper white and the image would contain all the shades of grey (not just 50!) through to almost black.

A bit of fine tuning in Lightroom meant I had one of the most beautiful images I have ever made.

Snow photography is interesting.  You either go for an images that is real and as a result you’ll have a blue-ish cast to the image or you dial in exposure composition and have white snow.  At the time I wrote about this for Pixel Magazine.

Incidentally, I do tend to print the images I make and I like.  This one prints gorgeously!

Heptonstall - Still Messing with Film

I think I wrote previously that I had been ill for several months this year and this has taken its toll on my productivity levels.  A quick way of telling how little work I have done is the amount of film I have lying around.  I still have the majority of my stock of Superia 400 waiting to be used on Laundry; I've got several rolls of Fujicolour 200 and a roll of FP4+ rolling around my camera bag.  There is also nearly a full box of 4x5 sheet film still sat in the fridge.  On top of this I had a part used roll of Ilford's FP4+ in my K1000.  In fact it had been in there quite a while.  It was time to use it up.

I decided I would have a little trip to the nearby village of Heptonstall.  I had been meaning to do this for ages.  So while I had a roll of film to use on nothing in particular, I thought I would take a visit.

Heptonstall is quite a large village on the Yorkshire side of the border with Lancashire.  As far as remote goes in England it is quite remote being, that it is set quite high up in the Pennines  and is quite distance from any major towns or cities.   This probably one the reasons that it has stayed the way it has for many a year.

Even being so close to where I live and work, I had never heard of it until a couple of years ago.  Heptonstall first came into my consciousness through the work of Fay Godwin.  Godwin struck up a life long friendship with poet Ted Hughes.  Hughes collaborated with Godwin on a book of poems and photographs entitled The Remains of Elmet.  The poems were a reflection of Hughes' growing up and life in Heptonstall which lies in the ancient former kingdom of Elmet.  Each poem was accompanied by one of Godwin's' photographs.  The combination of these two extrodinary talents meant that visiting Heptonstall would appear on my to do list.  It would be remiss of me to mention that Heptonstall is also the final resting place of American poet and Hughes' wife, Sylvia Plath.

As it turned out this wouldn't be the last time that Hughes would have an influence on me.  His collaboration with another photographer, Peter Keene on River would lay the foundation stones for my project The River (more on this in the very near future).

Anyway, I managed to find a bit of time to visit and I have to admit I found the place captivating.  It certainly lends itself to photography and in particular film photography.  The centre of the village could be straight out of 1940's inspired film set.

It’s definitely a place that I must visit again and spend a bit more time photographing.  The shots into this post were shot on FP4+ rated at 50 ASA and developed in D74.

The River - I can't believe I have written about this!!!

Quite some time ago I wrote a series of posts regarding an essay I was working on called The River.  I actually completed the essay a while ago but apart from showing it a Blackburn Camera Club, I omitted to do anything else with it.  I think I just got caught up with getting shows ready and starting new bodies of work.

Anyway,  I've finally got round to posting the final AV presentation on YouTube and each of the stills are on my flickr page.  There is more to this story but that will come in the very near future.

Messing with a purpose

The last few months have been hard.  A bout of illness has left me feeling uninspired and a tad unproductive.  Yes, I've done a little and I believe I have done it well but trying to find the motivation to pick up at least one of my cameras has been a challenge.  It's a rarity that rolls of film that have been put in my bag to shoot with haven't left the canisters they came in.

On Monday, I visited my camera club well, I say my camera club, we were actually visiting Darwen as one of our joint evenings.  The guest speaker was Barry Payling.  Barry is a well respected photographer who shies away from digital and continues to shoot with his Hasselblad on Velvia film.  Not only that he shows his slides (real ones, not digital) on a Hasselblad projector.  Barry proved to be a good speaker with some very nice images.  Not everything was to my taste but there were some that I did enjoy.  The most important thing about Monday night, for me, was seeing my photography friends again.  It has given me the kick up the backside that I needed.  So, this week, while the weather was nice I actually managed to get out and shoot some pictures.  Nothing too serious, just messing really but messing with a purpose.

