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.

The Trouble with Essays

St. Anne's Beach

The trouble with working on essays is that it is all absorbing to a greater extent when you are working on two at the same time.

 

It's fair to say that Laundry is pretty straight forward and takes care of itself.  The images are straight forward and as I do not process my own colour film that is one less thing I have to deal with.  In fact, if I'm perfectly honest it is even simplar that shooting on digital as you have no post processing to deal with.

 

Lancoast is another beast entirely.  I do all my own processing on this one and there has been a big experimental phase with the capture process.  It has taken a long time to get to the stage where I feel ready to go outn and shoot the images that I want and I'm still undecided about how I go about doing it!

 

Of course I run the blogs for both essays.  I do this for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, it gives each essay it's own identity and doesn't let them get swallowed up in my usual body of work; secondly, it serves as an aide memoir to me.  At some point I will talk about the essays and these blogs will provide a useful reference; lastly some readers may only be interested in certain aspects of my work, film or pinhole cameras for examples.

 

This years choice of essays has meant that I have been greatly engrossed in that work and it has left very little time for other stuff.  However, the other week I managed to get out and take a stroll in one of my favourite woodlands and came back with some nice digital shots.

 

With Lancoast and Laundry being all consuming it has meant that this little blog here has been somewhat neglected so I thought I would share some of the woodland pics here more of the can be seen on my flickr page.

 

 

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.

New prints available from online gallery

A selection of landscape prints are now available from my online gallery at Photobox.  Two sizes are available and the option of matt or gloss finish.

These prints are printed at their end and I have no control over the final print.  This has been reflected in the price.

I do offer absolutely beautiful wet printed photographs.  These are finished individually to the highest standard possible.  As a result they are slightly more expensive and take a little longer to produce but the finished results are well worth it.  Email me for details.

If you can't wait and your happy with a digital print then visit my on-line gallery at Photobox.

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.