Post 6- Creativity in a crisis

Inspiration at Last!!
I have been looking at You Tube videos and Facebook sites looking for inspiration during the period of self-isolation. One of my friends Mick Govan posted a link to a video by Doug Chinnery called Creativity in a Crisis and I watched it with great interest.
The video was made last week in the context of the coronavirus lockdown and he showed us his approach to being creative with images taken in his home.
Doug is a great exponent of Intentional Camera Movement and Multiple Exposures and has produced many very useful videos on these subjects over the years and this is no exception.
In this video he suggests looking around our homes for decorative objects and combining images of them with multiple exposure techniques. He is a Canon shooter so has the possiblity of combining, in camera, up to five images whereas my Fuji XT-20 will only combine two. His camera also has a number different blending modes whereas mine only has the one.
Undaunted by  these limitations I set about capturing images of three decorative cats against various backgrounds and took four quite interesting shots. I also found a small vase of plastic flowers. Within fifteen minutes I had half a dozen base shots. Some of which are shown below.

Doug's approach was to take his multiple exposure images into Lightroom to select ones with "potential" and then develop them in the normal way. He then took them one at a time into Photoshop for further manipulation. He the duplicated the background layer and used the free transform tool to move and distort this new top layer. He then went through the various blending modes available selecting those that produced an "interesting" effect to save as a new image.
Although his system is quite simple and relies substantially on serendipity the real creativity comes from recognising when a chosen blend mode has produced an image that is both interesting and has real artistic merit. It is at this point that my own insecurities about my abilities comes to the surface again. Do the images that I find interesting have any real artistic merit????


I am now at the stage in my development where I am starting to say. I LIKE IT! and I HOPE YOU, THE VIEWER, DO TOO!
I have posted some of the many images that popped out from this, my first session, of what I will call "The Doug Chinnery Technique". I hope you like them!!!!

Post 5-and then there was Coronavirus!

Last week everything changed as we became aware of the implications of the Corona virus first reported in China. Initially it seemed like it was "another side of the World"problem but then BANG, we are all being asked to avoid all face to face social contact to slow down the spread of the infection.
Moy and I are very lucky as this isolation will not have any impact upon our income but it is clear that everyone who is working will be seriously impacted and many employers will close down. The Governments Powers are limited when faced with a crisis such as this and they will, I am sure, face criticism from many quarters. I sincerely hope it does not result in civil unrest and the break down of society which is entirely possible.
Avoiding contact with the infection, washing our hands and avoiding touching our nose, mouth and eyes are the major things we can do. We will be staying in the house until further notice except for the unavoidable shopping trips.

I intend spend some of my time improving my post processing skills and maybe use them to create some new images.
I also plan to get around to the job of scanning the old family photographs into a digital format.
Hopefully something good will come out of the experience.

I do hope we do not catch the virus and that all our friends and family remain well or recover quickly. Fingers crossed. I hope anyone reading this also keeps safe and stays well.

Good Luck!

Post 4- Going Public

For years now I have only shown my work in a small selection of closed Facebook Groups. These groups were linked to Local Camera Clubs or shared with my Friends and Family. I have decided to take a place at the upcoming Connected 2020 exhibition and open my work up to more public scrutiny. The exhibition takes place at Patchings Art Centre in Nottinghamshire over 5 weeks in April this year culminating in three days of presentations by established photographers. This will be an opportunity to show my work alongside that of other photographers and give me an opportunity to learn from their work. It will also be an opportunity to listen to other photographers sharing their enthusiasm for their chosen craft.
I am really looking forward to this.
I have submitted a composite image taken originally at the  Derby Feste street circus Festival in Derby and further developed in Photoshop. It will be interesting to hear peoples' comments.

I have titled the image "Time Marches On"
As part of the catalogue I have written a short biography, the preparation of which gave me an opportunity to take stock of my journey into photography and my aspiration to steadily increase my  Visual Literacy. I have also constructed a Portfolio Web site to show more of my work and attached a link to my Blog.

This is the text of my biography.

I have been taking photographs all my adult life aiming to record the places I have visited and the people I was with. I was lucky enough to win a competition in 2014 and now see one of my images adorning the inside of Arriva’s Sapphire buses in Derby. I used the prize money to upgrade my equipment.