I’m not sure if it’s time to get back working on my essays again.  It might be a little too soon but as things improves it will come back around.  For now, it was nice to to shoot.

The rest can be seen here.

Lee Johnson Photography hits the road!

Former president of Blackburn & District Camera Club and Editor of Pixel the online Photography Magazine for Pennine Lancashire, Lee Johnson sets out on to the lecture circuit for the first time.

Lee is no stranger to delivering talks and lectures and offers a range of lectures to suit anyone with any interest in photograph and local history.

Subjects for 2014/15 Lectures include:

• Remnants - A look at mans impact on the Pennine Lancashire landscape from the use of stone throughout the ages.  This consists of mainly monochromatic documentary landscape images and lasts around 1.5 hours.  This talk can be extended to include elements of processing techniques to get 'the Remnants look.'
• The River - The River is a documentary essay on the course of Colne Water.  It consists of a lecture lasting approximately an hour followed by an audio-visual presentation of the essay.  This lecture can be adapted to talk about audio-visual presentations.
• Photo-Essays  - A light-hearted look at photo-essays and telling stories through photography. This includes advice on photo-books and desk-top publishing and producing AV's.  Approximately 1.5 - 2 hours.

All lectures can be tailored to suit your individual club needs.  Email us for details.

Messing about with Photoshop

The other night I decided to revisit some shots that I took at Widdop the other week.  There is nothing wrong with the original shot.  In fact, I actually like it.  What I was interested in doing was trying to see if I could emulate a pinhole camera using Photoshop.

In fact, I ended up using two programs to get somewhere near the look I wanted.  I also used a Fuji Velvia 50 filter with the grain from a Superia 400 fulter in DXO Super Film Pack 3.

Will I give shooting pinhole and do it the easy way in Photoshop?  Will I hell!  It's nowhere near the same but out of interest I think I'm going to have this lightjet printed.  Just our of interest and experimentation.

Being Multi-disciplined

Most photographers have a passion for one particular area or genre of photography, others try a bit of everything and as a result of this master any.

I like trying new things.  I like trying new techniques but I quickly find that I'm bored and return to my two favourite disciplines, nature (in this I include landscape and wildlife) and documentary.  I just guess it is where I am comfortable, where I am home.

Finding Treasure

Roe Lee Park Pavilion - Pracktica MTL3.

Ilfodata B, ASA 25, f16. Developed in Rodinol1:300, 30 minutes

A while ago I was given a box of old photography junk.  Most people would have thrown it away but I had a rumage through it and found some useful stuff.  Some I'm actually using!  A couple of old bakelite 35mm developing tanks, bits of measuring stuff, some reusable 35mm film canisters (for hand rolling.  Film not tobacco!) and a couple of rolls of Ilford HP5+; all good usable stuff.

There was also a sealed tin with white tape round it.  On the tin it was marked Ilfodata B made by Ilford.  If what was on the tin was right, this was 100ft of 35mm film.  Guess what? I was quite excited!

Off in to the reading room, I mean darkroom, I mean bathroom (it's multi-functional!).  I shut the door and carefully opened the tin and sure enough, there in the dark, I could feel a roll of film!!!  So I snipped a bit off and rolled a short length.  I gave this to Bob to have a play with.  He's more experienced than me with weird stuff.

After searching the internet we could not find any information on this.  We found one article on Ilfodata HS something or other which was made by Ilford for copying documents.  We had an inkling that the film we have is for something similar.

So we were still in the same boat.  We had absolutely no information about this film; what it’s ASA (ISO) rating was, how to shoot with it or even how to process it.  Bob thought it might be ‘contrasty’ with being a document film but also thought that the developer pyrocat would sort it out.

Assuming that this was the last 100ft of this film in existence (that we know of.  There is none on eBay or in of the places where we know to get weird stuff from) we thought we should contact Ilford and see what information they held.

They basically knew as much as we did.  They thought it was manufactured somewhere in the 1970’s (which we gathered from the design on the tin) and suggested an Ilford developer that we probably wouldn’t use anyway.

