Finally Doing Some Prep

After some months of not really doing much about preparing for my exhibition I’ve now made a start on sorting our some suitable images.

With advice from my trusty and ever-helpful digital darkroom expert OBP, I’ve been using the Solarisation technique on some architectural shots from London. Having seen the odd results some people have shown off, I was not keen to try it but have learned how very impressive the approach can be if used with restraint and sensitivity.

One, of an apartment building in Chelsea Harbour, looks more like an Art Deco line drawing than a photograph, helped in part by the lines of the building that mimic the kinds of great ships of the period.

The technique was ‘discovered’ by Man Ray’s photographic assistant working in the dark room http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_Effect

I’m also hoping to photograph some classic French landscapes when I’m in Aix-en-Provence at Easter, weather permitting. With what I’ve already got and taken more recently, plus what I get from a fortnight in France I should have enough material to go at.

So far I have about 7-9 possibles from shoots in London and Paris. Given the exhibition is about selling, I need to gear my pieces at the more commercial end I guess, though I’m not sure I know well enough what will sell. I’m looking to a friend to help me with that though. First though, I need a list of possibles, probably initially 20 or so that we can then weed.

May’s really not that far away now, so need to be getting on with it!

Wintery walk

After an initial plan to go to Wintersett to photograph on Saturday fell through, we planned for a Sunday closer to home instead.

Up early (well, for a Sunday), and the morning was dry, crisp and with the promise of bright light and blue skies. We loaded up (tripods, cameras, lenses, film, spare batteries, etc) and set off to catch a reasonably early 110 to Busy Corner. Walking up towards Sandal Castle, there was still a lot of snow (now brittle and more ice than snow) as well as treacherous patches of compacted snow and ice, glassy and bright in the sunlight.

There was still a reasonable amount of snow around the castle remains, with pools of ice highlighting the moat around the ruins. The views from the upper deck showed snowy fields in all directions.

We took lots of pictures, of the castle and grounds as well as the views over Pugneys towards Emley Moor. Then, the walk back to the main road, this time down Castle Road. We then walked to Newmillerdam, which was a pleasant walk in the fresh, chilly sunshine.

Our reward was lunch before a quick look at the dam itself. Large parts of the surface were frozen, in places seemingly to some depth. Lone branches stuck out of the ice at awkward angles in places and all across the surface were tracks as if the birds had used it for skating.

Time for a few more photos before hoping on a 59 bus back into town.

A great way to spend such a lovely day, and great to finally get chance to get out after what feels like a very long time indeed.

To my disappointment, I don’t feel any of the photos I took were particulalry good and I gave up on processing them. OBP is trying to persuade me to look at them again though.