Day before

Dave loves a good wedding.

I doubt I'll see a single thing. Not in to all that.

Anyway, have a good one.

Busy tomorow

Back to old mates . . . tea and biscuits in the afternoon.

(35mm new lens)

A laugh today.

35mm

Mr. Keane asked do I like my new lens, the answer is Yes! Just look. It's the biz.

Perfect.

Sharpen this

Got myself a new prime. A 35mm f2.0. Bloody sharp and little distortion, I love it. Also got my old Lensbaby and there is some sort of play between them. Today the Baby won.

Anyway, sharpness is not an issue with the LB in my view. There is a halo round Dave's head in this, but not in the original, which is down to me in my quick processing and lack of patience.

But I loose focus sometimes. Sharpening has always been a dificult one for me.

What do they do with it all?

Girls  with water that is!

Here I am enjoying a day off and the water bill arrives. 29,000 litres in six months and apparently that's low usage!. We're on a meter so I'm very aware of the water I use, I'm sure the bulk of that near 30,000 litres of water must be Dee's.

It's not actually that contrasty in real life, it's more like this

                                                                                    MC Trev

More on sharpening

I think a general issue I have with sharpening and editing shots in general all comes down to what I touched on in my last post about focus. I've got every conceivable bit of kit for editing & printing photographs, any limitation I have are in my approach not in my kit. It's true that I like shooting more than editing but I do actually know what I'm doing, I just don't devote enough time to it, I want to get through it quickly. I'll bale as soon as I can and that's lazy and it means that I go back and work on the same shot again and again which in the end only costs me more time.

I'm more careful when printing, ink and paper aren't cheap. But I've wasted a few bob on bad prints, as I said I've got all the kit to get it right, when I don't it's down to me.

A great bit of software for sharpening is Nik Sharpener pro 3.0



First stage is input sharpening.

This is the part I'm most lazy with, I tend to just use the sliders which is pretty lazy considering the amount of effort I put in to shooting. I never use the control points or colour ranges (more on those in the next image) at this stage, I don't even brush the settings in. It's just a global first pass bit of sharpening. Lazy man... no wonder I'm always going back to shots

After you've done your standard kind of editing it's time for some output sharpening. NSP3 has some really good options for output sharpening.

There's plenty to chose from here, this is one for the paper and printer resolution that I use

As you can see you can pick the type of paper you use, the resolution of your printer (lots of options) even sharpening to suite the viewing distance though they recommend auto. You can make global adjustments using the sliders but there's a lot of options for fine tuning. One of them is sharpening using the colour ranges method, just use the eye dropper and choose the colour you want to selectively sharpen. I've got to admit that I've been neglecting this option but it's actually very cool.

Control Points

Rather than using colour ranges you can opt for control points which you can place anywhere on the image many times over.

You'll get a lot more info on their site it's a great bit of kit.

Put the work in and you'll get a lot out of it ( I jsay that when I'm meant to be sorting my site out today, not blabbing here)

Day off

Focus has never been one of my strong points. I tend to get led off to the land of toys or distracted by shiny things. I've had a day off today and I have a few more which I'm going to use to sort my site out.

I'll try and get it done but I'm likely to wonder off.

I'm great Uncle to this guy (Liam)

Turning it up to 11

Image sharpening, man I tell you... I just still haven't mastered it. I'm trying though and I think the best way to learn is by looking at photographs you admire. Over sharpened photographs are as bad as over saturated photographs and god awful over cooked HDR

A couple of examples of my own here

I recon I've just pushed it over the edge here, I think if you notice how sharp an image is you've taken it too far. 

This shots a little more subtle. I looked at the shot above and thought I'd over done it so I got one of Mark Steinmetz's books down and had a look. This guy is subtle, without doubt a master and a good lesson on less being more.

The light was very harsh whilst shooting. You'd avoid it most of the time, harsh light and over sharpened images are not a great combo.

I need to pay more attention to work like this

Part of the problem is that a lot of people with even the best gear today only see images on screen and they sharpen images for screen viewing. But that's not how photographs look in print-not well made prints anyway

I think I'm closer to the ideal here-but haven't reached it yet

 I've got to remind myself to keep the volume down

Sleeping Soldiers - Tim Hetherington

Sleeping Soldiers_single screen (2009) from Tim Hetherington on Vimeo.

Oldest friends

I'm a sentimental old fool. Today, St. Georges Day, my old mate Rog turned up. We go back to infant days and have always been in touch. Sometimes we go for years without seeing each other, yet we only live 10 minutes away. In our teens we hitch hiked all over the country between dole cheques. Slept on roundabouts, ploughed fields, grave yards, randy old ladies, and under the Humber Bridge with kids on mopeds screaming all night.