So back to square one!

Pracktica MTL3 with Pinhole lens on.

This weekend I decided to bite the bullet and shoot a little bit and try developing it.  I have to admit, my knowledge of handling film is limited but I am learning all the time.  Back when I shot film, I mostly shot colour and sent it to a lab.  I dabbled a bit with processing black and white but didn’t go beyond a couple of rolls.  So, I’m on a learning curve of chemicals, techniques and working in the dark!  It’s fun.  I mean really fun!

Friday night I rolled enough film to shoot five frames.  I had the idea that I would try shooting with a 35mm pinhole again.

Come Saturday morning I nipped down to Roe Lee Park to shoot the pavilion there.  It has sort of become my test subject!

I shot one frame with my 50mm lens at ASA25, f16, couldn’t tell you the shutter speed but I think it’s around 1 second maybe ½.  I then shot one at 5 seconds to try and take in account reciprocity.  I then changed the lens and put a 43mm pinhole lens on and finally a 75mm pinhole.

During the evening, I re-read the article on the HS and one thing jumped out at me.  The author had said that the film was similar to Kodak Technical Pan.  I went on Massive Dev Chart and look up Technical Pan Developing times.  At least I would have a starting point and could mess with development on the results of this short length.  I’d nothing to lose.  There sure enough was Rodinol, 1:300 for rating ASA25.  Excellent.  I could do this.  I mixed up the chemical and began the process.  40 minutes later and I was on the final wash.  A bit nervous I peel the film off the reel.

Wow, was my response.  The photograph made with the lens on was stunning.  I could see every tile, every mortar joint in the building.  The negative look gorgeous.

The pinhole isn’t  quite right but it’s getting there!  These are scans of the negative.  For some reason the scanner has cropped the top of the building off on but it gives an idea.  The neg is so much better though!

A trip with a Trip

Ghyll Cemetery

Just before Christmas I bought some Kentmere 400 film.  Basically to try it out and I have to say, I am impressed.  It’s a lovely film for the price.  Yeah, I’m impressed.

A couple of weeks ago, I put the film in to my little Olympus Trip 35 and started shooting with it.  Nothing in particular but just trying the film and getting used to the camera.



A Nelson Street

I love the Trip.  It’s such a fantastic design and beautifully built.  The images from it are lovely too.

So, just taking my time shooting a little randomly slowly started to fill the roll up.  Even Eve, my daughter took it out and had a go at shooting with it!  She did pretty good as well!



Griffin Manor

First up was a stop off a Ghyll Church and Cemetery and Barnoldswick.  Some nice little shots came off from that.

Then there was pulling my camera out of the bag at the camera club.  Just for a little documentary type shot.

One grab shot in Nelson which I think has a nice social commentary without having people in it and finally, a little walk around Griffin Park, Blackburn.

To see the shots and other shots with the trip visit my flickr set here.

Lancoast

As well as working on Laundry, I am also working on a second essay entitled Lancoast.

Lancoast is an exploration of the Lancashire Coastline through the medium of photography.  At the moment it is very much in the planning phase.  But the general idea is to shoot monochromatic coastal landscapes on a pinhole camera and use alternative processes to develop film and create prints.

At the moment I'm experimenting with film and various cameras to see what I can achieve before heading to the coast to shoot some images.

Like Laundry, Lancoast has its own blog.  It can be found here.  Why not stop by and have a look.

Back in the Box

As posted a little while ago, Remnants went back in its box with a little sadness both from me and the gallery at La Dolce Vita, Colne.  Finally, I have got round to sorting everything out and I have now got a little time to reflect.

As part of this process I took photocopies from the comments book and they are fantastic.  I thought I would share what has been said about Remnants.

‘Really impressive and very moving’

D. Claude.  Leeds

‘Emotive, calming’

G. Hensley.  Trawden

‘Very atmospheric and engaging’

I. Cleasby.  Oxford

‘Very beautiful images, dark and sombre but uplifting’

                                    M. Fielding.  Colne

‘Captivating, mesmerising images.  Beautiful.’