Being retired and a member of a number of Photography Clubs in and around Derby I have had been to explore new photographic techniques. I have also taken time to learn and take inspiration from the work of other photographers.

In the past three years I have been attempting to create what I like to call “Arresting Images”. These are designed to grab, and hopefully hold, the viewers attention and in doing so generate an emotional reaction.

I hope you will find time to look at some more of my work on my Portfolio Site

https://chriscalverley.myportfolio.com/

I hope you will enjoy the blog of my Photographic Journey so far.

https://visualliteracyjourney.blogspot.com/

Post 3- Gaining control

I have been playing with Photoshop for a number of months and am pleased with some of the final images. I have to admit that some of them have been accidental rather than created.
The more I learn about Photoshop the more I will be able to use it to produce an image I have previsualised or envisioned.
I have been developing my interest in street photography beyond in camera motion blur using Photoshop to add motion blur in post processing. I have re-edited some images taken in Leicester and am pleased with the results. I hope you agree that they make images that are more "arresting" than the originals.

Post 2- Slow Shutter Street

Really getting the hang of slowing down the shutter to blur the subject. I now realise that bright and colourful subjects come out best so was pleased to go to Calke Abbey on Sunday and see all the dog walkers who had dressed themselves and their dogs in rainbow colours.

Post 1- The Helsinki Bus Station

The story of the Helsinki Bus Station was suggested to me by Peak District Photographer and Artist Chris Gilbert. I will print it out here in full giving full credit to the Guardian newspaper who wrote this short article.

First outlined in a 2004 graduation speech by Finnish-American photographer Arno Minkkinen, the theory claims, in short, that the secret to a creatively fulfilling career lies in understanding the operations of Helsinki's main bus station. It has circulated among photographers for years, but it deserves (pardon the pun) greater exposure. So I invite you to imagine the scene. It's a bus station like any big bus station – except, presumably, cleaner, and with environmentally-friendly buses driven by strikingly attractive blond(e)s.

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There are two dozen platforms, Minkkinen explains, from each of which several different bus lines depart. Thereafter, for a kilometre or more, all the lines leaving from any one platform take the same route out of the city, making identical stops. "Each bus stop represents one year in the life of a photographer," Minkkinen says. You pick a career direction – maybe you focus on making platinum prints of nudes – and set off. Three stops later, you've got a nascent body of work. "You take those three years of work on the nude to [a gallery], and the curator asks if you are familiar with the nudes of Irving Penn." Penn's bus, it turns out, was on the same route. Annoyed to have been following someone else's path, "you hop off the bus, grab a cab… and head straight back to the bus station, looking for another platform". Three years later, something similar happens. "This goes on all your creative life: always showing new work, always being compared to others." What's the answer? "It's simple. Stay on the bus. Stay on the fucking bus."

A little way farther on, the way Minkkinen tells it, Helsinki's bus routes diverge, plunging off on idiosyncratic journeys to very different destinations. That's when the photographer finds a unique "vision", or – if you'd rather skip the mystificatory art talk – the satisfying sense that he or she is doing their own thing.

There are two reasons this metaphor is so compelling – apart from the sheer fact that it's Finland-related, I mean. One is how vividly it illustrates a critical insight about persistence: that in the first weeks or years of any worthwhile project, feedback – whether from your own emotions, or from other people – isn't a reliable indication of how you're doing. (This shouldn't be confused with the dodgy dictum that triggering hostile reactions means you must be doing the right thing; it just doesn't prove you're doing the wrong one.) The second point concerns the perils of a world that fetishises originality. A hundred self-help books urge you to have the guts to be "different": the kid who drops out of university to launch a crazy-sounding startup becomes a cultural hero… yet the Helsinki theory suggests that if you pursue originality too vigorously, you'll never reach it. Sometimes it takes more guts to keep trudging down a pre-trodden path, to the originality beyond. "Stay on the fucking bus": there are worse fridge-magnet slogans to live by. Just make sure you take it off the fridge when your prudish relatives visit.

I hope that I have not offended you by printing the article together with its colourful language.

I will endeavour to continue my journey no matter how disheartened I may become if others do not appreciate my work.