Roger and Dee are my oldest friends.

Angie, Rog & Hazel - Today

(Polaroid 669)

Rog  (Dunwich Beach Suffolk - Circa 1981)

We crashed on the beach for a few days , and I remember some bloke coming up to me and saying how lucky we were. He was old, not like us back then. I knew what he meant, like some wisdom you get from the old folk.

Edit by Sean

What can I say to that but

Music machine

A Good Friday and music in The Garden. Deep joy, and Polaroid.

Film (c) Dave Bullock

Thanks to Dave for bringing the music machine.

Picking a project

I've had a long term project on the go about life under the flag of Saint George. I'm coming to realize that it might be too limited for a project or I'm just not seeing it right.

Anyway,

 Happy Saint Georges Day

Hot Docs Trailers 2011: SOMEWHERE TO DISAPPEAR

Alec Soth. Hope to see this sometime.

Shot of the Day

Ken  and Angie's battle to restore the garden (a metaphor given what they've been through) has got me thinking.  It's got me thinking of an iconic photograph by one the most human of all photographers, W Eugene Smith.  He had been very  badly injured covering the invasion of Okinawa   

“I forgot to duck but I got a wonderful shot of those who did… my policy of standing up when the others are down finally caught up with me.” 

He'd spend the next two years recovering, he never took a picture during that time, he wasn't sure if he ever would again. At the end of those two years he took a shot of his children walking in their garden.

                                                              A Walk to Paradise Garden. W. Eugene Smith



It may seem a little sentimental now days, the passage of time can do that to a photograph. But Smith was never that. “I’ve never made any picture, good or bad, without paying for it in emotional turmoil.”

The photograph is much loved and rightly so. A symbol for healing if ever there was one


For the Smiths in their Garden

More on Tim Hetherington

I've just read a pretty touching tribute to Tim Hetherington by Jörg Colberg of Conscientious.

In the link you'll find another link to a tribute on PDN. Reading Tim's bio it looks like he started his career shooting for the big issue. He was just a year older than me

Prime lens

I've been thinking of going back to prime lenses lately, back to when I used to shoot with a knackered old Zenith. I had a 35mm and a 50mm and it was not much bother to quickly change between each one. For many, many years I've been using my 17-35mm and I'm beginning to feel it's 'heavy' presence. So, after much thought I've gone for a nice small 35mm instead of a 24mm (thanks Sean for tipping me over). Any day now.

Dave Beckerman has a nice thought   here

Tangled up in weeds

Apologies for being a little quiet. I have more or less spent all of my time in 'The Garden'. The last few weeks of good weather has seen me make massive progress and I think if this carries on things will be good by the Summer.

I lost steam again today.

Anyway . . . I made a clearing to Angie's apple tree where she used to sit and dream as a child and I took this shot today.

 

Three years ago

My big fat book plug

You've seen Rose before. Rosie has a very Irish way about her,  "An owld biddy" as we say. I'm not from a traveller family but I did grow up and go to school with some. You might have seen some of them on My Big fat Gypsy wedding on C4. Shane Ward the winner of the X factor is actually from a well known traveler family, brought up close to me. I know his cousins (but not him) they were on the C4 series.


One of my most treasured books is Alen MacWeeney's  Irish Travellers, Tinkers No More
I have the hardcover which is thin on the ground, there's a paperback for much less, I don't know how well it's printed. My version is simply beautiful. Alen MacWeeney was Richard Avedon's trusted assisted, he is a master printer and photographer and Irish to.



Now Rose is not from traveler stock, but she's every bit as Irish. My sister won't let her forget it but it's in her DNA anyway, it's undeniable. I took this shot of her today

If you really want to understand travellers-well you'd have to be one or spend as much time as Alen MacWeeney did to make this book. Buy the book and you'll understand much more than you did. It's a very beautiful, melancholy glimpse in to a way of life that's all but gone.You're settler when you stop moving, most have now. I think every Irish person has a restless spirit in them, I think that's one of the reasons we're scattered across the globe


Did I mention it was melancholy

Morning attack

I used to work in an environment of possible sudden attack. It played on my mind a lot. The "threat" was very real at the time, or at least that's what they said . . .

Portraits From a Job-Starved City

Photographs by Alec Soth

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/23/magazine/rockford.html


Interviewing and photographing the people that are actually lucky enough to have jobs is the exact opposite of what you often see done in photographs in cities like Detroit.