                                    Miriam & Andy.  Colne

‘What an unexpected surprise!  Very impressive indeed!’

                                    G. Read.  Colne

‘Simply brilliant and nice to see a local artist’

A. Ul-haq.  Colne

Thank you so much to everyone who visited the exhibition and took time to comment.

Feeding an obsession

For many photographers a place that is close to their heart becomes the subject of their obsession.  It's a place that is generally close to their home; it's a place that they will visit regular; it's a place that they will know like the back of their hand; and it's a place that will be the subject of many, many photographs, even though most of them will not be seen beyond their computer screen.

How do I know this?  Well, I have my obsession.  My obsession is a hill in Lancashire called Boulsworth.  It lies to the south of Nelson and Colne  and towers above the village of Wycoller.

My favourite walk to the summit is from Coldwell Reservoirs. and is relatively flat until you take the concessionary path to the summit.

Boulsworth has been the subject of my photographs before, it in fact plays a part in Remnants and will no doubt feature in future landscape projects.  So why is this hill my obsession?

It would be easy of Pendle to be my obsession.  It has a lot going for it, it is unusual in the fact that it stands alone, it has history and atmosphere but for me Boulsworth is just something else.  I can't put my finger on it and couldn't say why, but this hill has to be one of my favourites in Lancashire and I definitely have more photographs of this hill than any other.

Last Wednesday I managed a trip back to my obsession and did I catch it at the right time?  I was there just as the sun was going down and managed to catch these images.  Although bitterly cold, the sun was out and the sky was threatening more snow, just perfect for a landscape photographer.  However, I didn't come away with the photograph that I was attempting to capture.  That one may have to wait until next winter now.  Watch this space!

Looking back can be good

Sometimes I get back to my computer with my card and upload the files to the PC.  Quite often I find images that I'm not particularly fond of.  Some of these I delete straight away and are destined never to see the light of day again.  Others, sit on my PC for a while and jump out at me when I have a sneaky look back.

Tonight was one such occasion.  I had decided that I was going to do some clearing down and found an image that I took on a trip to Folkestone earlier on in the year.  I wasn't overly keen on it when I uploaded but kept it anyway.  I decided that I would have a little play with the image more out of curiosity than expecting anything from it so file loaded in to Photoshop off I went and the final image is the one below.  Perhaps this will make a nice little print.

When the River ceases to flow - The authoring of a photo-essay

I've often said throughout my blog that rather than producing single images I much prefer to produce a photo-essay.

For those that are quite new to photography a photo-essay is very much like a written essay.  It tells a story from beginning to end. Of course, a photo-essay is done visually and can take many different forms.  It can be documentary; it records the story with straight record photography.  It can be a series of images linked by a common theme or it can be a series of images that have, in simplistic terms, a certain look about them.

The River has become my latest attempt at producing one such essay.  However, with this one I decided I would come at it from a slightly different angle in the fact that I would use the medium of an AV (audio visual, a bit like a film with still photographs in) to tell the story.

Before I continue I would like to point out that I am not a filmmaker and I have no intention of migrating in to the world of film.  It's just too complicated to make something that is credible and meaningful.  I will leave this to the people that are good at it!

So back on to the subject of photo-essays.

With Remnants, I had no problems.  I like history, I like stone, I like landscapes, I knew the locations.  Straight forward.  Turn up, shoot, process, job done.  The River however, is a whole different ball game.

Up to date I have covered around a third of the river that I have chosen as the subject.  There are 212 files in the project folder including 47 pieces of video footage.  Here lies the problem.  Most of the images have the same type of treatment on them; I have a look.  Most of the images show the river as it is, wort's and all. I have a story.

So where's the problem?

Well, the problem is that a lot of the images are starting to look the same.  There isn't enough variation between them to make them stand out.  And this brings me round to the point of this post.

What makes a photo-essay work?

In my opinion the aspect of a photo-essay that makes it work isn't as much the photography as you would first think.  For me, what makes a good photo-essay is the editing.  It's the photographers ability to narrow down all the shots they have taken in to a few that tell the story in a clear and concise manner.