Here comes the science bit

Conclusive proof there in Kens last post that science is rubbish and I should go back to Catholicism or howling at the moon (howling at the moon is cheaper)

If truth be told I've always loved astronomy, my love for astronomy is older than my love for photography, it can reduce me to tears at times. Catholicism used to do that to me to but that was due to sadistic nuns at Saint Patrick Junior school. They didn't fill me with light they filled me with shite


I'd like to demonstrate my profound understanding of the universe and the methods I use to study it. My unique method of measuring celestial objects will prove to be more important than Edward Hubble's system of measurement that proved that the Milky Way is not the only galaxy in the universe.

I guess lesser brained scientists might measure the  moons distance from the earth using far inferior methods to my own and come up with figures like this

Perigee 363,104 km
Apogee  405,696 km
Semi-major axis  384,399 km.

All very well and good but there's a fatal flaw in their method of measuring the distance that the moon is from us. They've left Diane and our patio heater out of the equation.

 In this picture Diane is sat under our patio heater. She is six feet from the eastern side of reflector, the reflectors circumference is six feet, Diane's head's about 18inches. The moon is about half an inch from the eastern rim of the heater...

Using these methods I have deduced that the moon is 6ft and half of one inch from Diane's head. I've not worked out the figures yet but the size of her head compared to that of the moon appears to be what we scientists call...

Super fucking  massive

 

Mr. Saunders, again

Now and again photos and stories are just so good.

copyright Jonathan Saunders

Link

Ken

Scarecrow mayhem

Gorgeous day today at the RHS Hyde Hall in Essex. Sun was beating and end of day tans. Went there to chill out in the garden, turned out African beats and freaky scarecrows. No chance of a chill today.

(updated - extra shot)

(updated - extra shot - Kenny lives!)

Ken

The worse kept secret

Garden that is

Chill Kras... Chill

Shot of the day

I always try to remember what it is that makes me want to photograph people. To be true to them, to be a witness in their lives and give evidence that can be trusted, a kind of justice more complex to the one we normally think of when photographing people. I look for photographs that remind me of what I want to do. They always remind me that I ought to pay more attention to it... A lot more

From Lucas Foglia's

Re-Wilding

Via

David Bailey

What can I say . . . .

Recent interview with him   here

 

Marianne Faithfull  

Copyright David Bailey

(I was hoping to upload some vintage chat)

Ken

Spring web

Possibly the warmest day this year found me in The Garden all day with the constant battle of weeding and getting rid of dead wood. At some point in the afternoon I found I was overwhelmed with the whole thing and questioned why was I doing this. And tonight I am still wondering. I guess I'm thinking it's been such a battle over the years I am finally losing it in order to  win the War.

Ken

So you want to turn pro

I thought of this article when I was considering (very briefly) shooting the painters work.


An old one but a really good one


So you say you want to turn pro

But I won't do that

So I was offered a commission yesterday. A lady wanted me to come and shoot some of her abstract paintings that she wants to sell online. She saw my photography through a friend of a friend and thought that I was the right guy for the job


I was quite flattered and at the same time quite bemused. It's true to say that photography and painting are uneasy bedfellows, photography has had to fight for its rightful place in the art world. I'm by no means making any claims of art in my own work (well most of it anyway) but I'm surprised that a painter would look at my photography and think that my work somehow qualifies me for what is essentially a product shoot. It's like me looking at her work which undoubtedly falls under abstract expressionism and asking her to paint my niece

I turned the gig down. I'm skint to but I did right by her, I'm not the right guy.


A fool I may be, but I know a Pollock from a Rembrandt



Sean

Babes in the wood

 Not only was it Grand Master Smiths Birthday yesterday, it was Mothering Sunday to.

I'm not a mother and my own passed when I was 19. We've yet to have kids of our own (19 years and counting) so we borrowed a mother for the day, our friend Dawn. The little girl is Jessica and she a rare and beautiful child. The mental pros and cons list I have about parenthood have thus far led me to opting out of having children. Diane has her own reason's none of which have anything to do with not loving children, we both love kids. I think we just love each other more, so much more that we don't want children ruining it. Maybe that's counter intuitive, children are meant to be born out of love after all. Well I can't talk about people I don't know, but  those that I do know with children seem less in love and less happy with their partners than me and Diane. It might be wrong to make a judgement like that, but it's on my cons list. I've seen a lot of love dissolve rather than evolve through the  pressures of raising kids.

Obviously our cons list is longer than our pros list. I'm from a large family, I'm an Uncle 20 times over and the only one in the family yet to have children. My mother was one of twelve, I have sixty cousins on her side alone, most of our friends have children. We are very much in the minority & we do review the list from time to time and like I said it's 19 years and counting, and Diane's clock is ticking.


Jessica's on the pros list, she almost outweighs all the cons on her own. To the left of the Girls out of shot is Diane holding the light.
                                                                                Click        

                                                             Did I mention the rain and hailstones

Sometimes old friends surprise you

 Truly touched.

Thank you.