Going back to the River then, how do I take the project forward?  Well, after a lot of thinking, sleep deprivation and more thinking I've come to the conclusion that I am going to narrow it down to around twenty images.  These images won't necessarily tell the full story and will probably be abstracts of the River.  The actual landscape aspect of the project will be shot as film and the film itself will tell the full story.

As much as I like digital, I am still quite keen to have a physical product at the end of the project.  I have kind of decided that this will be in the form of a series of prints from the project.  The film will be hosted at a gallery (that is already sorted, more information nearer the time) and then held on my You Tube account.  Expect to see a preview in the coming weeks.

By the way.  If you want to see some examples of photo-essays why not have a look at our latest issue of Pixel magazine.  Back issues can be found at Pixel's website; www.pixelmag.co.uk

Back to the River

It is fair to say that I hate being stuck indoors.  This week we managed to get a brief rest bite from the winter weather.  Although cold it was sunny and we had some nice light.  So putting on my boots, winter jacket, thermals (of course, it is still February!) and picking up my camera and tripod bag it was time to head off back to the river.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had been reading one of my favourite poets, Ted Hughes, The River and this was what sparked my current obsession of water.  Actually, that's not quite true.  I've always had an obsession with water for as long as I can remember.  However, that obsession rather involves boats with big sails and a lot of money!  That being said I do find water fascinating and I find photographing it just as fascinating.  Why?  If you own a DSLR go and stand at the side of a fast flowing river.  Put your camera in to manual mode.  Turn off autofocus.  Set your ISO as high as possible to get a reasonable image.  Open up your aperture and set your shutter speed to 1000th second.  The just fire off a few shots.  What you get is a pattern shot of water droplets and flow.  You can pretty much guarantee that no two shots will be alike.  Even if you take a shot of the same patch of water.  This is what I find fascinating.

So my little obsession with water has grown into a project.

For Remnants not only did I produce a book, I also produced a slide show and mini Audio Visual (AV) presentation (if you run through my past posts you might find it!) for the Marsden 100 I also made an AV production.  However, sometime last year Bob posted an AV that combined film making with traditional photography AV.  I can't for the life of me find the link but the film obviously left a lasting impression as this is what I want to create for The River.  There is still quite a bit of work and planning to do but so far in my folder there are 153 shots with 27 video files and I'm not done yet.  Editing will probably great reduce this but its nice to know that I am well on my way with the project.

And so, as the sun sets on The River for now I would like to leave you with this image.

A Productive Day!

Yesterday was one of my most productive days.  First was a trip out to somewhere I hadn't been before, Widdop Reservoir.  I didn't have long there but came back with this image.  No doubt I will be going back in the very near future!

Last night, I went down to our local running track.  I sort of have this idea centered around amateur sport as my next project.  So, while I was there I took a couple of test shots to see if it would work.  Not quite sure about them yet.  May have to try a couple of other locations first.

A big thank you!

My blog roll has reached over a thousand views!  Many thanks to all of you that have take the time to visit and have a look at my photographs.

Best wishes,

Lee

Playing with Witches

 On Wednesday I went out with a friend to take some images for use by Pendle Borough Council.

Our first port of call was the new Alice Nutter sculpture in Roughlee.  Alice Nutter was convicted and hung for being part of a covern of witches in the Pendle area.  In total 10 people from the area were taken to Lancaster tried and then hung.  Another, from Gisburn was taken to York and executed there.

Alice was unusual in the group as she was the widow of a wealthy farmer and it is often thought that she may have been convicted due to the jealousies of other local people.  The entire group were convicted on the evidence of a nine-year old witness named Jennet Device who mas made to stand on a table in front of a packed court room.

 After we were done with the sculpture we headed up in to the fields to capture some images of the landscape.  From this position we were able to get some nice pictures of both Pendle and Blacko.  It was a lovely hour and a bit, with warm sunshine in a beautiful part of the country.

Remnants Update

Remnants now has its own page complete with Flickr slideshow illustrating all the images from the project and a preview of the book from our Blurb bookstore.